Bloodline (44 page)

We spent the days very quietly. Both of us read books, and neither of us went near a newspaper. We read all of my Hemingway and Fitzgerald. Roxanne tried a John D. McDonald novel but it had a murder in it, of course, and she had to put it down. I picked it up and read five pages and did the same. That afternoon I called Dave Slocum and apologized. The deal was off.

For three days, we slept wrapped around each other, like people sleeping on a windy mountain ledge who do not want to be swept off. On the fourth day, in the morning, we made love almost solemnly but with a conviction I'd never felt before. It was like we were possessed. Roxanne said we'd just fallen deeply and irrevocably in love.

“Isn't that redundant?” I said, as we lay there in the bed.

“No,” she said. “Not at all.”

We were quiet for a moment.

“You know what the saddest thing is?” I said, as Roxanne nestled in the crook of my arm.

“That Missy never felt this. That she never had any of this. And she was a good person. She tried so hard. Didn't give up, you know? She was sort of small and vulnerable, but then she had these dreams that she wouldn't let go of. And she did it all alone, the stuff with her baby. Can you imagine what courage that took?”

“To give her up, or try to get her back?”

“Either, I guess. It was this huge sacrifice, either way. And then she's gone. This little kid. There really is no justice.”

“There is,” Roxanne said. “It's just sporadic.”

“And based entirely on luck.”

“But you knew that, didn't you?”

“No,” I said. “I guess I only suspected it.”

That night we had dinner with the Varneys because they were leaving the next day to go see their daughter, Susan, the one in North Carolina. Their other daughter, Jennifer, was driving down from Maryland. Mary chatted about this, trying to keep things going, but Clair was quiet. We ate turkey and vegetables and pie and then Clair and I cleared the table. In the kitchen, he started in with his Wilfred Owen poem.

“What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?”

I gave his shoulder a squeeze. He gave me a wistful, sad smile.

Later, I walked home in the cool darkness with Roxanne. We climbed the ladder and got undressed and lay together under the blankets and were still.

“After all this, would you like to have a baby someday, Jack?” Roxanne asked, in a whisper.

“As long as it's with you, I wouldn't rule it out,” I said.

“Because I don't want to grow old all alone,” she said.

“What makes you think we're alone?”

Somewhere above us, a bat fluttered in the dark.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Gerry Boyle is the author of a dozen mystery novels, including the acclaimed Jack McMorrow series, and the Brandon Blake series. A former newspaper reporter and columnist, Boyle lives with his wife, Mary, in a historic home in a small village on a lake. He also is working with his daughter, Emily Westbrooks, on a crime series set in her hometown, Dublin, Ireland. Whether it is Maine or Ireland, Boyle remains true to his pledge to send his characters only to places where he has gone before.