Paper Castles

by Terri Lee

  “More like the talk of Savannah society. Good God, Price, listen to yourself. This is a marriage. Not a contract for you to manipulate and score points against your opponent in rounds of negotiations. I don’t even know you anymore.”

  “Save it for your attorney. And he better be a good one. You’re unfit to be a mother. Count on this—you’ll never have those kids.”

  He walked towards the front door as if he were merely leaving to get the Sunday paper, while behind him Savannah screamed at the top of her lungs.

  “Get the hell out of my life. I hate you!” She hurled her glass at his departing back, but it hit the wall instead, shattering into a thousand pieces.

  “Daddy,” Angela called after the slamming door.

  Savannah turned to see her children and Neenie at the top of the stairs. The screaming had obviously drawn everyone from their beds. Collateral damage gathered around the bomb site in their pajamas.

  Angela was sobbing, PJ had his arm around her shoulders.

  “Go back to bed,” Savannah ordered, unable to deal with anything else. She grabbed her coat, purse and a bottle of vodka. She picked her way through the broken glass and slammed the door behind her so hard it rattled in its frame. She’d already woken her family. She wasn’t concerned if she woke up the entire neighborhood with the squealing of tires as she peeled out of the driveway.

  “Savannah, Honey, wake up.” Neenie was shaking her shoulders.

  Savannah rolled over, one eye open and squinting into the late morning light. “What? I can’t right now, Neenie.” She pulled the blanket over her face.

  Neenie was pulling back the covers. “You have to. Two policemen are downstairs.”

  “What?” Savannah struggled to sit up. “What’s going on?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, what did they say?” She was sliding her feet into a pair of slippers. Her arms felt unattached as she fumbled with the sleeves on her robe.

  “They wouldn’t say nothing, just that they needed to talk to the missus.”

  Neenie held out a sleeve and Savannah shoved one arm through, turning to catch the other sleeve. Tying the sash on her robe, her slippered feet skimmed the stairs.

  Two officers were standing in the front hall, as if at attention, except for fingers that tapped a nervous dance on the brim of their hats.

  “Good morning.” Savannah said, running a hand through her hair.

  The older officer extended his hand. “Good morning. I’m Sergeant Glennon. May we sit down?”

  “Certainly.” Savannah led them to the living room.

  Sgt. Glennon barely perched on the edge of the sofa before he began. “I’m afraid we have some bad news.”

  Of course it was bad news. Police officers never showed up at your front door with balloons.

  “Your husband was found dead this morning.”

  Obviously the officer felt it was best to rip the band-aid off without hesitation. But Savannah was ill-prepared for such bluntness.

  Dead.

  The word swelled into a lump at the back of her throat, unable to be swallowed. She slumped into the chair cushions, an inner tube with the air let out. Her thoughts were trying to find their way out of the left-over fog from last night and comprehend what they’d just heard.

  “Found?” she heard her own small voice reaching out. For some reason found didn’t fit with dead. It hovered in the air, waiting for the other puzzle piece to snap into place. In order for Price to have been found, he had to have been missing in the first place.

  Neenie rushed from the living room doorway to Savannah’s side, grabbing Savannah’s cold hands in hers.

  “Found where?” Savannah asked.

  “In his office,” Sgt. Glennon said.

  “His office?” She could only parrot his words. Following him around in circles. As if repeating would unlock some hidden meaning.

  “Yes, ma’am. He’d been shot.”

  “Shot.”

  The word rang out as if it too had been shot from a revolver into the room. It ricocheted off the family portrait hanging over the fireplace and landed with a thud at Savannah’s feet in a pair of pink slippers.

  “Sweet Jesus,” Neenie whispered.

  Savannah heard the squealing of brakes on asphalt as time screeched to a halt and she slammed into a dead end.

  Her hand moved in slow motion to catch a scream that didn’t come.

  She stared at the two officers. The younger of them looked away, unable to hold her gaze, but Sgt. Glennon stared back, unblinking. Sympathy was etched on his face, tempered by years of training.

