The Heat of the Moon: A Rachel Goddard Mystery (Rachel Goddard Mysteries) (4 page)

“Dr. Mac’s taught me a lot. He let me start working at the clinic as an aide part-time when I was sixteen.”

Luke nodded, but seemed distracted. I wished he’d get on with it, whatever it was.

Instead, he asked, “Have you heard from him since he retired?”

“He called me last week, actually. He wanted to know how you were working out.”

Luke laughed. “I hope you gave me a good report.”

“Glowing.”

“Right answer.”

This time we both laughed. Then we fell silent, and the silence stretched out long enough to be uncomfortable. I didn’t want to keep up the chat, though. I wanted to know what was really on his mind.

“Look,” he said. That disarming awkwardness reappeared, and once he started his words tumbled out in a rush. “This is my clumsy way of trying to get to know you better. Personally, not professionally. Now, if you think this is politically incorrect, or you’re involved with somebody, or you just think I’m a creep and you want me to buzz off, say so now and that’ll be the end of it, no hard feelings.”

I stared at him. Then I burst out laughing.

His embarrassment was too naked to miss, but he hid it quickly behind a self-deprecatory grin. “I guess that’s better than a slap in the face.”

“Oh, God, I’m sorry. It’s not you—” I tried to suppress it, but laughter kept bubbling out. I couldn’t meet his eyes. Outside the window, a young couple in business clothes held hands across a sidewalk table.

“Don’t tell me you had no idea I was interested,” Luke said.

Now I looked at him, and sobered. My relief at what he hadn’t said gave way to astonishment at what he had said. “No. My gosh, no. I never expected—” I shook my head. “Why don’t you try your coffee before it gets cold?”

He seemed glad to have something to do. He grabbed his cup, took a gulp, and coughed. “Strong,” he choked out.

I resisted the urge to smile. “It’s loaded with caffeine. You’ll be wired all afternoon if you drink too much.”

“No danger of that.” He set down the cup and pushed it aside. Then he leaned on his arms, studying me. “So, have I just made a total fool of myself, or is there some remote chance we could get to know each other away from work? I feel like I have to come right out with it like this because of our professional situation. I can’t exactly—” He searched for a word and came up with one I found charmingly old-fashioned. “—court you at the clinic. And the last thing I want to do is pressure you. This doesn’t have any bearing on your job, now or ever.”

I sipped my coffee, giving myself time to think. His whole body seemed to be straining toward me, and the intensity of his gaze weighed on me like a demand.

Why me? A useless question. Who could explain the spark between two people? Why not me?

And why not him? The truth was I’d been fighting a sneaking attraction to him since the day we met. Intellect and skill plus rangy, boyish good looks—an irresistible combination.

I yanked myself back to reality. Why not him? One very good reason: he was my boss. I was used to casual relationships that were fun for a while and ended with no bothersome consequences. A relationship with my boss could never end cleanly.

Setting down my cup, I said, “This is flattering, but—”

When I broke off, he waited a second, then prompted, “But?”

“It’s not that I don’t—It’s just—It can get messy, seeing somebody you work with. Not that I know firsthand. I just imagine it could be. Don’t you?” Good grief. I was babbling. “I mean, after they break up they still have to work together—”

He threw up his hands with a laugh. “You haven’t gone out with me yet, and you’re already planning the breakup.”

“Well—” I shrugged. “You have to look ahead.”

He leaned toward me again. “I am looking ahead, Rachel.”

For a moment he did nothing but smile at me, and everything he imagined for us was clear in his eyes. All trace of the awkward boy was gone. I held his gaze. His eyes were deep blue. Heat bloomed inside me and rose to warm my skin. He slid a hand across the small table, next to mine, an inch away. I wanted him to touch me, and was afraid he would.

I drew back.

“Let me think about it,” I said, and I heard the huskiness in my voice. I’d think about it, all right. I’d go wild thinking about it.

He sat back too. “Good enough.”

He sipped his coffee again, winced, and we both laughed too much.

A moment passed in silence, then he said, “Will I be pushing my luck if I invite myself over to see your hawk? How’s the wing doing, by the way?”

“The bird seems to think it’s ready to go.” Did I dare let Luke come to the house? My young, single, handsome boss—Mother would jump to conclusions and be full of questions. “I removed the binding last weekend, and he’s been exercising it. He’ll fly again, I’m sure.”

“You did a neat job placing that pin,” Luke said. “What’s your rehab setup like?”

“I’ve got outdoor space for several large animals and some smaller cages I can set up indoors if I need them. The hawk’s outdoors.”

“This is in your yard?”

