Authors: Joanne DeMaio
“Change of plans.” Hayes stands at the end of the table and fills Nate’s glass with beer. He takes a quick swallow. “We’ve got a problem, George. Got to move the venue. Let’s go.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Sorry to say there’s been an accident. From what I hear, it’s a bad wreck.”
“What?”
“Apparently your brother was on his way here. He was at the train tracks and witnesses say he hesitated, like he was weighing the odds. Then he gunned it. I guess he swerved at the last second, right before the impact, but he miscalculated.”
“Shit, a train hit him?” George stands then and they hurry to the door. “Are you serious?”
“I’m sorry, George. They’re doing everything they can for him as we speak.”
“Was he on his bike?”
Hayes pulls his keys from his pocket. “No. His car.”
George stops on the sidewalk—in the sunshine, traffic driving past, a pedestrian’s cell phone ringing—and takes a deep breath. “Wait. But he’s alive?”
“So far.” Hayes looks back at him. “Let’s move it, George.”
“Was someone following him?”
“He’s been tailed since you talked. All night, all morning, every minute.”
“You think he was on to us?”
“Don’t know.”
* * *
The way Nate’s body is carefully laid out, you’d never guess the maiming a freight train inflicts at a railroad crossing. George stands just inside the hospital room and watches his brother. Aggressive life support fought a losing battle with internal hemorrhaging.
There is a chair near the bed, a place for a family member to sit and wait, to whisper strength to the patient. George sits with his brother’s body. He doesn’t doubt the possibility that Nate sensed a tail. He would notice anything out of the ordinary in the normal, regimented life he had returned to. That was his radar, the way he read his opponents’ hands. And if he suspected something was amiss, he’d never let George know. Nate never once showed his cards, all his life.
So maybe Nate won. Maybe he was on to George and refused to lose. There would be no handcuffs, no shoves into cruisers or leg shackles in his game. This way, he’d never been stopped. He escaped the guilty verdict.
George inches his chair closer. Death erases the years on Nate’s face. It looks as though Nate saw his life pass before him in those imminent seconds. When everything was a breath away—the train’s screaming halt, Nate’s own wrenching swerve, tons of metal meeting and launching his car, the earth cradling his pain—the process began. Nate’s mind recanted the years, reeling him back in time. When he’d died, Nate had somehow time travelled to his younger days, baseball cards clipped on the spokes, the wind in his hair. This is what George sees on Nate’s face: his mind’s age at death.
It is too soon to forgive or understand. Maybe both will never happen. All he knows is this: In his own way, Nate is finally free. George takes his brother’s limp hand in his, clasps it, then stands and walks out of the room.
* * *
The initial news story is small. A local man perished in a car-train collision. The roads were dry, the weather clear. It looked like a case of driver error, an unfortunate decision. If you drive that strip of road, crash remnants are visible: patches of the pavement burned, the grass torn up, the curb smashed.
So Amy thinks that while models wearing tulle and lace walked an illuminated aisle in Wedding Wishes, and while brides-to-be sat close to a friend or mother murmuring to each other and picturing themselves in cascading white gowns, their hair put up beneath pretty veils, at that very moment, Nate’s life came to an end.
She reads his obituary and thinks about him on Monday, the morning of his funeral. Will there be flowers there, beautiful arrangements bidding him farewell? The thought moves her to lift George’s single rose from the vase, its pink color fading now, the petals beginning to curl. She snaps the stem in her hand while reading the obituary saying the service will begin at nine o’clock in the funeral home, not in a church. But still, he’ll have a service. The man who orchestrated an armed robbery and Grace’s kidnapping will be honorably laid to rest. George must have planned the memorial. Death freed his brother from all charges: no one knew, there were no deathbed confessions, no final statements. He died free and it upsets Amy to know this.
She stays home that morning, organizing the small inventory in her gown room, hanging two recently acquired ones out on the clothesline. One dress is cut lace over sheer silk with a V-neck, the other chiffon. They hang still in the heavy July heat and she thinks it fitting that there is no breeze making them waltz today.
