Silver Girl (16 page)

Ashlyn was furious. She was, in turn, incredulous and disconsolate. She stormed Wolf’s office, then his work sites, and lectured him. She set up an appointment for a second opinion that he agreed to go to and then skipped at the last minute because of a problem with his head mason. Ashlyn stormed the house and screamed at Connie.

“You’re just going to stand by and let him die!”

Wolf died seventeen months later. He had gotten two of his commissions done and the third—the spectacular, complicated VA building—into its final phase.

Connie couldn’t believe she had all but lost her only child over Wolf’s death, but the fact was, Ashlyn had always been an intense, tricky kid. She was all or nothing. She loved you or hated you; there was never any middle ground. Connie herself had grown up scattered, disorganized, fun loving, laid back. None of these words applied to Ashlyn. Ashlyn didn’t accept compromise; she didn’t take it easy on herself or others. Connie and Wolf had once met with a school psychologist who was concerned that Ashlyn was “preoccupied with perfection.” She was eight years old, and when she held a crayon, a vein bulged in her forehead.

After Wolf died, Ashlyn’s anger consumed her. Ashlyn
became
her anger. During the days when there was still dialogue, Connie had heard it all.

Ashlyn said, “You didn’t encourage him to fight. If you’re diagnosed with an illness like his—which was certainly treatable, if not curable—you battle it. You do whatever you can, you take the clinical trials, you go through seventeen rounds of chemo, you do what you have to do to stay alive.”

“But you know your father didn’t feel that way. His work…”

“His work!” Ashlyn screamed. Her eyes flashed in a way that frightened Connie, and Connie reminded herself that Ashlyn was hurting. All her life, Ashlyn had favored her father. She sought his attention and love as though they were the only attention and love that mattered. Connie had often been treated as the enemy, and if not an enemy then an obstacle that had been placed between Ashlyn and Wolf. Connie had remained steadfast, and sure enough, in college and medical school, Ashlyn had come back to her. There had been lunches and shopping trips and spa vacations (though no real heart-to-hearts, Connie saw now, there had been no chance for Ashlyn to reveal her emotional life). Ashlyn had remained closer with Wolf and that was fine. If anything, Connie had counted on Wolf agreeing to treatment for Ashlyn’s sake. She had expected Ashlyn to save Wolf for both of them.

Connie said, “Your father was a thoughtful man. He made the choice that felt right to him. Surely, in your work you’ve seen other patients who refused treatment?”

“Those patients weren’t my father.”

Fair enough. Connie said, “I loved your father deeply. You know I did. I chose to respect his decision because I loved him, but don’t you think it was hard for me, too? Don’t you think it was damn near impossible for me to watch him slip away?”

“He chose his work,” Ashlyn said. “Not you, not me.”

“He was afraid of hospitals,” Connie said. “He didn’t even like putting on a Band-Aid. I couldn’t imagine him hooked up to forty machines, lines sticking out of him, pumping him full of poison. I couldn’t imagine him strapped to a table while they sawed open his skull.”

“He would have done it if he loved us,” Ashlyn said.

“That’s not true,” Connie said. “Because he did love us. He loved me, and he loved you.”

“Yeah, but you know what it feels like?” Ashlyn said. She had been crying so hard that the half-moons under her eyes were pink, and her nostrils were raw and chafed. Such pale skin, pale hair, pale eyes. Ashlyn had fair and delicate looks, and people always assumed on meeting her that she would have a mild, milky way about her, but they were wrong. She was a force, driven, determined, and focused. Even in childbirth, she had wanted out. “It feels like he gave up on me because of how I am. Because of Bridget—”

“Honey!” Connie said. “No!”

“He gave up on me. Because there won’t be a big wedding or an investment banker son-in-law. Because there won’t be grandchildren. And you let him.”

“Ashlyn, stop! That had
nothing
to do with it.”

“For twenty-six years I strived to make you proud of me. High school, college, medical school—”

“We are proud of you—”

“But I can’t help how I feel. I can’t help
who I am—”

Connie had tried to make Ashlyn see that Wolf’s decision was just that—Wolf’s decision. It had been supremely selfish, yes. But he had wanted to live and die on his own terms. It had nothing to do with Ashlyn or her relationship with Bridget. It might seem that way because of the timing, but no.

