She Loves Me Not

by Wendy Corsi Staub

  Hmmm. Sniffing the air, she smells toast. And when she opens her eyes, she sees gray light filtering through the shade.

  It’s actually morning?

  She slept through an entire night? No Leo, no phone calls, no . . .

  She turns her head quickly, darting a look at the empty pillow beside her.

  Nope, no wee-hour visitors.

  She even had sweet dreams, as Hitch instructed. In fact, he was in them.

  Not just in them . . .

  He had a starring role.

  Rose closes her eyes, trying to grasp the fleeting remnants of her dreams. She can’t quite remember what they were about, but she feels her cheeks grow warm and flushed as she recalls one particular detail.

  Guilt surges through her and she opens her eyes, glancing again at Sam’s empty pillow.

  She can almost hear his voice, teasing her. You’re into my old pal Hitch, Rose. Come on . . . admit it.

  She shakes her head. She doesn’t want to admit it, not to the imaginary ghost of Sam; not even to herself. It’s too soon. It feels like a betrayal. Sam hasn’t even been gone . . .

  A year. He’s been gone a year, Rose. Going on fourteen months, to be exact.

  So what does that mean? That after a year, she’s free to fall in love again?

  Who said anything about falling in love?

  All she wants is . . .

  Well, it would be nice not to be alone all the time. Alone with the kids.

  Having Leslie around last night made her remember how nice it is to relax and watch television with somebody who doesn’t keep asking if it’s almost time for Blue’s Clues to come on.

  And it would be nice to be kissed by someone who doesn’t drool and smell of Fruity Pebbles . . .

  Really kissed. The way she hasn’t been since Sam died. The way Hitch kissed her just now, in her dream.

  She quickly pushes that thought aside, climbs out of bed, and sticks her head out into the hall. Both the kids’ bedroom doors are open, and she can hear voices downstairs and pans clattering in the kitchen. Heading toward the bathroom, she pauses at the top of the stairs to call, “Hey, what’s going on down there?”

  “Aunt Leslie’s making chocolate toast!” Jenna shouts up.

  “And I’m helping,” Leo calls, followed by the sound of breaking glass.

  “Leo! Mommy, Leo broke a dish!” Jenna bellows.

  Rose sighs and starts down the stairs.

  Leslie appears at the bottom, dustpan already in hand. “Don’t worry, Rose. I’ve got it all under control. Just go get ready for work. The kids are dressed for school, teeth brushed, and I’m making breakfast for them.”

  “I swear I’m going to recommend you for canonization, Leslie,” Rose says gratefully. “Thank you.”

  She walks into the bathroom, closes the door, and catches a glimpse of her reflection in the mirrored medicine cabinet as she reaches for the day’s first dose of pills.

  Good Lord.

  She might feel better today—more rested, more optimistic—but she looks like hell. There are dark circles under her eyes, the muscles around her mouth look tense, and her complexion is as pale and pasty as overcooked spaghetti.

  Maybe it’s just the lighting in here, she thinks, reaching for the cord to raise the lace window shade.

  Not only does that do little to improve her appearance, but the sky outside is depressingly dark.

  Well, it is supposed to snow. In fact, maybe it’s started already.

  Rose peers out the window, checking the ground for white flakes . . .

  And lets out a bloodcurdling scream.

  His stomach rumbling loudly, David sits back on his heels, wishing he hadn’t included the cook when he fired the household staff yesterday. He hasn’t had anything since yesterday’s breakfast, unless he counts the countless cups of coffee he consumed throughout the sleepless night. All that caffeine has left him nauseous and jittery . . . or maybe that’s not due to the caffeine at all.

  He looks around at the piles of papers, stacks of books, and boxes of clothes surrounding him on the attic floor. He’s spent the last ten hours rummaging through everything that ever belonged to Angela, and he hasn’t come up with a single clue as to her lover’s identity. She covered her tracks well. Even her date book for the last year of her life contains only references to charity board meetings, Pilates classes, lunches with friends . . . but nothing about somebody named Clarence, or anybody else David doesn’t recognize.

