Leigh

by Lyn Cote

  Leigh felt the warm blanket of family wrap itself around her. She drew strength from it as she watched Aunt Kitty weep silently and her grandmother’s lips move in soundless prayer.

  Later that night as Chloe watched her husband’s labored breathing, she recalled a hospital scene from long ago. That night, over forty years ago, when she and Roarke had kept vigil over Kitty, whose life had hung in the balance. Tears swelled in Chloe’s throat, but she kept them down. If she started crying, she wouldn’t be able to stop. And how long did she have left with Roarke? She wouldn’t let her final hours with him be marred by tears.

  “I’m so sorry I didn’t come sooner,” Kitty from the other side of the bed repeated once more.

  “I wish you had, too, but you’re here now,” Chloe said.

  Sleeping, Roarke was draped in an oxygen tent. It reminded Chloe of the passing away of his mother, Estelle, in 1930. The last few days she’d been under an oxygen mask on and off. Was it always like this at deathbeds? Did one always remember all the passings that had come before?

  Chloe clung to Roarke’s hand, already cool within her grasp. I love you, my dearest. Always.

  As if he’d heard her thought, Roarke opened his eyes and smiled at her. He couldn’t speak because of the oxygen tent, but she saw his love for her in his tender glance.

  Kitty began weeping softly against the background shush of the oxygen.

  Chloe’s favorite hymn hummed in her mind, “Oh, Lamb of God, I come. I come.”

  Grandpa Roarke’s funeral took place six days after Leigh had arrived with Aunt Kitty. After the funeral at St. John’s, everyone gathered at Ivy Manor to draw comfort from each other. At first, longtime neighbors and friends filled the downstairs of the house along with the hum of low respectful voices, the scent of fried chicken, and the fragrance of lilies, the type of flower Roarke had requested for his funeral.

  Grandma Chloe and Aunt Kitty sat side by side in the parlor on the loveseat. With Dane at her side, Leigh glanced around the crowded room. In addition to her uncles and their families, many others had traveled a long way to pay their respects. Her uncle Jamie had flown in from Hawaii. He stood nearest Chloe and Kitty. Minnie and her husband, Frank, had come from New York along with Drake Lovelady and his wife, Ilsa. Even Aunt Gretel had flown from Israel in time for the service. Leigh had been awed by this woman, who’d been her mother’s best friend and who had fought in 1948 to create the new state of Israel in Palestine.

  But most of all, Leigh was so grateful to Dane, for his solid presence that made everything easier for her. He’d come and gone from work until her grandfather had died, then he’d taken a few days off. Leigh squeezed his hand, letting him know how much his presence meant to her.

  Then suddenly Frank and Cherise walked into the parlor, shocking and wounding Leigh. A very pregnant Cherise came over to her immediately and hugged her. “We’re so sorry, Leigh. We got here as soon as we could.”

  Leigh was thunderstruck. She hadn’t expected Frank and Cherise to come. She couldn’t find a single word to say.

  Frank came up behind his wife. “My grandmother called us. I didn’t know if I could get away from the base in South Carolina, but my commanding officer said, ‘Of course.’ “ He shook Leigh’s hand and smiled down at her.

  Leigh was still dumbstruck.

  Dane offered Frank his hand. “I don’t know if you—”

  “You were Leigh’s guest at our wedding,” Cherise said and smiled at Dane. “It’s so nice to see you again. Dane, isn’t it?”

  Stark images from Frank and Cherise’s wedding flashed through Leigh’s mind, stung her heart. She’d worn a blue dress and stood mutely beside Cherise as she became Mrs. Frank Dawson III. “Thanks for coming,” she finally managed to say to them.

  Then Minnie was at Cherise’s elbow. “How’s my favorite granddaughter-in-law?” She hugged Cherise while Frank leaned down and kissed Minnie’s cheek. “Come over,” Minnie said, “and pay your respects to Chloe. And you haven’t met Roarke’s sister, Kitty, have you?”

  Leigh watched Frank as he followed Minnie’s suggestion.

  Dane leaned down and murmured into Leigh’s ear, “Why don’t we take a walk outside? I could use some fresh air.”

