Death Island

by Joan Conning Afman

  “Is there anything for lunch?” he asked.

  “I wasn’t expecting you,” she said, telling him the truth, “but yes, I’ll put something together.” She opened a can of soup—thank heavens for those new tab-top lids; her hands shook so badly she didn’t think she could have held a can still under the can opener. She used leftover turkey to make two sandwiches with whole wheat bread, lettuce, tomato, and just a smear of mayo, the way he preferred them. She set the table with two plates, soup bowls, napkins and spoons for the soup.

  After pouring a glass of cold milk for him, she refilled the oft-filled coffee cup for herself.

  He ate without comment and without looking at her. She watched him as she ate.

  When he had finished, he got up, rinsed off the plate, bowl and spoon, and placed them in the dishwasher. He opened the cabinet door and threw the napkin away in the trash under the sink. His movements were precise and deliberate, robot-like.

  As he put his jacket back on and wound the blue cashmere scarf—which still had the lipstick smear on one end—around his neck, she finally dared to ask, “Will you be home tonight?”

  He nodded. “I’ll sleep in the guest room.”

  She opened her mouth to protest, then closed it without saying anything.

  “Where’s Courtney?”

  “Pre-school. You know she goes on Mondays and Wednesdays.”

  He nodded, absently, as if it didn’t matter.

  Finally he looked directly at her. He sighed, a long, weary kind of sigh that sounded as though he carried the burdens of the world. “Session has called an emergency meeting for Thursday night. Rumor has it they’re going to fire me.”

  * * * *

  He was home, but not home. He never looked at her, never spoke to her unless absolutely necessary. He moved like a man in a dream. He had aged ten years.

  “Paul, let’s talk about it,” she pleaded.

  He laughed, not even favoring her with a glance.

  She tried to put her arms around him. He unwound her arms from his neck, put them firmly at her sides, and turned away.

  She tried again, appealing to his own ethos, his own belief system. “Paul, what about forgiving seven times seventy? What about practicing what you preach?”

  “What about not ruining your husband’s career?” he shot back. That was all he would say.

  “What if we go to Session together?” she asked. “I can tell them you had nothing to do with it, that there was nothing at all between Danny and me.”

  “No,” he said shortly. “I’m not hiding behind a woman’s skirts.”

  “Oh, Paul, for Pete’s sake,” she said, but he gave her another blank look, went into the den with his newspaper and turned on the television. Flipping through channels with the remote, he didn’t stop long enough to get involved in any of the programs.

  He took Courtney for a walk on Tuesday evening. When they came back, he left the little girl with Charlie and went upstairs.

  “Mommy, why isn’t Daddy talking?” Courtney asked.

  Charlie hugged her daughter hard. Her little body felt so wonderful, so warm.

  Maybe, if Paul decided to divorce her, he would claim she was an unfit mother and go for custody. What had she been thinking to jeopardize her entire life? “I think he doesn’t feel well,” she said, knowing what a lame statement that was but needing to comfort Courtney.

  The phone in the guest room rang continuously. The few times she quietly lifted the receiver and listened, she heard nothing out of the ordinary. Norma Harris expressing her deep regret over what was happening, Bob Roberts asking a question about the new members’ meeting, Holden Pierce about the cost of repairs on the church van, Jill Twain about ordering new pew Bibles to replace the well-worn ones. Of course, he had his own cell phone, as well, and she didn’t have a clue as to the calls that came in and went out on that.

  Wednesday morning he looked as if he had recovered from a weekend binge. He had already brewed the coffee and microwaved bacon as she and Courtney, who had spent the night in bed with Charlie, stumbled into the sunny kitchen.

  He waved them to their seats. The table was set, milk poured for Courtney, and a bowl of her favorite multi-colored cereal with marshmallows set out. Maybe it’s going to be all right, Charlie thought. Maybe he’ll forgive me, maybe we can go before Session together, get it all out in the open, and everything will be all right.

