“Good question. But if Shelby said anything about Rolf in her letter to Greg, he might have researched it. All the players and schedules are online now on the school calendar.”
“I guess,” she said. She drew her coat around her and shut off the ignition. “Let’s go inside. I’m okay now.”
My heart twisted. Will she ever be okay? Really okay? As much as I would love and cherish her, would there always be that broken part of her soul that needed tending? I hoped it wasn’t so, and walked back into the house with my arm around her shoulders.
Chapter 29
On Saturday evening, Shelby waltzed down the stairs wearing a short white dress and high heels. Her hair was pulled back into a chignon and Camille’s diamond earrings sparkled from her ears. My heart fluttered and then sank to my feet. She’s beautiful, I thought. Just like her mom.
Why couldn’t she have been dowdy, awkward, or covered in acne? It certainly wouldn’t have guaranteed anything, but might have helped me cope. I smiled at her, gritting my teeth. “You look gorgeous.”
She flashed a perfect white smile in my direction and then beamed at Rolf, who waited in the kitchen with Camille. We’d had our “talk,” while Shelby put on her finishing touches. I’d scared him, and didn’t care if Shelby found out. I had to do it. I had to make him know I’d haul him off to jail if anything happened to my daughter.
I escorted Shelby to the kitchen.
Camille cornered them both. “Remember, call us when you get to the restaurant. If you see a man there who makes you uncomfortable, or tries to speak with Shelby…get her out of there, immediately. Now, I’m not trying to scare you, but—”
“Mom!” Shelby hissed. “Please, stop. There’s no way Greg will know we’re going to the Elderberry Inn. How could he? We just decided where to go tonight. And we made the reservation under the name of Ebner. It’s Rolf’s middle name.” She fluttered her lashes at Rolf when she said his name.
I nearly threw up. The worry rolled around in my stomach like a bad virus.
“Remember,” I said with a stern tone, “no later than ten-thirty. Shelby’s only sixteen. Got it?”
Rolf seemed overwhelmed. His smile faltered. He spoke excellent English, with a strong German accent. “Of course, sir. No worries. We are just going to dinner. That is all.”
His discomfort gave me great pleasure. “Okay. Good. We’ll wait up for you, Shelby.”
She started to roll her eyes and then caught my warning glance. Instead, she smiled up at Rolf. “Let’s go. It’s starting to flurry.” She grabbed her parka from the back of the chair, shrugged into it, and beamed over her shoulder. “See you later, guys.”
We stood side by side in the kitchen and watched as Rolf turned a new Ford Bronco around in the driveway. His parents had purchased it for him while he lived in the States for the school year. I corrected myself. His rich parents, that is.
We watched until their taillights disappeared into the snowy night.
“Do you think she’ll be safe?” Camille whispered.
I wasn’t sure if she really wanted an answer until she turned to me and buried her face in my chest. “Was it the right thing to do? Should we have let her go?”
I hugged her tight. “Relax, sweetheart. Come on, let’s do something to take our minds off it. How about a game of Scrabble?”
Chapter 30
I took another sip of mint tea and frowned at my Scrabble letters. They stunk. I was stuck with all vowels, a W, and a B. Per usual.
My brain mechanically went through all of the combinations. Woob. Weeb. Wabe. Wibe. Beew. Baw. Bow.
I grunted and put B-O-W before a free S.
“There. Bows. Woo hoo. A whopping ten points. I should just skip my turn and exchange the whole darned lot,” I grumbled.
Camille looked up from the board and half-smiled. She’d been distracted all night.
Of course, I didn’t blame her. I’d stolen glances at the clock on the mantle dozens of times. It was only nine. We had another hour and a half to kill.
I never won at Scrabble. Never. Camille killed me every time. What really bugged me is that I consider myself a literate man. I read. A lot. I write academic books about composers’ lives. I use relatively high-powered vocabulary without straining my brain. Yet, when given seven wooden tiles and a blank board to stare at, I freeze. I am lucky if I can come up with ridiculously short words like "for" or "dog." It is humiliating.