  Leigh nodded, suddenly eager to put distance between herself and the quiet somber gathering… and Frank. Dane snagged her coat off the hall tree and draped it around her.

  Outside, the light breeze lifted Leigh’s mood. It was one of those balmy February days that whispers, “Spring.” She let Dane lead her down the dirt lane toward the creek behind the little cottage. The scene reminded Leigh of Aunt Jerusha, who’d died a year ago in her nineties.

  “You weren’t happy to see Cherise and her husband?” Dane asked quietly.

  Leigh recalled the night she’d met Frank in this very place almost a decade ago and their conversation here beside these willow trees. On that night, she would never have imagined everything or anything that had happened in their lives over the following years. Although she was only twenty-five, this made her feel old somehow. “I was surprised. That’s all.”

  “You cared for him once. Ted mentioned that your mother was bent out of shape about it.”

  “I did have feelings for Frank, but…” She shrugged. “That was a long time ago. I was just a kid.”

  Without warning, Dane pulled her flush against him. “Will you marry me?”

  Leigh stared at him, struck mute again.

  “I know I’ve surprised you,” he said with a wry grin.

  Shock made her feel a little lightheaded, and she clutched Dane’s arm. “Surprise doesn’t even come close to describing how I feel,” she said at last. “I thought you just turned me down last week.”

  “A lot can happen in a week.”

  “You mean my grandfather?”

  “Your step-grandfather. As I understand it, your real grandfather died before your mother was born. And your own father died when you were just a baby.”

  “Who told you all of this?”

  “Ted told me this week while you and your mother were gone making funeral arrangements.”

  “What’s all this leading up to? What has that got to do with us?”

  “I finally decided that you are the only woman I’ve ever loved, the only woman I’ve ever wanted to marry and have children with. And I’ve decided that I shouldn’t throw you away just because I have an awful family and work a job that can be dangerous at times.”

  Leigh stepped closer and rested her head against his worsted coat. “Oh, Dane, I do love you. And all that stuff doesn’t matter.”

  “Well, it may matter, but it doesn’t today. Set the date.”

  Leigh stared at the stream running fast and dark with spring run off. “Let’s marry in March. It will give me time to plan something small and elegant, and it will give my grandmother and Aunt Kitty time to recover a bit from today.”

  “March is a good month, and I don’t want to wait any longer to claim you as my own.” He increased his pressure on her arms and pulled her up to him for a kiss that left her gasping. Her spirits rose. “Thank you, God,” she whispered thankfully.

  Now, she could bear Cherise giving Frank a child because she wouldn’t be alone anymore. The only thing that still hurt was that just as Mary Beth hadn’t been present at Cherise’s wedding, neither would she be at Leigh’s. The sixties had ended, and Leigh had never seen her friend again. Sometimes before she fell asleep at night, she still wondered where Mary Beth was and what she was doing. Would she ever see her again?

  Dane kissed Leigh and all thoughts apart from him vanished from her mind.

  Washington, D.C., March 1972

  Leigh looked into the three-way mirror at her bridal gown, which had just come in. With the high waistline and pearl-encrusted bodice, she looked like a medieval princess in it.

  “I love it,” Dory said.

  Leigh turned and smiled at her. “And I think you look lovely yourself.” Dory was trying on her brid
esmaid’s dress, an empire gown in pale blue that went beautifully with her eyes. Dane had asked Ted to be his best man, as well as the father of the bride, and Leigh’s sister would be her only attendant. Dory grinned and twirled around in her dress.

  “I have been blessed with two lovely daughters.” From a chair beside the mirror, their mother beamed at them.

  Leigh felt an overwhelming love for her mother and sister. All the old conflicts had died. She was going to marry Dane, and they’d have a family of their own. Her mother would be a doting grandmother, and Dory a proud aunt. Everything was going to be all right from now on.

  *

  Later that day, Leigh, her mother, and sister walked into the backdoor of their home in Arlington, carrying the large gold-and-white boxes that held their wedding finery. Leigh had been living back at home for the past month in order to carry out the wedding preparations. She and Dane would marry at St. John’s in Croftown, where her grandparents and parents had been married, and a small reception would be held at Ivy Manor.

