“It’s just something about the way he looks at you. Like there’s a lot more going on in his head than . . .”
“Than what?” she has to prod, when Rita trails off again.
“Friendship,” Rita says reluctantly.
Fair enough. For if the whole truth be told, Peyton feels more than mere friendship for Tom Reilly in return.
She dumps the grounds back into the can and begins to count again. One . . . two . . .
“I just don’t feel like you’re getting the whole story where he’s concerned.”
Peyton looks up. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t know . . . there just seems to be something off about him.” Rita shakes her head and shrugs. “But, hey, maybe it’s just me.”
“I know you’re trying to be a concerned friend. But I can take care of myself.”
“So you don’t want me to say anything negative about him, is that it?”
“No,” Peyton says levelly, “I don’t.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. At least, not until you know him better. You just met him ten minutes ago, Rita. I don’t think first impressions are that reliable.”
“Really?”
“Not at all. I mean, the first time I met Tom, I thought he was a lunatic roaming the streets preying on innocent women.” She laughs at the ridiculousness of it now.
Rita remains silent for a moment. Then she says darkly, “I’m a strong believer in first impressions. That’s all I’m going to say, okay? I promise. Just promise me in return that you’ll be careful around him, okay?”
Peyton hesitates, her heart pounding as she pretends to be absorbed in counting out six more scoops of coffee grounds and setting the appliance to brew.
She doesn’t dare admit aloud that Rita’s struck a nervous chord.
Her hand is shaking as she takes out the sugar bowl and an empty cut-glass creamer.
It’s not that she thinks there might be any truth in her friend’s warnings. It’s just that she still can’t help but feel wary. Not just around Tom, or around strangers, but around everyone she knows.
“I promise,” she says at last, realizing her friend is still waiting for a response. “Listen, can you go ask Tom if he wants milk or half-and-half in his coffee? I have both.”
“Sure.”
Her back turned, Peyton nearly bolts out of her skin when she feels a hand on her arm.
She spins around and is relieved to see that it’s just Rita.
“I thought you left the room!” she exclaims, resting a hand on her racing heart.
“I was about to. I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“Sorry, I’m jumpy.”
“I just wanted to apologize. I didn’t mean to be so critical. I’m sure he’s a great guy.”
“He is,” Peyton tells Rita, wishing she believed that as wholeheartedly as she wants to.
On the glowing green dial of the digital clock, midnight gives way to the first minute of a new day, relegating the last twelve hours’ worth of trauma officially to the past.
Another minute passes, and then another, and still they lie awake in the dark, waiting for sleep that refuses to come.
“What now?” Jarrett asks finally.
“I don’t know.” Anne Marie rolls over to face him, reaching out to touch his shoulder with newfound ease. “What are you thinking?”
“You mean, about what you should do with what you’ve found out?”
“Yes. And with what I still haven’t found out.”
He’s silent, presumably mulling it over.
How long has it been since they’ve lain awake in the dark, sharing confidences in hushed whispers? Have they ever done this? Will they ever do it again?
The walls between them were washed away by the earlier tide of tears, the long-buried foundation of marital trust laid bare in its wake.
“You don’t have to do anything about any of this, you know. Maybe you can just sit with this awhile.”
“Maybe. But I don’t know.”
She leans her head against him and he reaches out to hold her close. She didn’t realize how much she’s been craving a renewed physical connection with her husband; never comprehended just how much they somehow lost along the way.
Some things about him, about
them,
can never change. But in these dark moments, the darkest she’s had in a decade, they’ve somehow managed to make contact again. For now, that’s enough.
Perhaps it’s enough to sustain her from here on in, without ever needing the answers she sought so desperately.
“Do you want to go out there again?” Jarrett asks, just when she thinks he might have drifted off to sleep.
“Maybe I’ll just wait awhile.” She sighs. “You know, like you said. Maybe I’ll give it a few weeks . . .”
And pray, just pray, that this raw, all-consuming need somehow goes away.
For a long time, they lie there in the dark, in silence.
Only when Jarrett’s breathing has taken on a telltale even rhythm does Anne Marie sit up and swing her legs over the edge of the mattress.
“Where are you going?” he asks, stirring.
“Shhh. I just can’t sleep.” She bends to kiss his brow, her thoughts already soaring away from this bed, this room, this life. “Get some rest. I’ll be back.”
There’s no response from the man in the bed, whose concern for his wife’s nightmare has once more given way to sweet dreams of his own.