  As if he had been thinking the same thing, Paul turned away from the microwave, the plate of bacon in his hands, looked at her, and asked, “What are your future plans concerning this Danny Manning thing?”

  “I’ll give it up,” she said. “I’ve done all I can anyway. Right is right, but I’d give anything to go back to where we were before all this happened.”

  “Uhm,” he said. “Well, I might get fired. We might have to start over, get a much smaller and less affluent church than this one, move to a rural area, maybe several states away where no one ever heard of us. Are you up for that?”

  “I am,” she said, her eyes swimming in tears. “I’ll do anything, Paul. Will you?”

  He looked up sharply. “What do you mean by that?”

  “The rumors,” she said. “Times when I don’t know where you are. Long evenings at the church when you don’t have meetings. Not coming home with Courtney and me after church. Lipstick on your scarf. I want it all to stop.”

  He gazed at the table, then his glance shifted to Courtney, and lingered there.

  She looked up at him and smiled. “I’m gonna watch Sesame Street,” she announced. She picked up her bowl of cereal and shuffled off into the den.

  “Okay,” he said to Charlie. “It stops now.”

  “Marriage counseling,” she mandated.

  He flushed red. “I do marriage counseling, Charlie. What would that look like if I went to some other counselor and admitted to a breakdown in my own marriage?”

  “Tough shit,” Charlie said. “Marriage counseling.”

  He regarded her for a long moment. “Okay,” he said. “As soon as this is all over, and we find out what’s in store for us.”

  “Okay,” she echoed. They both stood up and stared at each other. Charlie felt her heart melt toward him. “Seventy times seven,” she whispered. He nodded, closed the space between them and put his arms around her.

  “I’ll see you tonight,” he said. “For dinner, and in our own bedroom, later.”

  She nodded, smiling, and dared to believe that all could be made right again.

  She dropped Courtney off at pre-school, turned around on the snowy roads and went home. She would need to change the sheets on the bed if Paul was returning to it tonight, because he was phobic about clean sheets. He wanted them changed at least every other night—no ‘once a week’ for him.

  The message light on the phone was blinking.

  “Hi, Charlie—I forgot that tonight I had scheduled a meeting with Bob Cross of Plainville and Elizabeth Robbins over at the Kensington church. We’re trying to line up a discussion series for the spring, alternating among the three churches. We’re meeting at Kensington, and we’ll just order out. Sure hope this doesn’t mess up your dinner plans. Take Courtney to Chuckie Cheese or something. I should be home early, about ten. See you later.” Click.

  Cold with fury, she stared at the phone.

  There was only one thing wrong with his excuse, something that Paul hadn’t known, or had chosen to forget. She peeled off her jacket and let it fall to the floor, as she sank down into one of the kitchen chairs. Two weeks ago, when she and Saint Paul were still on speaking terms, she had called Elizabeth and invited her and her husband John over to dinner—for tonight. But Elizabeth had declined with grace; she had a speaking engagement at a club and John would be at the high school watching their two teenage sons play basketball.

  When she’d told him Elizabeth and John couldn’t come, he’d waved her off.

  “Well, another time then.”

  He must have forgotten that con
versation. And, most important, where was he going tonight?

  * * * *

  Charlie dropped Courtney off at Mindy’s to play with her twin girls, have dinner and—because she didn’t have school the next day—stay for a sleepover. With some reluctance, Mindy also agreed to let Charlie use her car. Charlie parked her basic silver Toyota and hopped into Mindy’s dark blue Subaru Forester. She felt a little silly wrapping a scarf around her head to hide her hair, but with that and horn-rimmed glasses, she knew Paul would never glance at her and see his wife. She wondered, briefly, if he saw her anymore, anyway.

  She felt guilty spying on her own husband, but she just had to know. She had to.

  “How do you know he’s seeing Sarah or anyone tonight?” Mindy asked her, after the girls were settled in the playroom, busy with the doll playhouse Mindy’s husband, Greg, had made for them.