  He rubs his sore, tired eyes, wearily calculating his next steps.

  He could go to the police . . .

  To tell them what?

  That the woman who received his dead wife’s organs might have been murdered by her lover?

  It’s nothing more than his own personal theory, really. In fact, if he were to go to the police, he would have no proof that Angela’s lover even existed in the first place. He could show them the photo in Olivia’s parents’ album . . .

  But what would that prove? The only place that face is linked to Angela is in my head. Besides, the Snow Angel has achieved legendary status in New York. Chances are, even the police wouldn’t want to believe that she was an adulteress. And what if, considering where the body was found, they decide to investigate David for the murder?

  What if they do? You have nothing to hide.

  But the press would have a field day with a story like that. The Brookman name would be dragged through the mud. Every skeleton in the family closet—and David is sure there are many—would be examined.

  He thinks of his father and stepmother, enjoying their retirement in Florida, and his mother, living in Paris with her fourth husband. They don’t need this, and neither does he.

  The press was bad enough when Angela died.

  His parents never cared for their daughter-in-law. After trying unsuccessfully to talk him out of marrying her, they kept their distance after the wedding. Of course, they rushed to his side in the hospital after her accident, accompanied by their current spouses, and they stayed there until long after the funeral, making sure the world saw them as grieving in-laws.

  Appearances are everything when you’re a Brookman. It wouldn’t do for people to discover that David’s family couldn’t stand his wife, and it sure as hell wouldn’t do for David to be investigated for her murder, innocent or not.

  He sighs.

  If he can’t go to the police, and he can’t figure out who Clarence is—short of returning to the McGlinchies and getting in touch with their late daughter’s photo-sending friend—then what can he do?

  You can track down the other two women who have Angela’s organs . . . and what? Warn them that a crazed killer named Clarence might be stalking them?

  Yeah, sure.

  He shakes his head.

  His stomach growls again, more insistently than before.

  Or you can forget the whole thing, David tells himself, and you can go out and get something to eat.

  Christine has just finished vomiting—again—when she hears the sirens.

  Startled by how near they sound, she quickly flushes the toilet and goes to the front bedroom to peer out the window that overlooks the street.

  A patrol car, red lights flashing and siren wailing, has just screeched to a stop at the curb in front of the house next door.

  Christine briefly presses her hot, aching forehead against the cold glass, praying that nothing has happened to Rose or one of the children.

  Then she makes her way downstairs as quickly as she can, clinging tightly to the bannister with a clammy hand, wishing she were dressed so that she could go next door to see what’s going on.

  You could get dressed, she reminds herself.

  No, she can’t. Right now, she doesn’t have the energy to do anything more than walk and breathe.

  Chemotherapy—hell, even cancer—were nothing compared to this flu, if that’s what she has. She’s much sicker than Ben was when he claimed he had the flu.

  Her doctor, when she
called him first thing this morning, said it sounds like the nasty strain that’s been going around. She’s had a temperature of a hundred and four since last night, accompanied by vomiting and diarrhea, and it feels as though somebody is attacking her skull with a sledgehammer and her throat with a blowtorch.

  He offered to see her, but he’s in Manhattan, and she hasn’t yet found a physician out here on the Island. So there’s nothing to do but tough it out. And if it gets worse, she’ll have to go to the emergency room.

  ‘Too bad we were so busy with the move that we didn’t get our flu shots,” Ben declared. “Do you think it’s too late for me to get one now?”

  “Definitely,” she couldn’t resist saying, and felt a flicker of satisfaction when he shuddered.

  “Well, I’m sure I already had what you’ve got. I was deathly ill.”

  Yeah, right.

  Naturally, he slept on the couch. He did come up to check on her before he left for work this morning, and he brought her more Advil and a glass of water. He seemed concerned, and didn’t scold her for having bought the brand name instead of generic ibuprofen. He even made her promise she’d call her doctor as soon as the office opened.

  But he didn’t offer to stay home with her.

