Beyond Midnight

by Antoinette Stockenberg

  Yes. Unconnected. A series of coincidences. What did they have in common, really? Nothing. What did the smell of the sea have to do with the smell of perfume? What did the knockings have to do with the headaches? Nothing, nothing, nothing!

  No, that wasn't true. There was one thing. And damn it, it was a big thing: they'd started on the day that Linda Byrne died.

  For Nathaniel Byrne to have smelled Enchantra—for his wife to have used Enchantra—went beyond coincidence. But what was the connection, then? Did the spirit world communicate with people who shared their brand of perfume? What about lipstick, in that case? And shampoo? It was absurd.

  Helen believed—as her husband had not—in an afterlife. What kind of afterlife, she wasn't sure. But she believed that men and women and children and their love for one another were too wonderful for it all to end at death. And so she expected—truly expected—to be reunited somehow, somewhere, in some form, with those she loved in the course of her life. And it would be nice if Hank would cooperate.

  But this! This didn't fit in with her theory at all. She didn't know Linda Byrne—if that's who was behind all this—from Hillary Clinton. A single phone conversation wasn't enough to form a basis for haunting, not according to Helen's system, anyway. What possible connection could they have to one another?

  Katie. It must have to do with Katie. Linda Byrne had been so fierce, so dedicated a mother that her spirit was hanging around to make sure that Katie was well taken care of. It made a crazy kind of sense. It would explain the extraordinary concern Helen had been showing for Katie's welfare. Maybe all mothers were connected on some mystical plane. In that case, Linda Byrne had come to the right place. Her little girl would be in good hands at The Open Door.

  "You can rest easy, Mrs. Byrne," Helen whispered rather whimsically to the air around her. "Truly."

  Somehow, in her naiveté, Helen thought the reassurance would be enough.

  As she pulled up in front of her house Helen saw her son hunched on the bottom step, waiting for her. His denim jacket was no match for the sharp sea breeze that was blowing in off the ocean. She thought about running in for something warmer for him to wear, but what would be the point? He wouldn't put it on, anyway.

  She swung the car door open while Russ, an expert by now with crutches, deftly tossed them into the back and slid into the seat alongside her. "Sorry I'm late," she said to him. "I got held up at school."

  Russ shrugged. "It won't be my fault if Dr. Welby's pissed."

  "Cool it, would you?" she said tiredly.

  He was still angry over the grounding she'd imposed after the accident: one full month, with no hope of parole. It was the stiffest punishment he'd ever got, and the sad thing was, Helen was sure she'd be upping the ante in the future. She glanced at her son, his chin set in stony silence, his hands slapping his thighs to an imaginary beat.

  She wanted to say things like, "It's for your own good," and "You'll thank me when you're older"; but, again, what would be the point? They'd hashed all through that on the day after the accident when she'd thrown every parental cliché she could think of at him and had got only sullen nods in response.

  One thing was depressingly true: he'd already had his first ride in a stolen car. The sixteen-year-old driver, who'd suffered broken ribs and internal injuries, had taken his cousin's car without permission and now the cousin was pressing charges. The police had gone easy on Russ and the other two passengers (who all thought the driver had permission) but there was nothing they could do about the angry cousin's legal vendetta.

  Russ had been scandalized at the thought that a man would turn on his own relation and had muttered darkly about friends being the only blood you could count on. That sounded ominously like gang talk to Helen, but when she grilled her son further she was satisfied that he was talking through his Pearl Jam hat.

  In the meantime, the grounding was in force. And after Russ got rid of his crutches—which he surely would do today—it was going to be a lot harder to make it stick. God, he was exhausting to raise.

  If only he'd stayed on the basketball team. Or kept up with his keyboard lessons. Or agreed to work on the school paper. He had the talent to do any and all of those things well, but he was scorning them as too demanding or too wussy. So here he was, smart and bored. It was a scary combination.

  They had to wait forty-five minutes for the doctor, but fortunately for both of them there was a dog-eared copy of Sports Illustrated in the reception room. Russ scooped it up and hid behind its pages the whole time, leaving his mother to scan an even more battered copy of Good Housekeeping, its pages stripped of recipes, its Christmas ideas too late to use for the past holiday, too early to remember for the next one.

