Brass Ring (33 page)

She thought of Randy and Cary at the town house together, and she felt a loneliness unlike any she’d ever experienced before. She had never been alone. Never in her life. How did people tolerate this feeling? And she had no phone. Getting one, though, would imply a commitment to living in the apartment for more than a few days. She shuddered.

She wished she could talk to Amelia. How would she ever make Amelia understand what she had done? What Jon had done for her? Amelia would be horrified. Claire Harte-Mathias leaving her husband, her home, her job? Unbelievable.

She drove to the store and bought groceries and paper goods, dropping things into her cart without appetite or interest. She brought her purchases back to the apartment and put them into the empty cupboards and the refrigerator. Then she drove to Amelia’s, but her knock was unanswered, and Amelia’s car was not in the garage. She left a note on the back door.
I’ve moved. My new address is 507 Chesterwood. No phone. Please visit.
The note would blow Amelia’s mind.

Then, finally, she did what she knew she had to do, what she’d been both dreading and looking forward to all day. She drove to her house.

Jon had burned himself the night before in the tub. A truly stupid mistake, one he hadn’t made since he was a teenager. It was a testimony to how distracted he was. Claire had long ago etched a mark into the metal around the faucet control knob to prevent him from accidentally using water hot enough to burn. He’d filled the tub, carefully turning the knob only as far as the mark. He had even tested the water in the tub before getting in. But apparently he bumped the knob at some point, and a trickle of hot water had been left on, falling over his left foot while he soaked in the tub. He’d felt nothing, of course, and only when he got out of the tub did he see the angry red welt that had formed on the top of his foot. His heart rate had escalated. How bad was it? The last thing he felt like doing was spending the night, alone, in the emergency room. He held ice to the burn most of the evening, but while he slept, it rose into a long, crescent-shaped blister. Today he was leaving it open to the air, wheeling around with one shoe and sock on, the other foot bare.

It was Friday night, and the house seemed to vibrate with emptiness. Every sound he made—pushing in a dresser drawer, opening the refrigerator—echoed in the air around him. What a wimp he was. You’ve been alone before, he told himself. Just pretend she’s gone shopping or over to Amelia’s. He tried to immerse himself in the schedule for the retreat, but his mind seemed capable of concentration for only a fraction of a second before reality crept in again.

She was with Randy.

She had slept with Randy.

Perhaps she was even in love with Randy. And he had set the whole damn thing up.

Dusk was falling outside the study window that evening when he heard her car pull into the driveway. He looked up from his work on the desk. He hadn’t expected to see her. Oh, eventually she would have to come home for more of her clothes or whatever, but he figured she wouldn’t even be thinking about home for the duration of this weekend.

He hated her to see him working on a Friday night. He didn’t want to remind her that he was obsessed with work. Or worse, to see him looking so alone without her, a lost soul in his own house. He quickly wheeled out of the study into the family room and then remembered his exposed left foot. At least in the study it would have been hidden behind the desk. He transferred himself to the sofa, his foot hidden partly behind the coffee table, and turned the TV to the movie channel.

He heard her come in the back door and walk through the kitchen to the family room.

“Hi,” she said from the doorway. “I hope you don’t mind that I stopped by. I need to pick up some things.” She looked wan and tired and drawn, but he could take no pleasure in her haggard appearance.

“Go ahead.” He felt stiff. Awkward. He didn’t know what to do with his hands.

She glanced toward the TV. “What am I interrupting?”

“Nothing.” He hit the power switch on the remote control and set it next to him on the sofa. He tried to look at her but couldn’t. For the first time in his life, he felt embarrassed near her, embarrassed by his disability. She had almost certainly made love to a walking, feeling, and—most likely—sexually whole man last night.

She sat down on the edge of the rocker. “I want to give you the address where I’m staying.”

“He lives in those town homes off Dolley Madison, right?”

“Yes, but I’m not staying there.”

Jon stole a surprised glance at her. “Where else would—?”

She waved a hand through the air. “I might use his guest room sometime, but it’s not what you think with Randy and me. I don’t know how to make you believe that.”

“Your actions lately make it pretty hard to believe.”

