Echoes of Family

by Barbara Claypole White

  Her phone buzzed with another text from Darius: How’s the date going? If it doesn’t work out, I can fix you up with this really cute guitarist.

  Stay out of my personal life, boss.

  Can’t. I’m worried about you.

  I’m fine.

  You’re not.

  Am so. He’s here. Gotta go. ’Bye! Jade turned her phone off and picked a table overlooking the crowded play area down below. One of the tots waddled away from the sand toward the pond, but his mom sprang into action and scooped him up with a laugh. Jesse had been that way—always wandering off if she didn’t keep eyes on him. As he got older he followed her everywhere, clinging to her like a security blanket when he was way too old for such things. These days he probably didn’t trust anyone enough to even offer a hug.

  She turned and smiled at six feet five of Ricky Tanner. Most southerners were slow talkers but not Ricky, a guy who’d told her that while he talked fast, he listened slow. An ex-cop, he was now a private eye. When they met he’d been painting over a racial slur on Winnie’s café door. He stopped, paintbrush dripping, to reassure Jade that he was doing some off-the-books detecting to make sure the little punk responsible knew that to mess with Winnie meant to take on Ricky Tanner. Jade had liked him straight off, despite the knit shirts that screamed frat boy.

  He’d picked up a tan since then. She couldn’t remember where he’d been—Ocean Isle? Topsail? The tan accentuated the testosterone image created by the Incredible Hulk biceps. Her mind bounced back to Gabriel in his worn U2 T-shirt and baggy jeans.

  Ricky grinned at her muffin. “Darn, this was going to be my treat. Get you anything else?” He flashed perfect molars, and she tried not to think about Gabriel’s sexy gap between his front teeth. Longing tiptoed down the length of her. Missing him was getting worse.

  Before she could think of a witty reply, Ricky jetted off to the counter. He fiddled endlessly with his phone, occasionally bobbing his head up to talk to the young woman filling his order.

  “You look pretty,” he said as he settled across from her with his herbal tea. “Did you change your hair? How’s work going? Your boss back yet?”

  Ricky could cram several thoughts into one sentence. It took a while to unpack them.

  “Like it—” he said. “The new hairdo.”

  Jade held up a handful of hair. “It’s called neglect.”

  Ricky examined his watch. “Guess I need a new battery. Sorry I’m late.” He raised his head. “Lucinda Williams is coming to Saxapahaw next week. Should be quite a show. I have an extra ticket. Wanna join me?”

  That was definitely a date. “I’m a little music’d out these days.”

  “No problem.” He checked his phone. “Another time?”

  A red cardinal, the male of the species, landed on the ledge next to her and preened himself—the feathered version of a beefcake, all bright and well pressed, not unlike Ricky. She looked down at her half-eaten muffin, wishing she could call Gabriel. Who was she kidding? She couldn’t do this. Jade wrapped up what was left of her muffin in a napkin. “How do you know I don’t have a hulking boyfriend tucked away?”

  “I’m a detective, remember. I did my job.”

  “If you weren’t an ex-cop, I’d tell you that’s creepy.”

  “Didn’t want to make a fool of myself.” He nodded at her muffin. “Don’t leave, I just got here.”

  It was cute, that touch of vulnerability. And one drink with Ricky Tanner might not be so bad. She needed a life, and he wasn’t a total dud. Likely as not he talked slower when he was drunk. And he was way closer to her age than Gabriel, which had to be good, right?

  “How about a drink one night next week.” She unwrapped her muffin. “After I’ve figured out my work schedule.”

  And then he talked at warp speed while she listened.

  But how many drinks would it take before she could see Ricky and not Gabriel? Figuring out the standard recovery period for falling head-over-ass in love was so far out of her experience it belonged in another galaxy, in another dimension, in another time zone. Five hours away.

  FIFTY-ONE

  MARIANNE

  The cold predawn air slapped her awake as she stood in Gabriel’s minuscule front yard, waving to Darius’s retreating taxi. Summer wasn’t attempting to hold on for an encore. It had given up the stage.

