Remember Me (7 page)

Adam had so far successfully resisted Menley's efforts to get him to learn how to use a computer. But then Menley had been equally stubborn about learning to play golf.

“You're well coordinated. You'd be good at it,” Adam insisted.

The memory made Menley smile as she worked at the long refectory table in the kitchen. No, not the kitchen, the keeping room, she reminded herself. Let's get the jargon right, especially if I'm going to set a book here. Alone in the house with just the baby, it seemed cozier to work in this wonderfully shabby room, with its huge fireplace and side oven, and the smell of the garlic bread lingering in the air. And she was only going to make notes tonight. She always did them in a loose-leaf notebook. “Here we go again,” she murmured aloud as she wrote
David's Adventures in the Narrow Land.
It's so crazy how all this had worked out, she thought.

After college she had managed to get the job at
Travel Times.
She knew that she wanted to be a writer but what kind of a writer she wasn't sure. Her mother had always hoped she would concentrate on art, but she knew that wasn't right for her.

Her break at the magazine came when the editor in chief asked her to cover the opening of a new hotel in Hong Kong. The article had been accepted almost without editing. Then hesitantly she had shown the watercolor paintings she'd made of the hotel and its surrounding area. The magazine had illustrated the article with the paintings, and at twenty-two Menley became a senior travel editor.

The idea for doing a series of children's books using a “yesterday and today” theme, in which David, a contemporary child, goes back into the past and follows the life of a child from another century, evolved gradually. But now she had completed four of them, doing both the text and artwork. One was set in New York, one in London, one in Paris and one in San Francisco. They had become popular immediately.

Listening to all Adam's stories about the Cape had
made her interested in setting the next book here. It would be about a boy in Pilgrim times growing up on the Cape, the Narrow Land as the Indians had called it.

Like all the other ideas that had eventually ended up as a book, once hatched, it would not go away. The other day they had gone to the library in Chatham and she had borrowed books on the early history of the Cape. Then she'd found some dusty old books in a cabinet in the library at Remember House. So tonight she sat down to read; soon she was happily lost in her research.

*   *   *

At eight o'clock the phone rang. “Mrs. Nichols?”

She did not recognize the voice. “Yes,” she said cautiously.

“Mrs. Nichols, I'm Scott Covey. Elaine Atkins gave me your number. Is Mr. Nichols there?”

Scott Covey! Menley recognized the name. “I'm afraid my husband isn't here,” she said. “He'll be back tomorrow. You can reach him by late afternoon.”

“Thank you. I'm sorry to have bothered you.”

“No bother. And I'm so sorry about your wife.”

“It's been pretty awful. I'm only praying that your husband can help me. It's bad enough to have lost Viv, but now the police are acting as though they think it wasn't an accident.”

*   *   *

Adam called a few minutes later, sounding weary. “Kurt Potter's family is determined to see that Susan goes back to prison. They know she killed him in self-defense, but to admit it also means admitting that they'd ignored the warning signs.”

Menley could tell he was exhausted. After only three days of vacation he was already back in the office. She did not have the heart to bring up Scott
Covey's request now. When he got back tomorrow, she'd ask him to meet with Covey. Of all people, she understood what it was like to have the police question a tragic accident.

She assured Adam that she and Hannah were fine, that they both missed him and that she was keeping busy doing research for the new book.

The talk with Scott Covey and then with Adam had broken her concentration, however, and at nine o'clock she turned out the lights and went upstairs.

She checked the peacefully sleeping Hannah, then sniffed the air. There was a musty smell in the room. Where was it coming from? she wondered. She opened the window a few inches more. A strong, salty sea breeze quickly swept through the room. That's better, she thought.

Sleep did not come easily. The railroad crossing today had brought back vivid memories of the terrible accident. This time she thought about the signal light that day. She was sure she had glanced at it—it was something she did automatically—but the sun was so strong that she hadn't realized it was flashing. The first indication of what was happening was the vibrations caused by the train rushing toward them. Then she heard the frantic, shrill scream of its whistle.

