Aching for Always

by Gwyn Cready

  Joss took the chair and both women wobbled a bit as they began their ascent of the alley, Joss because of the weight of the child and her friend because of the weight of her belly. Every instinct called on him to ensure their safe passage, but he resisted. He had a job to do that he could not do with Joss on his arm.

  He was just about to turn to head down the adjoining street when a pair of men walked into the alley. The hair on his neck bristled.

  The men presented no imminent danger. He’d seen enough unsavories to know whether one needed to put up one’s guard. Nonetheless, he didn’t care for the way they stopped as the women passed.

  Joss stumbled but caught herself. She’d had much to drink, he knew, and was wearing those ridiculously high pattens.

  “Evening, sweetness,” one of the men said.

  Hugh stepped into the light, unfolding his shoulders like the mainsails on a man-o’-war. “Joss.”

  She turned, and the men hurried away.

  In a few strides, he was at the women’s side. “Where are you going?”

  “I’m catching a cab a block over,” Diane said. “Joss is walking me there.”

  “Let me escort you.” He took the little chair and offered Diane an arm. He found himself almost afraid to add to the powerful cataract of emotion Joss had stirred when he touched her earlier, though he could feel her presence next to him as keenly as if he held her in his arms. And this night he needed to keep his mind clear.

  “You don’t have a coat,” Joss said.

  “I’ll be fine. I’ve endured worse.” There might still be a way to salvage his plans for the evening once he’d deposited them safely at their destinations.

  They turned down William Penn, past a low brick building called the Allegheny HYP Club and the stately silver tower beside it with its odd-shaped windows. What had happened in three hundred years that spawned the need for so many buildings rising straight in the air? It was as if the busiest part of London had outgrown itself and swelled halfway to the heavens. How did the engineers and masons build such monuments? Did the occupants of the towers feel the thrill he imagined, gazing down at the people on the streets? He’d ridden the moving box up the gut of the USX Tower, half in fear, half in wonderment, and though he’d caught only a glimpse of the view from the landing on which he’d stopped, it had given him the same thrill he felt at the top of a mast.

  “There’s one.” Diane lifted her hand and a yellow carriage roared up the street and stopped before them. The horses had disappeared, Hugh thought, replaced by growling metal beasts.

  He handed Diane in. As she thanked him for the help, he passed the baby chair to her. The driver was a young man of indeterminate origin.

  “Will she be safe?” he said to Joss.

  “Yes, of course.”

  He closed the door uncertainly. The world had changed so much. The cab drove away. He looked at Joss.

  “Where can I take you?”

  He expected to be given a street corner or some other feint.

  “I need to get back to work.”

  He froze. Her card was in his pocket. She would not be able to get in. What’s more, with her in her office, he could not chance his expedition. Had she seen something earlier? Did she know what he’d done? Was she laughing at him right now?

  Accepting the loss of another day in his mission and a growing frustration with his inability to control his emotions, he bowed and followed her toward Grant Street.

  “A woman should not work so hard,” he said, though the sentiment seemed vaguely ridiculous, given the situation.

  “Story of my life. I do it for my mother.”

  “Why does she require such an effort?”

  “She doesn’t. I mean, not actively. She died when I was eight. But she loved maps. She . . . well, she and my father did not have a very happy marriage. I don’t think she really got to do the things she wanted to in life, so I try to do things I think would please her. Half the things I have to guess at, of course, because I didn’t really know her as a grown-up. Oh, Christ.” She swiped at the tear forming in her eye. “But I feel her out there, approving, so I think it’s working.”

  He gazed at her closely. Was she toying with him, preying on a prior knowledge of the situation with his brother? Despite the sense this might be a trap, Hugh felt the overpowering rise of empathy and tried to, but could not, hold his tongue.

  “I, too, know what it is to be duty-bound, to feel the memory of another as both a weight and a wind.”

  Her eyes grew clear, and in that instant he knew that about this at least she was not lying.

