Thorns of Truth (52 page)

“You don’t seem very happy right now,” she said levelly.

“Who said happiness was part of the deal?” Eric gave a low, ragged laugh. Under the diner’s blue-white fluorescents, he looked tired: his lids heavy and faintly bruised-looking, his shoulders bent as if he were bearing up under a tremendous weight.

“You two had a fight, didn’t you? And now you miss her—Rose.” Mandy cocked her head at him, feeling envious in a way. She wondered what it would be like to love someone that much, to the point where missing them was worse even than not being able to drink.

Eric nodded. He was watching a pair of heavyset cops who’d bellied up to the counter and were shooting the breeze with the hostess, a middle-aged woman with bad skin and a bulletproof beehive. But there was no animation in his gaze; he might have been staring at a brick wall.

Finally, he shrugged and said, “Yeah, I miss her.”

“Why don’t you call her, then?”

He smiled—a genuine smile, if a sad one. “It wouldn’t do any good, that’s why.”

Mandy shook her head in fond commiseration. “She can be pretty stubborn, I know.”

“It’s not just that. She misses your father … a lot more than she’ll miss me.”

“I miss him, too. That’s not going to bring him back, is it?”

“Look, the ball’s in her court. There’s nothing more I can do.”

She covered his hand with hers. “You want to talk about it? If nothing else, you’ll feel better.”

Eric hesitated, then slowly nodded. He told Mandy about how, from the moment he’d laid eyes on Rose, he’d known she was the woman he’d been holding out for all these years.

Corny but true, he said with the faintly amused air of a man who wouldn’t have believed it himself had he not experienced it firsthand. Even so, he hadn’t expected her to feel the same way, not at first. What he
had
hoped was that, in time, she would come to understand that second chances were made, not given, and that sometimes the prize was worth all the effort. But Rose, as it turned out, had had other ideas. She didn’t want another husband, she’d told him. And she had no intention of risking a broken heart again. Ever.

Mandy listened without moving even the tiniest muscle. She thought about Robert. Was it possible he’d felt that way about her? Just a little? If she hadn’t pushed him away, would he eventually have wanted to marry her? She would never know, and that bothered her. It bothered her a lot.

“Aren’t you angry?” Mandy asked.

He thought for moment, then said, “Yeah … but not at her.”

“I think I know what you mean.” She watched an old man seated at the counter slowly spooning up soup, as if trying to make it last as long as he could. Didn’t he have a family to go to? A wife, or even a grown child? What made this place preferable even to heating up a can of Campbell’s at home? “It’s how I feel about my drinking,” she said, inexplicably on the verge of tears. “Pissed off. With no one to blame but myself.”

“I wouldn’t exactly put Rose in the same category, but … yeah.” His face relaxed without brightening. “What about you? Didn’t I hear something about a boyfriend?”

“Former.” she told him, hoping her droll delivery would help dislodge the fishhook of regret buried in her belly.

Somehow, it was working. She felt … if not
better,
exactly … then easier somehow. As if, after a lifetime of faking it, she could finally be comfortable in her own skin. She couldn’t have said why. Her life was no less screwed up than it had been an hour ago. But for the first time, Mandy felt it might just be possible to forgive herself for being less than perfect.

It occurred to her that, while she’d been listening to Eric pour his heart out, her own had been given a much-needed break.

“Want to talk about it?” Eric smiled archly, tossing the ball back to her court.

“Can’t,” she told him, glancing at her watch. “I should get going.” Not a lie. She
did
want to talk about it—suddenly, surprisingly, as if a cloud had lifted—but not to Eric. The person who needed to hear it was Robert himself.

An hour later, Mandy called him from her apartment. She’d waited until she was pretty sure he’d be home, but there was no answer; his machine wasn’t picking up, either. Each ring sent her heart crashing into her rib cage like a wrecking ball. He was out with someone new, probably. Tired of Mandy’s excuses, he’d moved on to someone who no doubt returned his interest. And who could blame him?

She’d started to hang up when Robert’s voice came on the line, startling her so that she nearly dropped the receiver. He sounded out of breath, as if he’d had to dash to answer it.

“It’s me—Mandy. Did you just get in?”

“I was in the shower,” he told her, adding with a sigh, “Long day. I’ll tell you about it sometime.”