Camille laid down all but one of her letters. “Here we go!” she said with a smile. “I finally got a good one. A-Q-U-E-O-U-S. I used up all of my vowels and my Q. Thanks for setting it up, honey. And look! It’s a triple word score.”
I frowned and recorded her massive score.
Camille dug into the bag for more letters, arranging them on her tray. She froze. “I don’t believe this…” She sighed.
“What?” I asked. “Bad letters?”
She shook her head and turned the tray around to face me. “No. Look.” The letters were arranged to spell “GREG ROB.” She grimaced. “I’ll never be free from him. Never. And Greg wants to rob me of my daughter. Isn’t that bizarre?” She hissed and pushed back from the table, wandering into the great room. Her movement jostled the tiles and the whole board was scrambled.
I sighed with relief. Just as well.
She walked over and flopped on the couch, staring out the window. The house was quiet, except for the crackle and hiss of the logs on the fire. Freddie and the children had gone to bed hours earlier. Max and Boris slept soundly at my feet.
I slid back my chair, disturbing both dogs, and followed her. “Do you want to talk about it?” Standing over her, I cupped her chin and kissed her.
She reached for my hand and pulled me down beside her.
I backed up to the armrest and drew her to me, adjusting the pillows behind my back.
She fell into my arms. “I guess so.” She was quiet for a while.
The clock ticked. It was only five past nine.
I stroked her hair, enjoying the silken feel of it beneath my fingers. “How did Greg get this way, honey? Was he always this bad?”
“He was sweet when we first met. Sometimes he could be intense and mysterious, but he was wonderful most of the time.” She closed her eyes.
“When did he change? You’ve mentioned the layoffs he went through before. Didn’t he start drinking then?”
“Yeah. It was the fourth layoff. Software engineers were being hit hard in all industries. He’d just been notified that he was laid off from Xerox when he started to disappear.”
“What do you mean? Literally?”
She nodded. “He disappeared for days. He came home smelling of alcohol, with his clothes all greasy and smelly. I don’t know where he went.”
“How old was Shelby?”
“Just a baby. Mom watched her for me while I took evening shifts at the psych ward. She was my savior.” Her voice sounded raspy from all the crying she’d been doing over the past few days.
“Was he very religious?”
She turned to look at me, surprised by the question. I rephrased it. “You know, into the church? It just seems so odd that he’s got this New Dawn church thing going in prison. He sure didn’t sound pious when he called the other day.”
She slowly swiveled around to face me, playing with a button on her sweater. “We used to go to church in the beginning. When we first came to Rochester. There were times when I adored him.” She faltered and then charged on. “He could be so sweet. Gentle. Even loving.”
A far-off look drifted over her, then her face darkened. “And then he’d change with the wind. I’d say something wrong or simply say anything at all, and he’d jump down my throat, as if he’d been waiting for an excuse to attack me. I used to think of him as two different people. The normal, ‘nice’ Greg, versus ‘the monster.’ But the monster Greg didn’t show up until the layoffs started. It was downhill from there.”
Her voice hitched. “When Shelby was almost killed that day by the deli
very truck, he blamed me and took a turn for the worse. He disappeared for weeks at a time and stopped visiting her in the hospital. He wrote her off. Never even asked about her when he’d occasionally stumble home. That’s when the beatings started, after he’d been gone for a long time. He’d come home and act as though I’d been cheating on him while he was away, or accuse me of insane acts.”
The pain in her eyes killed me. I took her hand and gently rubbed it with my thumb. “Such as?”
“Like spying on him. He was convinced I hired a detective to follow him. Not that I wasn’t tempted sometimes.”
“I wouldn’t blame you. You must’ve been out of your mind with worry.”
“At first I was. After a while, though, I stopped caring about him and just focused on Shelby. I was relieved when he was convicted.” Her face crumpled and she nearly lost control. “Was I a terrible wife? Should I have tried harder? After the second botched attempt at rehab I completely gave up on him.”
“Honey, when someone hurts you, you’d have to be nuts to want them around. And only Greg was responsible for his own recovery. Not you. Not his doctors. Just him.”