She looked at him for a moment, a deep frown on her forehead. Then she pulled a scrap of paper from her purse and jotted down the address. Resting the paper on the coffee table, she looked up at him, green eyes wide. “I’m very scared,” she said.

He nodded solemnly. “Me too.” He wished she would leave. He didn’t want her looking at him any longer.

She pressed her hands together, her fingers white, and he saw the subtle trembling in her lower lip. She seemed to compose herself quickly, though. “I love you, Jon,” she said, “but I need Randy right now. I don’t quite understand it. It’s a very strong feeling. A very powerful need. I can’t explain it.”

Jon didn’t look at her. He idly pressed the buttons on the remote control. “You know, Claire,” he said, “I really don’t want to hear about you and Randy. Do you mind?”

“I’m sorry.” Her voice was a whisper.

Neither of them spoke for a moment, the only sound the soft clicking of the keys on the remote.

“So, where are you staying?” He glanced at the piece of paper on the table but couldn’t make out the address from where he sat.

“I found a little apartment in a private house on Chesterwood. It’s really tiny, but I don’t need much space. There’s no phone, though. I don’t know about getting one.”

It was impossible to picture. He could see other people living that way, but not someone like Claire, accustomed to a house like this one and a life of relative ease.

“Oh, Claire, I don’t want you living like that,” he said, his resolve instantly gone. “You can live here. Take one of the other bedrooms, but—”

“No.” She was shaking her head, and he was surprised by the strength in her response. “That won’t work.”

Of course it wouldn’t work. Randy would pick her up, or she’d stay out all night, and he’d live through the pain of last night all over again whenever she was gone.

“I’m going to pack some things,” she said. “Would you mind very much if I took the toaster? You never use it.” She stood up, and he saw her gaze drop to his feet. “What did you do to your—you burned your foot!”

Immediately, she was on her knees next to him, lifting his foot, holding it into the light. “How did you do this?” she asked.

He wished he had the ability to pull his leg away from her. “Hot water dripping in the tub. I must have bumped the knob.”

“Oh, Jon. God. This isn’t good. Let me take you to the emergency room.”

He leaned forward to bat her away from him. “It’s fine. It’s nothing major.”

She lowered his foot and sat back on her heels, but her eyes were still on the burn, her forehead furrowed. She spoke quietly. “Please let me take you,” she said. “It really should be looked at.”

He shook his head, and she sighed like a tired mother dealing with a stubborn child.

She stood up again. “I’d like to stop in from time to time,” she said, “just to check on you. Unless—”

Jon threw the remote onto the table, making her jump. “Goddamn it, Claire!” he said. “I’m a grown man. Stop treating me like I’m something less than that.”

She took a step backward. “I’m sorry,” she said. She rubbed her forehead with shaky fingers. “I need to talk to you about…Can I take some work home from the foundation? My not being there will leave a lot of projects up in the air, and I—”

“Forget work.”

She turned her head toward the window and stared out into the darkness for a moment before speaking again. “All right,” she said. “I’ll be out of here in a few minutes.”

He watched her walk into the hallway and listened to the sound of her packing, straining to hear her. As bad as it was to hear the zipper being pulled closed on the suitcase, it was better than the silence that would follow once she had left the house again, once she was back with Randy.

SEATTLE

DARCY WAS ON THE
phone when Vanessa walked into her office late that Monday afternoon. She motioned toward a chair in the corner, and Vanessa sat down and tightened the laces on her running shoes, her wedding band catching the glow of the overhead light. She and Brian had gotten married on Saturday, quietly, in the office of a justice of the peace, and spent the night at an inn near Vancouver. She had told Darcy and a few of her coworkers, and throughout the day people had been stopping by her office with surprised congratulations that made her beam and blush uncharacteristically.

She hadn’t told a soul before the wedding, though, still unable to believe it would actually take place. And it almost hadn’t. A few hours before she and Brian were to leave for the courthouse, Jordan Wiley’s lung collapsed again, and she came into the hospital to see him receive his third chest tube. The tube helped; he was breathing more easily. But this two-month hospitalization was clearly wearing Jordy down. He’d looked exhausted when she saw him in his room that morning. Subdued and withdrawn. She’d been checking the placement of the torturous third tube when he asked her, “Do you believe in God, Dr. Gray?” She’d lied and told him that she did.