“Yeah. Well, my mother’s yard. It’s her house.”

“Ah.” His eyebrows shot up, and for a second he seemed to consider. “You live with your mother.”

It occurred to me that it might seem odd, a woman my age still living at home. Normally I never gave it a second thought, but for some reason I wanted to justify it to him. “Yes,” I said. “It’s convenient, it’s near work. And my mother has a big beautiful house. I couldn’t afford comfort like that on my salary.”

“You mean your boss doesn’t pay you enough?”

“Oh, I’m not angling for a raise. He has a big loan to pay off.”

“You’re very understanding.” We grinned at each other like flirting kids. “Your father, does he live in that big beautiful house too?”

“No, he doesn’t.” Last night’s black dreams ambushed me, made my breath catch in my throat. I lifted my cup, put it down again because my hand was trembling. With an effort I shoved the invading phantoms out of my head and slammed the door. “My sister lives at home, though,” I added, surprised my voice was steady.

“So, tell me,” he said, “what do you do when you, uh, have a visitor and you want privacy?”

I watched his long fingers lightly stroke the side of his cup and let myself imagine his touch on my cheek, my neck. What would he be like, avid or gentle? Both, I thought. Yes, both.

“Privacy’s out of the question,” I said, mock serious. “We sit in the parlor and make conversation with my mother and sister.”

“Very proper.”

He was leaning forward, and I’d almost unconsciously moved closer. I had a quick and vivid fantasy of him ravishing me, or me ravishing him, in the middle of Starbucks on that little green table, with clerks and customers cheering us on.

“So,” he said, “can I come and see your hawk?”

“Sure.” I mentally ran through the possibilities. Tomorrow was Friday. On Saturday Mother and Michelle would be gone from early to late. I alternated Saturday duty with another young vet, and this was my week to be off. Rosario didn’t work on the weekend. We’d have the house to ourselves.

Crazy. What was I thinking? I barely knew him. And he was my boss.

But I said, “How about Saturday? Come at noon. I’ll feed you.”

“Sounds great. Your mother won’t mind?”

“Not at all.” I’d let him think my family would be home, so he wouldn’t come expecting anything to happen between us. Nothing would. Not in Mother’s house, the first time Luke and I were alone. If anything happened, it would be much farther down the road, when I knew him better.

But oh, how I loved this feeling. The rush of excitement. The newness of it. The look in his eyes made the air crackle between us.

In my car on the way home that night, I pushed a Mary Chapin Carpenter tape into the player and sang
I want to be your girlfriend
along with her, jubilant, silly as a teenager, tapping time with my palm against the steering wheel.

***

Mother and Michelle were in the kitchen, putting the final touches on the dinner Rosario had left for us.

“Hey, Mish,” I said, swinging an arm around my sister’s shoulders. “How’d it go at the dentist?”

She looked startled by the hug. I released her quickly, feeling obscurely foolish.

“It was okay,” she said. “You’re in a good mood.”

“It’s nice to see,” Mother said. She smiled at me but her slender fingers went on mincing basil leaves in a saucer. The strong minty aroma filled the kitchen. “You went out of here this morning with a cloud over your head.”

“I had a good day.” I stood at the sink to wash my hands and hide my smile.

When I turned back, Mother was still watching me, her expression quizzical. She dropped her gaze and sprinkled bits of basil over a bowl of cold pasta salad. “Rachel,” she said, “would you bring in the iced tea?”

She carried the pasta through the doorway to the dining room.

Michelle poked at her jaw. “I’m still a little numb,” she muttered. “I hope I don’t bite myself.” She picked up a basket of rolls from the island counter.

As I was following her out of the kitchen the wall phone sounded its soft burbling ring. I answered. It was Kevin, returning Michelle’s earlier call, he said.

I handed the receiver to her.

Her voice was cool and she didn’t bother with a greeting. “I wanted to let you know I won’t be able to go sailing with you Sunday.”

I’d started for the dining room, but this made me stop and turn around in the doorway.

Michelle said, “I’ve changed my mind, that’s all. I just don’t want to go.”

A pause, then an exasperated sigh. “No, Kevin, I don’t want to discuss it. I don’t want to go, that’s all. I’m sorry you don’t understand. We’re just sitting down to dinner. Good night.”

She dropped the receiver into its cradle with a clink.

I stood gaping at her. She brushed past me into the dining room, sat down and spooned pasta salad onto her plate.

“Mish,” I said. “What’s up? What was that all about?”

“You heard what I said to him.” Her clear blue eyes were wide, expressionless. “May I have some tea?”