Her throat went dry, her lips felt bloodless. But at least this time she did not begin to perspire or tremble. At last she fell into an uneasy sleep.

At two o'clock she sat bolt upright. The baby was screaming, and the sound of an oncoming train was echoing through the house.

A
dam Nichols could not overcome the sense that something was wrong. He slept fitfully, and each time he awoke it was with the knowledge that he'd just had a vague, troublesome dream and could not remember what it was.

At six o'clock, as dawn broke over the East River, he threw back the sheet and got up. He made coffee and brought it out on the terrace, wishing that it were seven-thirty and he could call Menley. He would wait till then, since the baby was usually sleeping past seven now.

A smile flickered on his lips as he thought of Menley and Hannah. His family. The miracle of Hannah's birth three months ago. The grief of losing Bobby finally beginning to ease for both of them. A year ago at this time he'd been at the Cape alone and wouldn't have bet a nickel that their marriage would survive. He'd spoken to a counselor about it and had been told that the death of a child frequently caused the end of the marriage. The counselor had said there was so much pain the parents sometimes couldn't exist under the same roof.

Adam had begun to think that maybe it would be better for both of them to start over separately. Then
Menley had phoned and Adam knew he desperately wanted their marriage to work.

Menley's pregnancy had been uneventful. He had been with her in the labor room. She'd been in a lot of pain but doing great. Then from down the hall they could hear a woman screaming. The change in Menley had been dramatic. Her face went ashen. Those enormous blue eyes grew even larger, then she had covered them with her hands. “No . . . no . . . help me, please,” she had cried, as she trembled and sobbed. The tension in her body dramatically increased the strength of the contractions, the difficulty of the birth.

And when Hannah was finally born, and the doctor had laid her in Menley's arms in the delivery room, incredibly she had pushed her away. “I want Bobby,” she had sobbed. “I want Bobby.”

Adam had taken the baby and held her against his neck, whispering, “It's all right, Hannah. We love you, Hannah,” as though he was afraid she could understand Menley's words.

Later Menley had told him, “At the moment they gave her to me, I was reliving holding Bobby after the accident. It was the first time I really knew what I'd felt at that moment.”

That was the beginning of what the doctors called the post-traumatic stress disorder. The first month had been very difficult. Hannah had started out as a colicky infant who screamed for hours. They'd had a live-in nurse, but one afternoon when the nurse was on an errand, the baby had started shrieking. Adam came home to find Menley sitting on the floor by the crib, pale and trembling, her fingers in her ears. But miraculously a formula change turned Hannah into a sunny baby, and Menley's anxiety attacks for the most part passed.

I still shouldn't have left her alone so soon, Adam
thought. I should have insisted that at least the baby-sitter stay over.

At seven o'clock he couldn't wait any longer. He phoned the Cape.

The sound of Menley's voice brought a rush of relief. “Her nibs get you up early, honey?”

“Just a bit. We like the morning.”

There was something in Menley's voice. Adam bit back the question that came too easily to his lips.
You okay?
Menley resented his hovering over her.

“I'll be up on the four o'clock flight. Want to get Amy to mind Hannah and we'll go out to dinner?”

Hesitation. What was wrong? But then Menley said, “That sounds great. Adam . . .”

“What is it, honey?”

“Nothing. Just that we miss you.”

When he hung up, Adam called the airline. “Is there any earlier flight I can get on?” he asked. He would be out of court by noon. There was a one-thirty flight he might be able to make.

Something was wrong, and the worst part of it was that Menley wasn't going to tell him what it was.

E
laine Atkins' real estate office was on Main Street in Chatham. Location, location, location, she thought as a passerby stopped to look at the pictures that she
had taken of available homes. Since she'd moved to Main Street, the drop-in traffic had improved dramatically, and more and more she'd been able to convert these expressions of preliminary interest into an excellent percentage of sales.

