Love Lies Bleeding (19 page)

“The problem is that you are supposed to be promised to Stephen LaBarr! The problem is that you don’t care about him and don’t want him, and I do! How can you hurt me so? I’m so fond of him, yet you tramp on my feelings like they’re nothing. He will marry you if you’ll have him. What’s wrong with you? Who is this other man? It’s that boy from Newfield, isn’t it?”

Libbie’s silence betrayed her. For once in her life, she had no retort.

“You can’t tell anyone, Maude.”

“Who says I can’t? I think Stephen would like to know that his betrothed is going out unchaperoned with another man.”

Libbie’s heart leapt in fear. “Maude, did you hear me? You can’t! You can’t say anything. To anyone!”

“Father will be very interested in this new love of yours, too. Maybe we should give him the good news right now.” Maude reached for the doorknob.

“Maude, no!” Libbie lunged for her sister’s hand to stop her from opening it. “What do you want? I’ll give you anything. Just don’t tell Stephen. Don’t tell Mother and Father.”

“Anything? That’s rather a broad term. This poor boy must be wonderful if he’s worth all this. Is he?”

“I don’t know,” Libbie confessed.

“What? Then why continue with him? I at least gave you credit for loving him. You’re practically engaged to Stephen LaBarr.”

“I can’t explain it to you. You wouldn’t understand.”

“Try.”

Libbie laughed. “What, so you can compare me to some character in one of the goofy molasses-sweet books you read? There’s nothing to compare.”

“Then what?”

“I’m afraid it’s a bit more adult than you could understand, Maude.”

“ You’ve become
Madame Bovary
,” Maude said. “You have a man who cares for you, but instead, you go riding with the debonair rogue who makes love to you in the carriage. That’s it, isn’t it?”

“You’re so naïve,” Libbie said. “That’s the way the world works, dear. Tom is handsome, and I enjoy being with him that way. But I’m not sacrificing Stephen for you or anybody else. Girls marry for money, not love. Especially this girl!” Noticing Maude’s face at last, she saw the hurt in those eyes, which changed to a glare.

“I never ask for anything,” Maude said. “You know you’re the favorite. You get life handed to you on a silver platter. And now you’ll have him, too. What makes you so special? Why do you always get everything you want?”

Libbie looked at her with amusement and laughed. “Because I’m the pretty one, that’s why.”

“You bitch,” Maude hissed. “I hate you. I wish you were dead.” She reached for the doorknob, then turned and whispered, “Just wait, Libbie. You’ll get yours. I’ll tell Mother and Father. Maybe not right away, but when you’re not suspecting it, I’ll tell them all I know about you. Nothing would make me happier right now than to see Father toss you out without a cent. Don’t underestimate me.”

For the first time in her young life, Libbie Morgan felt a pinprick of fear.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Ithaca, New York
August 1986

F
rank watched as his mother’s face crumpled. He couldn’t believe that she’d kept all this emotion pent up for seventy years. All the times people had mentioned her sister and she had never said a word about all this. She’d learned the hard way that once hurtful words were said, they couldn’t be unsaid.

“I didn’t mean to do it,” she wept. “I didn’t want her to die. I wanted to hurt her as much as she was hurting me. Oh God, Frank. What did I do? Libbie, forgive me!” She held her head in her hands and sobbed as if her heart would break. The oxygen tube was becoming a liability until he could get her emotions in check.

“Mom, calm down, please! You can’t breathe if you’re crying.”

Frank rang the call button, and a nurse appeared. She glared at him, but her first responsibility was to stabilize Maude’s condition.

They both spoke to her in gentle voices, reassuring her that everything would be fine. Frank waited until the nurse, whose nametag read “Doris Birnbaum,” moved on to the compound fracture three doors down. Then he comforted Maude by telling her that she did not cause her sister’s death, and that deep-down, Libbie had known how much she loved her.

She got quiet and contemplative and stared at him almost as if she hadn’t looked at him for years.

“You’ve stopped drinking, haven’t you?”

“I…yeah. I have.”

“I’m sorry if I’ve been disagreeable the last few years. I’ve been unfair to you, and I’m sorry.”

He smiled at her, taking her hand closer to him.

“I saw you repeating the same behavior I saw with my father, and I was so disappointed. I never considered how I might have contributed to you going there. When you and Allison separated, I was so angry at you.”

“I was angry at me too, Mom. It was stupid, but I’ve paid for it.”

“Frank, I have a favor to ask you.”

“What is it?”