  Now, feeling dizzy, Christine stops at the bottom of the steps to steady herself against the bannister. But a fresh blast of sirens are screaming down the street, and she makes her way to the front door, her cold dread mounting with every shaky step she takes. Pulling the front door open, she shivers violently as the icy air hits her feverish body.

  Three patrol cars and an EMS unit have arrived at 48 Shorewood Lane.

  Christine sees the men swarming around something lying on the ground in the side yard.

  No, not something.

  Someone.

  Living in the city, Christine was no stranger to violent death. How many times, while going about her daily business, did she stumble across telltale yellow crime-scene tape? The ring of uniformed officials hovering around a corpse—a dead bike messenger, a dead homeless man, a dead gang member who couldn’t have been more than twelve . . .

  She was never quite accustomed to it, yet in the city, you expected and accepted it, you moved on, you got over it.

  But out here . . .

  Here, it’s shockingly wrong to confront death just beyond your doorstep on a gray winter weekday morning.

  Please don’t let it be one of those sweet children. Or their mother.

  Trembling as much from icy dread as from the frigid, bay-scented wind, Christine closes her eyes and prays.

  “I’m scared, Aunt Leslie.” Jenna is sobbing. “Why did Mommy call the police to come again? What’s going on?”

  Leslie tries to hold her close, but her arms are already full of Leo. The little boy is squirming and doing his best to break away and escape the master bedroom, where Leslie herded both children at Rose’s frantic order.

  All Leslie knows is that there’s a blood-covered figure lying on the ground below the bathroom window. She glimpsed the gory scene when she heard Rose’s hysterical scream and rushed upstairs to the bathroom, the children on her tail. Thank God Rose had the presence of mind to stop them before they could look out.

  But they know, of course, that something is terribly wrong. Sirens are wailing outside, and harried, muffled voices—Rose’s and the detectives’—are floating up the stairs.

  It has to be Rose’s boss.

  It has to be.

  It can’t possibly be Peter. Leslie spoke to him first thing this morning, when she called his cell phone. He was in his truck on his way to work. She kept pestering him about that surprise he mentioned, and he was amused, baiting her.

  What if, after we hung up, he decided to swing by here and give me the surprise?

  What if something happened to him out there, and he’s the person lying dead on the ground out there?

  Panic gnaws at her, yet she strains to maintain outer calm for the children.

  Think only of the children. Don’t think about Peter. He’s probably fine. Of course he is.

  “Why won’t Mommy come up and tell us what’s wrong, Aunt Leslie?” Jenna asks fearfully, sniffling and leaning her cheek against Leslie’s shoulder.

  “I’m sure she will, sweetie, as soon as she finishes talking to the nice policemen. Ouch, Leo, please sit still. You’re hurting me.”

  “I . . . want . . . Mommy!”

  “I know you do, and she’ll be up in a few minutes.”

  “Don’t hurt Aunt Leslie, Leo!” Applying seven-year-old reasoning, Jenna adds, “She loves you. She makes chocolate toast for you.”

  Chocolate toast.

  How simple it is to be a child, to dwell in a world where love is proven by chocolate toast.

  Leslie flinches as Leo’s elbow lands below her rib.

  “I didn’t get to eat it. I want my toast!”

  Clutching her writhing nephew, Leslie closes her eyes and tries to picture the body on the ground outside, even as she pushes aside images of another corpse lying there.

  Her brother.

  She never saw Sam after he died, but that doesn’t mean she hasn’t been tormented by thoughts of him lying facedown in the frozen grass, dead. Just like whoever is out there now.

  It’s a man . . . she could see that. A man in a long dark coat.

  She’s never seen Peter wear a coat like that in her life. Logically, she knows it isn’t him based on that alone. She knows his wardrobe and his taste in clothes. In fact, she’s done her share of criticizing both. An overcoat would be completely out of character.

  But what if he bought a new coat?

  What if that was his big surprise?