  “That’s exactly the way it feels. Who is it for you?”

  His throat tightened. “My brother.”

  “I’m so sorry. Older or younger?”

  “Older.”

  They reached Grant and waited for the traffic to stop.

  “You can drop me here,” she said. “I’ll be fine.”

  “As you wish.”

  “My mother died suddenly. It was awful. I never got to say good-bye.”

  He recognized the gentle prompt in the silence that followed. He even wanted to say it, but was mortally afraid he could not.

  The carriages raced up and down the street. He could see the glow of the street lamp glinting in her hair.

  “My brother was murdered.”

  She stopped dead. “Oh, Hugh.” She laid a hand on his wrist.

  He bit back so hard on the thickness rising in his throat, he thought he might choke. He opened his mouth to deflect her concern, but no words came.

  A tear striped her cheek. “How did you live with the knowledge?”

  That was the question. In seven words she had struck at the core of his being. If she lifted a dagger now to drive it through his heart, he could not have stopped her.

  “One carries on,” he said at last. “I think of him every day.”

  “And I of my mother.”

  The carriages stopped and that odd sign in the shape of a human figure lit. He had learned from observation that it signaled to those on foot it was safe to cross, but she did not move. Instead she squeezed his arm.

  “It’s like we’re trapped,” she said.

  “Leg irons of joy and pain.”

  “I do wonder if that’s what either of them would have wanted.”

  He could not speak.

  She let go of him, and he felt unmoored. The crossing figure began its urgent blinking.

  “I should go,” she said.

  He nodded, and she hurried into the street. Halfway across she stopped. “What was your brother’s name?”

  He hesitated. What difference could it make? She probably already knew. “Bart.”

  “Bart.” She smiled. “I’ll think of him, too.”

  He didn’t know how long he’d stood there, tempest-tossed and adrift, but when Nathaniel said his name, he realized he was shivering.

  “I was starting to get concerned,” Nathaniel said. “Fiona was watching from the window. She saw you meet up with the women.”

  “Were you afraid one might attack?” he asked with a wry smile.

  Nathaniel handed him his coat. “That isn’t what I was concerned about.”

  Nathaniel, Hugh knew, saw more than he said. He slipped into the heavy wool and inclined his head in the direction of the tower. “She works there.”

  “I know.”

  “No, I mean there. About two-thirds of the way up. See that light? That’s the map company. I found her name on a posted list today while I was scouting.”

  “Are you not supposed to be there instead of her?”

  “Aye. But what could I do when she said she was returning to work? I have the card that serves as a key. I don’t know how she got in.”

  “Perhaps they recognize her, and that’s enough.”

  “Perhaps.” He turned, and together they began to walk down the alleyway. “Nathaniel, you knew my brother.”

  “You know I did, Monk.”

  Hugh felt a
touch of nostalgia. It had been many years since anyone had called him that. There were few left who even knew him by the name his shipmates had given him for his monkeylike propensity to swing through the sheets and lines. Of course, Nathaniel had served for many years under Bart before joining Hugh’s crew when Hugh made his captaincy. Nathaniel was one of the sailors who’d come to help Hugh when Bart was murdered. Hugh’s fingers went automatically to the timepiece, feeling the engraved words, as familiar to him as the scars on his hands. Only this time he felt the perfume bottle as well. “Would you say you knew him well?”

  “As well as any man, I suppose. Not many were able to pierce that reserve.”

  Hugh thought of one who did, the only mother he’d ever known, and the happy time they’d shared as a family before Alfred Brand destroyed everything. “Do you think he’d be glad for what I’m doing?”

  Nathaniel gazed into the lambent night. “Well, I’ve never had a brother murdered, so I don’t know that I’m a fair judge, but I can say this: you have been a faithful attendant to his memory. But I don’t know that he would have wanted an attendant, only a brother.”

  They stopped at William Penn, and Hugh turned back to look up the rise, the twinkle of scattered lights in the tower as arresting as those in the sky.