“But yes!” Ashlyn said. She wasn’t going to back down. She was raging at Connie, and Connie felt a flash of anger at Wolf for leaving her behind to be raged at. After all, she had lost him, too. She was suffering, too. Connie should have backed off—she’d had twenty-six years of dealing with her daughter to know this was true—but instead Connie said, “You think Daddy didn’t want to fight because he found out you were gay? You know what that sounds like to me, Ashlyn? That sounds like a heap of self-loathing.”

Ashlyn reached out to smack Connie, but Connie caught her hand and held it tight. She was Veronica O’Brien’s daughter, after all. She said, “Come to peace with yourself, Ashlyn, and then you’ll be able to come to peace with your father’s decision.”

Connie didn’t regret saying any of this, although she did regret what she said later, after the funeral. And she regretted not doing more when Ashlyn climbed into the Aston Martin. Connie should have laid her body down in front of the car. She should have chased after her.

Connie had found out—through Jake and Iris—that Ashlyn had taken a job with a hospital in Tallahassee. She had moved down there with Bridget. Jake and Iris claimed they only heard from Ashlyn sporadically, and they promised that when they had important news, they would let Connie know. (Most of the reason Connie didn’t like Iris was because Iris knew more about her daughter than she did.) Connie continued to call Ashlyn’s cell phone every week, and every week she was treated to voice mail.

The call that came to Connie’s phone on the day the photograph of Meredith was left on the porch was the most promising lead Connie had had since Ashlyn drove away in the Aston Martin.

Connie descended the stairs to the front door. That she hadn’t called Ashlyn yesterday now seemed like it might be a positive thing.
How can I miss you when you won’t go away?
Ashlyn would, at the very least, be curious about her mother’s lapsed communication. And maybe even worried.

Connie would wait a few days, then try again with the new phone number.

That decided, Connie felt better. She was moving on with her life, finally. She had experienced two Julys and two Augusts since Wolf died, but only now, today, did she feel like it was actually summertime. She would go to the Sconset Market and get the paper and some snickerdoodle coffee and freshly baked peach muffins. When Connie got back, Meredith would be awake, and they could deconstruct the night before minute by minute.

If nothing else, it was a wonderful distraction.

Connie stepped outside and knew immediately that something was wrong. Something with her car. It was parked in front of the house, the windows were intact, the body work was unscathed, at least on the side facing the house. But the car looked sick. It was sunken, listing.

Connie moved closer to inspect. “Oh,” she whispered.

The tires had been slashed.

They had been sliced open in ragged gashes. And then Connie noticed a piece of paper tucked under the windshield wiper. She plucked it out, opened it up, read it.

In black marker it said, “Theif, go home.”

Connie’s first instinct was to crumple the note and throw it away, but they would need it as evidence for the police. The police again. Oh, her poor car. Connie spun around and surveyed her property. The day was bright and sunny, with enough breeze to make the eelgrass dance. This spot was idyllic. It had been safe, until she brought Meredith here. Now they were under attack.

Theif, go home.

Whoever wrote the note didn’t know how to spell. So it was somebody young, or somebody stupid, or somebody foreign.

Or was it Connie who was being stupid? First her house, now her car. What would be next? Meredith and Connie had bull’s-eyes painted on their backs. What if this escalated? What if they got hurt? Connie was placing her well-being on the line for Meredith’s sake. But Meredith was her friend. They hadn’t spoken for three years—those had been awful, lonely years—and now Connie had her back.

Theif, go home.
Connie was assaulted by contradictory thoughts. Meredith had said horrible things to her; Meredith had put Freddy and his contemptible dealings before her lifelong friendship with Connie. Meredith was still under investigation—she knew more than she was telling, that was for damn sure. But Meredith had never stolen or cheated in her life. She was the only senior girl who never sneaked sips of the Communion wine; she was the only one who didn’t cheat on her Good Friday fast—not a single Ritz cracker, not one chocolate chip from the bag her mother kept in the baking cabinet. Connie had watched Meredith march up the steps of Saint Mary’s the other day, and she’d thought,
There is a woman who still believes in God. How does she do it?
Meredith’s number one glaring fault was that she had always been so goddamned perfect, and nobody liked a perfect person.
Pull the stick out of your ass!
How many times had Connie wanted to shout
that
out over the years? Now that Meredith’s perfection had come to a screeching halt, Connie loved her more. Just last night, Meredith had sung at the bar; she had been terrific fun, a good sport, and Connie had been shocked. She remembered Meredith’s face as she belted out the song: shining with sweat, her glasses slipping to the end of her nose.