“Well, that’s a damn shame,” Detective Jody Langella mutters, peering over the subway platform at the barely recognizable human remains on the tracks.
“So what the hell happened to him? Or was it a her?” she asks, turning to the two transit authority officers standing guard on this side of the yellow tape cordoning off the still unshrouded carnage.
“It was a
him,
” the older of the men informs her. “What happened?”
“What do you think? The usual.”
A police photographer leans precariously over the platform to get a better angle, takes a couple of overhead snaps, then climbs down into the tracks.
The younger officer, an obvious rookie, watches the process, appearing too shaken to speak.
This is the first of many mangled corpses you’re gonna see in your life,
Jody wants to tell him.
Better get used to it.
But why put a damper on the poor kid’s day—let alone his freaking career—before it’s even under way?
Addressing the older cop, Langella asks, “Did he jump or get pushed?”
“Pushed. By some homeless person.”
Yeah. Same old, same old.
The transit officer unwraps a piece of Big Red and folds it into his mouth, then offers the pack to the rookie, who turns even paler and pushes it away.
Smirking inwardly, Langella gives the kid about a year before he’ll be eating oil-slicked hero sandwiches within minutes of taping up a gory crime scene. All in a day’s work.
“So you got witnesses?” she asks the gum-snapping spokesperson for the two.
“Platform was pretty much empty at that hour of the morning.”
Sure it was. The Baychester Avenue station is the second stop on the number 5 line, in the northernmost reaches of the city. The accident occurred a few hours before throngs of neighborhood commuters would have begun heading south to Manhattan.
Maybe you’d have a coupl’a construction workers here at that hour, or some young punks heading home from an after-hours bar.
“We got three people who saw what happened.” The cop indicates an ashen-faced trio seated on a bench nearby.
Bingo!
Feeling smug, Langella gives herself an invisible pat on the back.
One construction worker, one club kid, and one wild card witness: an impatient scrubs-clad hospital worker who keeps looking at her watch.
Preferring to get the already-obvious scenario from the cop, she’ll wait for her partner, Detective Sam Basir, before interrogating the witnesses. He’s upstairs now with the distressed subway motorman.
Langella asks the cops, “So what happened?”
“Homeless person came up behind this poor schmo, gave him a shove just as the train was pulling in, and took off running.”
“The perp a man or woman?”
“Nobody could tell. It happened too fast.”
Jody nods, all too familiar with the scenario. Stalk, shove, and split.
Beautiful. Just one more demented soul left to wander the city streets.
“So anybody ID the schmo?” she asks, hearing a commotion on the stairs as the cleanup crew and medical examiner simultaneously arrive on the scene.
“Yeah, I did when I checked his pulse. I put his wallet back into his pocket. Name is Cordell. Linden Cordell.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“Special delivery for Peyton Somerset.”
She gasps and opens the door wider, allowing Tom and the oversized stuffed elephant he’s carrying to fit through the opening. He sets it in the middle of the living room floor and brushes his hands against each other in a satisfied gesture.
Peyton laughs, shaking her head. “Where on earth did you get that?”
“Oh, I have my sources.”
“Your giant stuffed animal sources?”
He nods and pulls her as close as he can with her unwieldy midsection between them. “If you don’t think the baby will like it, I can always exchange it for a giraffe or something.”
“I only have eight-foot ceilings. I’ll stick with Dumbo,” she murmurs against his lips, before he kisses her.
“Stop,” she protests after a few seconds, halfheartedly resting her hands on his chest.
“Why?”
“Because we’ve got dinner reservations and I’m starved.”
“Oh, right. Almost forgot about that three-meal-a-day, eating-for-two thing you’ve got going on. Just let me go wash up. I’ve lugged that thing twenty blocks in ninety-five-degree heat.”
He disappears into the bathroom, and Peyton hears the water running. She gingerly lowers herself onto the couch to wait, propping her swollen ankles on the coffee table and leaning against the cushions to rest her perpetually aching back.
Just weeks ago, she never could have imagined that she’d find herself caught up in a romance at this cumbersome stage of her pregnancy—or her life.
Then came the unexpected blackout that struck the city on a steamy July evening, just as the sun was sinking over the Jersey skyline.
She only panicked in the few seconds it took her to look out the window and realize all of Manhattan was dark. But in those harrowing seconds, her thoughts spun wildly from the prowler’s possible return, to her own mortality, to what might have happened to Allison just before she vanished.
