Garden of Lies (32 page)

baby-pink roses at the grave, though everyone should have known there were to be no flowers.

Yes, she had almost cried then. She had wanted to bundle them in her arms, carry them away

before they wilted. Those lovely, wasted roses.

Sylvie had felt herself begin to wilt, but a man’s strong hand was suddenly gripping her elbow,

supporting her. Nikos. And he didn’t seem threatening anymore. Just an old friend, someone

being kind.

He wouldn’t hurt her. Or Rachel.

Sylvie had somehow known that, even before Rachel turned toward him, frowning slightly as if

she was trying to place him among her father’s many friends and acquaintances. Then she

accepted his proffered hand.

“I’m sorry,” he’d said.

And that was all. Though he had held her hand a bit too long, [185] his dark eyes never leaving

Rachel’s face, he was letting Sylvie know he was there only to offer his condolences.

Later, when almost everyone had gone to their cars, Nikos had lingered.

“Your husband was much admired,” Nikos said kindly, his words a white plume in the chill air,

his shoes punching deep holes in the frozen snow as he walked back with her to the car.

“Yes, he had many friends,” Sylvie said. “He was ... a generous man.”

“I know that better than most.”

“You?” She stopped to look at him. His seamed brown face—yes, now in the daylight she

could see all the tiny lines and fissures, like old rubbed leather—showed only admiration.

“There is something you should know,” he began as they made their way slowly down the

narrow roadway, an aisle between a forest of gravestones. “I see no harm in telling you now. And

perhaps it will be of some comfort to you.”

Sylvie began to feel dizzy again, and she clutched Nikos’s arm. “Comfort?” she choked. “How

can anything comfort me now that he’s gone?”

“We can talk another time if you wish.”

“No. Tell me.”

“He knew,” Nikos said. “About us. You and me. All those years ago, he knew. When he fired

me, he told me he didn’t blame you. He was afraid you would leave him, an old man with nothing

to offer you but money.”

Part of her wanted to laugh, madly, hysterically. But suddenly she was so tired, so very tired,

all she wanted to do was lie down in the snow and close her eyes. She leave Gerald? Oh, dear

God, if only he’d known the awful thing she’d done, just so he wouldn’t leave
her.

Sylvie felt something cold on her face, and realized she was crying. She dug gloved fingers

into her cheeks. “He knew? All along, you mean, he knew?”

“He gave me money,” Nikos said, hanging his head. “I had to promise that I would never see

you again. Five hundred dollars. I used it to buy an old pickup that started my business, what

became Anteros Construction.”

[186] “Anteros.” It dawned on her. “The god of cheated love.”

“Yes,” he confessed, “I loved you. But I knew what he did not—that you would never leave

him for me or any other man. So, yes, I took the money, I am ashamed to say.”

“Don’t be,” she said. “There are worse things than taking money.”
Worse than you can

imagine.

They were passing under the shadow of a huge barren elm, and Sylvie shivered, thinking of

that expression,
A goose walked over my grave.

“I didn’t see him again until two years ago,” Nikos continued. “Someone told me he might be

interested in property I planned to build on. And I needed financing, so I went. But mostly, I

think it was vanity. I wanted to show off, show him how well his five hundred dollars had paid

off. But what I remember best about that meeting was the picture in a silver frame on his desk—

of you and your daughter. That’s when I realized who had gotten the best of our long-ago

bargain.”

The stillness that followed Nikos’s confession seemed huge and never-ending. Sylvie listened

to the branches of the old elm creaking under its burden of snow, the flutter of sparrows taking

flight. Somewhere nearby, she could hear the firing of car engines, and the labored droning of a

grave-digging machine. The sun came out from behind a bank of clouds just then, turning the

snow mirror bright, winking off flecks of mica in the granite tombstones.

Sylvie just stood there, looking out over the graves, feeling that if she moved too much or too

quickly she would shatter this gift Nikos had handed her, this precious glimpse into the secret

heart of the man she had loved, and by whom she had so undeservedly and richly been loved.