She nodded and rubbed her eyes. The clock ticked loudly. It was only twenty-five past nine.
“I guess you’re right. To tell you the truth, I prayed they’d never let him out of prison. As it was, my lawyer told me we were lucky he got five years. Usually, abusers get off with a short sentence.”
Max got up from his nap and stretched. He shook his collar, jingling his tags. After a long yawn, he trotted over to us. He pushed his nose into my hand and whimpered softly.
“Wanna go out, boy?”
He danced in place and ran toward the back door.
“Okay. Be right back, hon.”
She smiled and pulled the quilt over her lap. “Hurry back. I want a Scrabble rematch.”
Chapter 31
“Where is she?” I tapped my watch and opened the kitchen door to peer into the snow that sheeted across the yard. The barn and carriage house were completely obscured in a blizzard of snow.
“Honey, she’s only a few minutes late.” She drew her sweater tighter around her and shivered in the breeze. “And look at the weather. Oh, Gus, I hope they didn’t—”
The landline rang, making a chill chase down my spine.
Camille spun on her heels and ran for the wall phone. “Shelby?” she puffed into the mouthpiece.
I reached her side and listened.
“It’s Rolf,” she whispered, motioning for me to back up a little.
I guess I was crowding her, so fierce was my worry.
“What did he look like? Uh huh. Are you sure?” Her face fell. She turned ashen and put a hand out against the wall to steady herself. “What? Rolf? Did I hear you right? I thought you said—”
I took the phone from her stiff fingers.
She leaned against the wall, her face a frozen mask. “Do you think it was Greg?”
I frowned and put the receiver to my ear. “Rolf? It’s Shelby’s dad.”
“Mr. LeGarde. Like I was telling your wife, Shelby’s on her way home. We slid into a ditch on Goodland Road, about three miles from your house. This guy stopped to help and offered to drive her home while I wait for the tow truck. She was worried about being late. He said he knew you. He seemed okay, Mr. LeGarde. I really don’t think there’s anything to worry about. Is Mrs. LeGarde okay?”
“Did Shelby know him?” I asked.
“I think so.”
“What did he look like?”
Rolf hesitated. “Um. Regular looking, I guess. Kind of… uh… old.”
“Old?” I said. To a teenager that could mean over twenty. My heart beat faster. Louder.
“Um. I guess he’s about as old as my parents. Maybe a little older.”
“Did he give you his name?”
“I couldn’t hear him. He said he knew you, Mr. LeGarde.”
“What color hair did he have?”
“I couldn’t see. He was wearing his parka and hood.”
I forced myself to relax. There’s no reason to believe it was Greg who picked her up…it could be anyone.
Headlights flashed across the kitchen window and a car pulled up to the porch. I recognized Bob Johnson’s old red truck and heaved a sigh of relief. “Uh, Rolf. It’s okay. I think she’s here.”
“Oh, thank God!” Camille ran to the door. “It’s Bob, from the hardware store.”
I opened the door and Shelby trotted inside, waving thanks to her rescuer.
Camille rushed to her and flung her arms around her neck. “You’re okay.”
“Geez, Mom. You really missed me, huh?” she laughed.
“Oh, honey.” Camille tottered at the perilous point between laughter and tears.
I pulled my wife to my side, releasing Shelby from the bear hug.
The girl shrugged out of her coat and threw it on the nearest chair. “Mr. Johnson drove me home,” she said. “We had an accident, but don’t worry, Mom, we didn’t get hurt. We both had our seatbelts on, and the airbags popped right out. It was a trip, I’ll tell you. Rolf’s worried his dad will freak out. The car’s only a few weeks old. And one of the headlights broke.” She chattered while she poured herself a glass of milk and grabbed two rice cakes.
Camille collapsed against me. Slowly, she collected herself and straightened, forcing a smile. She blew her nose, washed her hands, and then opened the refrigerator. “Are you sure you’re okay, dear?” She took out a large block of cheese and began to slice it.
“Yeah, I’m fine.” Shelby eyed the cheese and raised an eyebrow. “What’s that for?”
