The Glass Butterfly (37 page)

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Authors: Louise Marley

Tags: #Romance

BOOK: The Glass Butterfly
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It was a biography of Giacomo Puccini. The cover showed the composer in middle age, handsome, mustached, his dark eyes gazing out of the portrait, a burning cigarette between his lips.
“Hank, it's perfect!”
He was sprawled on the too-small sofa, his long legs stuck under the little coffee table. The bits of the Murano glass paperweight still lay there, scooped into a pile. “I knew you'd like it,” he said.
“I've never read his biography, isn't that strange? I think I know all his music. Thanks so much—I'm going to enjoy this very much.”
Hank yawned. “You're most welcome, and merry Christmas.”
“You should go and get some rest.”
“I don't know,” he said. “I think I'll wait until Jack comes back.”
“Oh, Hank,” she said with a laugh. “That could be awfully late! Those two looked like they were ready to have fun.”
He turned to face her, his dark eyes narrowing. “Tory,” he said. “No one knows where that woman is. I don't think you should be alone.”
Tory traced the photograph of Puccini with her finger. “I think I know where she is,” she said. She paused for a moment. “I think she's dead, Hank. I think she went into the water.”
“Why do you think that?”
“I have a feeling.”
He shook his head doubtfully. “A feeling,” he said.
“It's what I do,” she said, and grinned at him. “It really is! You'll have to get used to it.”
He pushed himself to his feet, bent, and kissed her cheek. His lips were warm and smooth against her skin, and she found herself wishing he would do it again. “Let's have dinner tomorrow,” he said. “You and Jack take the day. Talk things through.”
“That would be a good idea. We have to make some plans.”
Tory stood up to walk him to the door. She took his arm, and he looked down at her with his gentle smile. She felt the strength of his arm under her hand, the warmth of his body so close to her, and she wanted to say something, explain to him how she felt. There were no words, and so, in silence, she lifted her face to his.
This time he kissed her lips, firmly, confidently, and she pressed close to him. She felt as if a barrier between them had been shattered, crumbled to dust, and there was nothing more to hold her back.
He whispered against her hair, “Don't make plans without me. Please.”
She put her arms around his neck, and kissed him again before she pulled back to look into his eyes. “Don't worry, Hank,” she murmured. “I couldn't make plans without you. Not anymore.”
33
Per sognie e per chimere e per castelli
in aria, l'anima ho milionaria.
 
For dreams and visions and castles in the air,
I have the soul of a millionaire.
 
—Roldolfo,
La Bohème,
Act One
T
ory dreamed one more time of the girl who had died. The dream didn't wake her as the others had done, but rather seemed to go on and on through the night, an endless vision of a small stone church and a coffin draped in evergreen branches resting before the altar. She seemed to be watching from some vantage point near the ceiling of the church, seeing the dark coats, the black hats with their drooping brims and bits of veil that trembled throughout the funeral Mass. Women sobbed, with handkerchiefs pressed to their faces. Men hung their heads, holding their hats in their hands. It was a gloomy scene, and very still, with none of the drama that had so colored her earlier dreams.
Tory, the watcher, felt nothing as she watched the mourners file past the coffin, touching it with their hands as they passed. She was neither sad nor happy, neither bitter nor glad. She was just—nothing. Neutral. An observer.
She didn't wake until the chilly December sunshine slanted through her bedroom window, and Johnson stirred and yawned. The only remnant of the dream was the scent of incense that seemed to linger around her, though she knew that couldn't be.
Tory slipped out from under the covers and pulled on the zippered sweatshirt. She shushed Johnson, hoping Jack, in his sleeping bag on the floor in the living room, wouldn't wake. Still in her stocking feet, she let the dog out into the yard, and sat on the cold front step to watch him make his usual circuit.
It was odd, she thought, as she watched her breath cloud in the cold air. All the dreams had been strange, but this one was different. It felt—conclusive. Like an ending. Perhaps the end of her crisis had something to do with that.
Or perhaps it didn't.
She had stayed up too late, reading the book Hank had given her. Propped up on pillows in bed, she had meant to skim through the book first, and go back later to the beginning to savor the details of Puccini's life, the triumphs and failures, the gossipy anecdotes and documented scandals. When she happened upon the story of Doria Manfredi, however, she slowed her pace. She read every detail, all the way through, then read it a second time, her scalp prickling uneasily at the resonance.
A young girl, a housemaid in Villa Puccini, had reportedly been driven to suicide. According to the account, she had bought poison at the chemist's, and taken it. The girl's family sued Elvira Puccini for hounding the girl to her death, and Elvira had been convicted, though Puccini later paid the family a substantial amount of money in order to keep his wife out of prison. The book claimed there had been a suicide note, though no one knew what had become of it. Puccini had threatened to divorce Elvira for what she had done, and the couple only reconciled after months of pleading and persuasion by the family.
Johnson came padding back to the step where Tory sat. She rubbed his ears, and pulled him close for warmth. “I don't know what it all means, Johnson,” she murmured. “Or if it means anything at all.” He scraped her cheek with his long pink tongue, and she chuckled, wiping it with her sleeve. “You're probably right,” she told him, pressing her chin to the top of his smooth head. “It was just a dream. They were all just dreams.”
As she let the dog back into the house, she caught sight of the small cardboard box that now held the shards of the Murano glass paperweight. She tried to tell herself there was no point in carting the shattered pieces back to Vermont, but she couldn't bring herself to leave them. She padded into the kitchen, touching the box with her fingertips as she passed it, and wondered if this was, after all, truly the end.
 