Even her pain felt exquisite somehow, a finely wrought thing she turned over and over,

examining it from all angles, marveling at its intricacy.

I
could have told him about Rose. And he would have understood. He would have forgiven. All

these years ...

She’d felt so humbled then by her shame and Gerald’s generosity.

Now as she sat in her rocking chair with Rachel kneeling before her, a shirt Gerald would

never wear spread across her lap, she [187] thought how grateful we are when our world is falling

apart for even the smallest reprieves. A gentle touch. A kind word. Forgiveness.

He really was gone. Her dear Gerald. She would no longer hear his footsteps on the staircase.

Or the Puccini drifting from his study. Never look up from pruning her roses and find him

smiling down at her from the terrace. Or stop in the quiet of an evening to read her aloud a

passage from a book.

But she still had her daughter, she had Rachel. And Rachel was grieving, too.

“Mama,” Rachel was saying, “I’ve been thinking ... don’t get upset, just
thinking
is all ... of

joining Kay in Vietnam. They so desperately need doctors and ... well, I think it would be good

for me. To get away from ... from everything. But I won’t go, Mama, if you want me to stay with

you, if you need me. I know that Daddy would have wanted me to look after you.”

Sylvie felt a lightning bolt of pain strike her heart. Not Rachel, leaving her too? Dear Lord,

how much more could she take?

Oh, where was Gerald? Why wasn’t he here when she needed him so?

Gerald, such a good protector, like the father she had never had. He wouldn’t have wanted her

to be alone, surely.

But Rachel wasn’t meant to be her protector. Rachel had to have her own life.

“No.” Sylvie set aside her sewing, and rose from her chair. Such a simple effort, yet how she

ached, as if she’d been shut up inside a box for days. Still, good to feel her body, even if it hurt. “I

won’t have you putting your life on hold for me. I won’t have that responsibility.”

“Mama.” Rachel just shook her head, the light falling away, her face slipping into shadow. “I

want
to be with you.”

“Now you do. For a few days, a few weeks maybe. And then you’ll be sorry. No. I hate the

idea of you leaving, being so far away. And so dangerous. But I’d hate it more if you stayed here

simply on my account.”

“You mean that, Mama? Are you sure?”

Sylvie did not feel sure of anything. Except perhaps of knowing that she would make it through

this night. She felt so weak, so lost without Gerald. But if she could stand up, make a decision,

even the [188] wrong one, then that meant something, didn’t it? It had to mean she was not going

to die, wither away like those poor roses on Gerald’s grave.

Life is full of surprises,
she thought,
and maybe I’ll just surprise myself.

Sylvie brushed away a hair that clung to Rachel’s wet cheek. “Can you stay for supper? Then

we can talk about your plans. And let Bridget fatten us both up.”

Chapter 10

Max Griffin awoke. Bernice was snoring, a soft gurgling sound that made him think, while still

half-asleep, that the toilet needed its handle jiggled. He felt a fierce need to pee.

Logy with sleep, he edged out from under the covers. Then the shock of the cold floor against

his bare soles. Christ. Slippers. He groped blindly, finally found them, not where earlier he’d

kicked them off, but in front of the nightstand, lined up perfectly, toes facing out. Bernice. Sure.

She always put them there so he’d find them in case he might need the John at night.

No, not from her, that word. John, head, pot, or even toilet.
Powder room,
he could hear her

voice in his mind, that precise, ladylike voice as she ushered company into the living room, took

people’s coats.
The powder room is at the end of the hall if you’d like to wash up.
Wash up,

another of her euphemisms.

Max found the door, felt for the light switch. A glare hit him in the face like a flashbulb, hard

bright light backfiring off chrome, mirror, shiny pink tiles. If he hadn’t been awake before, he

surely was now. He could now launch into a summation to a jury, his mind felt that clear.

