Brass Ring

by Diane Chamberlain

  Angel. Hadn’t people called Vanessa “Angel,” with her golden curls, her innocent little perfect-toothed smile? Hadn’t that been Mellie’s nickname for her?

  “What are you thinking?” Randy asked after a few quiet minutes had passed.

  “Vanessa. I’m not sure why. Something you said.”

  “What did I say?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know. Maybe it was the ‘angel’ bit. My mother called Vanessa ‘Angel.’ She had this golden, sort of glittery, ethereal hair.” For some reason, the thought of that little blond girl irritated her. “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “I don’t want to remember.”

  “I think you need to remember.”

  “I doubt there’s anything to be remembered.”

  “I think the lady doth protest too much.” He turned his head to smile at her. “You look like you’re about ten years old yourself right now,” he said. “With your feet up, hugging your knees.”

  She hesitated before speaking. “That’s how old I was then,” she said. “The summer Vanessa left.” She felt herself tiptoeing toward something. What, she wasn’t sure. “I know that’s the age I was. I just don’t remember anything else about it.”

  “Okay,” Randy said. “You were ten. What do you remember from age ten?”

  She shrugged, unable to pluck that age from any other. “Nothing,” she said.

  “Well, what grade were you in?”

  “Fifth, I guess.”

  “And who was your fifth-grade teacher?”

  “Um…” She tried to remember, came up blank. “I don’t remember any of my elementary-school teachers.”

  “How old would Vanessa have been when you were ten?”

  “Eight.”

  “And why did your father take her with him rather than you?”

  She shrugged again, uncomfortable now. She didn’t want to think about it.

  “Sounds like you were a little jealous of her, huh? The way I was

  jealous of Margot and Charles? Vanessa was beautiful, had this great hair.”

  “I wasn’t jealous of her.” Maybe she had been. She didn’t remember.

  “You were probably glad to see her go.”

  “I was not.”

  “Of course not, Randy,” Randy mimicked her. “How could you even imagine that such a negative thought could exist in this bowl- of-cherries head of mine?” He tousled her hair.

  “Well, even if I had been jealous,” she said, “that’s normal in kids. The way you envied your siblings. Perfectly normal. All I know is that, for whatever reason, my father took Vanessa to Washington State with him, and I never saw either of them again.”

  “Let me call you sweetheart,” Randy began to sing. “I’m in—”

  “Stop it!” She pushed him away from her and felt the heat in her face.

  “I’m sorry.” Randy lost his smile. His fingers crept under her palm until he was holding her hand. “I’m sorry.”

  “Mellie told me I would see Vanessa and my father again very soon,” she said quietly. “She always said that. Whenever I would ask when I’d see them again, she’d say, ‘Very soon, darling.’”

  “Your mother was a liar.”

  “In a way, I guess she was, but it was only to make things easier on me. She lied to protect me. To help me get over something painful.”

  “The truth is the only thing that can help you get over something painful. It’s out in the open. You deal with it, and you’re done with it. Secrets and half-truths live on forever.”

  She was barely listening. She lifted her wrist into the light from the balcony to see her watch. As usual, she had stayed far too long with Randy. “I need to get home,” she said.

  They put on their coats in silence and walked toward the door. In the foyer, Randy turned off the heat and the balcony lights, leaving them in complete darkness as he pulled her toward him for a hug.

  “Well,” he said, holding her, “this was quite an evening. The dancing was fun. This last hour was hell, though.”

  “Yes.” She tightened her arms around him and knew by the way his body melted against hers that he felt the warmth and safety she was offering him. What she felt was love, deep and pure and whole. She felt closer to Randy than she’d felt to Jon—to anyone—in a very long time. Still, when he shifted his head, when he lowered his mouth to hers, it was unexpected and dishonest and wrong, and she quickly turned her face away from him.

  “I’m sorry,” he said into her hair. “Out of line again. Please consider that a mere thank-you kiss for making me feel as though I have a life again.”