  She’d begun missing Darius the moment he booked the plane ticket. A wacko thought even for a wacko. It was her choice to stay; her choice that he leave. Everything was always her choice, but new Ultimatum Darius was pretty damn sexy. Who knew he had the superpower to pin her against a wall and within seconds have her panting, “Yes, honey; no, honey; three bags full, honey.” And the sex? Newlywed orgasmic, despite being in a vicarage with a framed picture of a crying angel passing judgment.

  The taxi reached the end of the lane and she ran to the metal gate, gripping it to stop herself from running out into Nell’s Lane, screeching, Don’t leave me. Which would be super embarrassing for Gabriel. Yes, Bill Collins had closed down his gossip mill, but he wasn’t the only one who’d been eyeing her up as a hybrid of Nell Gwyn and a she-devil.

  The taxi’s brake lights lit up, and the rear door flew open.

  “Love you, my goddess,” Darius called out. Then he slammed the door and was gone.

  “Love you too,” she said into the fading night. A few houses down, a cat mewed, and then? Silence. A smell of bonfire lingered in the lane; the only light came from Gabriel’s front door, left ajar.

  Marianne pulled her cardigan around her and went back inside. She had one week to do this thing, to confront the man who rose early to make Darius breakfast and then disappeared back into his bedroom without tossing her a bread crumb of a greeting.

  After Darius announced at Saturday night dinner that he was leaving on Monday morning and Marianne was staying for one more week, Gabriel retreated to his study pleading more work than a CEO sitting on multiple nonprofit boards. Highly unlikely scenario. Something in her eulogy had scared him off, and he wanted her gone.

  Tough shit, because she was staying and throwing down the gauntlet. They were going to relive that night. Even if she had to drug him, strap him to a chair, and hold him hostage. She hadn’t figured out the drug part of the scenario, but how hard could it be in a country that sold codeine over the counter?

  She tiptoed up the stairs and cast a glance at Gabriel’s closed—probably bolted—door. If he could have planted a minefield outside his bedroom, he probably would have. Did he not remember how stubborn she could be?

  “Game on, Gabriel,” she muttered, half hoping he was awake and listening.

  But the moment she closed her door, the absence of Darius returned for another swing. She stared at her Queen Bee bag, waiting to be packed. As was the sparkly new suitcase Darius had bought for all her purchases, the ones they hadn’t been able to return. A stay in the mental hospital wasn’t, apparently, a viable excuse for extending the thirty-day refund policy.

  In one week she and those bags would be home. Back to her life. And Gabriel would be alone in his secondhand house.

  Suppose Darius was right—again, unlikely scenario, but Bill Collins’s recent behavior confirmed the existence of miracles—and her crazy-ass stunt to put the past to rest meant she was on a collision course with Gabriel’s peace of mind for a second time? Or was that a third time? When you were a human wrecking ball, it was hard to keep things straight.

  And underneath, that egocentric thought burned: What if he still loved her? EmJ had died believing it, and Hugh seemed to believe it—from what Marianne had overheard. Surely love was the most logical explanation for Gabriel’s sudden strategy of retreat. Not that her penchant for men on the Dark Side gave her much experience of normal guy behavior: Simon. Exhibit A. Looking back—got to love hindsight—Simon was dancing with depression when he stumbled into her secret world with Gabriel. Wandering around the village by himself late at night with a stolen bottle of vodka? Very suspect. An
d he fell into their sexual games with less care than she did. Maybe the only thing Simon wanted from her was escape. Maybe that was the reason he’d agreed, so easily, to keeping their liaison hidden.

  Thoughts to consider as she began erasing her presence from Gabriel’s house. First job? Return this room to the way it had been. Next up, she would do a walk through the rectory. Reclaim the possessions she’d strewn all over and return the borrowed items—his iron, his laundry basket, his T-shirts.

  The beds were easy to push apart, the nightstand a bit trickier to wrestle into its space. She made noise, but Gabriel didn’t appear, not even to tell her off for disturbing Phyllis. Marianne picked up the old nursing chair—so light—and something rattled. Setting it down, she pushed aside the ruffle of the slipcover and eased open the drawer. It was empty but for a small velvet box. Sinking to her knees, Marianne flipped it open, and a memory tumbled out: Gabriel hoarding his allowance for a year; Gabriel asking for money for his birthday and not spending it; Gabriel working two jobs the Easter before the crash and still always broke. When she’d asked what he was doing with all that money, he’d grinned and said, “You’ll see.”