  “Because he said he and Elizabeth Robbins were meeting with another minister to line up a discussion series in the spring. He forgot that I had invited Elizabeth and John for dinner—tonight—and they both had other plans. So, Paul’s not going there, and I need to know where he is going.”

  Mindy nodded slowly, while the sound of the little girls’ excited laughter echoed from the playroom. “I really hate for you to have to do this, Charlie, but I do understand, believe me, I do understand. Prospects are not good for Thursday night. Rumors are flying around like mosquitoes that Paul’s getting fired.

  “How can they fire him for what I did?” Charlie asked. “Or for what that lunatic LeGrande insinuated about me on TV?”

  Mindy gave a half-laugh. “Are you still so naïve, Charlie, after all your years as the perfect minister’s wife? They can fire him for looking crosswise at Norma Harris. All they need is a consensus.”

  It was almost dark at this time of year in Connecticut, and a light, fluffy snowfall had begun, the kind that drifts through the air and eventually covers the world with white like a fairytale spider web. It was perfect camouflage for hiding out and waiting.

  Now, as she drove Mindy’s dark blue car around the block where First Presbyterian church sat—squat and turreted like a Gothic medieval fortress—she hunted for a place where she might park without being conspicuous and still see Paul leave the church. His car was in the parking lot; all she had to do was wait until he departed.

  She sipped on the mocha latte she had picked up at the Starbucks window on the way. It was shortly before six; if he planned on a dinner meeting, he would be leaving soon. And sure enough, at six o’clock on the dot, the heavy rounded oak double doors opened and Paul came out, winding the infamous blue scarf around his neck as he headed for his car.

  To her surprise, he didn’t get in the car. He opened the door, tossed his briefcase into the front seat, and then relocked the door. He looked around, and then leaned up against the car, waiting. He looked relaxed and expectant as the snowflakes drifted down, settling on his shoulders.

  Aha! Charlie thought, her heart sinking. Someone’s picking him up. So he definitely wasn’t going to Kensington, unless Bob Cross was scooting over from Plainville and they were going together. How could he tell her he was going to Kensington, while leaving his car at the church? Did he think she was so trusting that she might not take a drive to the church and check on that?

  A movement in the rearview mirror caught her eye, and she adjusted it so she could see what had caused it. A tall figure walked toward the SUV, the plaid collar of his wool hunting jacket pulled up high around his neck. He wore a black knit cap pulled down low over his forehead, hiding his hair, and he walked with his shoulders hunched, as if he were freezing in this light snowfall on a relatively mild November night. She knew him by his walk and by the plaid jacket he often wore for informal wear. She had tried to be friendly with him, but he was one of those stick-up-the-rear, holier-than-thou men who looked as if his face would crack if he smiled. How he ever got elected to serve as head of Session she would never understand, as people skills certainly weren’t his forte. However, Mindy said that no matter how much of a prick he might seem to be, he was intelligent and organized, and the church ran efficiently under his direction.

  He passed the car without glancing at her, but she caught a brief glimpse of his face before she slipped down in her seat, afraid of being recognized. She remembered that he had stood in the door of the meeting room the night of her church meeting, his expression as dour and disapproving as ever.

  He walked along the sidewalk, stopped in front of the church and stared at it. The moment reminded Charlie of a scene in a film; she had a mental snapshot of herself, sitting in the car watching a man standing in the snow, staring at her husband’s church. An Alfred Hitchcock moment; anything could happen.

  He went on past the church, around the corner and out of sight.

  A car entered the parking lot from the opposite side. Charlie squinted. She couldn’t quite discern the color through the snow and the failing light of day. It was small, compact, and a dark color—maybe red, or dark gray, blue or green. Not black, it wasn’t that dark. It stopped behind Paul’s car, and he sprinted—that was really the only word for it, even though he slipped a couple of times on the icy pavement—toward it. The driver—whoever it was—opened the passenger door for him, and he got in.