  She trembled as she pulled away from him.

  “You have an unusual marriage,” Randy said after a minute. “I shouldn’t take advantage of Jon’s tolerance by”—he hunted for the words, then laughed—”by getting too familiar with you. I don’t know how I’d feel about my wife going dancing with another man, no matter how platonic their relationship was.”

  Claire hesitated a moment. “He doesn’t know,” she said. “I told him I was going to a movie.”

  Reaching for the door, Randy turned to look at her. “With me?” he asked.

  “No. I said I was going with a girlfriend.” Hearing the lie from her own lips sickened her. She should have told Jon the truth. She would, as soon as she got home.

  Randy dropped his hand to his side. “Why did you lie to him?” he asked.

  “Because I didn’t want to upset him.”

  He sighed with a shake of his head, reaching past her again to push open the door. “You’re your mother’s daughter,” he said.

  “What do you mean?” She stepped out into the night.

  He turned her toward him, his hand on her arm. “I don’t like being part of a lie, Claire.”

  “Neither do I,” she said. “It was a mistake. I didn’t think it through carefully.”

  He looked down the street in the direction of his house. He pulled his pipe from his coat pocket, tapped it against his palm. “I’m going to walk home,” he said.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah. It’ll feel good.” He lit the pipe, and the smoke rose into the cold air in small, fragrant puffs. He took the pipe from his mouth and touched her lightly on the arm. “Good-night, Claire,” he said.

  She watched him set off down the street, and she made no move toward her car in the parking lot. She didn’t take her eyes from him until he’d been swallowed by the darkness, and she knew then that she was in trouble. She didn’t want to go home, or see Jon, or feel the weight of her lie hanging over her. She wouldn’t confess it to him. What was the point? Confession would only ease her soul and hurt his. Besides, if she had to lie to see Randy the next time, she would do so all over again.

  22

  VIENNA

  THE CALL FROM AMELIA came at nine o’clock, just as Jon was wheeling in the back door of the house. She wanted to speak to Claire.

  Jon hesitated for a moment, mentally replaying the message Claire had left on his voice mail. “Isn’t she with you?” he asked. “She said you two were going to a movie.”

  “That’s news to me. You’re sure she said Amelia?”

  “Yes. Absolutely. Maybe a later movie?”

  “I’d know about it by now, Jon, don’t you think? Look, tell her I called, okay?” She laughed. “And tell her that next time she uses me as a cover she’d better let me know so we can get our stories straight.”

  He didn’t smile.

  “Jon? Is everything all right?”

  “Yes. Fine. I’ll tell her you called.”

  He hung up the phone and sat in the middle of the kitchen for several minutes, thinking. Somewhere there lurked a logical explanation for this. He wouldn’t spend his energy hunting for it, though. She could tell him when she got home.

  He built a fire in the fireplace and sat in the recliner, sifting through a stack of articles he’d collected over the years. There were magazine and newspaper pieces on museums and day trips and restaurants and parks,
and a batch of pamphlets on wheelchair accessible events. He’d gone through this file of articles twice since their talk in Baltimore, putting together a partial list of things they could do for fun. As far as he knew, Claire hadn’t even begun her own list. He felt like a nag each time he brought it up and so hadn’t mentioned it in several days. He would present her with his list this weekend. If she didn’t make one of her own, he supposed that was her choice.

  He lost himself so thoroughly in the brochure on wilderness adventures that he was only vaguely aware of the knot in his stomach, the tension in his arms. When he next looked at the clock on the mantel, it was after ten.

  She was with Randy. He leaned his head back against the recliner, shutting his eyes. She was with Randy, and she had lied to him about it. And why would she lie unless something more was going on there than friendship? What had happened to him and Claire, to their marriage? He couldn’t believe he’d reached the point of suspecting—no, of knowing—that she was betraying him. Was this the first time? She hadn’t mentioned Randy more than once or twice since that weekend in Baltimore, and he’d hoped that their argument in the hotel had shaken her up sufficiently to put her back on track.