This summer she'd tried a new gimmick. She'd had aerial photographs taken of houses with particularly good locations. One of them was Remember House. When she'd arrived at work this morning at ten, Marge Salem, her assistant, told her there had already been two inquiries about it.

“That aerial photo really does the trick. Do you think it was wise to rent it to the Nicholses without asking for the right to show it?” Marge asked.

“It was necessary,” Elaine said briskly. “Adam Nichols isn't the type who's going to want people trooping through a house he's renting, and he did pay top dollar for it. But we're not losing a sale. My hunch is that the Nicholses will decide to buy that place.”

“I would have thought that he'd look in Harwich Port. That's where his family came from and always summered.”

“Yes, but Adam always liked Chatham. And he knows a good buy when he sees it. He also likes to own, not rent. I think he regrets not buying the family home when his mother sold it. If his wife is happy here, we've got a customer. Watch and see.” She smiled at Marge. “And if by chance he doesn't, well, Scott Covey loves that place. When things settle down for him he'll be in the market again. He won't want to keep Vivian's house.”

Marge's pleasant face became serious. The fifty-year-old housewife had started working for Elaine at the beginning of the summer and found that she thoroughly enjoyed the real estate business. She also loved gossip and, as Elaine joked, could pick it out of the
air. “There are a lot of rumors floating around about Scott Covey.”

Elaine made a quick gesture with her hand, always a sign of impatience. “Why don't they leave that poor guy alone? If Vivian hadn't come into that trust fund, everyone would be keening with him. That's the trouble with people in these parts. On principle, they don't like to see family money go to an outsider.”

Marge nodded. “God knows that's true.”

They were interrupted by the tingling of the bell over the front door, signaling the arrival of a potential client. After that they were busy all morning. At one o'clock, Elaine got up, went into the bathroom and came out wearing fresh lipstick and with her hair re-combed.

Marge studied her. Elaine was wearing a white linen dress and sandals, making an attractive contrast to her deeply tanned arms and legs. Her dark blond hair streaked with highlights was pulled back by a band. “If I hadn't mentioned it before, you look terrific,” Marge said. “Obviously being engaged suits you.”

Elaine wiggled her ring finger, and the large solitaire on it glittered. “I agree. I'm meeting John for lunch at the Impudent Oyster. Hold the fort.”

When she returned an hour later, Marge said, “There've been a bunch of calls. The top one is the most interesting.”

It was from Detective Nat Coogan. It was imperative that he speak with Miss Atkins at her earliest convenience.

B
y mid-morning, Menley had begun to convince herself that the terror that had awakened her had been simply a vivid dream. With Hannah held tightly in her arms she walked outside to the edge of the embankment. The sky was vividly blue and reflected in the water that broke gently against the shoreline. It was low tide, and the long expanse of sandy beach was tranquil.

Even without the ocean it's a wonderful piece of property, she thought as she studied the grounds. In the many years the house had been abandoned, the locust and oak trees had grown unchecked. Now heavily laden with leaves, they were in natural harmony with the velvety fullness of the pines.

The lush midsummer look, Menley thought. Then she noticed an occasional leaf already tinged with rust. Autumn would be beautiful here as well, she reflected.

Her father had died when her brother Jack was eleven and she was only three. Education was more important than a house, her mother had decided, and had used whatever she could save from her salary as a nurse supervisor at Bellevue Hospital to send them both to Georgetown. She still lived in that same fourroom
apartment where Menley and Jack had grown up.

Menley had always wanted to live in a house. As a little girl she drew pictures of the one she would have someday. And it was pretty much like this place, she thought. She'd had so many plans for the house she and Adam had bought in Rye. But after Bobby was gone it held too many memories. “Living in Manhattan is right for us,” she said aloud to Hannah. “Daddy can be home from work in ten minutes. Grandma enjoys baby-sitting and I'm a city slicker. But Daddy's family has always been on the Cape. They were among the first settlers. It might be kind of wonderful to have this house for the summer and holidays and long weekends. What do you think?”