At rounds tomorrow, she would make certain that she and her young colleagues talked about death, about the fairness of letting Jordy know what lay ahead of him so he could say his good-byes if he wanted to. Yet, she was sure that Jordy knew better than any of them that this miserable hospitalization was probably his last.

Darcy hung up the phone and grinned at her. “You look so different,” she said. “You look so married.”

“Right.” Vanessa brushed away the comment. “Put on your shoes.”

“Can’t go.” Darcy stood up and started transferring a stack of books from her desk to the bookcase, one by one. “The nausea’s finally gone, but now I have to pee every thirty seconds.”

Vanessa rolled her eyes. “So, we’ll pick a route near some bathrooms. Come on.”

Darcy slipped a book into the case. “You don’t understand,” she said. “I mean, this is major discomfort. You can’t possibly know—”

“Darcy.”

“What?”

“I do understand. I was pregnant once.”

Darcy’s blue eyes widened and she stopped her hand midway to the bookshelf. “I…when? I mean—”

“When I was a teenager.”

Darcy dropped back into her chair, the book still in her hand. “Shit, Vanessa. Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

“Because I don’t particularly like to remember it. But every time you say I don’t know what this or that feels like, I—”

“I’m sorry.” Darcy set the book on her desk, then leaned forward to squeeze both of Vanessa’s hands, carefully avoiding the little finger of her right hand, which was still in its cast. “I didn’t know.”

Vanessa shrugged uncomfortably. “It’s all right.” She knew more of an explanation was necessary, and she doubted Darcy would ask. “I was seventeen,” she said.

“And you gave the baby up for adoption?”

“No.” Vanessa shook her head vigorously. “At least not voluntarily. They took her from me.”

Darcy frowned. “Why?”

Vanessa folded her arms across her chest. How much was she going to tell? “They said I couldn’t take care of her. And they were right. I was self-destructive. I was an alcoholic and using drugs.”

Darcy stared at her. If she made the connection between Vanessa’s description of her younger self and the way she often described the teenagers in the AMC program, she didn’t say.

“You?” she asked. “That’s so impossible to believe.”

“But it
was
me,” Vanessa said.

Darcy shook her head, then asked softly, “Do you have any idea what happened to the baby? Where she is?”

“None.” Vanessa stood up as if Darcy had flicked a switch in her. She picked up Darcy’s gym bag from the floor. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s run.”

Darcy sunk lower in her chair. “Really, Van, I can’t.”

“Well,” Vanessa shrugged again, “I’ll see you tomorrow, then.”

Before Vanessa reached the door, though, Darcy stood up and drew her into a hug. “I’m so sorry about your baby,” she said, and Vanessa was surprised by the comfort she took in her friend’s embrace. She had told Darcy the truth about herself and received nothing but good in return.

Once on the street, Vanessa was glad Darcy hadn’t joined her after all. She didn’t feel like talking. Heading east past the post office, she started an easy jog. She’d changed her route since the night of the attack. Maybe someday she would run down that street again, but not now.

She hadn’t told her father about her pregnancy. Secretly, she’d wondered how long it would take him to notice. He paid so little attention to her to begin with. She was nearly seven months along before he caught on. He was also ignorant of the fact that she had long ago quit school, and that she spent more nights at the homes of various boyfriends than under his own roof.

He made her see a doctor, and he and the doctor told her she would have to put the baby up for adoption. They didn’t listen to her protests, and so she didn’t keep her future appointments. Even now she was angry with that doctor. He’d had a chance to educate her, and he let it slip by. If he’d told her that drugs and alcohol could hurt her baby, she would have listened. At least in retrospect, she thought she would have.

She drank—she’d been drinking heavily since she was fourteen—and smoked marijuana and cigarettes. On some level she must have known there was a connection between what she ingested and the baby’s health, because she took huge quantities of vitamins. But in her mind, the connection never extended to the drugs. Not until many years later, when it was far too late to make a difference.