“I’m so worried about Walter. What will happen to him when I’m gone? Diana’s allergic, and Seth’s wife would never have a cat. I don’t know if Allison would let Shannon have him. Can I depend on you to find him a good home?”

“Of course. He’ll be fine. Don’t worry about Walter.”

“I love you, Frank. I’m sorry if I haven’t been the best mother the last few years. I’m very proud of you. I want you to know that.”

“I love you too, Mom.”

He held her hand until she fell asleep, then sat a little longer until Diana arrived to spell him. When he left the hospital, he felt twenty years younger.

“She told her she wished that she was dead?” Linda said.

She was sitting Indian-style on the couch, sorting through everything they had on the case. In her left hand, she crunched a breadstick, left over from the Joe’s take-out she had brought over.

Frank nodded. He’d given her a key a few days before, and his eyes had lit up when he’d seen the Karmann Ghia out front when he arrived home from the hospital. It had seemed natural, and very right, to find her reclined on the couch in jeans and a Kermit the Frog T-shirt.

“God, what an awful thing for her to live with all these years.” She shook her head.

“And you have to understand how sweet and meek my mother is to know how out-of-character that is for her. I’ll bet she’s never spoken to anyone like that since. Butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, for God’s sake. Best I can figure it, Mom has been dealing with so much remorse all these years that she’s been terrified to even raise her voice to anyone. Guess she’s been afraid that if she does, they’ll disappear too.”

He sank down on the couch next to her, head in hands. Something hurtful like that, and she could never take it back, never apologize, and never make it right to the family that was destroyed by the disappearance. Of course she felt responsible. His mother had always shouldered everyone else’s burdens as her own. All these years, she’d been living with the largest one of all.

Linda’s arms were around his shoulders, reassuring him once again. When she turned his face and gave him a soft kiss, he felt a lightness he hadn’t known in years. Sure, cheesy song lyrics spoke of being born again with someone, but he’d never known what they meant until now. With her, things seemed to make sense for the first time in a long time, and he realized the sensation in his midsection was something he’d been too frightened to name. He’d told her about the divorce and the drinking, and she hadn’t even blinked. She just seemed to accept that it was something to deal with together. He looked at her, making a mental list of everything he found irresistible about her. Her kisses tasted like Close-Up and flavored beeswax lip balm, she loved Italian food, and his daughter thought she’d be fun to hang out with. Then there was the added bonus of her taking such joy in helping him solve this case.

“Thanks for being here,” he said.

“Don’t mention it. We’re collaborators, right?” she said, playing with the hair at the nape of his neck.

“Is that it? Like co-workers on a project?” he said, a little disappointed.

“Well, I know another project we can collaborate on.”

“What’s that?”

“Follow me and I’ll show you.”

She took his hand and led him to the bedroom, where she stripped off Kermit and the jeans. Frank admitted this new project had definite possibilities.

They’d fallen asleep afterward, both spent. He leaned on an elbow, brushing a hand over her naked shoulder, and watched as she smiled in her dreams. The clock read eight p.m.

Running his hand through her hair, he watched her sleep. When she woke, she ran her thumb over his jaw.

“I need to tell you something,” he said.

“What’s that?”

“I think I’m falling in love with you.” He exhaled, happy to have that off his chest.

“Hmmm. What a coincidence. I’m finding you rather pleasant to have around myself.” She cupped his cheek in her hand.

“Do you remember my daughter, Shannon, from when we used to visit the restaurant?”

She thought a moment. “Yeah, I do. Adorable kid.”

“Well, she’s not so much of a kid anymore. She’s fifteen.”

Linda whistled. “They grow up so fast,” she said, chuckling.

“She seems to think you have definite slumber party potential.”

“Seriously?”

“Yep, painting each other’s toenails and everything, if I remember right.”

“You told her about us?” Linda said.

“She figured it out, I think. But I was going to tell her anyway.”

“I would love to see your daughter again. And we can start planning that slumber party.”

She ran a hand over the gray fluff on his chest, enjoying the coarse texture on her palm as she became even more acquainted with the detail of his face, crags and all. Reaching down, she grabbed a handful of blanket, covering her thighs and then spreading it over him, too. Spidering her fingers through his hair, she pulled him close for another kiss.

“I love you too, Frank.”

Ithaca, New York
August 1916

Libbie didn’t often wake at four o’clock a.m., but she did today. What an awakening it was. From a sound sleep, she’d been wracked by the vilest nausea she’d ever felt. She dashed to the bathroom down the hall and clutched the cold porcelain as she emptied her stomach. She’d eaten almost nothing for dinner; she wasn’t sure what was causing this. Juliana’s roast tenderloin had looked tempting, but she’d barely touched it.