  Expectancy hung in the air. Savannah searched their faces, waiting on them. Waiting for them to do something? But they were done. They’d delivered the news and were waiting for her to dismiss them.

  They were simply doing a job. Sgt. Glennon and his partner would get up from this couch, leave her house and go on to other business. Carry on with their day and their routine. Perhaps stop for a bite to eat, then go home to their wives. Their lives would continue uninterrupted. Hers was completely changed.

  Sgt. Glennon might have delivered the news with an economy of words, but the brief sentences were all it took for Savannah’s world to slip off its axis and send her tumbling through the rabbit hole. She landed in a place where words made no sense.

  Price was dead. Her husband had been murdered.

  SAVANNAH LAY across the bed in her old room at her parents’ house. Butter-colored walls and shelves crammed with books and decked with ribbons from art contests. A smiling teenager with pom-poms in hand taunted her from a corner of the dressing table mirror, laughing as if the edge of the world was no further than the end zone on a football field.

  These were souvenirs belonging to someone else. Not to the woman whose husband was murdered several days ago.

  She didn’t want to look at them, but didn’t have the strength to roll over. She closed her eyes instead. Exhaustion had replaced the marrow in her bones, yet sleep still eluded her. How she’d managed to navigate the last days was beyond her comprehension.

  Dozens of decisions demanded to be made when she was least capable of thinking clearly. Thank God for her parents. And Kip who’d caught a late night flight the day of the news. Her father and brother ushered her through the funeral arrangements as if she were a mute child. The most required of her was a nod of the head and a quick signature on a check.

  Rebecca and Ben arrived from Atlanta, making two more bodies in the house giving support. Their kids laughed and played in the yard, immune to the thick smog of grief choking Savannah and her children. Rebecca sat holding her hand most nights while the two of them curled up in Savannah’s bed. Only Rebecca ended up falling asleep, wrapped in the security of a living spouse and an intact family. Savannah stared at the ceiling or blinked at the clock, embarrassed by how Rebecca’s peacefulness annoyed her.

  Savannah wanted to be a tower of strength, the place where her kids ran for shelter. They demanded her time and they needed answers, but she could only stare at them blankly. Useless, she patted their heads and mumbled, “Everything’s going to be all right.”

  It killed her to know they didn’t believe her.

  During the funeral service today, both Palmerton children were distant, pulled inward, barricaded behind walls Savannah had never seen before. From under black netting, Savannah stared at PJ.

  Price, Jr., now the man of the house. He’d shaved this morning. Not that he needed to, but shaved the way Price taught him: always with slow deliberate down-strokes. Never across.

  A little nick glared red on his cheek. He sat straight and strong, wearing one of Price’s favorite ties and holding back the tears through sheer force of will. His jaw was clenched, spine like an iron bar, but Savannah noticed his nails, ragged and chewed to the quick. He was fifteen, trying hard to be a man.

  Angela wanted nothing to do with Savannah, and Savannah could hardly blame her. Angela went to bed with her mother’s hate-fill
ed words strewn across the floor amidst broken glass. She woke up to the news that her father was dead. The independent events were linked in her thirteen-year old mind and she was inconsolable.

  She refused to sit by Savannah at the funeral, turning shoulders into her grandmother’s arms instead. She buried her face in Beverly’s chest, blocking out her mother and the world with all its unanswered questions.

  It stung but Savannah owned it, accepting Angela’s venom as her due. She wondered if Beverly once felt this same hollow ache whenever Savannah turned away from her and toward Neenie.

  Savannah wanted to turn away from it all too. Away from the whispers and the prying barely disguised behind words of comfort. Church ladies hungry for salacious details in exchange for a tuna casserole.

  I’m so sorry for your loss, honey. What happened?

  No one knew anything. She’d spent hours talking to the police and they were still no closer to an answer. Or if they were, they weren’t telling her.

  “So were you aware your husband didn’t come home the night of the murder?” Detective Mueller asked, reading over his notes in a worn notebook.