  When their turn came, Russ was pronounced fit to roam and was allowed to leave on his own two feet.

  It was anybody's guess where he'd go from there.

  ****

  The next evening Russell decided to drag out his electronic keyboard, which made Helen as happy as if he'd made the honor roll. He was doing something at home. Today, the keyboard, tomorrow, who knows? Maybe even his homework.

  Tortured notes and fractured chords competed with the moody Beethoven sonatas that Helen played in the kitchen as she busied herself with a little homework of her own. She was determined to find out all she could about Nathaniel Byrne's wife, the devoted mother who wore Enchantra and who died so premature a death.

  Helen had saved Linda Byrne's obituary. It was in front of her on the kitchen table, along with a copy of the funeral announcement that had come out two days later, and an old volume of Who's Who in the Art World that she'd borrowed from a friend. She also had copies of the original engagement and wedding announcements from the Evening News. And that, unfortunately, was it.

  Helen picked up the copy of the grainy engagement photo. Unquestionably, Linda Byrne had been a beautiful woman. Her face was a perfect oval, with wide-set eyes under thinnish arched brows that gave her face a delicacy only blondes seem to possess. It was hard to tell the shape of her nose from the frontal photograph, but there was no doubt about her smile: Her teeth were wide, her lips full. Everything about her was perfect; everything about her radiated confidence. You'd expect a woman like that to run a Fortune 500 company, and possibly to own it.

  Which was what made the funeral announcement so troubling.

  Helen picked up the clipping again and reread the last line of it: "Memorial contributions may be made in her name to the Good Buddies Hotline."

  Why a suicide hotline? Good Buddies was a volunteer organization dedicated to steering people away from whatever abyss they were peering into. Drugs, depression, bereavement, abuse—anything that could push people over the edge was the Good Buddies' concern. Their phone number was posted alongside most of the high bridges in the state.

  Memorial contributions were nearly always directed toward charities that were related to the manner of death. It didn't seem possible that Linda Byrne could have taken her own life, and yet...

  The front door slammed, ending Helen's uneasy reverie, and Becky yelled out, "Oh, no, he's gone back to his music? Gross!"

  Her voice, half-joking, half-groaning, sounded like sleigh bells on a cold dark night. Helen grinned and called out, "You should've heard him an hour ago!"

  Becky popped her head in the kitchen doorway and rolled her eyes. "I mean, give me a break! I can't possibly study here."

  "The Celts are playing in half an hour; he'll be winding down," said Helen. She added, "I kinda like it. It lets me know he hasn't climbed out his bedroom window to escape."

  "Not with that ankle," Becky decided. "Give him a week." Still in her hooded black trench coat, she came over to the table and looked over her mother's shoulder. "More Byrne? Where'd you get all this?"

  Coloring, Helen leaned back in her spindled oak chair and feigned a casual stretch. "Oh, just some stuff I picked up at the library."

  "Are we doing criminal background checks on the parents, too, now? I thou
ght that's what you only did with the staff," Becky quipped, matching her mother's light tone.

  "Don't laugh," Helen said grimly. "Some of the parents probably wouldn't pass."

  But Becky wasn't about to be diverted. She picked up the copy of Linda Byrne's wedding photo and studied it. "Pretty," she said. She put it down and picked up the engagement picture. In a quiet voice she said, "Does all this have something to do with the way you've been acting lately, Mom?"

  Helen had to think about what she should tell her daughter. Except for the time two days earlier when Nat Byrne had smelled Enchantra in Helen's office, Becky was clued in to every weird event so far. She may not actually have heard the tapping in Helen's bedroom, but she certainly understood that her mother had suffered a crushing headache. And even she had smelled the perfume. The temptation for Helen to confide in her levelheaded daughter was irresistible.

  But—resist she must. Becky wasn't versed enough to take part in a discussion about psychic phenomena. Helen had an academic background in psychology; her daughter had, at best, a couple of tabloid TV shows under her belt.