I realized I was still holding the glass pitcher, and I put it into her reaching hands. I didn’t know what to make of the way she was acting. “For heaven’s sake. You were looking forward to going boating with Kevin. What happened? Why did you speak to him that way? It was downright mean, Mish.”

“Rachel,” Mother said, “why don’t you sit down?”

I dropped into my chair. “Mish?”

“It was a mistake to accept the invitation in the first place. I shouldn’t let him think I’m interested in a—a relationship.” She spat out the word as if it felt slimy on her tongue.

I could have sworn a relationship was exactly what she was interested in. I glanced at Mother, who was carefully slicing a tiny section from an asparagus stalk. Turning back to my sister, I chose my words more carefully and kept my voice even. “It’s just that you seemed so happy to see him.”

“I was happy to see him,” Michelle said. “But that doesn’t mean I want to have a romance with him. It’s unfair to let him believe I do.” 

Dumbfounded, I sat back and watched her slice her asparagus exactly as Mother did hers. I glanced from one to the other. Mother didn’t seem at all surprised by any of this.

She caught my eye and smiled. “Have you made any plans for Saturday? While Michelle and I are at the conference.”

I hesitated. Hiding boyfriends from Mother’s analysis was an old habit for me, but I’d never before felt such an urgent need for secrecy.

I spoke down at my plate, avoiding her gaze. “I have a lot of reading I need to catch up on.”

“Well, you deserve a rest,” she said, “after a stressful week.”

She reached to squeeze my hand, and her touch stirred guilt and a desire to be honest with her, to repay the solicitude she lavished on me. But at the same time I felt an almost overpowering impulse to draw away. The same old push and pull, as familiar to me as my own breathing in and out.

I left my hand where it was, allowed her to break the contact.

They began talking about the professional conference they would attend the next day, and terms like interpersonal press and dissociative fugue and depersonalization made me tune out. When they discussed psychology, my mother and sister were in a world I couldn’t enter.

I ate my dinner, lifting my head only once to listen to the raspy bark of a fox somewhere outside.

Chapter Four

I stood at the door of Mother’s bedroom. I had a few minutes, but only a few.

It was early Friday evening. Down in the kitchen Rosario made occasional clinking sounds as she prepared dinner. Michelle wasn’t home yet and Mother had a late session at the home of a woman she was treating for agoraphobia.

I just wanted to look at the picture of Michelle and our father. In and out, it wouldn’t take a minute.

Yet I hesitated, time slipping away, as I tried to put down the paralyzing sense of wrong that kept my hand from the doorknob. Privacy was sacred to Mother. Not even her daughters could walk into her room without permission.

“Do it,” I whispered. I grabbed the knob, twisted it, pushed the door open. The room was in shadow, the deep peach color of the walls and bedcovers robbed of vibrancy.

Leaving the door ajar so I could hear anyone coming along the hall, I tiptoed across a strip of polished floor and stepped onto the big blue Chinese rug. Silently, as if someone lay sleeping in the bed, I crept to the dresser and switched on the lamp.

The photo stood beside the lamp on the otherwise bare dresser top. Leaning close, I examined the image, a moment from the past caught in a silver frame: my father holding Michelle, the daughter who was named for him. He was so young, happily unaware that his life was almost over. I pitied him in the way I might have pitied an unfortunate stranger.

He was a handsome man, with the same high cheekbones I saw every time I looked at my sister. Blond hair fell across his forehead in a bright fan. I couldn’t see the color of his eyes because he was gazing down at Michelle. She beamed up at him.

How old was she? Two, perhaps. A little younger than she was in my strange memory, dream, vision, whatever it was.

I carried the picture to the bed, sat and turned on the bedside lamp. My father leaned against a tree. Sunlight dappled the grass around him and Michelle. He wore a blue knit shirt with a little alligator on the pocket, she was in a pink romper suit with short sleeves and legs. Summer. Sun and heat and the buzz of cicadas in the air. Where were they? In our yard in Minnesota, at the home I couldn’t remember?

And where was I? Standing off to the side? Next to Mother as she snapped the picture? Why wasn’t I in it too?

We must have other pictures of our father that included me. I’d seen them, hadn’t I? Suddenly I was unsure. They certainly weren’t kept in any part of the house where I would come across them. Where would they be if not in Mother’s room? Her study downstairs was a possibility, but I doubted that she kept anything personal among her work-related papers. Besides, every drawer and file cabinet in that room was probably locked.

I glanced at my watch—6:25. If Mother finished her appointment at 6:30, she’d be home by 6:40.