  “Goddammit, Gabriel,” she said. “Why did you have to buy me a ring?”

  And not any ring. A diamond solitaire. A ring that symbolized endurance, perseverance. Love that was meant to last a lifetime. A ring so different from the one on her left hand that sparkled a declaration: I have married into the Montgomery clan, a family famous for raising racehorses in Kentucky. Darius was the black sheep from the day he learned to walk. He hated horses. Worse, he was scared of them. His passion had always been music. Apparently he was a genetic throwback to a disowned great-uncle who’d spent his life touring speakeasies with a bluegrass band. The ache for him returned.

  The small diamond glinted at her like a novelty from a fairground, a toy that was never meant to be more than an understudy. Another memory played: being at the party with Gabriel on the night of the crash. They were outside waiting for his mom to pick them up and they were laughing. Gabriel leaned in to whisper: “Meet me later at the cemetery. I’ve got an early birthday present for you.” When he pulled back, Simon was watching. Events had been set in motion.

  She snapped the lid shut. Obviously the ring wasn’t meant to be found; obviously the right thing would be to put it back and walk away. But she had a long history of doing the wrong thing.

  Marianne placed the box on the nightstand in front of the digital alarm clock. The ring would stay there until she figured how to crack Gabriel. There was one memory he didn’t have, and it was hers to give. If he still loved her, it was a game changer, and so was that ring. Which meant they were visiting hell together one last time, because she owed him her life, and it was time to return his.

  Marianne stayed in her room until late morning. When she emerged, her heart thumping a Latin dance beat, she found a note pinned by the french press to the middle of the kitchen table. Gabriel had left her half the pot, long cold.

  “‘Gone all day. Home late. Feel free to forage,’” she read aloud, her voice steady in the empty house.

  Right. Plan A out the window. She grabbed a mug to nuke some coffee and exhaled. She didn’t have to do this. Day one was a washout, but she still had six to go.

  Then the next day went down the tubes, too. Gabriel was an absentee homeowner, and Marianne spent the morning at the cemetery. She sat on the spiky grass by her baby’s grave, damp with dew, and tried to remember the moment that had forever changed the history of two families. But the crash kept its secrets. Then she returned to the rectory, fixed simple meals, did a load of laundry, and made herself useful by answering the phone and taking messages for Gabriel. That night she called Darius, who suggested phone sex, and Skyped with Jade. Jade had lost weight and needed a haircut.

  Marianne was beginning—in baby steps that didn’t scream I’m manic—to take an interest in the studio again. Interest was good; interest came back to desire, to living. Lying in bed that night, she almost conned herself into believing the past didn’t matter. But the ring, still on her nightstand, told a different story.

  The following morning Marianne decided to come clean about finding the ring. It was hardly her fault she’d discovered it. But Gabriel continued to be a no-show.

  Post-supper-for-one she was on her way upstairs to Skype Jade when the phone rang. Something to do! Another message to take. Hell’s bells, she could have been a church secretary. She shot into Gabriel’s bedroom and, launching herself across the unmade bed with the duvet tossed to the floor, grabbed the receiver.

  “Good evening. Newton Rushford rectory.”

  It was a young woman, wanting to talk with Gabriel about a christening. Marianne couldn’t help herself; she asked for details. How old was the baby? What was her name? The mom chatted away: only six months old, and little Sarah was trying to crawl.

  Marianne said, “Cherish every moment.”

  The baby started fussing and the mother’s voice switched from friendly to harried. “Look, can you have him call me?”

  “Sure. Let me get your name and number.” Marianne opened Gabriel’s nightstand and felt around for a pen and a piece of paper. The baby started bawling. Marianne tugged the drawer free and dumped its contents on the bed. “Hang on a sec . . .”