  “No,” she said. “I didn’t wake up until the police arrived.” She resented the cavalier way the detective used the word murder. As if it was interchangeable with any other noun: Were you aware that your husband didn’t come home the night of the golf tournament? She kept turning murder over in her hands. No matter which way she tried to hold it, it kept slipping through her fingers as if it were a wet bar of soap.

  “Is it usual for him not to come home?” the detective asked.

  Savannah knew the questions were routine, but in her ears they were sordid, tawdry, pressing her to reveal dirty details.

  “No. I mean, yes.”

  Dammit, get yourself together. Use simple words and just answer the questions.

  “I mean, it wasn’t unusual for him to stay late at the office, but it was unusual for him not to come home at all.”

  Detective Mueller wrote something down. “Do you have any idea who’d want to see him dead? Business partners? A case he was working on?

  A jealous husband.

  “Price specialized in international corporate law,” she said aloud. “I know his current case was writing contracts for a large merger. But I don’t know details about the case. Or anything, really, about his day-to-day dealings.”

  She said nothing about seeing him on the terrace with another woman. Nothing about the previous affairs, the fights or the argument before Price left the house for the last time. She’d give the detectives facts, not gossip.

  Mueller and his partner had shown up at the funeral this morning. For all their attempts at anonymity, they may as well have been in full uniform. They hovered at the edge of the mourners, watching the services behind dark sunglasses, as if they had something to hide. Savannah was annoyed at the sight of vultures in black trench coats, circling the dead.

  No doubt it was a juicy case: a high-profile attorney from one of the state’s most prominent families, married into the family of both a retired State Supreme Court Justice and a United States Congressman. It was a detective’s wet dream.

  When Savannah saw Mueller snapping pictures at the cemetery, she fumed in outrage and started to walk over to give him a piece of her mind. Kip put a hand on her arm and held her still.

  “It’s routine,” he said under his breath. “They have to look at everyone in Price’s circle. Someone had a reason to kill him. It’s their job to find out who.”

  Savannah was still shaking, glaring at the two men as Kip gently led her away.

  “Come on Sis, let’s go home.”

  Home was Beverly’s house. There the Kendall’s linked arms and formed a protective cocoon for Savannah and her children. A soft place to rest their heads. A place without questions. Now Savannah lay in her childhood room, wishing she could never leave.

  Her reserves were depleted. If the house caught fire, she wouldn’t be able to get up and run.

  Anger piled up next to her on the chenille bedspread. Anger at Price and his recklessness. Anger at a dead husband with no answers. What in the world had Price gotten himself into? Perhaps he hadn’t been meeting a woman after all. Had he gotten in over his head with some unsavory client?

  A soft knock on the door. “Are you awake?” Beverly called.

  “Always,” Savannah said.

  Beverly came in and walked over to open the curtains on the large bay window.

  “I wanted those closed,” Savannah mumbled.

  Her mother stood by the bed now. “People are beginning to arrive. You need to get downstairs and tend to your guests.”

  “I’m not having a party, Momma, and I don’t feel like tending to my guests.”

  “It’s not about how you feel. It’s about what is the proper thing to do.”

  “What exactly is the proper thing to do when your husband’s been murdered?”

  “It’s proper to acknowledge these people took time out of their busy day to come and pay their respects. The least you can do is thank them.” Beverly’s fingertips were cool as she smoothed the hair on Savannah’s forehead. “No one is expecting you to make witty conversation. Why don’t you freshen up and I’ll see you in a few minutes.”

  “I don’t want to come downstairs. I can’t do anymore, Momma. I’m sure everyone will understand”

  “No, they won’t. People see the world through their own lenses. They’ll think you were rude. That’s the memory they’ll walk out of here with, not understanding. You need to hold your head high and be polite to your guests. There’ll be enough time to fall apart later.”

