Beyond Midnight (34 page)

"
She
'
s very efficient,
"
he agreed in the same c
ol
d voice as before.

They waited in silence for Peaches to return, then Helen
accepted her things from the nanny, threw out an awkward reminder about Orientation Night, and bade Nathaniel Byrne good-bye. As for Katie, she was still napping, Peaches said; so Helen let herself be ushered out the door.

Again.

On the street, with her hand on the door handle of her Volvo, Helen was overwhelmed by a sense of déjà vu. It was the second time she
'
d been booted out of the house. She stared at the brick mansion with its windows elegantly shuttered to the street and thought,
What is wrong with this picture?
Why the hell am I here, on the s
treet, when I should be there, in that house?

She did a double take at the thought. On what grounds was she basing her claim? She stood for a long moment on the brick sidewalk under a newly leafed-out chestnut tree, working it through.

Finally, calmly, she admitted to herself what she had known all along.
On the grounds that I
'
m the one who
'
s
seen the ghost of Linda Byrne.

****

Peaches was in her room, reading a book, when she heard the expected knock on her door. She slipped her Krantz novel under the cushion of her sofa and opened the latest issue of
Money Magazine.

"
Come in,
"
she said in a serene voice.

Nat looked more haggard, more tense, than he had in a while. It was very comforting.

"
How
'
d you finally get her to sleep?
"
he said in a tired voice.

"
Oh, the usual way: with soothing stories.
"

"
Did she ask about her mother again after you carried her out of my bedroom?
"

"
No. She just wanted me to hold her.
"

"
Well, good, I guess. Did she ask about Helen?
"

"
Oh, no, not at all.
"

He hesitated.
"
I don
'
t like to interrupt your free time
.
...
''

"
Please,
"
she said reassuringly.
"
Sit down.
"
She put her magazine aside.

He dropped into a small but comfortable open-arm chair. She could see that he didn
'
t know how to begin. The muscles in his jaw were working, just the way they used to when he was at a loss with his wife. His problem, Peaches had long ago decided, was that he was too well brought up. He refused to speak ill of anyone—women, especially— and he refused to listen to anyone else do it. That made it tricky, but not impossible, for Peaches to do her work. She waited.

"
Peaches
...
look
,
I
'
ve never asked you this before, but
...
I want to know. Did Linda ever tell you his name?
"

Ah. Well, it was bound to come, sooner or later. Peaches looked surprised, then pained, by the question. Shaking her head, she said,
"
Linda was very discreet.
"

"
As we know,
"
he said bitterly. He swallowed hard and said,
"
But she never said who he was? Or where he was from? Was he from
Salem
?
"

"
Nat
...
truly,
"
Peaches said softly.
"
I don
'
t know.
"
Her eyes glazed over with emotion.
"
But I think
...
I somehow had the sense that he was from
Boston
. And in finance.
"

"
Oh, Jesus. Her lover was someone I know?
"

"
I don
'
t know,
"
she whispered.

"
My God. I
'
m going to have to try to remember every Christmas party, every cocktail hour
."
He ran his hand distractedly through his hair and stared without seeing.
"
This is unreal,
"
he muttered.
"
Still so unreal. The baby had to have been his. It had to.
"

"
You chose not to prove that,
"
Peaches reminded him gently.

That brought him back to her.
"
Good God, how could I? How would it have looked, demanding a DNA test after she died? Wasn
'
t it proof enough that she tried to
... to
...
"

Abort it? Interesting. He still couldn
'
t even say the word, much less come to terms with it.

Look at you,
she thought calmly.
Burning to put it all behind you. Without that there
'
ll just be ongoing pain, won
'
t there? And rage.

