He showed it to Devon on the way home. “What do you make of this?” he said.
She looked at it, raised her eyebrows in perfect imitation of her mother, and whistled. “Somebody gave this to you?”
“I found it in my lesson book.”
“Maybe it’s from Mom.”
He gave her a look that clearly said she was deranged. And she snickered. “Well, don’t look at me. You’re not bad-looking, but you’re way too old.”
“I’m so relieved to hear that.”
“I wouldn’t worry. It’s just some airhead with a crush. It’ll blow over.”
“Maybe.”
Maybe not. Just in case it didn’t, when he got home he locked the note in his desk drawer.
***
The Indiantown Road was unpaved, soft and muddy in spots from last night’s snowfall. At the edge of a pine grove, a rusted barbed-wire fence ran for half a mile or more. Faded no trespassing signs were tacked up crookedly on weathered fence posts every fifty feet or so. The fence ended abruptly at a massive pine, and the woods gave way to scrub brush and dark, dank swamp. She hadn’t passed a house in several miles, although fairly new utility poles carried electrical wires deeper into the boonies. She passed a crumbling one-room camp, its roof fallen in, its windows smashed, its faded green asphalt siding succumbing to age and the elements.
The trailer sat in a clearing on the left, next to the blackened remains of a gutted farmhouse. The lawn was a sea of yellowed milkweed and dried goldenrod, the driveway littered with broken toys and auto parts. She parked beside a massive pulp truck, and the dun-colored dog who was chained to the trailer hitch stood, stretched, and sniffed the air. Glacial blue eyes followed her as she stepped from the car and slowly approached the trailer.
The door swung open before she reached the bottom step. The man who stood in the doorway was slender, lean and ropy, dressed in faded jeans and a sleeveless gray sweatshirt that showed off rippling biceps. Under the John Deere cap, his hair was lank and greasy. He looked her up and down with feral eyes the same color as the dog’s. “Who the hell are you?” he said.
Her heartbeat quickened, and she drew herself up to her full five-foot-two. “I’m looking for Torey. Is she home?”
His eyes made a slow, suggestive perusal of her, pausing to stare with open appreciation at her breasts. The pulse at the base of her throat began to hammer, and the roof of her mouth went dry. He leaned forward and spat onto the dead grass. “She ain’t here,” he said, and narrowed his eyes. “You’re another one of them goddamn social workers, ain’t you? You come here to take my kids away.” His voice grew softer, meaner. “Ain’t nobody taking my kids away, you hear?”
Coming here had been a mistake. Rose took a step backward and said, “I don’t work for the state. I’m trying to help your wife get a job.”
“She don’t need no job. Taking care of me and the kids is job enough for her.”
Rose clenched her jaw. “Mr. Spaulding,” she said, “I’m only trying to help.”
“Oh, yeah. I just bet you are.” Behind those eyes, something sprang to life, something dark and murky and repulsive. “Maybe you’d like to help me, Red. My wife’s okay, but she ain’t got no boobs to speak of. I sure wouldn’t mind a peek at them nice ones of yours.”
She went red-hot with rage. “You filthy pig!”
His eyes narrowed. “Then git! Git off my property, you goddamn meddling bitch, or you’ll git yourself an ass full of buckshot. And stay the hell away from my wife!”
Rose clamped her mouth shut, backed away from him, swung around and walked briskly toward her car. Her heel sank in the mud and she stumbled, caught herself on the car’s fender. When she pulled her high-heeled shoe from the muck, it came out with a soft sucking noise. Rose slipped it back onto her foot, felt her way to the door handle, and almost fell into the driver’s seat.
As she locked the door behind her, he stood in the trailer doorway, scratching and scowling. She started up her engine and shifted into reverse, spinning mud all over the place in her hurry to leave. Her heart thudding against her ribs, she fishtailed the Honda in the muck, then straightened it out and pointed it toward town, trembling so hard she had difficulty steering.
She drove by rote, propelled by fury, weakened by fear, enraged by her own weakness. Not until she pulled into her own driveway did she realize that she’d been headed directly for home. And Jesse.