  An hour later, Jon was in the kitchen, taking his medication before going to bed, when Claire walked in the door.

  “I’m sorry I’m so late,” she said, setting down her purse. “We were talking, and I didn’t realize what time it was.” She was rosy-cheeked, and she kept her coat on as she opened the dishwasher and began unloading the dishes. Not long ago, she would have walked in the door and kissed him before she did anything else. Now she was not even looking at him.

  “Who was talking?” he asked.

  She didn’t answer. She pulled a frying pan from the dishwasher and set it on the counter.

  He stiffened his spine, girding for battle. “Amelia called here at nine, looking for you.”

  Holding a glass in her hand, she turned to stare at him, mouth open, and he felt something like hatred toward her. He wheeled his chair toward the hallway door.

  “Get whatever you need from the bedroom,” he said. “Because you’re not sleeping with me tonight.”

  She set the glass on the counter. “Jon, wait. Listen to me.”

  “Go to hell! I don’t want you anywhere near me. You’ve got a choice. Susan’s room or the guest room. Or you can go back to Randy.”

  He heard her start to speak, but she quickly stopped herself, and he turned to face her again.

  “What? You’re going to try to tell me you weren’t with him tonight?”

  She drew the lapels of her coat together like armor. “I was with him, but it’s not what you think.”

  His heart contracted painfully in his chest. He wished he’d been wrong.

  “You lied to me about being with him,” he said, “and I’m supposed to assume there’s nothing between the two of you?”

  “There is something between us. A friendship. And it’s important to me. I didn’t want to lie to you, but I know you’re…uncomfortable about him, and I don’t know how to see him without upsetting you.”

  “Where were you tonight?”

  She swallowed hard. “Dancing,” she said.

  “Dancing. You always said you didn’t care about dancing.”

  She sat down at the table and, with a tired gesture, swept her hair back from her cheek. Her coat fell open, and he could see that she was wearing the violet dress he’d bought her the year before,

  “I don’t care about dancing,” she said. “It’s not that important to me.” She shut her eyes and drew in a breath. “That’s not exactly true,” she said. “It’s not a big deal, Jon, but I’ve always said I don’t care about it so you wouldn’t think it mattered to me that we couldn’t do it.”

  He had an urge to pick up the glass from the counter and throw it at her, hard. “And what else have you lied to me about over the years?” he asked. “What else can’t I do that you’re yearning to do, that you want to do so much you’d do it behind my back?”

  “Oh, Jon.” She knelt down next to him, her hand on his arm. “Please, please, let’s stop this. I’m sorry.”

  He could see the soft, inviting place where her breasts met under her dress, and he recoiled at the thought of Randy having that same view of her. Worse, of touching her there. He brushed her hand from his arm.

  “Your apologies are starting to have an empty ring to them,” he said.

  Claire stood again, then said softly, “I’ll sleep in Susan’s room.”

  Sometime during the night, he felt her slip into the bed beside him. She lay next to him, weeping softly, those tears as rare as diamonds, and there was no way he could cast her out again. Almost reflexively, his arms moved to encircle her, to draw her to him, and her body shaped itself to his as he pulled her closer.

  “I’m scared,” she whispered. “What’s happening to us, Jon?”

  He shut his eyes. “What’s happening is that you seem to be getting involved with someone else.”

  She didn’t speak for a moment. “I know it must seem that way to you,” she said finally, “but my interest in him is not romantic. I swear it.”

  “What is it then?”

  She hesitated. “It’s…remember I told you about those little flashbacks?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, I’m sorry, but I’m still having them. They’re worse, actually.”

  “Oh, Claire.” He buried his face in her hair. She was apologizing the way a sick person might for being a burden. “Why haven’t you told me?” he asked.

  “I think you’d rather not hear about them.”

  He ran his hand over her hair. “Why do you say that?”

  “Because you want me to be cheerful and happy, and right now that’s impossible for me.”