  “I think,” Hugh said, “if Rogan has been invested with Brand’s secrets, Joss doesn’t know. I think her engagement to Rogan is her only connection to all of this.”

  Nathaniel made a regretful noise.

  “What?” Hugh demanded. “What do you know?”

  Nathaniel unfolded a piece of paper and handed it to his friend. “This is what I found while I was out. It’s a list of directors of Brand’s company. Joss O’Malley is on the board.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Joss was sipping her morning chai tea when a shadow fell across the binder of contracts she’d been reviewing.

  Rogan, looking like something out of a George Romero movie, stood in her office doorway.

  “You’re blocking my sun, pal.”

  “No sun. Please, no sun.” Like a medium contacting the dead, Rogan massaged his temple and made a long, quiet moan. “Ibuprofen,” he croaked.

  He was wearing the same shirt and pants he’d been wearing the day before. It would be fair to say he wasn’t up to his usual high standards of grooming. In fact, it would be fair to say he looked like shit, but Joss, out of the inexplicable affection she had for her party-loving fiancé, held her tongue.

  “I couldn’t help but notice you weren’t home when I left this morning.” She opened her desk drawer and rummaged for the painkillers.

  He sighed. “It was a long night.”

  “Hm. You know the rule. Strip club with the boys, condoms for a year.”

  “Ouch.” He winced.

  “And blood tests quarterly.”

  “That’s harsh.”

  “Is it?” she asked. “Or is it really smart?”

  He cleared his throat as LaWren, the guard, walked by. “Trust me,” he said. “You have nothing to worry about. Those women couldn’t hold a candle to you.”

  “It’s the candle holding I’m concerned about.” She opened the bottle.

  “Now, Joss, you know that would be unethical and illegal.” He gave his chin a prim lift. “I shudder to imagine it.”

  “Yeah, you shudder, all right. You don’t seem to mind when I’m doing it.”

  “My father advised me to close my eyes and think of England.”

  “A remarkable act of courage.”

  “Thank you.”

  She opened the bottle and spilled two pills into his hand. He popped them like Tic Tacs and grabbed her mug to wash them down.

  “Christ,” he said with a grimace, “that is the worst coffee I’ve ever tasted. How was your little get-together?”

  “Would you believe I stripped for a guy I barely know?”

  He snorted, and his hands flew to his head. “Oh, Joss, stop! Don’t make me laugh.”

  “Actually, I did—sort of. I went to a tailor. I’ve decided to wear something different Tuesday.”

  “Different from what?” His eyes twinkled.

  She got up to retrieve another binder. “Okay, I know guys don’t pay attention to things like that, but it may make a difference to you to know I’ll be wearing a sort of Greek goddess thing instead of the skirt and blouse.”

  “Oh, thank God. I was afraid I’d be having sex dreams about Carol Brady.”

  She gave him a full-body bump, and he laughed again.

  “Any more cracks like that,” she said, “and I’ll be forced to give you the complete rundown of the bachelorette party, which included, but was not limited to, club soda at the Tap Room, breast-feeding at the tailor’s and running, giggling, through the streets with the car seat.”

  “Stop!” he cried, bent from the laughter.

  “Capped, of course, by me returning to the office to do the end-of-month report. Oh yeah, we know how to tear things up.”

  “Poor Joss.” He touched her hand affectionately. “Your father said you were the only kid with gray hair he ever knew.”

  For good reason, she thought, and then immediately wished she hadn’t. Yes, her father had been a complete asshole to her mother. She remembered that clearly. And yes, he’d been brutal to his business partners, a fact that had come back to haunt him later when he needed help. But there were also good things about him. He’d brought her to business meetings when she was little. She remembered sitting on his lap while he rattled out instructions, his deep voice rumbling through the room.