  As soon as they entered the house, Leigh realized it wasn’t empty. They put down the boxes and entered the living room. A large man with heavy jowls was talking to another man in the living room. Leigh’s mother froze in her steps. “Mr. Hoover?”

  Then Leigh recognized him. He was J. Edgar Hoover, the head of the FBI.

  “Yes, Bette, I’m so sorry, but I thought it best we wait here for you.”

  Dory looked back and forth between her mother and the tall man with wavy gray hair.

  “What’s happened?” Bette said, going to Mr. Hoover, both her hands held out in front of her. The older man paused a moment, clearly unhappy to speak. He looked sorrowfully at Bette.

  “I’m very sorry, Bette, but we lost Ted this afternoon.”

  Dory moaned. Leigh took hold of her arm.

  “Lost him?” Bette echoed.

  “He was working the Delaware investigation of that radical group, and it literally blew up in our faces. He was killed instantly, an explosion.”

  Bette went white. Wordlessly she sagged against Mr. Hoover, who helped her onto the nearby sofa.

  “I can’t tell you how sorry I am,” he said. “Ted Gaston was one of my best men and a good friend. I’m so sorry, Bette.”

  Dory hurried to their mother and sat down beside her. Leigh stood in the doorway between the dining and living rooms, unable to move or speak.

  The other man, a stranger, cleared his throat and nodded toward her. Mr. Hoover turned to her and looked even more forbidding. “And you’re Leigh, aren’t you?”

  She nodded, mute.

  “I’m afraid that Dane Hanley was working the same case.”

  “What happened?” Leigh whispered, though she was already tightening up inside, already realizing what the man might say.

  “Dane was killed, also. I’m so very sorry. I know you were his fiancee. We’re all so very sorry.”

  Leigh’s head swam in a rush of disorienting emotion. She put a hand out to catch herself, but she couldn’t find the wall. Strong hands pulled her forward and urged her down into an armchair.

  “My wedding dress just came in from New York,” Leigh said, as if these words would work some magic, change what had happened. “We just picked up our dresses.” She leaned back, unable to halt the chill washing through her. The bright sunny day was suddenly cast into alternating shadow and a bleak light.

  It isn’t true. There’s been a mistake. We’re going to be married next Saturday. I have my dress, and everything is planned.

  “They always say deaths come in threes,” Grandma Chloe said. “I just never believed that kind of thing.”

  Leigh, Bette, Aunt Kitty, and Grandma Chloe huddled together in the parlor at Ivy Manor. The house was empty of guests now that the double funeral was over. Dory had been given a sedative and was asleep upstairs in the little bedroom on the trundle bed. Leigh would join her as soon as she had the strength and will to walk up the steps.

  “This is worse than losing Roarke,” Aunt Kitty murmured.

  No one bothered to agree, but Leigh felt this, too. Grandpa Roarke had been over seventy and in ill health.

  “Leigh, Dory will need you during this time,” Bette said, “please come back home.”

  Leigh glanced at her mother, whose face had aged a decade over the past few days. Leigh read between the lines. Bette was the one who really needed her. Leigh had expected some plea like this from her mother, but Leigh didn’t want to leave Kitty, either. Who needed Leigh more—her little sister, her mother, or her aunt? And who or what did Leigh herself need? With the loss of her stepfather and Dane, a gaping rent had been opened up inside her heart. She felt empty, broken, bereft of hope. Who would comfort her?

  Leigh gazed at her grandmother and mother. Years before, both of them had lost their first loves—her real grandfather and father. She wished she could ask them how they’d survived such a loss. But how could she ask them that when now they’d lost their second loves?

  Leigh felt cheated. I didn’t even get to marry Dane. If it had only been Dane who’d been killed, I would be the only one receiving comfort.And then she felt guilty for being so self-centered. As it was, since she had only lost her fiance, she felt as though she should be the one comforting them. But she had no comfort in her to give.

  “No one from Dane’s family came,” Aunt Kitty went on, sounding like a radio turned on low. “I can’t believe he didn’t have any family.”

  “Dane broke with his family years ago,” Bette explained.