  The car moved toward her. She bent over the steering wheel as it neared her car, but even before it reached her, she recognized the car and the driver. There was no mistaking Sarah’s dark red Ford Focus, nor Sarah’s sharp profile with that mass of swinging black hair.

  The car rounded the corner and Charlie, sick at heart, started up the Forester and followed at a distance. So it was Sarah—not Heather—after all, and she had ruined a lovely friendship for nothing.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Sarah’s red compact turned onto route 10 and headed south. Her only thought was to stay back far enough so her pursuit wouldn’t be obvious. They drove quite a long way—through Meriden and into the next town. Were they actually going to drive to the shore for dinner? But no, they must have been hungrier than that and thought they were safe from running into anyone from the church. And, Charlie thought, at that cozy, tucked-away bar at the end of an unpaved road, they would indeed not run into anyone from the church. She sat at the end of the driveway as Sarah parked the car.

  Paul jumped out, ran around and opened the door for Sarah. How long since he had done that for her? She had decided that men just didn’t do that anymore, since women had figured out they were perfectly capable of opening their own doors. Sarah got out, and Paul wrapped his arms around her, right there in the parking lot, the snow still drifting down in lazy flakes. He kissed her, long and deep. Charlie felt a wave of actual physical pain sweep over her as she watched her husband with Sarah. She had never known such despair.

  His arm around her shoulder, her head leaning against his shoulder, Paul and Sarah walked into the bar. Charlie chewed on a nail. What should she do—go in and confront them right there? Paul could always say Sarah needed counseling and they didn’t want anyone from the congregation to see them and report to her husband, Matt. If she countered with, why didn’t they use his office at the church, he would say that their two cars would be the only ones in the parking lot at that time of evening, and you know how nosy those old ladies are. Someone would be sure to gossip about that—a perfectly innocent meeting—and start rumors flying.

  She decided to wait. She backed the car into a spot shadowed by a clump of blue spruces, the kind that make the best Christmas trees. There were several other cars in the parking lot, and she left two between her SUV and the red Focus. She had brought along a cheese sandwich, a Coke and several chocolate chip cookies she and Courtney had made earlier in the day. The thought of their little girl made her spirits sink even lower. How could he do this to Courtney, the joy of their lives? At least she had thought their daughter was the joy of their lives. Maybe Sarah was the joy he wanted.

  Charlie had a good view of the bar, and could even see
inside its snow-frosted windows a bit. A middle-aged couple sat by the window, eating, and not engaged in conversation at all that she could tell. A heavy-set older man occupied the next booth, reading a newspaper. He wore a thick dark green jacket and a red baseball cap. She didn’t know which team. There were other booths on the far side of the dimly lit bar, and although she saw shadowy figures and the waitress moving back and forth, she couldn’t pick out Paul and Sarah.

  She didn’t have long to wait. She had barely eaten her last cookie as she stared into the bar and listened to the car radio. Billy Joel had just finished singing that song about loving someone just the way they were, and she was trying to hold back her tears. She had always loved that song. She loved Paul just the way he was, accepting his sometimes-rigidity and his compulsion toward perfectionism. She thought he loved her despite her admitted faults, too—her being less intellectually inclined than he, her love of pretty clothes and socializing with close friends, her bohemian approach to life, her tolerance for a lot of things that many Christians didn’t endorse. She wasn’t the typical clergyman’s wife, and she knew it, but she had always tried to be the perfect wife for Paul.

  Paul and Sarah left the bar, laughing, their arms around each other. Charlie slumped down into the seat, even though she knew they wouldn’t recognize her even if they glanced her way. The license place, which Sarah might possibly recognize as Mindy’s, was hidden by the spruce trees.

  She followed them back up route ten, miles and miles. Finally they turned east on Jackson Road. What the heck—she thought, confused. They’re heading right for the parsonage. Maybe he’s bringing her home to explain that it’s all been a big mistake.