Thorns of Truth (5 page)

He laughed knowingly. Once again she was struck by the odd dissonance of his youthful looks and exuberant laugh with the sadness she sensed underneath. “I’m familiar with the territory. I volunteer two mornings a week at a shelter for teen runaways.”

Whoever had thought to seat her next to Eric was no dope, Rose thought. She was intrigued, if not exactly rushing to sign up for twelve easy installments.

“Do you have children of your own?” she asked.

He shook his head. “No wife, either. Not even an
ex.
” Rose waited for the usual bullshit disclaimers she’d heard from a hundred die-hard bachelors—guys who acted as if their single status were some sort of prize for being smarter than the average zhlub. But Eric didn’t elaborate. He seemed neither bitter nor particularly pleased with himself—just matter-of-fact.

“I was married for nearly twenty-one years,” she told him, more bluntly than she’d intended. “My husband was the kindest person I ever knew. I can’t imagine ever being with another man.”

He smiled—a little wistfully, she thought. “You’re luckier than most.”

Lucky? What an odd thing to say. Rose couldn’t remember when she’d last felt blessed in any way. But he was right. She
had
been lucky. How many women had even
one
year, much less twenty, with a man as wonderful as Max?

Suddenly she remembered where she’d seen Eric before. “You cohosted
A.M. America.
About five years ago, wasn’t it? You and Ginny Gregson. It was terrible, what happened to her.”

“Yes,” he agreed mildly, but in the instant before his gaze cut away she caught a glint of something dark and fierce. “I was with her that night. It was my car she was driving.” His delivery was flat, that of a reporter merely stating the facts … but somehow Rose recognized a fellow traveler who’d done his own time in the break-down lane. When he went on, it was in another voice, softer, but with a vein of iron ore running through it. “I was drunk at the time,” he explained. “Ginny was only being a good Samaritan—she couldn’t see well at night, so she never drove after dark unless she had to.” He took a long swallow from his water glass. “I was drunk at her funeral … and stayed drunk for about six months afterwards. Then I got sober. End of story.” He shook his head as if to clear it, and offered her a vaguely apologetic smile. “I don’t know why I’m telling you all this. After what you’ve been through, the last thing in the world you need is someone else’s hard-luck tale.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, but it came out sounding stiff and insincere.

Rose ducked her head so he wouldn’t see how perilously close he’d come to breaching her self-imposed fortress—one more step and she’d be in danger of caring too
much.
Already, he’d stirred up feelings she didn’t want or need. Damn him. For making her eyes sting. For causing her heart to pump as if there was real blood in her veins, not just antifreeze.

Just then, fortunately, a waiter appeared to whisk away her untouched salad, and to ask which entree she’d like. Rose welcomed the distraction, and not just because it took her mind off Eric. She was suddenly hungry. Starved, in fact.

While devouring her salmon, she was exquisitely aware of Eric beside her. His sleeve brushing her bare arm as he reached for the salt shaker. The easy laugh that rolled out of him when Rachel teased Sylvie about a woman at the next table she’d seen flirting with Nikos.

Eric, as if sensing her discomfort, left her alone. Perversely, she almost wished he
would
do or say something stupid or annoying. Then she could have put him out of her mind as effortlessly as if he’d been the waiter whisking away her now empty plate.

When the table had been cleared, Avery Hammersmith rose to his feet and tapped his glass with a spoon. The rustle of voices around them dwindled, then died.

“I must confess,” began their avuncular, white-haired host, “I’ve been so busy monopolizing our guest of honor that Cynthia”—he glanced affectionately at his wife beaming at him from the next table—“had to remind me that if I didn’t hurry up and make my speech you’d all go home wondering why you’d been invited here tonight.” He paused, waiting for the chuckles to die down. “But I’m sure that our guest of honor, who you all know and admire, doesn’t need much of an introduction.…”

He went on to praise Brian’s eight novels before congratulating him on winning the prestigious Book Critics’ Circle Award for his most recent one,
Dawn’s Early Light.
Rose tuned out the rest—a string of encomiums that were no doubt heartfelt, but hardly original. She knew it all anyway. She remembered even the short stories Brian used to scribble way back in Catholic school. What no one knew was that she had written a few herself, mostly dreadful, in which a character named Brian was always the hero.