  Nightstands were intimate places. She stashed all her memorabilia in hers: the last birthday card from her mom, a short story Jade had written at eighteen, a paper napkin from the Looking Glass Café with Darius’s cell phone number scribbled on it, their wedding invitation. Gabriel’s stash was oddly impersonal: a battered Book of Common Prayer, a broken watch with a worn leather strap, a nearly full prescription bottle of sleeping pills that had expired a year ago.

  The mom lost patience, said she had to go. Marianne was still apologizing when the phone line went dead. A rogue wave of grief rolled in from nowhere. Marianne covered her face with her hands and cried.

  The next thing she knew, Gabriel was standing over her. “Marianne. What are you doing in my bed?”

  She shot up and jumped to the floor. “I know this looks bad, but a young mom wanted to talk about a christening for a six-month-old called Sarah, and I was trying to take down her number but you don’t even keep a pen in that drawer.” Way to go, Marianne, blame him. “I didn’t mean to fall asleep, but all these drugs make me . . .”

  He backed away from her as if she were contagious.

  “I’m sorry. I just wanted to help.” She grabbed the drawer and shoved it back into his nightstand. He didn’t offer to help.

  “I’d like you to leave my bedroom,” he said quietly.

  And she ran to the guest room and slammed the door.

  She slept late the next day, and when she came down, Gabriel was shut in his study with multiple voices. Another meeting. She wrote a note and left it on the kitchen table, and because it was time to vary the note pinning, secured it with the pepper grinder.

  “Please come to Café Stokes for dinner tonight. 7:30 p.m. in the kitchen.”

  Then she went for a ramble across Dead Woman. When she came back, her note had been replaced with a new one, secured by the fruit bowl.

  “Most generous offer, but I must decline. I have a PCC meeting. Back late.”

  It was the sort of note that you might leave out for a B-and-B guest, not for someone you’d once bought an engagement ring for. She balled up the note and tossed it in the recycling. Enough. He could play ostrich all he liked, but she was done pussyfooting around him. They could talk when he was finished with the business of the parish. But Gabriel walked in around ten thirty p.m. with his lay band, and they retreated into the study, leaving behind a smell of beer and muffled laughter.

  Marianne went upstairs and began preparing for her eleven p.m. lights-out. But as she waited for the sleep meds to kick in, she plotted. Time was running out, and tomorrow was do or die.

  FIFTY-TWO

  MARIANNE

  Marianne towel-dried her hair. R
ub, rub, rub. Mornings were normally a bitch on this level of her meds, but she’d sprung awake with her alarm and rushed straight into that tepid shower. Rub, rub, rub. Such a sensible choice to turn the heat way down and not drain the hot-water tank that was smaller than a bucket. Rub, rub, rub. Such a sensible choice to keep the shower short when Gabriel was so big on all things green. Rub, rub, rub. So many logical, selfless decisions right now she could spit.

  She threw the damp towel on the floor and twizzled her index fingers around each other. All these jitters over talking to Gabriel. The honest kid who’d turned into a thief for her. Plain ol’ Gabriel. Okay, so never plain, not even in the gawky pubescent stage.

  Stop, Marianne. Nothing matters except the present moment. Time to remember some radical acceptance coping statements. Why was therapy always such a mouthful?

  “This moment is as it should be,” she recited, “given all that’s happened before.”

  She spread her fingers, held them still, and then brushed her arms through the air, as if parting a red sea of adrenaline.

  I’ve got this. I’m making breakfast for an old friend. Just. Making. Breakfast.

  She tiptoed down the stairs, brewed the coffee, and started grating cheese for cheesy scrambled eggs. No—she put down the grater and chopped up an onion and green pepper—omelets were a better choice. Wholesome and substantial, more formal. Business-meeting-type food. Besides, handling a huge knife without a little voice saying, “Go on, stick that blade into your arm and give it a twist,” was strangely gratifying.

  Gabriel padded in, feet bare, hair sticking up, a few minutes before seven forty-five a.m. He touched the side of the french press.

  “Fresh!” she said.

  He yanked back his hand as if the cheer in her voice had scalded him. So much cheer. Enough to give them both third-degree burns. Crap, he might translate that as abnormal cheer. Manic cheer.