Tory and Jack chose the first of the year as a good day to depart. Her rent was paid up through the end of December, and though Iris assured her she would happily grant her a few days as thanks for all the repairs she had done, Tory thought it made a good start on a new year and a new direction for them to set off on the first of January.
“Breakfast at my house before you leave,” Iris decreed, and that seemed like a good idea, too. They gathered around her table for eggs Benedict and plates of smoked salmon and toasted baguette slices. Zoe and her mother were there, and Hank, of course. The cat had been tucked away upstairs so Johnson could come in and lie on a rug near the front door. “No rushing,” Iris said. “You might as well not head out until the roads are dry.”
Jack and Tory were content with that. They expected to take a week to get back to Vermont. The Escalade was outfitted with half a dozen audio books, food for Johnson, the few things Tory wanted to keep.
The yellow Beetle was now in Zoe's proud possession, though the paperwork still had to be straightened out. The rest of the items Tory had bought for the cottage she left there. “If you have renters, they can use them,” she had said.
“Including the family photos?” Iris had asked slyly. “Paulette Chambers's history?”
Tory had chuckled, and given a helpless shrug. “No, I'm keeping those,” she said. “Those poor people have already been sold to strangers once, and I don't think it should happen again.”
“What a story,” Iris said. “You could be an actor. Or a fiction writer.”
It had all come out, bit by bit, so everyone now knew everything. They still had trouble remembering to call Tory by her real name, but the drama of the tale evidently overrode any feelings of resentment at her deception, and there was abundant sympathy for what had happened to her.
Of Ellice Gordon there had been no sign.
In absentia,
she was charged with murder, but Tory could have told the sheriff's department not to bother. She knew Ellice was gone.
So did Jack.
“She's dead, Mom,” he had said one evening, when he had come in from seeing a movie with Zoe.
“Who?” Tory asked.
“Ellice Gordon.”
“So you feel it, too.”
He nodded, and the smile that had been on his face when he first came into the cottage faded. “It's uncomfortable,” he said. “Knowing things you shouldn't know.”
“Sometimes,” Tory said. She had been sitting in the old easy chair, a small fire crackling beside her, the Puccini biography open on her lap. She closed the book, and folded her hands on top of it. “Sometimes it's uncomfortable,” she agreed. “Often it's helpful.”
“You can't count on it, though.”
“No. Nonna Angela told me that, a long time ago. She told me not to depend on it. Just to use it when it comes along, and be grateful.”
Jack threw himself onto the little sofa, and propped his feet up on the coffee table. He said, staring at the scuffed toes of his sneakers, “How do you live with it? I mean, never knowing when you're going to get that feeling?”
“I guess,” Tory said, “you just live with it like you live with anything else that's part of your nature. Like being short, or tall, or shy, or . . . whatever.”
He cast her a sidelong glance from beneath his eyelids. “Is that therapist talk, Mom?”
“Being a therapist is part of
my
nature, Jack.”
“I know,” he said, and she saw he was smiling, his eyes closing as if he felt perfectly relaxed. “Are you going to be a therapist again?”
“Yes, I think so. I hope so. I have a few kinks to work out, since I didn't report Ellice's crime. I'll speak to Chet's lawyer when we get back, but the circumstances work in my favor, I think.”
“You're good. It would be a waste for you to give up your practice.”
The compliment made her cheeks warm, and she was glad he kept his eyes closed, his head tilted back against the worn fabric of the sofa. She could watch him unhindered, admiring the young man he had so swiftly become. She said, “I'm going to need a new license, of course.”
He said, “Easy squeezy.”
“Now you're quoting Zoe!” She laughed.
“Yeah. She's pretty quotable.”
“I know. She's one of a kind.”