The kitchen was a mess. Somebody had made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and left everything out on the counter. Upstairs, Luke’s stereo was thundering. Mikey was sprawled on the living room couch, watching a Green Acres rerun with the volume cranked to combat the noise pollution coming from upstairs. She found Jesse in the den, slouched on his tailbone in the rocker, his long legs stretched out in front of him. Oblivious to all the noise, he was reading.
She must have made some kind of sound, for he looked up, and his expression sharpened. “Rose?” he said, setting down the book. “What’s wrong?”
“I think you could safely say—” She took a deep breath. “—that I’ve had a really crummy day.” She tried to laugh, but it came out as a sob.
He got up from the chair, touched her shoulder. “You’re shaking all over.” She let out a great, heaving sigh as he drew her into his arms. He felt warm and safe and utterly, infuriatingly wonderful. Rose lay her head against his chest, absorbed his warmth, and went slowly to pieces.
While she sobbed incoherently, he cradled her in his arms, rocked her back and forth, whispered senseless words into her ear, her hair. At some point during the deluge, she heard her daughter’s voice at the door, asking suspiciously, “What’s wrong with my mother?”
“It’s okay,” Jesse reassured her. “We have everything under control.”
“She doesn’t usually cry like this.”
“Pregnant ladies cry a lot. She just had a bad day at work. Go on out, and shut the door behind you.”
After a moment, the door shut, and Jesse scooped Rose up into his arms and carried her to the rocking chair. This was absurd. Sophomoric. She’d never sat on a man’s lap in her life. How could she have known it would feel this good? Every place that their bodies collided, he was warm and inviting, and the soft rocking motion of the chair lulled her. Her sobs subsided, and still she stayed within the firm clasp of his arms as the early winter twilight closed around them like a gauzy curtain.
Beneath her head, his heart beat was strong and steady. “Ready to talk about it?” he said.
“I can’t. I’m sworn to confidentiality.”
His silence told her that he understood her professional ethics. “I’m your husband,” he said. “Nothing you tell me will ever leave this room.”
Because she believed him, she told him about Bud and Torey Spaulding, told him about her fool’s errand, told him every dirty and degrading detail. As her story unfolded, she could feel the tension growing in his body. “If he’d laid a finger on you,” Jesse said darkly, “I would have killed him.”
“That would have looked good on your résumé.”
“It’s not a joke, Rose. I mean it.”
“I took care of myself for thirty-six years before I met you.” Because she feared that she was beginning to depend just a bit too much on him, and because it scared the bejesus out of her, she added, “I don’t need a man to take care of me.”
“As you clearly illustrated this afternoon.”
She pulled away from him, her hot temper immediately surfacing. “Just what are you trying to say?”
“It was a stupid thing to do, Rose.”
“Oh, and I suppose you’ve never done anything stupid in your life! Mister Perfect. Christ, you’re disgusting!” She shoved at his chest, scrambled out of his lap, and headed for the door.
“Come back here!”
She turned on him. “Over my dead body!”
“We’re not done discussing this!”
“Then you’ll just have to discuss it alone,” she said, “bec
ause I am out of here.” She flung open the door and stormed past three startled teenagers.
“Mom?” said Luke. “Is everything okay?”
Behind her, Jesse snapped, “Stay out of it!”
Rose pounded up the stairs to the second floor, strode down the hall to the bedroom, slammed the door behind her, and locked it. Outside, in the hallway, Jesse rattled the knob. “Unlock the door, Rose,” he said in a deadly quiet voice.
She folded her arms across her chest. “Go to hell.”
“You heard me. Unlock the damn door.”
She thrust her chin high. “Or what?”
“Or I’ll break it down!”
“Go ahead. It’s your door.”
“You don’t think I’ll do it? Watch me!”
Arms crossed, she tapped her toes and studied her cuticles. Outside the bedroom, her husband kicked the door. Hard. It buckled, but remained locked. “You’ll have to do better than that,” she said.
He kicked it a second time. This time, she heard the sound of wood splintering. With the third kick, the lock gave. The door burst open and he stood there, wild-eyed, clenching and unclenching his fists. “Damn it, Rose,” he said. “Damn it all to hell.”
