He nodded. ‘And, by the way, Chantelle is at optimum weight for her build.’ He leaned down and slid his index finger under her chin. ‘Aren’t you, pretty girl? So are you ready for your treats?’
Chantelle wasn’t the brightest, but treat was one of the three or four words in her vocabulary. She looked up at him as if he were God, the look I’d seen from animals since the day I’d met him. It hurt to recall how that memory made me feel. It hurt to see Chantelle, who obviously remembered me. And, yes, it hurt to be close enough to smell Richard’s scent, a sharp whiff of citrus. I knew it well.
He had left a partially full bottle behind when he moved out. Some nights, when I was especially lonely or scared, I’d spray some on my pillow and instantly smell my marriage – the best parts of it, at least. I didn’t do that often, and only at night. Everyone has a trick to get through those hours – alcohol, drugs, television, sex, food. So, I had men’s cologne, but now that I smelled it again, on Richard, I was embarrassed, as if I’d been caught, as if somehow he knew.
‘I had to come,’ I said.
Again, he nodded. ‘Because you want me to level with you, right? You want to know how long I knew what Mick told you.’
‘Am I that transparent?’
‘I can understand how you might wonder, but no, I didn’t know for sure. Do you really think I’d keep something like that from you?’
‘I don’t know, Richard. It’s just weird you’d be so certain there was something strange about my parentage and never mention it to me.’
‘I couldn’t. I didn’t know anything for certain.’ He leaned against the pedestal. ‘I always sensed I was looking at a puzzle with a piece missing.’
‘Thanks,’ I said, pretending to joke.
‘Not you, Kit. Your situation. You know how close I’ve always been to Mick.’
As different as they were, they seemed to bring out the best in each other. Mick’s openness had helped Richard open up; Richard’s reserve had made Mick more thoughtful.
‘What did he say to you?’ I asked.
‘It’s what he didn’t say. Mick has always been guarded about you, and as you know, he is not a guarded kind of guy.’
‘And that’s what made you suspicious?’ I didn’t buy it.
‘It made me curious,’ he said. ‘And then there was our wedding, our honeymoon. Don’t you remember the problems we had with your passport?’
‘Of course. No one could find my birth certificate.’ A memory I had misplaced returned to me. I stood hand-in-hand with Richard in the middle of November in a crowded post-office line, not caring about the wait or the cold because we were together. ‘You’re right. At the time, I just blamed it on the inefficiency of the system.’
‘Once all of this stuff about your birth mother began, I put it together,’ he said. ‘I went to Mick and made it very clear that he’d better be ready to tell the truth.’
‘You did that for me?’ My lip trembled.
‘You wouldn’t expect less from me, would you?’
No, I wouldn’t. I had counted on Richard, believed we would be together forever. Even now, apart as we were, I knew he was there for me. I would bet my life on it. And I owed him the truth as well as I knew it.
‘What I’ve found out about my parents has hurt me,’ I said. ‘It’s devastated me. But what hurt me more was not knowing and yet still not feeling complete. If that is part of what drove you away from me, I’m sorry.’
Richard scooped up Chantelle and put her on her padded perch. Then he faced me, eye-to-eye, the way he did when he demanded complete honesty.
‘Kit.’ His voice was level, almost stern. Although we didn’t touch, I felt his strength as if he were holding my shoulders. ‘I miss you.’
‘I miss you too, Richard.’
‘You haven’t moved on?’
‘God, no.’ I knew he meant Farley and felt myself blush.
My cellphone began to vibrate. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. Farley’s number glowed on the dial.
Richard frowned.
‘I should take it,’ I told him.
‘It’s Farley Black, isn’t it?’
‘He’s my partner, Richard. This could be business.’
‘Could be,’ he repeated as the phone continued its insistent rattling. ‘You’ve made my point for me.’
The vibrating stopped. I felt I’d just lost something valuable. Chantelle leapt on the table and shoved her head under my hand. I stroked her fur and wondered again how a man who could be so good with small creatures could be so poor at communicating with his own wife. Make that separated, soon-to-be ex-wife.
