She Loves Me Not (17 page)

Maybe it does smell like mildew, he acknowledges,
as he opens the wooden door and steps over the threshold, but he's never
minded.

The scent reminds him of childhood summers spent
here with his grandfather, the family patriarch, a man who owned fabulous,
professionally decorated mansions filled with exquisite antiques in Manhattan,
Palm Beach, and Monaco. But Pop preferred this old log cabin he'd built himself,
in his youth. When he died, he left David the cabin, along with an equal share
of the vast family wealth—split among all twelve grandchildren, of course.

The Brookman money has granted David a successful,
respected lifestyle, but it's the cabin that has saved him. Saved his sanity,
saved his marriage, and after he lost Angela anyway, saved his soul.

He closes the door behind him, shutting out the
frosty air, then wipes his boots on the mat in front of the door.

The place looks the same as it did last week; the
same as it has for the last fifty years, he'd be willing to bet.

He wanders the main room with its two-story vaulted
ceiling, rustic wooden furniture, and braided rugs. On the wall are framed
photos of various family members posing on the front step of the cabin—mostly
Brookman men, as Angela pointed out the last time they were here together.

“That proves it. I knew I
couldn't possibly be the first woman in the family who isn't crazy about
this place,”
she said with a grin.

He laughed.
“At least you're
willing to come up here with me. My mother was here once before the divorce,
saw a snake in the yard, and never came back.”

“
Oh, I've seen snakes,
”
Angela told him.
“I'm a country girl, remember?”

Yes, he remembered. She was a country girl when he
met her—if you considered western New Jersey the country—but it didn't take her
long to become an uptown girl. Uptown, downtown, all around the goddamned
town.

He was so crazy about her that he refused to wonder
whether she married him because she loved him, or because she loved his
lifestyle. He so didn't want their marriage to be that
cliché . . .

But it was exactly what they became, on the spring
evening when he saw her in the Village with another man.

David sighs. The old oak floorboards creak beneath
his feet as he walks across the floor to the fireplace.

He lays a fire the way Pop taught him, with
patience and precision, then ignites the kindling. As he waits for it to burn,
his thoughts drift back to that weekend, the one after Thanksgiving. The one
that saved his marriage.

He brought her up here because he couldn't stand it
anymore. He could no longer pretend he didn't know what she was doing behind his
back, and he could no longer bear the thought of her in another man's arms.

He brought her up here to confront her, to give her
the option of leaving him, or staying—on the condition that she give up her
lover.

He expected—maybe he even wanted—her to deny the
affair.

That she didn't filled him with resignation. So it
was irrevocably true.

He expected her to walk out the door.

That she didn't gave him hope.

She cried. She apologized. She begged him to
forgive her.

David jabs at a red-hot log with a poker; sparks
fly dangerously close to the rug beyond the open hearth. He ignores them.

“Who is he?”
David
asked her, at one point that weekend.

“Just someone I met. Just
. . . nobody. Nobody who matters. I promise I'll never see him
again, David. Never.”

He believed her.

David tosses the poker aside and turns abruptly
away from the fireplace. His gaze falls on a nearby table.

He crosses to it and picks up Angela's snow globe,
remembering . . .

At one point that Thanksgiving weekend, they left
the cabin to go into the nearest town for food and other supplies.

There's a ski resort nearby; naturally, gift shops
have sprung up around it. Angela insisted on stopping at a few. He remembers how
he teased her about how she could find a way to indulge her shopping habit even
up here, in the middle of nowhere.

In the corner of one country store, he found her
shaking a snow globe with childish fascination. In that moment, he felt as
though a tremendous weight had been lifted from his shoulders. Things were back
to normal at last. Angela was herself again—not the furtive, distant creature
who always seemed on guard around him.

“Look, David . . .
it's an angel,
” she said, holding it up to show him.

Sure enough, as the artificial white flakes settled
at the bottom of the dome, the figure of a cherub emerged.

He bought it for her.

And when they emerged from the little country
store, the winter's first snow was coming down.

He picks up the snow globe now and shakes it,
watching the fat, lazy flakes dancing behind the glass.

That last day here with her, on the very spot where
he's standing, before a roaring blaze, he made passionate love to his wife. Then
they made plans to get away from it all, to go to the islands for a few days,
where they could have a fresh start.

They returned to New York on Monday and flew right
to Barbados, just as they had for Angela's March birthday. This time, she never
once slipped away from David in the airport to make a mysterious phone call. She
seemed focused entirely on him, on renewing their relationship. He allowed
himself to believe that the nightmare was over.

Less than a month later, she was dead.

What a waste. What a goddamned waste.

He looks down at the snow globe in his hand.

The flakes have settled once again.

The angel gazes at him with a frozen smile from
behind the glass.

David curses and raises the globe, prepared to
hurtle it into the fire.

No! Don't. Don't destroy it.
It's all you have left of her. At least, here, in the cabin. It's the only
thing that proves Angela was ever here.

He lowers his arm and sets the snow globe gently
back on the table. Sinking into a nearby chair, he stares into the crackling
fire.

“Your wife can live on, Mr.
Brookman,
” the woman at the hospital told him.
“If you make a gift of her organs, she will live on through others. You'll
be saving lives.”

It took him a long time to make that decision.

He made it, not because he was certain it was what
she would have wanted, or because it was the noble thing to do, but simply
because it was the easiest thing to do. They kept asking, gently but
persistently; they kept reminding him that she was already gone, that only the
machines were keeping her heart beating.

In the end, blinded by grief, wanting it to be
over, he simply signed the papers.

They told him, later, what happened.

Angela's eyes went to a young blind woman from
Staten Island.