By midafternoon, hours after Nate’s funeral is done, she closes up Wedding Wishes for the next few days. Changing a gown on a window mannequin, setting out vintage necklaces with autumn-colored stones for upcoming weddings and shifting summer gowns to the back room, all are mere motions giving her time to think. To consider staying or going. Digging in for the long haul in Addison, or moving all she has here to a new storefront somewhere up north. Though she plans to leave tomorrow for New Hampshire to get Grace, a surprising number of requests for gowns have come in since her fashion show. Their stay up north will be cut short.
And all the while, Celia never stops calling. She uses the weather, the news, a magazine recipe, any reason to pick up the phone. If Sara Beth hadn’t taken her to the antique show on The Green yesterday, Celia would have. Since Amy told her about George’s identity, Celia has become her bodyguard, soul-guard and emotion-guard.
After dinner, she turns on her laptop in the living room to search for a client’s request. Journeying virtually to circa 1970 for a vintage gown with a quilted waistband and waterfall frill skirt is as good a way as any to deny the present. A neighbor the next street over wants that gown for her late-September beach wedding.
Oh, she’s become expert at denying the present. At denying everything about this summer. Everything about one person. Grace and Wedding Wishes and Celia and antiques on The Green and New Hampshire and fashion shows, well, well they’re all a bluff, aren’t they? Because sudden tears fill her eyes when one email cuts right through it all. The way it takes her breath, the way the sight of his name alone brings those tears, there’s no denying the truth that it is George she has been denying with everything else.
Dear Amy,
I didn’t think you’d take a phone call from me, and I only hope that wherever you are, you’ll read this instead. It’s only fair that you know what I’m about to tell you before the news hits. Because what’s most important to know is that you’re safe now. You and Grace are safe. You can rest easy. The men involved in Grace’s kidnapping have been taken into police custody.
I won’t go on too long, but want to tell you that I’ve worked closely with my attorney to accomplish this. I’m sure you’ve seen the reports of Nate’s death. He died during his takedown and when that happened, we lost our connection to the others involved. We had no recourse but to go forward with a funeral, among other things, anticipating they’d show up there.
Rest assured it’s done. You don’t have to worry about them. I did what I could to right any pain, any wrong inflicted on your life, and on Grace’s. If nothing else, I’m hoping that a sense of peace comes with this knowledge for you, a peace you so immensely deserve.
If you ever find it in your heart to talk to me, to know my thoughts, I’ll be where I always have been, in the familiar places, at work, at home. I’ll be here.
George
* * *
The news broke quickly and the next morning, Celia knocks at Amy’s back door at six-thirty, newspaper in hand.
“I know already,” Amy tells her through the screen, cupping a white coffee mug close.
“You do?”
She nods. “I heard from George. Yesterday.”
Celia walks in and opens the paper on the kitchen table. “You’re kidding. But I guess I’m not surprised. In the article, he’s only mentioned as the one who returned Grace. There’s nothing about all the other stuff, except that he couldn’t be reached for comment. So they arrested the others but didn’t charge George?”
“Apparently not. And I’m not sure why, but I guess they have their reasons.” Amy sits with her friend and they glance at the front page.
“Hey,” Celia says, reaching over and moving a strand of hair off her face. “You okay?”
“Oh Celia. It’s just so … I don’t know. Surreal. Detective Hayes left me a couple messages, too.”
“What did he say?”
Amy checks her watch. “I didn’t call him back yet, it’s early. I was going to, right before I leave for New Hampshire.”
“Well did George say how it happened?”
“I didn’t actually talk to him either. He sent an email with a few details, something about working with his attorney to turn in the others. I suppose it’ll all come out sooner or later. But this past week must’ve been intense.”
“Amy?”
“No, no, no.” She stands and rinses out her coffee cup at the sink. “Don’t go there, Cee.”
“Why not?” She drops her voice and turns in her chair, facing Amy. “Come on, George was telling you the truth.”
“Two months too late.”
“Yeah, but the guy stood by you all summer, trying to handle
everything
. Do you think you’ll go see him?”
“I don’t know.”
“He does love you. And you told me you felt the same at one time.”
“That was before. And I really can’t think about it today. I’m on my way to get Grace, so that’s that.” She dries out the cup and stacks it in another on the table. “Would you mind if I keep the newspaper? My parents would like to see it, I’m sure.”