‘Happy?’ I asked him.
‘What do you think?’ He put the cat treats into Chantelle’s food dish. ‘I go with Mick to try to shed some light on your past. Instead, I find you kissing the guy when I drive up. How would you feel?’
‘I was hugging him, and even if we were involved, which we’re not, it’s none of your business.’
‘You’re right,’ Richard said. ‘He was always interested in you. I knew that, but I didn’t think you’d turn to him so soon after we split.’
‘I did not turn to him, as you put it,’ I said, ‘and we split, as you put it, because you left me.’
‘I asked for a separation because I didn’t like where we were headed,’ he said. ‘But I still care for you, and I’m worried about you. Oh, Kit. You know I still love you.’
If he meant that, if he really did love me, then maybe there was hope for us. Love should be enough, but I had learned the hard way that a couple needed more. Mick and Elaine certainly had.
‘Why then?’ I continued to stroke Chantelle, but kept my gaze fixed on him. ‘And don’t you dare start that baby thing.’
‘It’s not a thing. It’s a lifestyle.’
‘You said it didn’t matter. I spelled it out on our first date.’
‘I know,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t believe your gall to make those demands on a first date. Then, later, I thought I could do it. I really did.’
‘What changed your mind? Your dad’s death?’
He pulled out a chair and sank into it, looking beaten. ‘You’ll never know how tough it was,’ he said, ‘but I couldn’t lie to you. It’s not as if I didn’t try to discuss it.’
I felt myself clench up inside, trying to keep his words from touching me. ‘I told you how it had to be. I’m not cut out to be a parent. It’s not a risk I’m willing to take – at least, not right now.’
‘Well, I am,’ he said. ‘Once I lost my dad, I knew that’s what I wanted.’
‘More than you wanted me.’
‘That’s not true.’ The anger finally reached his voice, raising it. ‘I wanted you more than anything. I couldn’t understand why you wouldn’t even discuss it. Couples do, you know. They might start out one way, and then change their minds later on.’
‘I told you.’ I felt as if he were betraying me all over again. ‘I told you I wasn’t ready and wasn’t sure I ever would be.’
‘But why, Kit? You didn’t know about your mother then.’
‘But I knew that, as wonderful as my mom could be, I didn’t fit into that family. I sensed there was something that they knew about me and I didn’t. To want a family, you need to know what a family is, what it is you’re passing down.’
That was true. I’d felt deceived, even before I realized that I had been. And even now, I wasn’t sure I had anything to pass on to anyone else. As the caller on the air that day had said, I had no roots.
My phone went off again, and this time, I knew I couldn’t ignore it. ‘Sorry,’ I told Richard. He stood without moving.
‘Hey, Farley,’ I said.
‘Where are you?’
‘With Richard, at the animal hospital.’ For a moment, I felt a flash of guilt.
He paused and then said, ‘Good.’
That had to be a first. ‘What’s going on?’ I asked.
‘It’s bad news, Kit. Very bad news.’
I sat d
own on a cold wooden bench. ‘My mother? Kendra?’
‘No.’ He sighed. ‘And the police don’t have a positive identification yet.’
‘What kind of identification?’ I demanded. ‘What’s happened?’
‘They found a body in Arizona.’ Another pause, and I knew he was crying. ‘They think it’s Tamera.’
‘God, no, Farley.’
‘That’s all I know. I’ll get in touch with you as soon as I hear more.’
We ended the call, and I rose from the chair.
‘Kit.’ Richard came to me. ‘What happened?’
‘Tamera.’ I reached up for his face and held it in my hands, the stubble of his beard gritting against my palms. His scent was part of me now. I could smell our marriage, remember the trust, and for this moment, that was all I needed to do. ‘They think she’s dead.’
‘Oh, Kit.’ He pulled me close.
I wrapped my arms around his neck and let him hold me.
TWENTY-EIGHT
At first Rena did nothing but sleep. She opened her eyes on occasion to swallow soup or some other tasteless concoction held to her lips, but mostly she slept, trying not to replay what she had seen. Images and voices danced on the surface of her consciousness. A murmur, a whisper slipped into her brain. She was never far away from the scary, conspiring noises on the outskirts of her dreams.