She was grateful when Tom turned up on her doorstep in remarkably short order, armed with flashlights, candles, and ice. Though she felt obligated to claim she was perfectly capable of taking care of herself in the dark, she was secretly relieved he insisted on staying with her until the lights came on.
That didn’t happen until dawn—and when it did, he didn’t leave.
Somewhere in the wee hours of that long, hot night, he had kissed her for the first time, transforming their friendship into something far more intimate, and far more welcome, than Peyton ever anticipated.
Neither of them has since discussed their future or what will happen when the baby arrives, let alone Tom’s prospective role in that event. She hasn’t yet asked him to be her labor coach, though she’s pretty sure she’s going to, with Wanda’s blessing.
Her friend has met Tom and really liked him.
Not that she didn’t put him through the third degree, grilling him about where he lives, where he works, what he does in his spare time, whether he has any pets . . .
“Who are you, Barbara Walters?” Peyton grumbled to her afterward.
“I was just making sure he’s good enough for you.”
“And . . . ?”
“He is,” Wanda concluded. “I think your baby’s going to have a future daddy.”
“I think you’re getting way ahead of us there, Ms. Jones,” Peyton responded with a laugh.
The last thing she wants to do is speculate about what might happen next year, next month, even next week. For once, she’s content to take things day by day.
It’s hard enough to deal with the lingering sorrow over Allison, the brutal dog days of August in the city, and her physical metamorphosis as her due date looms.
Not to mention the fact that Gil, apparently stung by her inability to help him when he stopped by the office, hasn’t been in touch since that day. She left a few messages on his home voice mail in the days that followed, but he never called back. For all she knows he’s taken off for Oregon again. Feeling guilty for neglecting her old friend in his time of need, she keeps telling herself she should try harder to track him down. Yet, short of breaking into his apartment, she can’t imagine how she can possibly reach him if he doesn’t want to be reached.
For the most part, though, there’s been too much going on at the office to dwell on Gil or anything else.
Tara hasn’t officially demoted her yet—not necessarily surprising, considering that Peyton was never officially promoted in the first place. But her boss never misses a chance to give her tedious assignments typically reserved for underlings, or to make supposedly teasing digs about her pregnancy.
No, Peyton doesn’t have the time or energy to analyze her love life. Where that’s concerned,
que sera, sera.
“Miss me?” Tom reappears in the living room, fresh-scrubbed and handsome. He’s wearing a chambray shirt tucked into khakis and loafers without socks.
The man looks as though he stepped out of a J. Crew catalog.
Beside him, Peyton should probably feel positively ungainly, but he has a way of making her feel somehow beautiful despite her bulky figure.
She allows him to take her hand and hoist her out of the couch. Smoothing the wrinkles in her linen maternity jumper, she asks, “Do you think I’m underdressed?”
“I think you’re gorgeous in anything you wear. Or don’t wear,” he adds salaciously. “Come on, let’s get going so we can come back.”
As they step out into the warm summer Friday night hand in hand, Peyton Somerset is blissfully unaware that the last tranquil moments of her life are rapidly falling away.
Anne Marie slips the red Bible and manila envelope, its flap now worn and tattered from use, into her bag.
She closes the bureau drawer, then looks up at Jarrett standing beside her.
“Finished packing?” he asks, and she nods.
“Do you have everything you need?”
“Even things I don’t need.” She pats the Bible, thinking that if he asks her why she’s taking it, she’ll have to explain. And that if she’s forced to come up with an explanation, she might be able to understand her own motives for a change.
Because right now, nothing makes sense. For weeks, she’s been operating on pure instinct, and nothing more.
Anyway, Jarrett says nothing.
Jarrett rarely says anything.
Anne Marie often wishes he were the type of man who has just the right words of support; the type of man who would offer to go with her tonight, and who, if he went with her, would know how to handle the challenge that lies ahead.
But in the end, she supposes she’s grateful to him for doing the very least he could do—which is the most he is capable of—and who would expect anything more?
Jarrett is staying with the boys tonight, and tomorrow, and tomorrow night, if necessary . . . staying with them for as long as it takes her to put things to rest.
This has been eating away at her for weeks, ever since she made the pay phone call that morning a month ago, the call that raised more questions than it answered.
No, longer than that. She’s been traumatized ever since she got the call back in June, the one that confirmed what she now realizes she already knew.
There are things a mother just knows, if she listens to her heart,
Grace DeMario used to tell her children and grandchildren.
Usually she said it teasingly; say, when Anne Marie was up to something she shouldn’t have been.