With a look of heartfelt sympathy, Peaches said,
"
They accepted that it was an accidental overdose, Nat. Shouldn
'
t we leave it at that?
"

"
How could she have been so dumb? If we hadn
'
t seen the book on her desk with the page on ergotamine turned down
...."
He shook his head.
"
How did she think she could safely self-medicate? Who did she think she was? God?
"

"
She was desperate, Nat. Desperate women don
'
t always think straight.
"

"
But why not go to a clinic and have it done? Why take the risk of overdosing?
"

"
She may have been afraid you
'
d find out.
"

"
Well, I found out anyway, didn
'
t I?
"
he said bitterly.
"
God. I thought this thing would get better with time. It just gets worse. The slightest reference to those last days, and I turn into a psychopath. I just about took off Helen
'
s head this afternoon.
"

"
I
'
m sure you didn
'
t do any such thing,
"
she said to reassure him.
"
You couldn
'
t possibly.
"

"
You didn
'
t see the look in her eyes,
"
he said, wincing. He got up and, on his way out, paused behind the loveseat and put his hand on Peaches
'
s shoulder.
"
Thanks for being there for me, Peach. This has been a dark time.
"

Not as dark as it
'
s going to get,
she thought as she looked at him with tear-glazed eyes.

"
Dark, for both of us,
"
she whispered. Her hand reached up to cover his.
"
I didn
'
t want to believe it, either, Nat. Linda—with another man? When he started calling here, I didn
'
t know what to do. I couldn
'
t be certain, of course. I wanted to believe the best.
"

Peaches shuddered and went on.
"
But when I heard her tone, her laugh
,
I was in agony. I truly didn
'
t know what to do. Linda was my best friend
.  I
f it hadn
'
t been for her, I would never have known—
"

She stopped before the
"
you.
"
Nat looked down at her querulously but did not press. He was exactly where Peaches wanted him to be: confused. Let him puzzle out the possibilities later, in bed, as he was dropping off to sleep.

It was
so much more erotic that way.

****

That evening, Helen carried a plate of sliced roast turkey across the hall for her aunt Mary to divide and freeze. She laid the platter on the old enameled tabletop and said in a teasing tone,
"
Since you
'
re too stuck up to eat with us, you
'
re going to have to get sick of turkey all by yourself.
"

"
I don
'
t like to impose,
Lena
,
"
said her aunt.
"
You know that.
"

"
But you
'
re not imposing,
"
Helen said as she went to the drawer in her aunt
'
s sweet, cluttered kitchen and took out a box of aluminum foil.
"
How many times do I have to—
"

"
No, no, don
'
t use new,
"
Aunt Mary
urged.  "
I have some scraps saved up.
"
She went to her secret place behind the Morton
'
s on the open shelf above the stove and pulled out several neatly folded rectangles.

"
Such a lot of meat,
"
she said as she began carefully unfolding the foil squares with arthritic hands.
"
How big was the bird?
"

Helen sat with her chin on her knuckles, watching the aged woman struggle through the simple chore. Her aunt was slowing down, no doubt about it.
"
I don
'
t know,
"
she a
nswered, distracted by the thought
.
"
Twenty-two, twenty-three pounds? Did you want gravy, by the way? I could go back—
"

"
Oh, heavens. What would I do with gravy? Gravy would keep me up all night. No, dear, this
'
ll be fine. Now tell me about your day. Were you able to reassure your Mr. Byrne about the preschool? What a suspicious man he is.
"

"
He
'
s having a tough time adjusting to single parenthood,
"
Helen agreed.

Her aunt said,
"
How
'
s the little girl doing? Is she still scared, poor thing?
"

"
She
'
s less afraid of me than he is,
"
Helen said wryly, reliving her afternoon antics all over again.
"
Do you want me to take over wrapping that?
"

"
No,
"
Aunt Mary said, a little sharply.
"
I can manage.
"
She disliked being helped with anything—from slicing bread to filling out her checks—that didn
'
t require raw strength. But lately it was taking her longer and longer to do less and less. It was natur
al; after all, she was seventy-
four.

Helen sighed. Seventy-four wasn
'
t so old. Her aunt
'
s friends at the senior center were all in their eighties and learning to
line dance
. Seventy-four should be the spring-chickenhood of old age.

She broke off a piece of white meat and nibbled on it, then got to the point.
"
Aunt Mary, have you ever seen— you know, Uncle Tadeusz?
"
she asked casually.

"
What kind of question is that?
"
said her aunt, busily rearranging several large slices this way and that to fit on the foil.
"
He
'
s been dead how many years?
"