“Proud of yourself, are you?”
“I can’t do this any more.” He strode to the bed, snatched up his pillows, then opened the closet door and removed a folded blanket from the top shelf.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“Moving into the den. The couch is lumpy, but at least there’s no crazy woman living there.”
“Suit yourself,” she said. “Don’t think I give a rat’s patootie.”
Those dark eyes had gone cold. “If you don’t give a damn about yourself, I suppose it’s none of my business. But that’s my baby inside you, and its welfare is my business. And if you don’t give a damn about the baby, I’ll take it away from you, even if I have to fight you all the way to the goddamn Supreme Court.”
“You can’t take the baby away from me! You signed a prenuptial agreement!”
A muscle twitched in his cheek. “Screw the prenuptial agreement,” he said, and slammed out of the room.
That night, her dreams were chaotic, turbulent and disturbing. She carried her baby, wrapped in a pink blanket, into a courtroom where a black-robed judge fixed her with a reproachful gaze, looking just as she’d always imagined Saint Peter would look as he guarded the gates to heaven. In the jury box, grim-faced and disapproving, sat her mother, her father, and various other members of the MacKenzie clan. She approached the bench, the baby clutched to her breast, while beside her, Jesse enumerated for the judge and the jury every one of her sins, all the way back to the Hershey bar she’d stolen from Mo Branigan’s corner store when she was nine. The judge rapped his gavel, and Jesse reached out to take the baby from her. She refused to relinquish it, and the resulting disagreement turned into a tug-of-war in which they nearly tore apart the squalling child, both of them determined to retain custody, neither of them relenting even an inch.
And then, in the way of dreams, he wasn’t Jesse any more. He was Alan, and those soulful blue eyes judged her harshly and found her lacking. She released her hold on the baby and he tossed it aside, and she stood naked before him, naked before all those people. Rose tried to cover herself, ashamed of her nakedness, ashamed of ever having let Alan Coughlin touch her. She turned to her mother for help, but Mary covered her eyes in shame, and while she stood there naked, Alan walked away from her and slammed the door of the courtroom with the same chilling finality she’d felt when Jesse slammed out of their bedroom.
She awoke, heart thundering in her chest. In that shadowy state halfway between sleep and waking, the dream was more real than the darkened room where she lay alone, still surrounded by the ghosts that haunted her sleep. She had buried Alan’s ghost a long time ago, and he’d stayed buried until Jesse had come along and resurrected him. Now that he’d been released from the grave, she couldn’t help wondering if he would finally succeed in destroying the sanity she’d worked so hard to build.
Alone in her bed, surrounded by ghosts, Rose turned her face into her hands and wept.
chapter twelve
Winter arrived on the third of November in the form of twelve inches of snow. By the fifth, the snow had melted away, but there was no doubt in anyone’s mind that the temperate days of Indian summer were little more than a memory. Fall jackets went back into storage, exchanged for ski parkas, knit hats, and gaily-colored scarves. Cars had to be warmed up and ice scraped from windshields each morning. The last of the hardy mums gave way to the frost, and Jesse spent one whole weekend wrapping the drafty foundation of the old house in sheets of clear plastic and shrouding his shrubbery in white wooden cones as protection against the long, cold winter ahead.
The painting kept Rose sane. She spent all her free time in the studio, experimenting with colors and styles and techniques. As a young woman in her twenties, new to painting, she had been timid, afraid to express herself, to find her own style. But maturity had erased those unnamed fears, and she painted with a confidence that produced stunning results. Vivid splotches of color and wide, bold brush strokes characterized her work. She experimented with light and shadow, studied and recorded on canvas the varying moods of the mountains, and rendered swift and precise portraits of family members.
She and Paula Fournier drove to Portland for lunch and shopping one Saturday. When they returned home, she gave in to Paula’s pleas and took her up to the studio to show her what she’d been working on. While Rose stood by nervously, Paula walked slowly around the room, looking at everything, saying nothing. She finally stopped before a large canvas Rose had painted of Jesse, leaning casually against a wooden piling at the end of his boat dock while he talked to his cousin Leo, who sat atop a wooden keg on the deck of his boat, gesturing with a work-roughened hand. “The detail in this is amazing,” Paula said. “Jesus, Rose, these are really good. Are you going to keep them hidden away forever?”