Brian, looking somewhat embarrassed by all the extravagant praise, stood up afterwards to offer his thanks and say a few words of his own—and to receive a round of applause that continued even as guests began drifting over to shake his hand. Rachel stood, too, warmly greeting a couple Rose recognized from Brian’s last book-signing.

Neither could have seen what Rose, along with everyone still seated, was afforded an unobstructed view of—Iris leaping to her feet, looking tearful and upset. What had Drew said to her?

He rose quickly to soothe her. Rose couldn’t hear his murmured words, but in her son’s weary, tormented face was mirrored what Rose already knew—that this was more than a minor squabble. He couldn’t have meant to disrupt Brian’s party; that wasn’t like Drew. Iris must have prodded him somehow into letting slip what he’d intended to tell her later on.

Rose squeezed her eyes shut.
Why now, why
this,
on top of everything else?
When she opened them, she caught Eric Sandstrom looking at her curiously. She didn’t care. Why should she? What did it matter if he thought she was crazy? He was nobody, a perfect stranger.

The room’s temperature seemed to drop suddenly. She shivered. If only Max were here. Whereas she had a tendency to make a felony out of every misdemeanor, Max had been quick to defuse tense situations. He’d have taken Drew aside, counseled him wisely on what to do.

Instead, Rose sat frozen, watching Iris shake her head violently in response to something Drew had said, then dart off into the crush of people now milling about, with Drew in pursuit. Rose was halfway out of her chair, meaning to go after him, stop him from doing something he might regret—like giving in to Iris—when she felt a cool hand on her arm.

“Leave them be.” Rose looked into Sylvie’s green eyes, fixed on her with an intensity that held her pinned to her seat. “I doubt there’s anything you can say that Drew doesn’t already know.”

Rose shook her head, impatient. “He’s in over his head and I’m supposed to just sit back and let him
drown
?”

Sylvie patted her arm reassuringly. “Heavens, who’s talking about drowning? A lovers’ quarrel isn’t the
Titanic
going down. Either they’ll work it out, or they won’t. Do you honestly think you putting your two cents in will change anything in the long run?”

“I don’t know,” Rose admitted. “What I
do
know is that my son feels responsible—for things he has no control over.” She felt a sudden sense of urgency, though she couldn’t put her finger on its exact source.

“The most difficult thing, I’ve found,” Sylvie said slowly, and with the utmost kindness, “is trusting people to look after themselves. They generally do, you know. One way or another. It’s only when they take the long way around that we get impatient.”

She reached up to brush Rose’s cheek, and her gossamer sleeve rippled in a sudden breeze from the open French doors, making her arm appear in that instant to be floating, ghostlike. A smile touched her lips … a smile that didn’t quite reach the veiled regret in her eyes.

Rose felt a burst of resentment. How dare she! Giving advice, doling out her platitudes and small endearments. Acting as if she were …

My mother.

Well, that’s what she was, Rose reminded herself.

Not in any way that counts. Not the way she is to Rachel.

Rose tasted something bitter in the back of her throat—the betrayal she’d had to swallow, again and again. Pretending to be no more than Sylvie’s good friend when all along …

All these years, I’ve kept quiet, and never asked why. Why Rachel’s happiness is more important than mine.
In some deep way, she knew it was more complicated than just Rachel—it had to do with Iris as well, the love and concern Sylvie felt for her granddaughter. Concern that apparently outweighed any she might have for Drew, her grandson by blood.

Rose took a breath, and willed herself to grow calm. She couldn’t afford such thoughts right now. And Sylvie was certainly right about one thing. What would be the use of trying to reason with Drew
now,
in the middle of this latest crisis with Iris?

She sank back, shivering, rubbing her bare shoulders in an effort to warm them. Since Max had died, it seemed she could never get warm enough, as if the fiery core that had fueled her had been reduced to little more than ash. Yes, she would wait, speak to Drew later on, when they had a moment alone. Whatever the trouble between himself and Iris, it would still be there tomorrow morning. Hadn’t she learned, the hard way, that while good times had a habit of going sour overnight, the bad seemed to have an almost limitless shelf life?

