An Act of Love (2 page)

Sap, he chided himself, and scratched his naked thigh. But the truth was that he was amazed by their marriage. He had never thought a woman would be able to love him as he really was, reclusive and sardonic and pessimistic, struggling to write novels about the environment that garnered praise but little money, angry most of the time at what men were doing to the planet, often sinking into black moods that made everyone around him, including his son, Bruce, and their old dog, Maud, miserable.

But Linda accepted him. Perhaps because she was a novelist, too. She understood that writing was his sanity … and his insanity as well. He was haunted by the characters who seem to pummel his brain, by the way the world was headed toward hell in a handbasket. He would write day and night if he could.

Now he was restless. Quietly he slipped from the bed and padded down the hall, thinking as he went how few women would be content to be stuck out in the country in this place. Old, rambling, and eccentric, with Victorian touches lacing a good solid colonial foundation, six fireplaces, wide board floors, and a wraparound porch, the house had been passed down from his father, who received it from his father before him. Owen loved the house and the land surrounding it; he would never leave it; he would pass it along to Bruce some day.

Linda loved the house, too, although she occasionally went into fits of distress over its state of disrepair. She wanted to have the rattling, cracked windowpanes fixed; to have the two blocked fireplaces opened up; to have the faded wallpaper dimming the high expanse of walls in the front and back halls steamed off and those walls freshly painted. Some of the work he could do himself, and all of it he could supervise, but it would take time away from his work, which would mean a loss of income, and with Bruce facing four years of college, right now was not the time even to think about that.

In Linda’s study, Owen dropped the phone receiver back into its cradle, then
headed to the bathroom. As he stepped into the old claw-footed bathtub and turned on the shower, he acknowledged to himself he was comfortable with the house as it was, a little shabby, and crowded. All the rooms were crammed with books on shelves or on tables or in piles on the floor or the stairs. Linda liked this, too. Most of the books were Owen’s; but many were hers, many the children’s. He and Linda were always reading, always talking. If one of them came upon a perplexing thought or clever metaphor, they’d wander through the house, searching each other out, and finding each other, lean against a doorjamb and talk for hours. They talked over dinner, over breakfast. They talked as they walked through the damp rock-strewn woods. Or they walked in silence. Linda was the only woman he’d met who was comfortable with silence.

It was as if they had become two halves of a whole, a pretty amazing thing considering how they’d all started out, two divorced adults, each with a divorced-scarred child. The first year they’d all lived together he hadn’t been certain they could make it. But now, after seven years of marriage, it seemed that his son and Linda’s daughter had gotten so accustomed to each other and to their way of living together that all distinctions of blood and law had blurred and they were at last a real family.

This was purely a miracle. This was more than he’d ever expected from life.

As he stepped out of the shower, the phone rang. For a moment he toyed with the thought of not answering. Then he wrapped the towel around his midsection, went down the hall, said hello.

“Mr. McFarland? It’s Bob Lorimer here. I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but I’m here at Basingstoke Hospital with Emily. She’s going to be all right, but it seems she attempted to commit suicide today.”

Chapter Two

“What happened?” Owen asked
.

“Emily swallowed a number of pills as well as a quantity of alcohol. Her roommate Cordelia Analan wondered why she wasn’t in class, went to their room, and found Emily comatose. She notified us, and we had Emily brought to the hospital by ambulance. We found empty aspirin, Sleepeeze, and Midol containers on her bed, and a half-empty bottle of vodka. Emily’s stomach has been pumped. Physically she’s out of danger now, but emotionally she’s … upset.”

“Did she tell you why?”

“No. Emily’s not—coherent. Cordelia appeared as surprised as we are. Perhaps she’ll talk to you.”

“We’ll come at once. We’ll be there in an hour.”

“Good.” Mr. Lorimer hesitated, then said quickly, “I’m sorry about this.”

Linda had come into the study and stood waiting, listening. When Owen put down the phone, he told her, “Emily’s in the hospital in Basingstoke. She tried to commit suicide.”

Linda blinked and took a step forward. “She—”

“She’s going to be okay. She’s in the hospital.”

“I don’t understand. Are you sure?
Emily
?”

“We’ve got to go there now. I’ll call Celeste and ask her to take care of the place while we’re gone.”

Linda nodded, but did not move. “What did they say? Who called? Are you sure it’s not … a prank?”

“It was Bob Lorimer. He said Emily swallowed a bunch of pills and some alcohol.”

“What kind of pills?”

“Midol. Aspirin. They pumped her stomach. Cordelia found her in her room. She was comatose.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Let’s get moving.”

Linda nodded and headed for her bedroom to dress. Owen called after her to remind her to pack a bag. They’d probably have to stay the night in Basingstoke.

There was no
direct way to get from the farm outside the small town of Ebradour in central Massachusetts to Hedden Academy, situated on the north side of Boston. The scenic route through rolling mountains and sleepy villages took about forty-five minutes longer, more if they got stuck on the two-lane road behind a truck hauling livestock. Today they took Route 91 down to the Mass Pike, then headed east to 93 North.