“What am I supposed to do with them here in Jackson Falls? Hang them up over the meat counter at the IGA?”
“Damned if I know. But there must be some place you can display them. They deserve to be seen. Jesse must be so proud of you.”
Rose lowered her eyes and stuffed her hands into her coat pockets. “Jesse hasn’t seen them.”
Paula turned and gave her a long, assessing look. “You’re kidding.”
Rose shrugged apologetically. “He’s not interested in my work.”
“Well, he should be,” Paula said indignantly. “You’re a talented artist. And it’s obvious, from looking at your work, that he’s your favorite subject.” She turned back to the painting, reached out a hand to touch its surface. With studied casualness, she said, “Are you and Jesse okay?”
Rose struggled in her search for an answer, finally said, “Define okay.”
Paula turned to look at her, eyebrows raised. “Problems?”
“Oh,” Rose said breezily, “things are just peachy around here.”
“And I can clearly see that it’s none of my business. Well, hon, your paintings are spectacular. Maybe you could talk one of the local restaurants into exhibiting them. You might even get a sale or two out of it.”
“And which restaurant might that be? The Jackson Diner?”
Paula grinned. “You’re right. The pickings are pretty slim around here. Maybe the IGA wasn’t such a bad idea, after all. I’ll keep my eyes and ears open. You never know what might turn up.”
Her day with Paula had been an enjoyable diversion, but Rose’s enjoyment was clouded by the fact that Jesse was still sleeping in the den, and was aloofly polite whenever their paths happened to cross. The battle lines were drawn, and they both declined to cross those invisible barriers. He never came into her painting studio, and she steadfastly refused to enter his den. The kids knew that something was wrong; Jesse made no attempt to hide the fact that he had moved out of their bedroom and into the den, and Ros
e could see the questions in their eyes every time she and Jesse were in the same room. But none of them voiced those silent questions, and for that, Rose was grateful, for she had no idea how she would have answered.
She was on the phone with her brother one morning when she looked up to see Torey Spaulding standing in the doorway to her office. “Call you back later,” she said abruptly, and hung up. She eyed Torey for a moment. “Kids feeling better?”
The girl had the grace to blush. “Sorry.”
Rose tapped her pen against the edge of her desk. “You don’t have to apologize to me. This isn’t about me. This is about you. I’m just doing my job. If you want my help, fine.” She combed tired fingers through her tangled locks. “If you don’t, that’s also fine. But don’t screw around with me.”
For a moment, she thought Torey might bolt. The young woman gulped and looked around furtively, and Rose sighed in resignation. “Come in,” she said. “Shut the door and sit down.”
Torey shut the door behind her and sat gingerly on the edge of the chair, only the toes of her dingy canvas sneakers touching the floor, as if she were poised for flight. “Bud told me about you coming out to the trailer. He said if I even talked to you again, he’d teach me a lesson I wouldn’t forget.”
Rose sat up straight. “He threatened you?”
In a small, resigned voice, Torey said, “Yeah.”
Appalled, Rose said, “That’s illegal. You could have him arrested.”
“Right.” Torey’s laugh was brittle.
Rose shuffled some papers on her desk while she struggled to control her rampant emotions. “Are you afraid of him?”
“Look, Mrs. Lindstrom, he’s hit me before. I don’t want no trouble. I should’ve stayed away from here.” She stood up so abruptly, she nearly knocked over her chair. “I gotta go.”
“Torey!”
But she was gone. “Jesus, Mary and Joseph,” Rose sputtered. She grabbed her coat and headed out in hot pursuit.
She caught up with Torey in the parking lot. The young woman paused next to a dirty gray sedan, its windows sticky with fingerprints. Inside, her sister waited behind the wheel, and several toddlers climbed back and forth between the seats. Torey flattened herself against the side of the car. “He has guns,” she said. “Four or five of ‘em. When he wants to remind me who’s in charge, he takes ‘em all out and cleans ‘em.”
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