  One of the things she loved about Rogan was that he’d befriended her father. In fact, she was sure that had a lot to do with why she’d fallen in love with him. A chance conversation in line at a coffee shop had led to a long dinner. She’d told him about her father’s illness and the hospital visits that had become a regular part of her routine. The next morning, at the door to the hospital’s visitors’ entrance, she’d found him waiting, flowers and magazines in hand. They’d visited her father together. It was only then that she’d discovered he, too, was a corporate magnate. And since she’d chosen to use her mother’s name at eighteen, it was also only then that Rogan had discovered the father she’d been talking about was Alfred Brand of Brand Industries. Unsurprisingly, the men hit it off instantly, and soon Rogan had taken over the morning shift. In another month, Rogan had agreed to buy her father’s failing company and infuse it with new capital. A month after that, her father was dead, and she and Rogan were engaged.

  She looked at the ring. Why, when she looked at the beautiful diamond and thought about what it stood for, did she feel a nagging hint of ambivalence? Rogan was great. She knew being married to him would be wonderful. She guessed it was because there would always be that specter of her parents’ marriage hovering out there in her mind.

  “Say, my key to the rare map room still works, doesn’t it?” She returned to her seat and dropped the binder on her desk. “I mean, I know you’re putting in new security, but the changeover isn’t until next week, right?”

  “It still works. Why?”

  “I don’t know. I was thinking about my mom, and I thought I might take an hour and go through the old stuff again. I know she loved it. It makes me feel like she’s near.”

  “Sounds great. You could use a little break. Oh, and about the party tonight—”

  “I haven’t forgotten. Aunt Cathy: hard of hearing but won’t admit it. Uncle Jared: don’t mention politics. Cousin Brad: the only one who doesn’t know his wife is sleeping with his business partner. See, I pay attention.”

  Rogan smiled. His mother had invited half of Pittsburgh for cocktails tonight at a private room in the nearby Heinz History Center.

  “I have to duck out of here at six to get Brad at the airport,” he reminded her.

  “That’s fine. I’ll meet you at the party a little before seven thirty.”

  “Perfect.”

  She gave him a lopsided smile. “L
et the roller-coaster ride begin, eh?”

  “Indeed.”

  “Oh, wait, I forgot.”

  “What?”

  “I must have left my card key at your place. I had to sign in downstairs. Can I get yours, just for today?”

  He reached for his wallet. “It’s going to make getting to the men’s room a little trickier.”

  “Give me a call. I’ll be happy to escort you.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The beautiful mapmaker was happy to have helped the old man. She didn’t want the gold, for she, too, was as happy as could be, but she didn’t want to offend him, so she thanked him and left the gold where he’d hidden it. Later, she told her dark, handsome husband the romantic story, but her husband only wanted to hear about the gold. She didn’t tell him the old man had given it to her. Instead she told him the old man had thrown it in the river. Her husband said the old man was a fool.

  —The Tale of the Beautiful Mapmaker

  The sound of a distant phone ringing broke her concentration. Five fifty? Holy crap! A low-fat peach yogurt and a Byzantine nondisclosure agreement from the Uruguayan Office of Survey and Measurements were not exactly likely to win the prize for the most absorbing combination, yet somehow she’d missed her five-thirty deadline.

  She grabbed her bag and ran. She didn’t want to be late for the fitting, though she told herself that was because she had a hectic schedule that night, not because she wanted to see Hugh. The blouse she’d picked for the cocktail party, a Jaipur-inspired print, looked great, and, perhaps more important, today’s lingerie didn’t present such a picture of insouciant unrespectability. Nonetheless, they were quite fine. She smiled.

  “Have a great dinner,” LaWren called, lifting her gaze from the multiscreened guard desk when Joss passed. “And find that card.”

  Joss made her way out of the building and opened her umbrella. Rain had fallen softly and steadily all day, though it was supposed to clear up soon. She hurried down the alley, slowing only when she saw that the lights in the tailor shop were still on. With a curious sigh, she slipped through the weird, buzzing skin of the invisible dome and opened the door of the shop.