The unsettling flash of cars at the periphery of their vision always took some getting used to after the pastoral pace of their farm and the country roads curving moatlike, protectively, around it. Now the frenetic traffic sounds of horns and brakes and radios and the hurtling rush of air seemed appropriate to the moment. Everywhere the land swept off in all directions, the occasional orange or red leaf flashing like a message of alarm.

“Sit back,” Owen said.

“I can’t imagine why Emily would do such a thing.”

“It’s not like her.”

“She seemed in great shape this summer.”

“Both kids did.”

“She seemed happy to return to school.”

“Something must have happened there.”

“You think I was right about the braces, don’t you?”

“Absolutely.”

“She didn’t want them put on now. She said a boy liked her. She wanted to look good. Probably she was thinking about getting kissed.”

“You were right to make her get them now.”

“It’s just that … I can remember what it’s like when you first fall in love. The first time you kiss a boy.”

“Now she can have two first times, one with braces, one without.”

Linda glanced at her husband. Usually he was not so sanguine, and in spite of his words his face was grim. It was possible that he was concerned, as she was, that they had been wrong to send Emily to boarding school. Just because Bruce flourished there didn’t mean Emily would. But Emily had wanted to go, had begged to go. All the things Owen and Linda loved about the farm, the silence and privacy and peace, the vast stretch of air and sky and rolling fields, the long shared walks through the sweet high wet grasses with only the flash and dart of birds for company, only the fragrance of alfalfa and pine perfuming the air … all that bored Emily.

Emily loved people. She was an extrovert and an optimist. She didn’t want solitude, she wanted the giggles of her girlfriends and the rumble of boys’ laughter, the jolt and thud of music from a boom box, the smell of sweat and shampoo and chewing gum and illicit cigarettes in the hallway. She wanted the sight of boys’ bodies, their crooked grins, their ambling figures coming toward her down the hallway. Linda knew what her daughter wanted.

Thought
she knew. Obviously she was wrong. It seemed she didn’t know her child at all.

Bruce heard the
siren when he was running toward the fieldhouse, but it didn’t signify anything to him until the moment he stepped out of the shower to find Coach Parker waiting by his locker.

“Bruce. Lorimer wants to see you. Now.”

“What’s up?”

“Something about Emily.”

“Emily? What about her?”

“You’ve gotta see Lorimer right away. That’s all I know.”

Bruce yanked on his khakis and striped shirt and sweater, slid his feet sockless into his shabby loafers, then set off at a run toward the dean’s office in the administrative buildings, turning things over in his mind. If the siren had meant an ambulance, and that had come for Emily, well, what could have happened? She wasn’t a jock, she wouldn’t have gotten hurt playing. He took the steps up to the entrance to Tuttle Hall two at a time.
In the lobby he stopped to brush back his hair and tuck in his shirt.

The dean’s secretary, Mrs. Echevera, sat at her desk, pounding away on the computer, but the moment Bruce stepped into the office, she swiveled her chair toward him. “Hello, Bruce. Go on in, dear. He’s waiting for you.”

Dear
, Bruce thought, there was an ominous sign. After rapping sharply at the door, he went in.

Dean Lorimer was six foot three and had a Teddy Roosevelt kind of gruff charm. “Bruce. Sit down,” he growled. “How are you?”

“Fine. I’m fine, sir.” Bruce settled uneasily on the edge of the chair facing the desk.

“We’ve got a little problem you should know about. I wanted to tell you before you heard it elsewhere. Your sister’s been taken to the hospital. If appearances don’t lie, she attempted suicide this afternoon.”

“Emily?”
Bruce asked, incredulous.

Lorimer nodded. “Her roommate Cordelia found her. In time, I should add, thank God above for that. An ambulance came immediately and she should be in the hospital right now. I want you to know I’ve called your parents. They’re on their way to the hospital. I thought you might like to go over there, too, later on. I’m giving you permission to be off grounds for the rest of the day.”

“Well, thank you, sir,” Bruce said, automatically polite. “But—are you sure it was a suicide attempt?”

“Unfortunately, yes. She had a bottle of vodka and a variety of pills with her. Seems she waited until the dorm was empty after lunch.”

“But she’ll be okay?”

“We think so,” Lorimer replied cautiously. After a moment he asked, “I don’t suppose you can help shed any light on what would be bothering Emily?”

Bruce shook his head. “She’s two classes behind me. Well, you know that. I hardly ever see her.”

“Can you remember when you did see her last?”

Bruce thought. “Probably at assembly. She seemed all right then.”

Lorimer shook his head. “It’s not like her.”

“No, it’s not.”

“I’ll walk you to your dorm,” Lorimer said, rising. “Something like this … I need
some exercise.”

“I, uh, I’m not sure I’m going to my dorm right now,” Bruce told the dean. “Unless you think it’s necessary.”

Lorimer looked at him.

“I’d kind of like to talk to a friend right now,” Bruce explained.

“Of course, son,” Lorimer said. He waved his hand. “Go on.”

“Well, uh, thank you, sir,” Bruce said awkwardly. He left the room, making a polite grimace to Mrs. Echevera, then hurried down the hall. When he stepped out into the cold freshness of the day, he began to run toward Shipley Hall, Alison’s dorm.

From his window, Bob Lorimer stood, watching Bruce run.