The thought was snatched from her head by a sudden commotion across the room. A sound that sent icy fingers skittering up her spine: Drew yelling for help.

Sylvie Rosenthal heard it, too. Drew’s frantic shouts seemed to be coming from the terrace outside. But she couldn’t see beyond the knots of alarmed guests now clustered about the open French doors. What on earth—?

Then, all at once, Sylvie was watching Rose bolt past, Brian and Rachel close behind her. She tried to stand up, but her legs wouldn’t hold her; she fell weakly back into her chair, her heart pounding. It was as if a huge weight were pressing down on her, making her dizzy and short of breath.

Don’t you dare faint,
she commanded herself.

Sylvie tried to remember Dr. Choudry’s instructions.
Take slow, even breaths.… Don’t panic.
In her velvet evening bag was a vial with her prescription, just in case. But, really, she was fine. It was her granddaughter Sylvie was worried about.

Drew’s shouts could mean only thing: Iris was in some kind of trouble.

Sylvie, now nearly frantic with worry, searched the crowd for the one face sure to bring her comfort, the one shoulder on which she allowed herself to lean.
Nikos … where are you?

Then she spotted him—making his way toward her. Good, dependable Nikos, who seemed not to have aged a day in all these years. While this body of hers had wound down like a finicky old clock, Nikos’ only seemed to grow more rugged. His once-black hair was now white, but he had never been more fit, or handsome—a CEO who spent more time out on his construction sites than in his office, with the calluses to show for it.

Now he was bending over her with his hands on her shoulders, and his breath warm against her face. At once her heartbeat grew more steady. Her breathing slowed. She started to get up, but Nikos gently pushed her down.

“What’s going on? Is it Iris? Is she hurt?” She clutched at him, her chilled fingers soaking in his blessed warmth.

He hesitated, and she could see the fear in his eyes—for
her
as well as for Iris. As if her own health mattered at a time like this!

“Not hurt, no.” In his deep rumble of a voice she could hear Nikos’ own tightly reined panic. She saw that he was trembling slightly, and that made her even more alarmed.

“
What,
then?”

His expression turned grim. “It appears she has climbed onto the terrace wall and—Sylvie, are you all right? You are so pale!”

She whispered hoarsely, “Dear God, no, not again.”

Sylvie closed her eyes, wanting
not
to remember … but unable to keep the images from flooding in. Iris, in a hospital bed, her poor bandaged wrists on the white coverlet turned upward, as if surrendering somehow, like in paintings of the crucified Jesus. And when she’d opened her eyes, oh, the smile that lit her face—grateful to be alive yet, at the same time, oddly resigned. As if, for Iris, merely existing on this earth required a courage others couldn’t begin to imagine …

Nikos crouched down so that his eyes were level with Sylvie’s—the same black eyes that, years ago, had captivated her as the young wife of a much older man. “You must not be afraid. No harm will come to her.” His voice remained calm, but in his face, which was like old timber crosshatched with grain, she saw the doubt. He didn’t have to say what they both knew—that, if Iris went through with it, this time there would be no rescuing her.

Sylvie felt a pang of guilt—
could
she have prevented this, if she hadn’t stopped Rose from going after Drew? Maybe if Rose
had
spoken to the two of them… ?

Her heart seemed to thud weakly without really catching, like a car engine that wouldn’t start. She thought:
I have to DO something.

She hauled herself to her feet. This time, when Nikos tried to restrain her, she politely but firmly pushed his hand aside.

“If you stop me,” she said in a quiet voice, “you may end up with two souls on your conscience, Nikos Alexandras. I may be old and sick, but I know my granddaughter. She
needs
me.”

Nikos studied her for a moment … then wordlessly offered his arm. Silently, Sylvie blessed him, for the room suddenly felt as vast as an Arctic tundra. She had to stop several times, to catch her breath and lean into Nikos’ shoulder.

Pushing through the crowd, they stepped onto the terrace. It was deep and surprisingly cool for July, dotted with tubs of greenery and patio chairs gleaming like pale skeletons in the light that spilled through the open doors. Sylvie spotted Iris at once: perched perfectly straight on the four-foot ledge, her back to them, her hands in her lap like those of an obedient child. There was nothing between her and the pavement below but eighteen stories of emptiness.