  "Mom?" Becky persisted. "Does it?"

  Helen decided on a half-truth. "In a general way, yes. Linda Byrne's death has affected me. Maybe it's because of that phone conversation we had. There was something in her voice that must've set me off, something that I must've picked up on."

  "Like what?" asked Becky, slipping off her teddy-bear knapsack and letting it drop to the kitchen floor. Her face was wide-eyed and innocent as she sat down in the chair alongside her mother's. "You said she was upset. You said she was sick. Was there more?"

  Without directly answering her daughter's question, Helen shoved the funeral notice at her. "Look at where they wanted contributions to be made."

  Becky understood at once. "Oh. She killed herself."

  Helen was shocked at the ease with which Becky accepted the idea. "Oh, honey," she said, reaching out to stroke her daughter's hair away from her face. "Don't be like that—don't be so blasé about suicide. I know it's a sign of the times, but God, I wish you wouldn't."

  Becky picked up the wedding shot again. "What else could it mean?"

  "I don't know; maybe she called the hotline once and they talked her out of. . . doing something rash. Maybe she was in a postpartum depression after Katie was born," Helen said, struggling to come up with a less downbeat view. "Her hormones could have been out of whack. It happens."

  "And her husband was thankful to the Good Buddies for saving her?" Becky frowned at the black-and-white image, twice removed from reality, that she held in her hand. "I guess it could be the reason. But then why are you so bothered? You should only be sad that she died so young."

  Damn. Her logic was impeccable. This is what happened when you took someone only halfway into your confidence. "Well, look at the circumstances," Helen said lamely. "I was there when she ... died. It was very unusual."

  "So it was the melodrama that affected you?" Becky asked, scrunching her nose in an unconvinced way. "I guess."

  She got up slowly, then picked up her backpack and slung it over one shoulder. "I'll be in my room." She looked at the ceiling after an especially sour note came wafting down from Russ's room. "Trying to study."

  After a step or two she turned around and said to her mother, "If you want to tell me what you really think, you know where to find me."

  * * *

  The next couple of weeks proved to be passable, all things considered. Russ, while not happy, wasn't as disagreeable as Helen feared he'd be during his confinement. He divided his time between the electric keyboard and the TV and spent long hours on the phone with Scotty and one or two other friends. The melodious bong of his computer going on and off filled Helen with the hope that he was using it for something besides games. He was reasonably civil to Becky and positively courteous to his great-aunt Mary. Helen began to feel that the pain of disciplining him was going to pay off, after all.

  She shortened his term by a week.

  In a way, she had no choice; it was getting harder and harder to ride shotgun on the boy. Administrative chores which she'd been putting off were beginning to pile up. Deadlines loomed. Helen needed to be at the preschool more and more, which meant pressing poor Aunt Mary into baby-sitting service more and more. Russ saw the problem for what it was: a question of trust.

  Helen didn't have much of that. It was actually easier to grant Russ his liberty than to hope that he'd keep himself under lock and key.

  I'm pathetic, she decided one afternoon as she plowed through a pile of paperwork. I'm supposed to be an expert on child-rearing, and sometimes I haven't got a clue.

  Her hand reached out to the phone. Russ should just be getting home from school. If he stopped long enough for Oreos, she might be able to catch him before he took off to join his pals at the basketball court. She punched in her home number but got the machine.

  He's come and gone, she decided. Unless he hadn't bothered even to come home first. Maybe she should just slap his face on a milk carton and be done with it, she thought wearily. He was making her nuts.

  Clutching an evaluation form and an OSHA checklist, Helen walked out of her office to Kristy Maylen's classroom. She needed to ask Kristy whether she'd taken the CPR refresher course, and while she was there she thought she'd check the tags on the fire extinguishers in the room.

  Kristy had left. Helen was inside the empty classroom, out of sight of those in the hall, when she heard one of the mothers cry out in surprise, "For heaven's sakes—Nat Byrne! What on earth are you doing here?"

