Grave Consequences (33 page)

There was occasionally a mention in the news about the events following the discovery of the Marchester murders, but I always switched the channel or turned the page to avoid them. I did have to go back to Marchester one day, but was back in London by that night. It was all so procedural and I focused so much on my answers that it was like a trip to the dentist; you don’t really look forward to it, but it was less of a trauma than you had imagined. It was all very clinical, very procedural, and it had an out-of-body quality that helped me not to think too much about it all. I was grateful that I didn’t run into anyone I knew.

I managed to keep myself busy and distracted right up until I got on the plane for home, and then there was no more hurrying to meet appointments and make schedules. I had plenty of time to think on the flight, but I did the best I could with a couple of novels and a glass of wine and a nap. Until we started to circle around Boston, waiting for our turn to get into formation and land. Then I started thinking about Mother Beatrice. Who was she? Was she a political creature? An altruist? A feminist? A saint? And how would we, five hundred and thirty years later, ever know for certain? Would Jane, with her aggressive pursuit of facts and radical use of theory, find out for sure? Facts can be subject to interpretation, and theories are pretty bubbles made of thought and personality. Would Morag find the evidence to back up her medium’s evidence, signs, and portents, or would Sabine find the truth about Mother Beatrice in reflection or church records? They too needed something more to finally con
vince. Art, science, faith—even sheer force of personality, like Dora’s arrogance or Kam’s self-possession—these inform us, but nothing seems to give the whole picture, solve all the problems. Whatever you choose—or whatever chooses you—it’s just about enough to get you along through this life.

At long last, though it had only been a twenty-minute delay, the pilot announced that we would begin to descend. I happily went through the ritual of putting the tray in its upright and locked position, readjusting my seat, and miraculously, for the first time in hours, watched the dandruffy head of the person in front of me pull away. I found myself getting more and more excited, and that drove some of my worries away. I would never know, really, if things would have been better if I’d not gone to the police. Maybe some things aren’t meant to be known. Maybe the important thing was, I tried as hard as I could and was finally willing to take responsibility for what I’d decided. Maybe the important thing was trying and doing, finding yourself in a situation and trying to make some good come out of it at the end.

The plane seemed to take forever to land. My impatience grew exponentially, geometrically, until I was ready to go ask the pilot why he couldn’t move things along just a little faster. Surely a few more degrees of decline, a few hundred more horsepower, wouldn’t hurt any? I was already twenty minutes later than I thought I would be, and somehow, after more than three weeks, it seemed unbearable.

Finally, we bumped onto the runway and the effect of the plane braking—the rushing in our ears, being pushed back into our seats—was enough to reassure me that it would be soon, I would see Brian soon, in less than minutes. I could hold my breath if I wanted to, but I didn’t want to, because the way I was humming with anticipation, barely kept in check by my seat belt, was practically aerobic. Suddenly, the light went off, the little chime binged, and we were there, and the whole reason for traveling so lightly, the wedging of
belongings into tiny bags, was again revealed to me: I grabbed my carry-on bags and threw myself into the aisle. No wasting time at the luggage carousel: I was going to see Brian.

But of course, the line of passengers took forever to move out of the cabin, and then there was the blast of salty Boston air—so refreshing after hours in the plane and the smoggy smell of London—before I was back in the terminal, heading for customs and trying to remember where I’d hidden my passport and forms, but all the time my heart grew lighter, my pulse sped faster and faster, and I knew it was just instants away.

I walked out of customs and then I saw Brian. I knew it was he even before I visually recognized him, it was the way he stood, the way he shifted when he craned to search for me. Then I really
saw
Brian, an instant before he saw me, and I loved how he was anxiously searching for me too. He was wearing the T-shirt that he knows I like best, and I could tell he’d run around the house cleaning things up so we would have time to play when I got home, fussing with things until he could legitimately go to the airport. The crumpled paper coffee cup in his hand spoke of more time killed at the airport, and my eyes began to well at the sight of that sign of anticipation too. Then he saw me and waved hugely, like a kid, not caring who saw, and his smile was like a lightning bolt that cracked my heart.

I pushed forward, as impatiently polite as I could manage, until I cleared the barrier and I could throw down my bags and wrap my arms around him, and he could fold me up in his. I could feel people forced to move around us and didn’t care. I could feel my shoulders relax for what seemed like the first time in a month. Next to Brian’s smell of newly laundered shirt, and soap, and shampoo, painfully familiar and so long missed, I could tell I once again was plane-grimy and smelled of prepared meals and plastic headphones and almond scented liquid soap and I didn’t care. I
began to cry. I couldn’t hear what Brian was saying, it was just disconnected words like “love” and “miss” and “back,” and it didn’t matter that I was probably saying exactly the same thing back to him, over his words. It didn’t matter in the least.

Okay, fine. There are some questions that I can’t answer, some things I’ll never know for sure, and that’s okay. I can live with that. Because there are some things that I just know by heart.