The Secret Hour (20 page)

 
Their sex life. He’d thought it was good. Better than the average small-town married-a-long-time sex life. They’d heard their friends, at parties, joking about spicing things up with dirty movies, massage oil, weekends at a motel with heart-shaped tubs. John and Theresa had laughed, slightly embarrassed that their friends had needed things like that. Wasn’t what they had
good
? Maybe not frequent enough—someone was always falling asleep before they had the chance—but when it happened, worlds were rocked.

 
At least for John they were. He had always been excited by Theresa. When she was young and thin, after she’d had the kids and gained some weight: It didn’t matter. He loved her smooth skin, her beautiful face, her strong tennis-playing arms, her familiar scent. He’d climb into bed at the end of the day, and he’d take her in his arms and think his heart might break through his rib cage. She’d make his blood pound in his veins, and he’d kiss her lips.

 
A man who made his living with words: memos, briefs, opening and closing arguments, direct and cross-examination, conference calls, interviews, depositions… with Theresa, he had tried to speak with his body. He had tried to show her, the best he could, how much he loved her with his hands, his mouth.

 
There was a saying he remembered from Latin:
Cor ad cor loquitor
. Heart speaks to heart. That’s how it had been for John, and how he thought it had been for Theresa. He hadn’t known how she felt; sometimes it seemed he hadn’t known her at all.

 
Standing in the parking lot of the Witch’s Brew, watching all the smiling, laughing, costumed people go inside, John couldn’t help wondering whether there were husbands, wives, left behind somewhere this festive night. Sitting at home, waiting by the phone, trying not to watch the clock.

 
He knew that those weeks, when Theresa was cheating on him, he had felt bound to her as never before. Because he had felt her slipping away, and she’d become even more precious to him than she’d been since the night he had proposed to her. He had reached for her, trying to pull her back, but it was like trying to hold a handful of sand: it kept running out of his fingers, back to the beach. By the night of her death, Theresa was already long gone.

 
He had found notes in her datebook, to call Melody Starr, a divorce lawyer in Hawthorne. Had she? John didn’t know, and he wouldn’t ask. When he saw Melody in the hall at court, he said hello and tried to discern whether she was looking at him strangely, with sympathy or loathing. Had Theresa told her their deepest secrets?

 
John didn’t know, and he believed it didn’t matter. Divorce lawyers were like the third parties: They were beside the point. The marriage—blissfully happy or falling apart—was between two people. It could break up only if one of the two wanted it to—if he or she had already started leaving. And Theresa’s leaving had begun before the start of her affair.

 
John wondered whether it had been like that for Kate. Whether her husband had already left before the affair with her sister. Once more, he looked at the photo of Willa Harris. Such a pretty, friendly, innocent smile. Hard to believe a woman like this would have an affair with her sister’s husband. But, as John had learned the hard way, she was just the third party, and the third party was beside the point.

 
He wanted to help Kate Harris find her sister. He wasn’t sure why it felt so important to him, driving him to the Witch’s Brew this cold Friday night when he’d rather be home with his kids, but it was. It had to do with answering questions, finding peace. Doing the right thing. Strange, how they shared a connection with Washington, and now with Silver Bay.

 
He took a deep breath, climbed into his car and out of the freezing rain, and drove slowly over the slick, black roads toward his father’s house. If there was any peace in the world for John O’Rourke tonight, it was there, with Maggie and Teddy.

 
Before leaving the East Wind on Saturday morning, Kate took pictures from her bedroom windows. She wanted to remember the view Willa had had, so she snapped photos of the rocky coastline, the breakwater, and the lighthouse—all contours softened by ghostly fog. Her time here had been bittersweet. Although she hadn’t found out anything more about Willa, she had met the O’Rourkes.

 
Forehead against the glass, hoping for a glimpse of Maggie or Teddy, she tried to see their house. It looked so quiet: no sign of Brainer running through the fields. She hoped they’d had fun having pizza last night, celebrating Teddy’s victory. A memory of Willa playing field hockey—in the prim playing fields near Rock Creek Park, behind the gothic spires of St. Chrysogonus’s School—filled her mind.

 
Willa in her dark green uniform, waving her hockey stick over her head, thrilled because they’d won, wanting Kate and Andrew to be proud. Feeling like parents, they had taken Willa and her teammates to the Chicago Pizzeria. Everyone sitting at one big table, digging into deep-dish pizza, toasting with frosty mugs of soda.

 
Willa had been sixteen.

 
That night, Andrew had held Kate close in bed, making slow love to her with extra tenderness, whispering that when they had a baby of their own, they’d be ahead of the game, practiced in the care and raising of teenagers. He had told her he loved Willa like his own kid, that he was so blessed to have married into a ready-made family. Kate had glowed, unable to believe she’d found someone so special.

 
Someone who loved her the way she was, took her the way she came: with a shy, beautiful, needy teenaged sister. For Willa had been just like a wild pony—cautious, hesitant, slow to trust, more suited to the dunes of Chincoteague than the brick sidewalks of Georgetown, happier with a paintbrush than a field-hockey stick.

 
Andrew had won Willa over. He had worked out with her, doing drills on the field, encouraging her till she believed she was as good an athlete as anyone else. He had also praised her painting, insisting that one of her watercolors hang in his office. It was a small portrait Willa had done of Kate, sitting on the dunes one chilly day, her arms wrapped around her knees.

 
The years had passed…Willa grew up, became an adult.

 
They—Andrew and Kate—had taken Willa to the National Gallery’s East Wing for her twenty-first birthday. Together they had wandered through the small French paintings exhibit, past Monet’s “Water Lilies.” They had admired the Hassams, the Metcalfs, the Renwicks. At lunch, in the small restaurant upstairs, Andrew had commissioned Willa to do a painting.