Theif, go home.

As far as Connie was concerned, Meredith
was
home.

Connie regarded her shredded tires. She understood how they had gotten to this point, but that didn’t make it any easier.

She went back inside to wake up Meredith.

Chief Kapenash inspected the four slashed tires, took the note as evidence, and gave Connie and Meredith his sincere apology. He’d had a squad car scheduled to cruise the road every hour, and last night it had made the run between midnight and 4 a.m. Before midnight, that particular officer had been called to break up a party of underage drinkers on the beach, and after four that officer had been called to a domestic dispute all the way out in Madaket. So the vandalism had taken place either while Connie and Meredith were out on the town or in the early-morning hours.

It didn’t matter. Either way, Meredith was scared. Slashed tires: it seemed so violent. When she asked the chief what kind of tool could slash a tire, he’d said, “In this case, it looks like a hunting knife.” And then there was the matter of the note.
Theif, go home.
It had been written in block letters, making it impossible to identify a male or female hand. (Meredith had secretly checked the handwriting against the handwriting on the back of Dan Flynn’s business card. She liked Dan, and it seemed that Dan liked her, but in the world that Meredith now knew to be hiding all kinds of secrets, she wondered if Dan was asking Connie out so he could hurt Meredith. Thankfully, the handwriting didn’t match up.)
Theif, go home.
The only clue they had to go on was the misspelling.

Dan showed up and changed all four tires. The labor for that was gratis, but Meredith offered to pay for the tires, which had cost six hundred dollars, and while she was at it, she threw in four hundred dollars for the power washing. She held out a thousand dollars in cash to Connie, her hand trembling.

Connie looked at the money and said, “Put it away.”

“Please, Connie. You have to let me pay.”

“We’re in this together,” Connie said. She then confided that, while changing the tires, Dan had invited her out on his boat on Thursday. They were going to cruise around the harbor and check the lobster pots. “And you’re coming with us.”

“No,” Meredith said flatly. “I’m not.”

“You have to,” Connie said.

“The man wants you to himself,” Meredith said. “Last night was fine, but I’m not going to be a tagalong all summer.”

“Well, I can’t leave you here by yourself,” Connie said. “Not after what happened this morning.”

“I’m a big girl,” Meredith said. “I’ll be fine.”

Connie grinned. It was amazing what a little romance did for a person. Her tires had been slashed with a hunting knife, and yet Connie was floating. Meredith thought she might insist one more time that Meredith come along, and if she had, Meredith would have agreed. She liked the sound of a boat ride—out on the open water, Meredith wouldn’t be confronted with anyone she knew. And she was afraid to be left home by herself. She would spend the day behind locked doors, huddled on the floor of her closet.

But Connie didn’t insist, and Meredith figured that Connie was ready to be alone with Dan. The phone in the house rang just then, and Meredith nearly jumped out of her skin. Connie hurried to get it—she may have thought it was Dan, or the police with a suspect. A few seconds later, she said, “Meredith? It’s for you.”

Leo!
Meredith thought.
Carver!
But then Meredith chastised herself. She had to stop thinking like that. It was hope, ultimately, that would bring her down.

“Who is it?” Meredith asked.

“Some fifteen-year-old boy who says he’s your attorney,” Connie said.

Meredith took the phone. She felt a surge of jangly nerves. Good news? Bad news? Bad news, she decided. It was always bad news.

“Meredith?” the voice said. It was Dev. Meredith pictured his shaggy black hair, his vampire teeth, his rimless glasses. She hadn’t made the connection before, but she realized she now wore the same kind of glasses as Dev. They looked far better on him.

“Dev?” she said.

“Hey,” he said. His tone was soft, nearly tender. “How’s it going?”