Gathering her nightgown around her legs, she was at last able to pull herself up from the tile floor. Cupping her hands under the tap to take a sip and running some cold water over her face helped a bit.

She opened the door to the bathroom and slunk down the corridor to her room, but before she could reach the alcove near her room, Maude’s door opened and she stood there glaring at Libbie. George looked up from his sleep in the hallway, and his nails clicked across the floor as he took a seat between the two rooms, looking back and forth at the sisters.

“You woke me up,” Maude said, grouchy at the early morning interruption. The previous night’s conversation hung between them like a poisonous cloud.

“Sorry. I didn’t feel well,” Libbie mumbled, gesturing with her hands for George to follow her. He tramped behind her to her room, where he plopped down on the rug and fell asleep. Reaching the sanctuary of her room, she rolled her eyes and wished once again that her baby brothers had been allowed to live instead of bratty Maude. God knew when she planned on springing her little surprise. One word from Maude to her father or Stephen, and her life would be destroyed.

Now there was this blasted nausea to deal with as well. She still felt a bit green. She hoped she wouldn’t have to cancel her lunch with Olive today, but she still wanted to see Tom tonight. He was a need that was going to be hard to break. But as long as Stephen had not yet made his official social call requesting her hand from her father, she was free to do with her weeknights what she wished. Tonight, she was once again claiming that she was attending a nursing seminar with Olive. Any idiot could have discovered what she was up to, but no one bothered. Except Maude. She said a fervent prayer that the little bitch would not give away her secret. This might be the last time she would be able to see him, if things kept up this way.

But perhaps, even when she was married, she could still get away from time to time to rendezvous with Tom. If her time in the bedroom with Stephen was abysmal, she would have to. The need in her was all-consuming. If he never learned how to please her, it would be his own fault for being too concerned with his stupid, boring law books.

She sat down at her vanity and brushed her hair, once again finding solace and inspiration from her bawdy postcard. It seemed the more she misbehaved, the more the woman in the postcard smiled at her when she pulled it out of her drawer. Why was it that men who enjoyed making love were considered virile and masculine, but women who did the same were branded trollops? It simply felt good.

That night, they met at Tom’s flat, since she wanted them to lie on an actual bed if it might be the last time. They had to listen for Mrs. Protts and her thundering footfalls in the hallway, but it didn’t matter. Tom made Libbie bite down on a corner of the pillowcase so her passionate cries were not heard all throughout the building. When they were done, he reached over to the small table and handed her a large piece of cardboard. “I wanted you to have this, darling Libbie.”

“What is it?” she said, intrigued at the thought of a present.

“Open it,” he said, grinning.

When she flicked back the cardboard flap, there he was in a posed studio shot, looking more handsome than usual. On the flap of cardboard, he had written “
To Libbie, with all my love, your Tom
.”

“You look very respectable and dignified,” she said.

“I look like a famous writer in that photo, don’t I?” he said. She could see he’d purchased a new cravat for the occasion.

“Yes, you do. But you still need a distinguished gray beard,” she laughed.

“I was thinking I’d label it on the back. ‘The respectable Mr. D. H. Lawrence.’ Think anyone would buy it?” he laughed.

“Here, let me do it for you!” she squealed. The sheet not quite covering her breasts, she leaned across him and grabbed a fountain pen off the table. Then, she scribbled the name on the back of his picture for fun.

“There. Now you’re famous,” she said, inserting the photo back into its cardboard frame.

“I am indeed,” he said. “All I need is some money to go with that fame, and I can marry you some day.”

Libbie didn’t respond.

“Olive, dear, could I ask a huge favor of you?” Libbie asked, forking another small potato into her mouth.

“Depends,” Olive said, stirring her tea. The girls were at Birdie’s having a late lunch of chicken pie and vegetables. Libbie had devoured everything on her plate and finished part of Olive’s, as well. Olive had never seen Libbie so hungry.

“Do you think you could borrow one of your father’s biology books for a short while?”

“Why?”

“I need a medical text of some kind. I’d like to study a bit. With all our talk of nursing, I’d like to reacquaint myself with some of the sciences, and I can’t remember much from our studies. Aren’t you nervous about what we might encounter if we go overseas? It’s going to be bloody.” Libbie was amazed at how the lie rolled off her tongue.