“How about over dinner tomorrow night?” She closed her eyes.

There was a pause, in which she could hear him breathing softly.
I knew it,
she thought with a thud of despair.
He’s seeing another woman. I’m only making a fool of myself.
But maybe, deep down, hadn’t that been the real purpose of this exercise in humiliation? Wasn’t it just the excuse she needed to pour herself a nice fat bourbon and soda?

No,
she told herself firmly,
that’s NOT why I called.
This wasn’t about Robert, or who he might be seeing. It was for
her.
She had to be honest with him, come clean about why she’d been avoiding him. Even if he thought less of her because of it, she would feel better about herself.

Mandy sank down on the sofa, amid the strewn pages of this morning’s newpaper, a coffee cup she’d been in too much of a hurry to rinse sitting on the table before her; it was a welcome clutter somehow, one she could look at without feeling a vague sense of shame, wondering how it had gotten there.

“Robert?” she prodded.

“I’m still here,” he said. “Just kind of surprised, is all. I figured you’d cooled off.”

“Oh, Robert.” She put her feet up on the coffee table, remembering that was one of the things you were supposed to do when feeling lightheaded. “I’m sorry. I should have told you sooner. It has nothing to do with
you
.”

“What is it, then?”

“It’s a long story,” she sighed. “Are you up for it?”

“Absolutely.”

Mandy brought her head to rest on the back of the sofa and, with her eyes closed, smiled. More stupefied than relieved. But certain she was doing the right thing. She didn’t know if her story would have a happy ending or not, but Robert, even if he walked away for good, deserved to hear it.

She arranged to meet him at seven-thirty, at a French bistro close to her office. Robert wrote down the address, and said lightly, “If I get there first, should I order red or white?”

“Neither for me,” she said, as casually as she dared, hoping her trembling voice wouldn’t reveal her resolve for exactly what it was: a whisper still only on the verge of becoming a shout. “I won’t be having any.”

Chapter 21

I
T WAS THE FIRST
thing Rose noticed as she emerged from the charred remains of the house into the cold sunlight out back. The garden—trampled by fallen debris and, in the weeks since the fire, a steady parade of fire inspectors, claims investigators, city officials, and trespassers ranging from the curious to the malicious—was showing signs of life. The grass, immune to the seasons, had started to come back in several spots. And on the few remaining branches of the poplar tree, bright-yellow leaves fluttered like the brave, tattered flag of a vanquished army.

It was here, right here in this garden, Rose decided, that she would have them place the bronze plaque in Sylvie’s honor. When the house had been razed, and the new building erected on the old foundation, they would have a dedication ceremony. Sylvie would have liked that, she thought. It probably wouldn’t have occurred to her to do what Rose had done—donate the land to charity—but Rose felt sure she would have understood. What sweeter justice than Faith House—a nonprofit adoption agency that would serve as temporary shelter for unwanted children as well.

Still, it was sad seeing the place like this. Knowing that what lay ahead was more than just a new chapter—it was a whole new book. She wouldn’t come here again, not for a while. But she’d needed to see it just one last time.

Beside her, Jay, unusually quiet even for him, spoke at last. “Mom. Let’s go. It’s creepy here. Besides, there’s broken glass and stuff. If you step on it and get hurt, you’ll have no one to sue.”

She shot him a narrow, sideways glance. “Very funny, wiseguy.”

“I’m serious.” Jay stuffed his hands in his pockets, squinting at what was left of the garden walls, now mostly a tumble of bricks, smoke-blackened and marred with graffiti. He seemed to have sprouted up another inch in the past month or so, but maybe she was just imagining it. One way or another, he
had
grown. It was as if everything coming to a head in their lives had matured him in a way. He didn’t resist her anymore, for one thing. It wasn’t that he’d run out of things to complain about, or criticize her for—but they found plenty to laugh about, too. Rose had the feeling, though she wouldn’t have bet on it just yet, that Jay was on her team.

“I wonder what Dad would have said,” Jay remarked calmly. In his slim-fitting jeans and nylon windbreaker, with the breeze blowing his dark hair back from his forehead, he could have been Drew’s age.

“About the fire, you mean?”

“Not just that.
All
the stuff that’s been going on.”