  It was true that he would give anything to have his beautiful, effervescent wife back. But he pulled this scared, sad woman closer to him. He took in a long breath, let it out. “And so, you and Randy talk about the flashbacks?”

  “Yes. For some reason, he brings them out in me, and I don’t feel so afraid of them when I’m talking to him. He tries to get me to think about what they mean. Where they’re coming from.”

  You asshole, Donovan. The man had no idea what he was getting into.

  “Try telling me about them, Claire,” he said bravely. “Give me a chance to listen.”

  For a long time, she said nothing. When she finally spoke, her voice was halting, not her own. “Well, there are the ones I told you about. The bloodstain and the mirrors. And at work the other day, I kept seeing a robin. A drawing of a robin, like from a coloring book, and…Oh! ‘Let Me Call You Sweetheart.’ I heard it in a music box and I—”

  “You mean, from the carousel?”

  “The carousel?”

  “That was one of the songs your grandfather had on the carousel, wasn’t it? Didn’t you tell me that, or maybe Mellie—”

  “Yes, you’re right. But why should that upset me?”

  “Oh, Claire, hon, I don’t know.” He hugged her. “All this is tangled up in your head, and somehow it’s gotten linked to Margot and the bridge and Randy.”

  She said nothing.

  “Why open the past?” he asked. “I’ve heard you say that to people more times than I can count.” Claire had no tolerance for therapists who mucked around in their patients’ childhoods. He didn’t completely share her philosophy, but right now, he felt desperate to have her heed her own message. “Focus on the here and now,” he said. “That’s what you always say, isn’t it? Leave the past alone.”

  “But it won’t leave me alone.” She pulled away from him, punching the mattress as she spoke. “I mean, I don’t remember any of it, but if you look at the facts—Vanessa getting dragged away from her mother and sister forever—if you look at that one fact alone, it’s enough to make my childhood look hideous.”

  He stared at the ceiling as he stroked her hair. He wished he could pull her back from the path she was
on, but already it seemed too late. She’d started a journey—one he knew in his heart she needed to make—and it had no shortcut. If she wanted to see it through to the end, there was nothing he could do to put a stop to it. Nor did he have that right. But couldn’t she continue the journey without Randy Donovan?

  “Is it platonic, Claire?” he asked.

  She seemed to catch her breath. “How could you think anything else?”

  “Well, to start with, you lied to me.”

  “I shouldn’t have lied. It’s just that I knew you’d be upset.”

  He sighed. “You and I are in trouble here. Our marriage is in trouble, and—”

  “Don’t talk that way. Please. We’ll be fine.”

  He pressed his lips to her hair. He wanted to believe her, but these days, Claire’s assurances had lost the ring of truth.

  “I have to ask you for something,” he said. “I don’t ask a lot of you, Claire, but this is very important to me.”

  She raised herself up on her elbow to look at him, and he was relieved when he saw the love in her eyes. “Anything,” she said. “You know that.”

  “I want you to stop seeing Randy.”

  She didn’t respond, but lowered her head to his shoulder again, slowly.

  “Claire?”

  “It’s not fair to ask me to do that.” She was sniffling. “Please, Jon. Please don’t give me ultimatums.”

  He lay very still for a moment. He could think of nothing more to say. He was gentle as he let go of her, even managed to brush his lips across her cheek before he turned on his side, away from her.

  She touched his shoulder. “Don’t pull away,” she said. “Please. Talk to me.”

  But he shut his eyes, and after a moment, her hand slipped from his shoulder.

  So, she would spend her time with Randy Donovan. She would slip further from her marriage, further from him. And she would chip away at the memories of a childhood that, Jon knew, was far more hideous than she could ever imagine.

  23

  SEATTLE

  VANESSA SPENT THE EVENING in the library, surrounded by congressional directories and microfilm reels of newspaper articles. She had to make some sense of this. How did Zed Patterson go from being the deputy sheriff of a little farming community in Pennsylvania to a state senator? And how did he come to have an interest in victims’ rights, of all things?