Her lungs went to a middle-aged woman in
Westchester.

And her heart went to a mother of two on Long
Island.

Yes, David thinks dully, Angela lives on in three
strangers.

All of them wrote him letters that were forwarded
to him through the donor agency. The first arrived just as spring tulips were
obscenely bursting into bloom on the Park Avenue island; the other two around
Christmas and the one-year anniversary of Angela's death. He never bothered to
open any of them, just tossed them into a desk drawer. They're still there
somewhere, he supposes.

Until now, he's never felt the need to open
them.

But maybe, when he gets home, he'll consider
it.

Maybe that will bring him the closure he so
desperately needs.

W
hen
Rose pulls up in front of Bayview Books, Emily is on the sidewalk in front of
the bookstore, huddled under the narrow awning in her too-short, too-thin
leather jacket. She's leaning with one leg bent and her foot braced against the
redbrick wall, her shorn, maroon-tinted hair looking damp and more unkempt than
usual.

Now, as Rose hurries toward the store, sidestepping
puddles on the sidewalk, she glances at her watch. Emily must have arrived here
at least fifteen minutes ago. She doesn't seem to be perplexed, though, or
harried. She simply looks resigned, almost as though she's been waiting
patiently for Rose to return.

“Rose! There you are!” Emily pushes her foot off
the wall to stand up straight, her eyes narrowing beneath her multipierced
brows. “Where were you?”

“I had an emergency at home with the kids.” Rose
fumbles with her keys, jabbing the wrong one into the lock and nearly breaking
it off trying to turn it. “I couldn't get hold of anyone to watch the store so I
locked up while I ran home.”

“Is everything all right now?”

She nods, unlocking the door, holding it open so
that Emily can step past her.

Yes, everything is all right, except that she acted
like a lunatic, practically accusing her neighbor of kidnapping her
children.

“She can't possibly blame you
for that, Rose,
” Leslie said, once Hitch had gone and the kids were
settled in front of a cartoon and Rose had pulled herself together.

Leslie shook her head.
“She
had no right to take them someplace without telling you. You did what any
worried mom would have done.”

“I
don't know. Maybe I overreacted. She was doing me a favor
by taking the kids. And I never said not to go anywhere with
them.
”

“It's common sense that she'd
ask first. I always call you or page you to check, and I'm their aunt, for
Pete's sake.”

Maybe I'll call Christine
later and apologize,
Rose decides. Now, with her children safe at
home in Leslie's capable hands, and her resolve to put the unnerving episode
with Hitch behind her, it's easier to think clearly. And with clarity comes a
twinge of guilt.

“Hey, I'll call Luke and tell him you're back.”
Emily's voice intrudes upon her thoughts.

“Luke?” Rose jerks her gaze toward her coworker,
who has shed her jacket to reveal a purple velvet catsuit that clashes with her
hair. “Luke knows I was gone?”

“I called him on his cell when I got here and found
the store locked. I didn't know what else to do.”

“Was he angry?”

“He'll get over it.” Emily is maddeningly casual,
flipping open a compact and reapplying her rust-colored lipstick.

“So he was angry?”

Emily shrugs and puts the compact back into her
leopard-print bag, which she tosses on a shelf beneath the cash register.

“You should put that in the back room,” Rose
advises. “Somebody can steal it from up here.”

“They can have it. There's nothing in it.”

Nothing, Rose suspects, but her cigarettes and
lighter. Bill is convinced that Emily keeps her purse under the register so that
she can sneak smokes when business is slow and she's alone in the store.

Rose changes the subject, asking, “What did Luke
say when you told him I wasn't here?”

“He said he'd be right over.”

“I thought he was out of town.”

“Well, he can't be far if he's on his way over.
Hey, there's his car now, isn't it?”

Rose looks at the store window in time to see a
silver Jaguar pulling into a diagonal spot across the street.

Emily promptly heads to the stock room with her
jacket as Rose checks her watch again. Her shift is technically over, and she
told Leslie she'd be home shortly.

Luke is stepping out into the street and putting up
an umbrella.

Should she stand here in her coat with her keys in
her hand? Or should she hurriedly stash her stuff in a locker and make it look
as though she's busily working?

Dammit.

He's striding across the street toward the store,
and he doesn't look as though he's in a pleasant mood.

Rose lifts her chin and stands her ground, figuring
she might as well face him head-on. If he fires her, he fires her.

“Rose! Where were you?” he demands, blowing into
the store on a gust of wet wind.

“I had to run home. There was an emergency with my
children.”

“What kind of emergency?”

She hesitates. “They were missing.”

“Missing!”

“But they've been located.”

“Good.” His tone, while still gruff, is laced with
concern. “You must have been pretty worried.”

“I was,” Rose admits, startled that he's human
after all. “I'm really sorry that I left the store untended. I didn't know what
else to do. I couldn't reach Bill, and—”

“You could have tried me.”

“I thought you were going out of town.”

“I was in the city this morning but I've been back
almost an hour. And I always carry my cell phone with me.”

“I'm sorry,” she murmurs again.

He surprises her, flashing an understanding smile.
“Luckily, it's a slow day. So no real damage was done. But next time you have to
find it necessary to run out of here, at least call and let me know what's going
on.”

“Hopefully there won't be a next time.”

“Hopefully not. Where's Emily?”

“In back. And my shift is over, so . . .
can I leave? I never got a chance to eat lunch, and—”

“Neither have I. Come on across the street to
Milligan's with me. I'm going to get one of those wrap sandwiches and some
coffee.”

“Oh . . . no, thank you.” Taken aback by
his invitation—one that was worded more like an order—Rose does her best to
sound casual. “I'm kind of anxious to get home and hug my kids again.”