  The voice that answered—the voice that made Helen's heart go banging up against her rib cage—was cooly polite. "Hello, Gwen. Actually, I'm looking for the director."

  "Did you check the playground?"

  "No. Might she be there?"

  "She could be anywhere. Ask Janet to page her."

  "Thanks ... I'll just try her office again."

  Instead of stepping out into the hall to greet them all, Helen hid in the shadow of the door. It was hard enough keeping Becky from learning her off-the-wall suspicions about Linda Byrne; what on earth might she say to the widower? Let him drop off the books—if that's why he was here—and be on his way.

  But in the meantime, Gwen and a woman whose voice Helen didn't recognize were lingering in the hall outside the room. Helen stayed breathlessly quiet as Gwen said, "I hope he's not too grieved to manage my money properly."

  "Him? He's married to his work."

  "They say his wife was gorgeous. Did you know her?"

  "I didn't know her. I knew of her. I heard ...." Here the woman's voice dropped low. "I heard she was in the middle of an intense affair right up until the time she ... you know."

  "Get out. Why would anyone cheat on him?"

  "I can't imagine. And I can't remember who told me. I might've overheard some gossip at a party. Anyway, it doesn't matter; he's a free man now. And rich as sin. She had tons of money of her own, more than he had, I think."

  "How promising. I know someone who might enjoy going out with him."

  "I'd wait a decent interval first. I have a friend in mind myself, but I'm not rushing it."

  They changed the subject to something safe and moved on. Helen was left clutching her OSHA list in a state of shock. Linda Byrne—a cheat? It wasn't possible. She was far too ....

  Too what? Too devoted to Katie? Maybe so, but that didn't mean she adored her husband. All Helen knew for certain was that Nathaniel Byrne spent a lot of time away from home and that his wife resented it.

  Or maybe not. The brief phone conversation seemed so long ago now. Helen had a vague recollection that Linda Byrne had wanted to get something settled—presumably Katie, into the preschool—before something else happened.

  It was maddening not to be able to recall what it was.

  Linda Byrne may have had motive. She definitely had opportunity. A toddler could be a full-time job, but Mrs. Byrne didn't have a career and she did have a nanny. It wo
uldn't have been hard to slip away if she wanted to. Despite her own best instincts, Helen found herself admitting that an affair was plausible, given the state of the marriage.

  Who could the lover have been? Not the gardener or the handyman; the affair couldn't have been conducted at home. Besides, Linda Byrne was a woman of intellect, an art historian, who was being neglected by her husband. Maybe she was looking for a soul mate. Maybe she sneaked out once in a while to debate the merits of Impressionism over a cup of cappuccino. It could've been entirely platonic.

  An intense affair, the woman had said.

  Helen grimaced. There was only so intense you could get over a bunch of dead artists. And anyway, say Linda did meet regularly with some professor to talk about art. Professors had more affairs, per capita, than anyone else on earth. So Gwen's friend was probably, sadly, right on the money. Linda Byrne had been involved in an affair. The question was, had she killed herself over it? Who the hell knew? With a sigh of frustration, Helen swept the endless speculations from her mind.

  They were giving her a headache.

  Two hours later, tired of paperwork, Helen decided to pack it in and head for home. It was a shame, really; she used to love the job so much that she had to drag herself out of the little brick bank. But in the past couple of years she'd begun to realize that she was spending far more time with forms and rules than with boys and girls. Often, when she was up to her eyeballs in correspondence, she'd hear the laughs and chatter of children in the halls and feel like the boy at the piano who hears the crack of a baseball bat outside: hopelessly trapped.

  She stood up and stretched, then packed her attaché with must-be-done work for after supper, which was going to be late again. Glancing at the stack of books on toddler care that Nat Byrne had left on her desk, she peeled off the Post-it note on the top book and again read its terse message:

  "Thanks."

  It was oddly disappointing. A personalized note or memo with the same one word would've seemed so much more grateful. She studied the handwriting—what there was of it—for clues to the man's character. Upright letters, barely more than a squiggle of shapes. The t was two lines, the s wasn't closed. A man in a hurry. A man with a goal.