Careful not to make a noise that would catch Rosie’s attention, I pulled out the night stand drawer. It held only a box of tissues and a yellow leather bookmark. I crossed to the closet and slid open one of the louvered doors, wincing when it rumbled in its track. The scent of floral sachet enveloped me. Mother’s garments were arranged by type and length: blouses, skirts, jackets, dresses, all further divided by color. I scanned the shelves to one side of the clothes racks and found nothing but shoes and purses.

Back at the dresser, I opened the top drawer on the left. It contained Mother’s brush and comb, her mirror and a small cache of cosmetics.

Quickly I explored the rest of the drawers, running my hand under nightgowns and underwear. As my fingers brushed the cool silky fabrics I was reminded of movies in which people furtively searched places where they had no right to be. I stopped, repelled by what I was doing. Going through my mother’s underwear. Good God. 

But after a moment I was back at it. I wanted to see those pictures, the ones of me with my father. If I discovered where they were, I could come back to them tomorrow, when I’d be alone in the house for a while.

Among folded sweaters in a bottom drawer of the chest, I found a brown packet tied with string, bulging. My fingers shook as I fumbled with the knot. It came loose and shiny papers slid out of the packet, fluttered to the rug. Travel brochures. Palm trees, a white cruise ship, impossibly bright blue water.

Just then I was startled by the lilt of Rosario’s voice from downstairs, the words indistinguishable but the cadence familiar: she was giving Mother a run-down of things she’d done that day, before leaving for home.

“Damn,” I muttered, and knelt to scoop up the brochures. I shoved the half-tied packet among the sweaters, shut the drawer. I switched off the lamps on my way out.

I was in my room with the door closed when Mother came upstairs.

All through dinner Mother and Michelle talked about the paper on phobias that Mother would deliver at the conference the next day, the passages she still wasn’t happy with, the case histories she’d used. A businessman terrified of elevators. A woman so afraid of heights that she couldn’t go above the first floor in a building. People who’d been unable to leave their homes for years. All were success stories, emotional cripples now leading normal lives because of Dr. Judith Goddard. Mother seldom had a failure.

How ironic it was, I thought, that this masterful psychologist who had helped so many fearful people couldn’t face her own grief for a husband dead more than twenty years. She’d told me we would talk about my father, and I believed she meant it when she said it. But would we ever have that talk, would she ever be able to answer the questions that roiled in my mind?

After dinner I went to my room expecting to spend the evening with my feet up on my little sofa, reading a veterinary medicine journal. The journal lay unopened on my lap when Mother’s knock interrupted my thoughts.

The instant she walked in I realized what I’d done. In her hand she held the silver-framed photo. I’d left it in the middle of her bed.

With a sigh, I swung my feet to the floor. Why couldn’t I have waited for a time when I wouldn’t be rushed?

After she closed the door she stood over me, clasping the picture frame with both hands.

“Rachel?” she said, not sharply, not angrily, but in a gentle inquiring tone. “Were you in my room earlier?”

Guilt and shame robbed me of any defense. I rolled the journal into a tight tube between my hands. Peripherally I saw her sit on my bed with the photo in her lap. “Mother—”

“If you wanted to look at this picture, why didn’t you just tell me? I wish you hadn’t gone into my room when I wasn’t here. I thought we respected each other’s privacy as adults.”

Just the slightest stress on the words, mixing surprise and disappointment, enough to open a wide hollow space inside me. “I’m sorry,” I said, feeling ten years old.

“Thank you.” She held out the picture. “Here. Why don’t you keep it for a while? Look at it all you want to.” 

I dropped the journal onto the couch beside me but I didn’t reach for the photo. “It’s the other ones I’d like to see. Pictures of me with him, all of us together. They might help me remember him.”

She withdrew the photo and laid it in her lap again, then began massaging her left temple. I wondered if I’d given her a headache.

“I suppose we’ll have to talk about it,” she murmured.

I squelched the automatic instinct to back off from anything that distressed her. “It’s only natural I’d want to remember him.” It sounded like an apology.

The look she gave me was odd, impersonal and assessing. “Why has this become so important to you? Now, at your age? Is this Kevin’s doing?”

“Kevin? No. I’ve always wondered about my father.”

“Always?” A dark eyebrow lifted. “You didn’t come to me with your questions.”

How could I have gone to her? The subject of our father was forbidden territory. Michelle and I saw the glint of pain in her eyes, her withdrawal into cool formality, when other people blundered onto the topic. We were afraid she’d withdraw from us as well if we asked about him.

But now I took the small opening she offered, although I expected the door to close quietly in my face at any second. “Maybe I’m just ready, I’ve reached a stage where I need to remember,” I said. “I do want you to tell me things, but what I really want is to remember.”