  Leigh closed her eyes, trying to block out the one conversation she and Dane had shared that had touched on his family. He hadn’t wanted to invite any of them to his wedding, and none had come to his funeral. Or maybe they had attended. There had been a few strangers at the funeral, but maybe they’d just been FBI colleagues whom Leigh had never met.

  Dane’s and her wedding day was only five days away now. But I’m not getting married. Dane isn’t coming back.Leigh felt as if she’d slipped out of her skin. She was raw and defenseless. Her love for Dane pulsed inside her like an aching of her very soul. Would anything ever be right again? She’d lost so many people—Mary Beth to drugs, Frank to Cherise, her grandfather, now her stepfather and her own love. How did a person who had lost almost everyone she loved find a reason to go on?

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Ivy Manor, May 1972

  Leigh followed Grandma Chloe as she walked down the lane behind Ivy Manor. Leigh carried a basket, as did Chloe. A local family had just had a new baby, so Chloe had packed a cold meal and gifts for the family. In the weeks since the double funeral, Leigh and Kitty had lingered at Ivy Manor, unable to find the strength to return to San Francisco. And though Bette had taken Dory home so that she wouldn’t miss high school, they both returned to Ivy Manor every weekend. Leigh still felt ripped open inside, and her grandmother seemed unusually quiet. The phrase “walking wounded” was a perfect description of how Leigh felt.

  Every morning when Leigh awoke, she tried to come up with a destination, a goal that would give her a purpose, a reason to move forward. But every morning she came up with no answer. She knew there had to be one. She couldn’t just stop living because Dane was gone. Now, as she walked beside Chloe, she wondered if she could use this private time with her grandmother to make some sense of what her future could, should be. If anyone had answers, it would be her wise and loving grandmother.

  Unable to get up the energy to begin this kind of discussion, Leigh let herself drink in the warmth of the sunny day, the lavish greens that surrounded them, and the sweet, clean scent of mown grass that permeated the air.

  “It’s hard to believe that dreadful George Wallace is speaking in Maryland today,” her grandmother commented in a faraway voice.

  Leigh made a sound of acknowledgment. Chloe didn’t like Wallace, and it was far too beautiful a day for a racist rally. Cocooned from the world, Leigh was vaguely aware that another presidential race was in full swing, with Hube
rt Humphrey and George McGovern fighting over which of them would face off against Nixon, the incumbent. As a third-party candidate, George Wallace was campaigning on state’s rights and white supremacy all over the South. Peace talks over Viet Nam had also begun in Paris. But all of that strife and striving was a world away from the soft breezes laden with the fragrance of late lilacs, lacy boughs of bridal wreath, and periodic bouts of tears. Losing Dane filled Leigh with an emptiness, a weepiness she’d never imagined, never known before in her life.

  Beside her, Chloe began humming “Amazing Grace.” Leigh frowned. “I didn’t like them singing that at Grandpa’s funeral,” she murmured, the basket weighing heavy on her arm. “He wasn’t a wretch who needed saving.”

  Chloe smiled at her, cocking her head toward Leigh. “Your grandfather requested that hymn especially to be sung. He loved the story of its author, a slave owner who’d seen the light and turned from his sin of selling other humans. Dearest, you only knew my Roarke as ‘a lion in winter.’” Chloe used the title of a recent award-winning movie. “You’ve never been told how he struggled after the war.”

  “You mean because of his arm?” Leigh stepped over a shallow puddle in a rut in the road.

  “That and other things.” Chloe looked away.

  “You mean other things I’ll never be told,” Leigh said with a snap in her voice, “because I’m too young to understand?”

  Chloe ran a hand lightly over Leigh’s cheek. “No, I just can’t talk about it now, dearest. I will someday. Just realize that no one comes through this life unscathed. Your grandfather had his battles, too.”

  Leigh understood not being able to speak about certain subjects, so she nodded, thinking of her own battles. And I’m only twenty-five.That wasn’t a pleasant thought. What else might she be expected to endure? She looked up as if to God, gazing at the blue sky through the chartreuse leaves on the trees. Everything around her was in fresh blossom, and yet she felt frozen in the dead of winter.