But what she has always remembered most vividly is the time her grandmother told her that her mother—Grace’s daughter, Lisa—wouldn’t be coming back to them.
Ever.
Anne Marie must have been about twelve then, a Catholic schoolgirl filled with wonderful fantasies about the mother she barely knew, the free-spirited wanderer who popped in and out of her life when she least expected it. A flower child, Grace used to call her wayward daughter, and Anne Marie would picture her smiling, beautiful mother with a wreath of roses on her long, straight blond hair.
She told the girls at school about her, inventing adventures that her mother wrote to her about in letters that never existed. But the girls didn’t know. Most of them envied Anne Marie. They wished their own mothers—churchgoing types who cooked and cleaned and nagged them—were more exciting, like Anne Marie’s.
Then Margarita Taylor, a girl with close-set eyes and a perpetually sour expression, told everybody that Anne Marie’s mother wasn’t a flower child at all. She said her parents called her a crazy hippie and said she was never coming back.
Anne Marie punched Margarita Taylor in her pinched little face on the playground and Father Joe, the principal, called her grandmother to the school. Anne Marie remembered thinking Grace didn’t seem as angry as she expected. She didn’t say much on the walk home. When they got there, Anne Marie asked her, once again, when her mother would be coming back.
Instead of offering her usual shrug or vague “soon, I suppose,” Grace gave her the dreaded answer.
Never.
Never? But . . . how do you know?
There are things a mother just knows if she listens to her heart, Anne Marie, without having to be told.
Of course she cried then. They both did. But Anne Marie cried so hard and for so long that she still remembers the way her eyes ached, the terrible headache that lasted all day. Grace offered cold cucumber compresses, one of her old Sicilian remedies. Anne Marie finally accepted them, but refused to speak to her.
She so wanted her grandmother to be wrong. For years, she hoped she was.
In the end, of course, she wasn’t. Lisa never did come home to her daughter—or her mother—again. Anne Marie still doesn’t know what happened to her. Grandma assumed she was dead, but for all she knows, her mother might still be out there somewhere, an aging flower child with a wreath of roses in long gray hair.
Probably not.
But . . . maybe.
That’s the thing about the not knowing.
Hope.
You get to keep hope in your heart, carry it with you, resurrect it when days seem darkest.
“Are you going to say goodnight to the boys?” Jarrett’s question startles her back to the present.
“Oh . . . No.”
He looks at her, raising his eyebrows.
She opens her mouth to rationalize her choice, to point out that they’re probably asleep, that if they aren’t, they’ll cry if they realizes she’s leaving. They might ask when she’s coming back. And then what will she tell them? That she isn’t sure?
Of course, she’s coming back eventually. Sooner or later, she’ll reclaim this charmed life that never quite seemed to belong to her in the first place. Of course she will.
A mother—a
good
mother, like Anne Marie Egerton—doesn’t abandon her own children. A mother stays with them, protects them, until they no longer need her care. And even then, she’s perpetually on watch.
A painful lump rises in her throat.
“You’re ready, then?” Jarrett asks, lifting her heavy bag.
Somehow, she manages to reply. “I’m ready.”
She kisses her fingertips and presses them to the doorknob of the boys’ room as they pass.
Downstairs, in the hall, she regains her composure to ask Jarrett, “What if I’m wrong about this?”
“You could be right.”
“What if I’m right?” she asks with a bleak, staccato laugh, before she walks out the door.
Rita is standing on the corner waiting for the light to change when she feels the sudden vibration of her cell phone in her back pocket.
She curses under her breath. There are times when she wholeheartedly welcomes the interruption.
This isn’t one of them.
She pulls out the phone and flips it open. Seeing the unfamiliar number in the caller ID window, she’s tempted not to answer it.
But of course, she has to.
Twenty-four-seven.
“Rita?”
Hearing the familiar voice that greets her, she promptly bids farewell to her plans for the next twenty-four hours, and perhaps beyond.
“Wanda! Tell me what’s going on.” She steps briskly away from the pedestrians clogging the curb, heading for the relatively secluded storefront of a Duane Reade drugstore.
Rather than rushing headlong into a series of physical symptoms, Wanda asks only, “Did I get you at a bad time?”
She doesn’t sound like a woman in labor, or even like a woman going on two weeks overdue with her first baby. She sounds oddly . . . calm.
Well, that proves you never know. Rita would have pegged her as a screamer.
“Not a bad time at all, sugar pie,” she says soothingly. “I was just on my way to pick up J.D.’s dry cleaning. What’s happening? Contractions?”