Rose thought for a moment before answering firmly, “He’d have said it was time to move on.”

“It’s hard sometimes. I still miss him.” Jay screwed his eyes up even more fiercely, making her think of someone peering into a pair of binoculars, trying to bring some distant horizon into focus.

“Me, too.” she said.

She held back from saying that Max wasn’t the only one she missed. Jay might get the wrong idea; he might not understand how it was possible to mourn one person … and, at the same time, yearn for another. It had been a month since she’d last seen or spoken with Eric. He’d kept his word, and hadn’t called. But it wasn’t the same as with Max. She knew exactly how to get in touch with Eric—and often did, without him knowing it.

It was her guilty little secret, one she hadn’t confessed to a soul: every day, at some point between eleven and two, she locked the door to her office and, for half an hour or so, she listened on her Walkman to the
Eric Sandstrom Show.

He was good. He knew how to draw people out, how to get them to open up without browbeating them. He seemed genuinely to
care,
and Rose knew it wasn’t just an act. Even the celebrities and politicians he interviewed were disarmed.

It wasn’t the same as actually
talking
to him, of course. But that would be too risky; it would be like inviting him to a party she wasn’t planning to throw. They’d both be miserable.

With the toe of her high heel. Rose nudged a strip of metal bent and twisted beyond recognition. “You’re right, it
is
creepy. Let’s get going. We don’t want to be late.”

They were meeting Drew and Mandy at St. Joseph’s Cemetery on Long Island. It had been over a year since she had stood at Max’s freshly dug grave and watched as his coffin was lowered into it, the clouds overhead skating across its polished surface like frosty exhaled breath. Rose hadn’t been back since. She didn’t believe in making pilgrimages to gravesites. What was a cold granite head-stone compared with a pillow still smelling of the husband you loved?

But today, the last Sunday in October, would have been Max’s seventieth birthday. It had seemed important to her that his family mark the occasion with some kind of ritual. And there was something about the solemn dignity of a cemetery that appealed to her Catholic upbringing. She wouldn’t be lighting a candle for Max in church, or kneeling in prayer, but she could stand at his grave and remember all the good times.

“Can I drive?” Jay asked.

He’d gotten his license last month, but trusting her younger son behind the wheel of their Volvo still felt to Rose like walking blindfolded down the middle of a busy street.

“Sure,” she said with forced ease, unable to refrain from adding, “if you promise to be careful.”

“Look at it this way, if we get killed in an accident, at least we’ll be near a cemetery.” Jay shot her an evil grin, and Rose laughed in spite of herself. He may have gotten his eyes and his math skills from his dad, but his morbid sense of humor came directly from her.

The traffic on the LIE was worse than she’d anticipated. In spite of the chilly weather, there were obviously plenty of weekenders for whom the onset of fall—with its nearly deserted beaches and empty parking lots—was more enticing than a Fourth of July picnic. Rose herself had a healthy respect for the seasons. Whatever else was going on in your life, she thought, you could always count on them to be at least one constant. And each one had its pleasures, to be doled out like Halloween candy, nobody getting more or less than anyone else. Seasons even gave you an excuse to do things you might have put off otherwise, like spring cleaning, fall tune-ups, and winterizing, not to mention getting in shape for swimsuit weather.

By the time their Volvo coasted through the pillared entrance to the cemetery, with its scrolled wrought-iron gates and lifesize marble statue that looked more like an avuncular master of ceremonies than St. Joseph, Rose wasn’t surprised to see that Mandy and Drew had gotten there ahead of them. Mandy was wearing a green coat, and carrying a paper cone of flowers. She looked brighter somehow, as if, like Sylvie’s garden, all her colors that had been faded were beginning to revive. Rose had heard from Drew that she was regularly attending AA meetings, though Mandy hadn’t discussed it with her, and Rose hadn’t asked. Right now, as Mandy kissed her cheek, leaving behind only a faint trace of perfume, nothing more, Rose was told all she needed to know.

Drew, on the other hand, looked tired. Thinner, too. Still, the haunted look in his eyes was gone, and there was a new resolve to him. He seemed more sure of himself, and of where he was headed. Whether or not Iris, still in Arizona, was going to be a part of his future remained to be seen, but either way, he’d thrown himself headlong into his first year of med school.