She must have slept with her mouth open. Her tongue felt parched. Her body throbbed with pain. Dim light turned the room to shadows. She turned her head on the pillow, carefully, in case someone were watching her. Dale’s side of the bed was empty. That was good. He was still away on the job. How long had he been away? What day was it?
She turned her head to the other side. A man sat in the rocker beside her bed, reading a book. She gasped, and then put her hand to her mouth when she realized it was Leighton.
‘Don’t be afraid,’ he said.
‘What day is it?’ she asked.
‘Friday night.’ He put the book on the nightstand. ‘Don’t you remember? Kendra came over and made soup for us?’
Rena didn’t remember any of it. She was going crazy, or he was lying to her. ‘Are you sure?’ she asked.
‘Don’t let it bother you.’ He turned up the bedside lamp, and she could see his face, his sharp nose and chin line. He leaned down close to her, and his hair gleamed gold where the light hit it. ‘Your eyes don’t have any more red in them,’ he said. ‘You’re getting rid of the poison.’
‘Tell me who that woman was,’ she said without moving.
Leighton’s eyes met hers. ‘They think it’s Tamera J. Flowers from Sacramento, California, the radio talk-show host who was supposed to meet with Kendra.’
‘God, no.’ Rena had known it, but to hear it from him brought back that moment of the wristwatch, the bare arm, the strike of the snake. ‘What happened to her?’
‘Crushed skull,’ Leighton said. Rena cringed, and he put his hand on her arm. ‘They don’t know who did it.’
‘Weren’t you out there with her?’ she asked.
‘No. After I picked her up at the airport, she was going to wait at her hotel until it was time to meet with Kendra. Instead, she left a message with the front desk that she’d gone out to the national park. I followed her there. She must have been killed right before I arrived.’
‘Who did it?’
‘They don’t know.’
‘Wasn’t anyone else out there?’
‘Just you and Kendra. You were the only ones. You must have been right behind me.’ His voice had an odd echo, or maybe it was just in her head.
‘You know we didn’t have anything to do with it.’ A shudder crept along her arms.
‘Of course not,’ he said. ‘That’s not what I meant.’
‘What did you mean then?’ She couldn’t help it. Her memory had been stolen from her. She had to know what he knew.
‘Only that you and Kendra were the only ones there,’ he said.
‘And you,’ she said. ‘You were there, weren’t you, Leighton? When did you come?’
‘I don’t know. I wasn’t looking at my watch.’ She caught the annoyance in his voice, although his expression remained calm. ‘My only concern was you.’
‘Did you see it?’ she asked. ‘Did you watch that snake bite me?’
‘No.’ He looked down, and she couldn’t tell what he tried to hide in his eyes.
His words jolted back her memory. She could feel the hot air sucking the breath from her, could see that woman, exactly as she’d seen her in that moment that she’d known she was dead.
Rena shuddered, cold on the surface of her skin, blazing inside. ‘Why would anyone want to kill her?’ she asked.
‘I don’t know, Reen.’ The word sent her spinning. He hadn’t called her that for a long time, not for years. He realized it, too. She could tell from his shocked, sheepish expression. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘Old habits die hard, I guess, if they die at all.’
‘Don’t apologize. I know you didn’t mean anything by it.’
‘It’s been so long. I don’t know what to call you.’
‘Rena will do.’
‘Yes. Rena.’ He held out his hand. ‘Let me help you out of bed. You’ll get even stronger once you can walk.’
She looked down at her nightgown. It covered her up pretty well, but she still felt funny hobbling around in it. ‘My robe’s hanging behind the bathroom door in there,’ she said. ‘Would you mind getting it for me?’
Leighton stepped into the bathroom and returned with her terry-cloth robe, a dingy pink she’d never really looked at until that moment. Slowly, they walked the house together, and Rena could feel the strength return to her legs. They even walked on the porch, but then she heard a twig break somewhere and insisted that they go inside. With every step they took together, with every helpful gesture Leighton made, the question that had been torturing her was answered. In spite of her earlier doubts, she trusted Leighton.