  Beverly came from another generation, where good manners were the boat that could navigate you through any situation. Even funerals. Especially funerals. But Savannah wasn’t from her mother’s generation and she was tired of trying to live up to standards that no longer fit her circumstances.

  “Must my entire life be a charade?” she said staring at the chasm between her and Beverly. Her mother’s hands were on her hips now, impatience tight around her mouth. Dark circles rimmed her eyes along with a few new lines.

  “I don’t know about the rest of your life,” she said. “But this afternoon will be a charade if it needs to be. There’s been enough talk around here as it is. Now come downstairs.”

  “God forbid people talk,” Savannah said, even as she swung her legs over the side of the bed and got up. Lessons instilled at an early age were hard habits to break. Beverly said “Come downstairs,” in that tone of voice and Savannah came.

  She sat at her little dressing table, staring at her reflection. It would take more than a little freshening up to get the job done.

  Beverly walked to the door with a satisfied smile. “I’ll tell them you’re coming. We’ll talk later.”

  Yes, they’d talk later as long as it wasn’t about Savannah.

  As she brushed her hair, she thought if she pulled up the dust ruffle and looked under her bed she’d find the stack of things she wasn’t allowed to talk about. Right where she left them all her life. Shoved up against the back wall and covered with cobwebs.

  SAVANNAH DRIFTED through the living room and dining room, moving through the crush of people and gathering up their kind words, hugs, and tears. She felt the probing, measuring eyes, judging if she was crying too much or not enough. She despised being on display this way, with snippets of conversation floating in her wake, some landing close enough to hear.

  “So brave,” someone whispered. “Just like Jackie Kennedy.”

  Ah yes, the Jackie Kennedy stoicism, strength and composure layered over the deadness inside. Beverly would love that one.

  Other comments were less kind, sliding around a discreet hand covering a pair of lips in the perfect shade of red.

  “Well, bless her heart,” a country club acquaintance cooed. “Did you hear...?”

  Et tu Brute’? Savannah kept walking, lest the dagger find its home.

  She saw
her in-laws, Ken and Doris Palmerton, sitting in a corner of the sun room. Huddled close together, shoulders and legs perfectly aligned. Holding one another up like weathered bookends. Savannah thought they looked much smaller than when she’d seen them a few months ago. Price had died, taking essential bits of them with him. Price was an only child, an older brother having died at birth. His parents were truly alone, now. They had that vacant look associated with shell-shocked soldiers. People who had seen one too many atrocities, their eyes refusing to see anything else.

  She hesitated to approach them, only because she was so little comfort. With no strength, explanation or information to offer, she was helpless in the face of their grief. She felt like a traitor, going to console them with her mixed emotions about Price held behind her back.

  Beverly’s words nudged her shoulder.

  It’s not about what you feel. It’s about the proper thing to do.

  Savannah took a deep breath and squeezed between the couple on the window seat, taking Doris’s hand in hers. This woman had lost her son. Savannah didn’t have any words as a grieving wife but she could connect with Doris as a mother.

  “Can I get you anything?” she said, stroking the thin hands. Blue veins like live wires ran across the top of papery skin.

  Doris shook her head, lips trembling. Savannah sat still, letting the moment breathe on its own and be enough. It was a relief to just sit and be quiet. No need for fake words that didn’t help anyone. The two women sat together in their misery, and it occurred to Savannah, that sadly, this was probably the most intimate moment she had shared with her mother-in-law.

  Ken stretched his legs in front of him. “I need some fresh air.”

  “That sounds like a good idea,” Savannah said. “Take a walk around the garden, Doris. Look for the New Dawn roses growing over the back fence. Remember, I took cuttings from your garden before you moved. You won’t believe how big it is now.”

  Doris nodded and Savannah watched them lean on one another as they walked away, heads bent, not the least bit interested in roses.

  With a sigh, Savannah stood up and went searching for her own children. PJ was in the kitchen with some school friends. Even death unable to quell the appetite of adolescent boys. The amount of food piled up in the kitchen was vulgar. They could have opened up a pantry for the poor.