“She sure is.” There was a pause, and then he said, still with his eyes closed, “I'm sorry about the house, Mom. I never expected that.”
“Of course you didn't. How could you?”
“I'll help fix it up.”
“No, you'll go back to school.”
“Well—yeah. I guess so. The house is a mess, though.” He opened his eyes and turned his head toward her. “It's just—ruined, Mom. All your pretty things, your kitchen . . . You'd never feel the same there.”
“It's too bad, that's for sure. But it will make it a bit easier to let it go.” She had meant it. It was hard to think of selling her house, parting from Chet and Kate, but she knew it was the right thing to do. They could come and visit her in Oregon. And she needed no reminders of Ellice Gordon.
When it was time for them to leave, everyone pulled on coats to follow Jack and Tory out into the chilly morning. The rain of the night before had given way to the familiar low cloud cover. The wet leaves glowed gently in the gray light, and in the distance the tip of Haystack Rock thrust up against the grayness like a big black thumb. They all trooped out to Iris's driveway, where the Escalade waited. Tory handed Iris the key to the cottage, and said a warm thanks. Zoe, in a bright yellow vintage coat and purple plaid scarf, hugged Tory and said, “I'll be seeing you soon. Jack's asked me out to visit over spring break. Hope that's okay by you!”
Tory was still speechless from this announcement when Hank came to help Johnson jump up into the back of the car. He settled him with his blanket and a stuffed toy he'd brought from the clinic, then came around to the front to hand Tory up into the driver's seat. Jack stood by Iris's garage, teasing Zoe, making her laugh. Tory fastened her seatbelt, then unfastened it so she could settle her purse—the same old fake leather drugstore purse—near her hand, and put a CD in the player.
When everything was settled, she turned back to Hank. “Thanks,” she said, as he adjusted the seatbelt over her shoulder.
“You're welcome.” His deep voice was as calm as always, but the pressure of his hand on hers had an urgency about it. “Drive carefully.”
“I will, Hank. We will, I mean.”
“Call me every night.”
She smiled at him, and leaned to kiss his cheek. “Okay,” she said. “Every night.”
“If you're not back in three months,” he said, “I'm coming to get you.”
She chuckled. “Ah, a deadline. Okay! I've been warned.”
The passenger door opened, and Jack hopped nimbly up. “Show on the road, Mom!” he exclaimed.
“Right.” It was time. She put the key in the ignition.
“Keep an eye on her, son,” Hank said, and Jack gave him a thumbs-up.
“Hank—” Tory began, but sudden tears closed her throat, and she had to blink her eyes against them.
He leaned in to kiss her cheek. “No worrying,” he said. “We'll talk every day.”
She swallowed, and managed to say, “Right. No worrying.”
He stepped back, and closed the driver's door, touching the glass briefly with his fingertips. She had to look in the rearview mirror to back out, to turn the car, to face toward town and the highway. At the last minute she looked back to see, through a mist of tears, all of them standing on Iris's steps, waving good-bye. She thought she would never forget the picture they made: Zoe's scarlet grin, Iris's gray hair whipping around her face, and Hank's lean figure towering over them all.
Jack inclined his seat as far as it would go and leaned back, his hands behind his head. “You didn't find this place by accident, did you, Mom?”
“No. I don't think so.”
“It's great. I love it. I may just join you here—once I finish school, that is.”
She sniffled, and smiled across at her son. “That would be lovely, sweetheart. Really lovely. You know you'd always be welcome—if you think you might like it.”
“Yeah,” he said. “I think we have some time to make up.”
She smiled at that, blinking away her unshed tears. She wheeled the Escalade through town, past the flower shop and market and beachfront hotels, over the bridge and out toward the highway. Behind her, the dog sighed, and flopped to one side to sleep away the journey.

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