“Absolutely.” Celia stands and hugs her. “And you think about things, okay? Take long walks with your daughter, get some fresh air up there.” She holds Amy at arm’s length. “You’ll be okay, don’t worry.”
Amy’s not so sure. Already her mind is in two places. Her suitcase is packed and she is ready to go. But she hesitates and makes another cup of coffee. Alone, she sits with the newspaper and reads the article slowly, looking up every few sentences as she correlates the story to what George told her, his hair matted with rain, the kitchen dark, the rainfall pouring outside that evening. Afterward she washes the coffee cup, the spoons and the tabletop. The red plaid dishtowel hangs squarely over a chair back. Each chair is pushed neatly to the table.
And still, still. She opens the refrigerator and empties the top two shelves onto the counter: milk, orange juice, bottled water, butter, yogurts. After scrubbing those two shelves with soapy dishwater, she bends to the lower shelf and empties the vegetable bins. No one’s refrigerator sparkles more than hers. No refrigerated food is more meticulously organized.
And no matter what she does, no matter how many times she wipes off the counter, the tears don’t stop. No matter that she retrieves the wilting pink rose from the kitchen trash can, clips the bent stem short and stands the flower in the two white coffee cups stacked on the blue table. No matter that she sets her overnight bag at the back door. No matter that she sits herself at that blue table, at all its memories, and lets herself have a good cry. Because there’s no way she can get on the highway north with these darn tears blurring her vision. Like a watercolor painting, those tears blur everything: the blue of the table becomes the marsh water behind a little cottage; the white cups, the swans swimming past; the pale pink rose, the sea sky at dusk one quiet June evening. The sea, the sea. He gave them that. She pulls the plaid dishtowel off the chair and presses it into her sobs, presses until it is enough.
Until she deciphers the true blend of one summer’s days.
Until the scent of damp rain comes to her, pressed against her face, and she realizes why she hasn’t washed the dishtowel all week.
Thirty-four
RATHER THAN FEELING LIKE HE’S been away, it feels, walking into The Main Course the morning after Nate’s funeral, like a place George once visited. He turns the key in the lock. A lifetime has passed since he’s last been here. It’s like turning the pages in an old photo album: touching the glass showcases, straightening the spice rack, remembering when. In the back room, he switches on the light and sees that Dean set up the new grinder in place of the old one heaved into the dumpster out back. The knives are razor sharp, the meat cases gleaming. In his office, a backlog of paperwork waits, enough to keep him holed up for several hours, away from the reporters sure to come looking for him. Now that the news of Nate’s involvement in the heist broke, there’ll be no keeping them away as they try to snag an exclusive.
Reacquainting with his life, George sits at his desk and thumbs through orders and invoices. So this is what it will be now, his life. It’s only a reflection of what used to be; the difference is there, nearly indecipherable, quiet. No one will see it but him. All he has, all he amounts to, is each day as it comes.
He starts a pot of coffee but leaves the stereo off. Somehow it doesn’t seem right to listen to music. Maybe that characterizes what he lost, the desire to whistle along, to hum the songs and hear the melodies. When he puts on his black apron and goes into the walk-in cooler to check on the inventory, only the drone of the refrigeration sounds in the insulated space. It seems to take up all the air around him.
* * *
Sunlight glances off the large window, fooling the eye with harsh shadows and glare. The reflections in the window are so pure, they are difficult to decipher from reality. As she lifts off her sunglasses, Amy realizes one reflection is of herself. It had first looked like the shadow of someone on the other side of the glass. A customer, maybe, ordering cutlets or fish. But when she squints and raises her hand to her eyes, shielding the sunlight, her reflection disappears and she sees it is dark inside The Main Course. No customers are having a coffee yet, waiting for their porterhouse steaks to be wrapped. A Closed sign hangs in the door. It is enough for her breath to catch, seeing the empty shop. It just isn’t right, how lonely it looks, how lonely she feels, how desperately she wants to be inside that shop. Life is so open to interpretation, with its deceptions and all its illusions. Her eyes look through the glass at the details with an aching familiarity, as though for a place she once visited. Maybe he’s behind the counter, working a substantial slicing knife through a cut of meat. She steps sideways, looking, but the lights are off and she turns away.