“And Michelle? Have the two of you have been discussing this?”

I shook my head. “Not lately. But maybe all three of us could talk about it together.”

She rose from the bed and came to sit beside me on the couch. The photo was face-down in her lap. “You know, you were very young when your father died. Your lack of memories isn’t unusual. I don’t remember much about my early childhood either. Not with any guarantee of accuracy.”

Her voice was soothing and reasonable, a therapist’s voice, and I could imagine her speaking to a patient in that tone. I shifted slightly away from her.

“Maybe if we talk about him and I see some other pictures, I might get back a few memories, at least. You must have more pictures. That one can’t be the only one ever taken.”

I saw the resistance in her eyes, the tension in her jaw, and wanted to back down. But hadn’t she invited this? Hadn’t she just said
I suppose we’ll have to talk about it?

Twisting toward me, she grasped both my hands in her warm, strong fingers. “Rachel, I wish you’d just let it be. Please. Believe me when I tell you it’s for the best.”

I tried to wriggle my fingers free of hers but she wouldn’t let go. “How could forgetting my father be a good thing?”

For a long moment she sat motionless, then she withdrew her hands from mine. Her gaze had turned inward, she was in the grip of some thought or emotion that washed ripples of pain over her features.

“I could never be sure how much damage was done,” she said at last, quiet and slow. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe you are ready to remember. But, oh, Rachel, I wish you didn’t have to.”

Her solemn face, her brimming eyes, the deep weary sadness in her voice suggested something terrible, and I couldn’t imagine what it was. I opened my mouth, wanting to stop her from saying what I’d begged to hear. But I didn’t speak, because equally strong was the need to know what she would tell me.

“When your father died in that horrifying accident—” Her voice broke on a husky note. She cleared her throat, then met my eyes. Still, she hesitated.

I ran my tongue over dry lips. “Mother, what?”

“You were devastated by it.”

“But—” I faltered. “It’s normal for a child to grieve over a parent’s death.” Somewhere far back in my mind a memory stirred, little more than a feeling, a welling sorrow. “I told you I remember crying about it. Vaguely.”

She shook her head. “I’m not talking about ordinary grief. There was nothing ordinary about it.” Her dark eyes peered into mine, so intently that I drew back. “You really don’t remember what you did?”

I managed barely a whisper. “What I did?”

She raised her chin and went on. “It’s not an exaggeration to say you were traumatized by the loss of your father. It almost destroyed you. I’ll be honest, I was afraid you’d never recover. More than once I thought I’d be forced to hospitalize you, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it.”

I sat in stunned silence. My mind went blank, my memory offered nothing.

She squeezed her eyes shut for a second. Tears seeped through her dark lashes and ran down her cheeks. “The suddenness of it, and not being allowed to see his body, not being able to really say goodbye to him. He was so mangled—” She raised a trembling hand to her mouth. “I couldn’t imagine letting you see him. I thought I was doing the right thing at the time.”

She turned to me, imploring. “You have to understand, I was torn apart myself, I wasn’t capable of making decisions. Now I think I might have been wrong. Maybe if you’d seen him—” She paused, took a deep shuddering breath. “It’s so hard to judge what to do when a child’s emotions are involved. Everything has lifelong consequences.”

She hugged the photo tight against her, but when I grasped one edge of the frame she allowed me to take it. With a fingertip I traced the lines of my father’s face, his shoulders, the arms that held Michelle. My father, my dead father.
Mangled.
Why couldn’t I feel anything for him beyond a vague sense of loss?

Mother gently removed the picture from my hands and laid it beside her on the couch, out of my reach. “You were so angry at your father for leaving you. Anger’s a normal part of grieving, but with you it was extreme. You’d fly into rages and destroy things that belonged to him.”

“Rages?” I said in confusion.

“One day I left you alone for just a few minutes, I thought you were reading and I went out in the yard for a few minutes, and you tore all the pictures of your father out of the scrapbooks and burned them in the fireplace. But this one—” She glanced at the silver-framed photo. “It was in a desk drawer and you overlooked it.”

My hands formed tight fists in my lap. My nails dug into my palms, but I noted the pain abstractly and did nothing to lessen it. I could imagine the auburn-haired little girl feeding photos to the flames. I could almost feel the heat on my hands. But something in me resisted, wouldn’t allow me to put myself in that child’s skin, to make her me. 

“Don’t dwell on it,” Mother said. “Please. You’re a grown woman now, you’ve made a wonderful success of your life, there’s no reason to relive old heartaches.”