 
“Of me and Kate,” he’d said, handing Willa the check.

 
“Andrew, this is huge!” she’d said, looking at the amount.

 
“Well, it’ll be worth it. Me and the most beautiful girl in the world. To hang on my walls, for all to see.”

 
Willa had beamed. Kate had been unable to smile. Her heart had felt so heavy that day. Andrew had been late the last few nights; she’d been unable to reach him on his cell phone. Although he had claimed to be working late, lining up a new job after the senator’s inevitable loss in November, Kate hadn’t believed him. His words said one thing; her gut said another.

 
“Kate, he’s so romantic,” Willa had said, leaning across the table to give her brother-in-law a kiss.

 
“I know,” Kate had said.

 
“You guys are so lucky. I hope that when I fall in love it’s with someone who loves me half as much as he loves you!”

 
“Hear that, Kate?” Andrew had asked, trying to hug her toward him. But Kate’s body wouldn’t yield, and she’d sat up straighter in her chair.

 
“Would you want that for her?” Kate had asked, her voice cold.

 
“Katy…” Andrew had taken her hand, clasped fingers.

 
“Sure he would!” Willa had exclaimed, staring at the check. “Why wouldn’t he? Andrew’s my self-esteem coach! I swear, I wouldn’t have made it through St. Chrys’s without him. All those field-hockey-crazy, preppie congresspeople’s daughters…and now he’s giving me my first commission.”

 
Under the table, Andrew had squeezed her hand. She could almost hear him:
Come on, Katy. Loosen up, will you? I love you, only you…I married you, no one else
. She had heard him say those words before. And because she so badly wanted them to be true, she always let herself try to believe them.

“I already have your portrait of Kate,” Andrew said. “The airplane one. But that’s of her alone. This one has to show us together, and don’t leave out my absolute adoration.” He’d struck a lovesick pose, staring at Kate with huge eyes, making Willa laugh and Kate smile. She was starting to soften; she always did. After all, he’d never stopped denying her accusations. Maybe she was wrong—being suspicious for no reason.

 
“You’re crazy,” Willa had said, shaking her head.

 
“Mad is more like it,” Andrew had said, dropping his hand to Kate’s knee under the table, starting to make lazy circles on her skin. “Madly in love with your sister.”

 
“I love you both,” Willa had said, smiling at them with sheer joy, like a child who knows her parents love each other, that her home is secure. “I’d do the picture for free.”

 
“Take the check,” Kate had said, smiling back. “If Andrew wants to pay you for it, I think you should let him.”

 
“Listen to your sister, kid.” Andrew had laughed. “She knows what she’s talking about: I always get what I want!”

 
Now, staring out the window at the O’Rourkes’ house, Kate remembered feeling happy about at least one thing that day—that Andrew cared so much about Willa. Art was a hard field—much more mysterious and difficult to earn money in than marine biology—and she was all in favor of bolstering Willa’s confidence.

 
Andrew had always been so good at that…

 
Sighing, stepping away from the window, she picked up her bags. The old memories had made her hands shake. Her love of Willa collided with her feelings of betrayal. Why hadn’t Willa seen Andrew for what he was? How could she have succumbed to whatever line he had offered her, told her?

 
The portrait had never gotten done. Willa hadn’t been able to get them together long enough to sit for it. She had started a job in Andrew’s office on Capitol Hill. Filing, answering telephones, stuffing envelopes: easy stuff that wouldn’t get in the way of her art.

 
“Oh, Willa,” Kate murmured, still feeling the pain. That moment when she had come upon them…

 
Carrying her luggage downstairs, she settled up her bill.

 
“I would have come up to get your bags,” Barkley Jenkins said, smiling. “At least let me carry them out to the car.”

 
“That’s okay—they’re light.”

 
“We’re a little surprised you’re leaving so soon,” Felicity said. “You’d reserved the room for another week.”

 
“I know, but I’d like to see a little more of New England before I head back home.”

 
“Understandable,” Felicity said quickly. Kate was taken aback, a little surprised. She had expected a protest about her sudden decision to leave, perhaps an argument about getting her deposit back. But instead, Felicity put through the paperwork, refunding the seventy-five dollars to Kate’s credit card. Watching, Kate thought Felicity looked haggard, with sallow skin and swollen eyes, as if she hadn’t been sleeping well.

 
“Hope we didn’t drive you away,” Barkley said.

 
“No, it’s been very pleasant. Even Bonnie enjoyed it.”

 
“She’s a cute dog,” Barkley said, petting Bonnie and letting her lick his fingers. “I swear, she remembers me from before.”

 
Kate’s stomach dropped, and she thought she heard Felicity gasp. “Barkley,” she said warningly.

 
“That’s okay,” Kate said. She had confided her reasons for being there to Felicity on arrival, wanting to learn everything the family might know. Felicity had said she remembered Bonnie—or a Scottie just like her—but not her owner. “Some people come for just one night,” she had explained. “They’re here, and then they go…we hardly get to see them.”

 
“You remember Bonnie, too?” Kate asked now, staring at Barkley. He was tall and rangy, with graying blond hair and a big blond mustache. He had good-time eyes—easy to smile, and bloodshot from last night’s drinks. She recognized the signs from the Washington cocktail party circuit.

 
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “Wish I could say I did, Kate. But Felicity told me you were here looking for your sister, that Bonnie’s her dog. Really hope you find her…”

 
“So do I,” Kate said.

 
The owners smiled, and Felicity handed her the bill stapled to the credit card receipt. Barkley, in spite of her protestations, carried her luggage to the car. There was one package she carried herself, not letting it out of her grasp. Standing in the driveway, letting him load the bags into her trunk, she heard hammering. Each bang sounded loud and close, amplified by the fog.