  If she could muster a smile, she would. Peter buying an overcoat to surprise her? That is surely the most ridiculous notion that’s ever entered her mind. She can’t even picture him in dress clothes.

  Peter is safely at work right now, where he belongs, wearing his worn jeans, work boots, flannel shirt and down vest, same as he does every day.

  The poor dead man in the yard cannot possibly be Peter. Whoever he is, he isn’t Peter.

  “Why are you crying, Aunt Leslie?” Jenna asks, alarmed.

  Even Leo stops wriggling and is looking up at her with a worried expression.

  “I’m not crying.”

  Leo solemnly reaches out, touches a teardrop trickling down her cheek, and examines his fingertip. “Yes, you are.”

  She forces a smile. “Well, these are happy tears. I just thought of something happy.”

  Now, in the midst of chaos and tragedy and fear, she knows. At last, she knows.

  He’s the right person for me, because all I could think, when I thought for a moment that he was gone, was that life without him wouldn’t be worth living.

  How could I ever have questioned whether I love him enough to marry him?

  The mere thought that something horrible could happen to Peter fills her with a hollow ache; yet she welcomes it, embraces it.

  We really do belong together, Leslie tells herself firmly, casting her doubts aside once and for all.

  And the next time she sees him, she’s going to make him some chocolate toast.

  You shouldn’t be doing this, David scolds himself, sipping the last of his lukewarm coffee from a paper take-out cup as he spots the Saw Mill River Parkway exit for Woodbury Hills up ahead.

  No, he shouldn’t be driving on a slick, winding, high-speed highway on no sleep and an empty stomach.

  And he shouldn’t show up unannounced at 20 Colonial Drive.

  But when he tried to phone Isabel Van Nuys, the answering machine picked up.

  And when he tried, after leaving her a message, to convince himself that he had done his duty, his conscience refused to listen. He went to a coffee shop, stared blindly at a menu for about five minutes, and realized what he had to do.

  Here he is, an hour later, steering the Land Rover along the exit. A light snow is just beginning to fall as he turns
down a leafy Westchester County street, following the signs toward the village.

  Moments later, he finds himself in the center of a small suburban town with a quaint Victorian flavor. The businesses along the main road have mansard roofs and hand-painted signs; the lampposts look like gaslights; there are even a couple of black wrought-iron hitching posts beside the curb.

  Angela wouldn’t be caught dead living here, he finds himself thinking as he pulls into a diagonal spot marked TWENTY-MINUTE PARKING.

  Caught dead living here?

  He shakes his head at the bitter irony in the phrase as he steps out onto the uneven brick sidewalk.

  Angela wasn’t big on old-fashioned charm. She preferred the sleek and modern, and she loved the fast-paced city. He can just hear her voice in his head as he feeds a quarter into the parking meter. If I had to live on, couldn’t you at least have found me some organ recipients who don’t live in the middle of nowhere, David? First Staten Island, now this.

  Oh, be quiet, Angela, he thinks, the corners of his lips curling upward despite his grim mission. It could have been worse. It could have been Jersey.

  He scans the row of locally owned businesses, looking for a place to stop, get more coffee, and ask for directions to Colonial Drive.

  There’s a small deli in the middle of the block. A cloth banner depicting a steaming cup of coffee hangs from a flagpole beside the door. Perfect.

  David steps in from the cold and is greeted by a blast of warm fragrant air: hazelnut coffee and eggs frying in butter.

  His mouth waters.

  There’s a short line at the deli counter. The commuter crowd has no doubt long since boarded their Manhattan-bound trains. Two balding senior citizens chat with one of the countermen as he pours their coffee; behind them is a harried mother of two toddlers who can’t agree whether they want to share a blueberry or banana muffin.

  Waiting for them to decide, he half-listens to the conversation among the men as he rehearses what he’s going to say to Isabel Van Nuys when he meets her.

  “I heard her daughters haven’t even been told yet.” One of the retirees is shaking his head sadly. “They’re at two different colleges. I guess the ex-husband wants to tell them both in person, so he’s got a lot of driving to do today.”