As he peed, he stared into the toilet. Blue. The water was a bright unnatural blue, the color of a

YMCA swimming pool. And now it was turning green, a sickly yellow-green. Did Bernice know

what happened when you peed in blue water? No, how could she? She’d never look, never even

take a peek before flushing; just the idea of doing that would disgust her.

An old memory came to him. Coming home and finding Bernice on her hands and knees on the

kitchen floor before the avocado-green Frigidaire, wearing big yellow rubber gloves that made

him think of Minnie Mouse, and scrubbing underneath it with a bottle brush and a plastic tub of

soapy water.

[190] “Baby asleep?” he had asked.

She looked up at him, her red hair clipped back with a plastic barrette, a fine sheen of

dampness glimmering on her pale forehead. “She’s having her bottle,” Bernice said. “I found this

new contraption, a pillow with loops you can slip the bottle into so it doesn’t fall over. Just stick

it in the crib when she’s hungry. Really frees me up.”

Mandy had been three months old.

Aside from a few hardly visible stretch marks, being a mother had not changed Bernice, Max

thought. Their daughter was just one more household item to be properly organized. One more

jotted reminder over the kitchen phone on the chalkboard, its frame painted with a smiling

bumblebee and the sunny yellow logo THINGS TO DO.

He shook himself off, and flushed.

Now a headache was starting, a painful pulsing in his temples that was creeping outward.

Jesus, he didn’t need this. Not with back-to-back court dates tomorrow.

Max stepped over to the mirrored medicine cabinet, where he had to confront the unwelcome

specter of middle age: a husky man closing in on forty, eyes puffy with sleep, jaw still firm, but

his rumpled brown hair shot full of gray.

He popped open the cabinet, relieved to watch his reflection slide away. Rows of bottles faced

him. Few of the things usually found in medicine chests, no old prescriptions dating back to the

hernia operation he’d had in ’62. No crusty bottles of last winter’s cough syrup, no rings on the

glass shelves. Everything new, and precisely arranged by category, neater than a drugstore’s

shelves. Massengil douche. Daisy feminine spray. Four different brands of underarm deodorant.

The lilac plastic dial containing Bernice’s birth-control pills. He found the Tylenol next to the

orange baby aspirin Bernice gave Monkey when she had a fever. He shook two into his palm.

Where was the water glass? Shit, she’d confiscated it again. That hotbed of germs. Jesus. He’d

have to get one from the kitchen.

Downstairs the cool emptiness soothed him. The headache ebbed. This great old house

overlooking Little Neck Bay. He remembered how he’d pushed for it soon after they were

married, even though the mortgage payments had seemed murderous. Bernice had had her eye on

one of those pseudo-Tudor attached homes in Bayside. So much easier to keep clean, she’d

argued. Not like this [191] one, with its eighty-year-old pumpkin pine flooring, where dirt could

fill the cracks, with its ocean-pitted windows and crumbled caulking. Six months spent

reshingling the roof, replacing gutters and drainpipes, stripping off layer after layer of old paint

before they could move in. But when the painting, wallpapering, sealing the floors with

polyurethane was finished, Bernice relented. Even she became smitten by its charms, the exposed

beams, the tucked-away window seats, the stained-glass fanlight over the front door.

Max crossed to the kitchen sink without turning on the light. He could see well enough. Dusky

moonlight gleamed off the flagged stone flooring. His gaze moved to the brick patio jutting out

below the window. He saw that the daffodils had come up around its sides, rows of flowers like

neat pickets poking up through the freshly turned earth. Max felt a little surge of happiness at this

sign of new life. Then he thought, feeling blue again,
They’ve been up for days, maybe a week,

and I didn’t even notice. When I was younger, I would never have missed the first daffodils.

Max then found himself thinking about his father, recalling one summer evening out on the

back lawn with his two older brothers, playing croquet. Max had been fourteen, and Dad ... how

old had he been? He’d always seemed the same age somehow, always bald on top (except for that