‘Why are you smiling?’ he asked. They’d finished off Kendra’s soup and were sitting on the love seat while a song Rena had never heard played.
‘I’m just thinking how good it is to listen to music again,’ she said. ‘Who is that?’
‘Delbert McClinton. A little rowdy, but he knows about the blues.’
‘Don’t we all?’ she said.
He gave her a lazy grin. ‘What do you know about the blues, Reen?’
‘As much as anyone, I guess.’ Her mouth went dry again. She had almost died. Leighton and Kendra had helped her survive. It seemed normal – even right – to have Leighton in the house like this with her alone, and it seemed just fine to tell him what she knew about the blues.
‘Does he hurt you?’ he asked.
‘Leighton.’ She jumped up from the love seat. Her foot exploded into needles of pain, and she collapsed back down.
‘I’ll kill him if he does. He was always a bully, even back then when he called me a wimp.’
‘He was just jealous of you,’ she said. Here they were talking about Dale, her own husband, and they weren’t even using his name, as if he was a thing instead of a person. ‘A bully,’ she said. ‘Yeah, he was. But it didn’t get bad until he knew he’d never be the athlete he’d hoped to be.’
‘Why’d you marry him?’ He moved his face so close to hers that she could smell his warm, sweet breath.
‘Why’d you marry Debby Lynn?’
‘I’ve given that a lot of thought,’ he said, ‘and the best I can do is to say that, for one brief period of time, she made me feel like a man.’
‘I didn’t make you feel like a man?’
‘You were out of the picture by the time I got together with Debby Lynn.’ He looked away toward the wall of shadows. ‘I’d seen it happen to other guys in the service. First the letters slowed. Then, the big goodbye letter hit. You never even did that. You didn’t give me the courtesy of a goodbye, didn’t even care enough to do that, Reen.’
‘I did care.’ She had bur
ied the memories of how it ended, but now they all bubbled back. She knew Leighton must have hated her for it, and she knew she owed him the truth. ‘It was a crazy time,’ she said, ‘and I don’t just mean the war.’
‘You married someone else. You married Dale Pace and never told me.’
‘I cried,’ she said, as if she were still that girl, hugging her pillow and hoping for a miracle. ‘I cried for you.’
‘And that’s supposed to make it all right?’ His voice was rough, and she hated herself for making him carry that anger and pain all of those years. ‘You cried, so that makes it fine that you didn’t bother to mention that you married our high school star athlete while your boyfriend, the class nerd, was in the Army?’
‘I had a breakdown, Leighton.’ She couldn’t believe she’d said the words, but it was too late to go back. ‘I had a breakdown, and Dale helped me. He stood by me, even when they thought I might be losing my mind. It was only later that he got so bad to me.’
The music had stopped now, and her voice was the loudest thing in the room. She glanced down at her foot, the pink wound puckered like a kiss. She looked up at him, the fury and disbelief in his face, still harsh in the lamplight.
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘I don’t remember,’ she said. ‘That’s the truth. For a while, for a long time, I think, they didn’t let me talk to anyone.’
He put his arm around her shoulder. It felt warm and right. ‘How did you get well?’ he asked.
‘I’m not sure I did.’ Her voice cracked.
His arm closed in around her. ‘Why do you say that?’
‘I still forget things sometimes,’ she said. ‘And I’m scared a lot.’
‘Everyone’s scared.’ He made a noise that didn’t sound anything close to laughter. ‘Everyone sane, that is. I’m glad you told me, though. I never could figure out why you’d leave me for him. I mean, I know he was good-looking and athletic, and I realize he could probably have any girl he wanted, but I didn’t think that you would do that.’
‘I didn’t.’ She said it before she thought. Then she motioned for him to help her out of the chair. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘I want to show you something.’
They walked back into the bedroom, and she settled herself into the rocker and removed the pillow from behind her back. ‘Remember this?’ she asked.
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