“Wanna melt some on your rice cakes?”
Shelby hesitated. “There’s a lot of fat in that cheese.”
“Not so much. And it’s loaded with protein and calcium. Good for your bones. I sliced it ultra thin. Here, make a few for us, too. I’m starving.”
Shelby took out a container of alfalfa sprouts and mounded them onto the rice cakes over the cheese. I smiled to myself, thinking about fads and their cycles. When I’d been in college in the sixties, sprouts were added to everything. Sandwiches, salads, pizza, you name it. We even grew them in our kitchen cupboard, in moist paper towels and mason jars. And here was my darling stepdaughter, following in the latest craze.
“Looks good, honey,” I said. “Almost good enough to eat.”
Shelby shot me a mock angry look that toppled into a chuckle. “I’m trying to educate you two. You eat way too much butter, Dad. And you drench everything in olive oil. Geez, you’d think olive oil was the answer to everything.”
I didn’t tell her that I believed it to be one of the healthiest foods on the planet. But I couldn’t give her any more ammunition. “We’re learning, baby. But you know what they say about old dogs. ”
Camille broke into her first smile of the night. “Who are you calling an old dog, Professor LeGarde?” She whacked me with a dishtowel when I slid past her to grab some glasses from the cabinet.
Shelby’s cell phone chirped, sounding like birds warbling. She grabbed it, tapped it on, and propped it between her ear and shoulder.
“Speak to me. Oh, hi, Rolf! The tow truck’s there? Good. Call me when you get home. Tell me what he says, K? Bye.”
“So,” Camille said. “Did you have fun tonight?”
Shelby’s eyes shone. “It was lovely. He was just divine.”
She and her mother exchanged knowing glances.
Back to normal again, I thought, watching mother and daughter giggle and gossip.
Whatever that means.
Chapter 32
On Sunday morning, I decided to skip church to play in the snow with Johnny. I knew God would understand… better yet, I believed he would approve. So far, we hadn’t had very good packing snow this season. Today, a nice fluffy foot of the white stuff covered our yard.
“Watch out, Opa!”
A snowball whistled past my ear. I laughed and dove behind my fort wall. “Miss
ed me.” Scooping a large mitten-full of snow, I shaped it into a ball, patting it until it was perfect. Carefully raising my head, I lobbed it toward my grandson and shouted, “Incoming.”
He stood up and took it in the chest. It splatted against his snowsuit and exploded into the air. “Arghhh! You got me.” He collapsed onto the snow bank and wiggled his legs while he “died.”
He’d grown so much in the past few months, and his development had amazed me. I watched him giggle and pack another snowball.
He crawled on his belly around the corner of the fort and squealed. A snowball burst on my face. Covered in melting snow from eyebrows to chin, I exploded into laughter, then tackled him. We both tumbled around in the white stuff, guffawing and hollering. The sun shone brightly, blinding us with its light. Frozen breath billowed from our lungs and nuggets of snow clung to our mittens.
Shelby opened the kitchen door and started across the parking lot. Johnny and I exchanged conspiratorial glances and feverishly began to pack snowballs. We could barely contain our glee when she approached.
“One, two, three, go,” I shouted. We popped up from our hiding place and pelted Shelby with two snowballs.
She screamed, turned toward us, and ducked behind the Volkswagen. “You guys are gonna get it,” she shrieked.
Before we could take cover, she assaulted us with hastily packed ammo. They whizzed over our heads and smashed against the fort walls.
“You’ve got quite an arm,” I shouted.
Johnny stuck out his tongue and wiggled his fingers in his ears. “Nah, nah. You missed me.”
Shelby ran toward us, scooped up more snow into her mittens, and smashed a loosely packed ball onto my neck.
The cold slush ran down inside my collar. “Shelby. No fair. Geez.”
Johnny laughed so hard he could barely breathe. He pointed at me, rolled on his back, and kicked his legs.
Shelby jumped on him and grabbed his hands. “And you, little monster. You got me good, didn’t you?”
Johnny giggled and panted. “Yeah. I got you.”
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