Cyl DeGraffenried’s absence skewed the balance and made the facilitator very unhappy. I wasn’t happy either. This was so totally unlike Cyl that I was starting to worry.
Fortunately, Frances and Lou are troupers and had participated in panels like this so many times they could probably do it in their sleep. And I’ve never been shy about speaking up, so it was a lively discussion.
The students were bright enough to ask intelligent questions and we probably turned a half-dozen of them on to the law. (“Just what this country needs,” Lou laughed as the forum broke up around nine-thirty. “More lawyers.”)
* * *
I probably should have gone on home, but Cyl’s apartment was only a couple of miles out of my way and I knew I wouldn’t rest easy if I didn’t satisfy myself that she was okay.
Her car hadn’t been moved and this time I rang that damn bell for almost three solid minutes. Just when I was ready to give up and go call her grandmother, a light came on in the living room and a moment later, the door opened.
“Cyl?”
She looked like hell. Barefooted, wearing nothing but a long pink cotton T-shirt, her eyes were puffy and bloodshot, her face looked bloated, and she had a bad case of bed hair. She blinked at me as if disoriented.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, startled by her groggy appearance. “Are you sick?”
She shook her head dazedly. “Deborah? What time is it? Why are you here?”
“The forum,” I said. “Supper. Kirkland Prep. Did you forget?”
“Oh, Lordy, was that tonight? What day is it?”
I reached out and touched her forehead, but it was cool to my fingers, so she wasn’t running a fever.
“It’s Tuesday. When did you last eat?”
“Sunday? Sunday night?” Her shoulders slumped. “Sunday,” she moaned.
I propped my dripping umbrella against the wall beneath the skimpy portico and moved past her. “You need food.”
She made a gesture of protest but was too dispirited to do more than follow me into her kitchen and watch as I opened cabinets until I found a can of tomato soup.
I dumped it into a saucepan and while that heated, put some cheese on a slice of whole wheat bread and popped it into her toaster oven. “Are you on anything?”
Cyl shook her head, then paused in uncertainty. “Valium? I couldn’t sleep. I think I took a couple sometime last night? This morning?”
I poured hot soup into a mug and put it in her hands. “Drink!”
Obediently, she did as I ordered.
Which only confirmed that something was definitely wrong here. No way does a functioning Cyl DeGraffenried take directions from me.
I made a pot of coffee and when it was ready, she drank that, too, and even nibbled at the toasted cheese.
While she ate, I chattered about the forum and how we’d covered for her and how brilliant Frances and Lou and I had been. Eventually, she almost gave a half-smile as the food and caffeine started to kick in a little and I said, “What’s going on, Cyl? Something happen at work?”
She shook her head listlessly.
“Something wrong in your family?” So far as I knew, her grandmother was the only family member she truly cared about. “Your grandmother’s not sick, is she?”
“No.”
In my book, that left only one thing to make a woman like Cyl fall apart. “Who’s the man, Cyl, and what’s he done?”
A further thought struck me. “Oh jeeze! You’re not pregnant, are you?”
“I wish I were!” she burst out passionately. And then her face crumpled.
If those red eyes were any indication, she’d already cried a river of salty tears. I put my arms around her and made comforting noises as she wept again, long hopeless sobs that echoed the rain streaming down her windows.
There was a box of tissues by the kitchen phone and as her emotional storm dwindled, I pulled out a handful and smoothed her hair while she wiped her eyes and blew her nose.
“Sorry,” she said at last, making a visible effort to pull herself together. “This is so stupid. I’m sorry I forgot about the forum and thanks for fixing me the soup, Deborah. I’ll be all right now.”
Not the most tactful brush-off I’ve ever had. Not going to work either. If I thought she had a girlfriend to call or a sister she’d turn to, I’d have been out of there as soon as she hinted. But Cyl’s such a loner, I didn’t think it’d be healthy to leave her to keep going round and around in her head as she’d evidently been doing these last two days.
“So when did he dump you?” I poured myself a cup of coffee and topped hers off again. “Sunday? Saturday?”
“How do you know I didn’t dump him?” she asked, with a shadow of her old spirit.
“I’ve dumped and I’ve been dumped and I know which one makes me want to stay in bed with the covers pulled over my head. It’s pretty bad, huh?”
“We were only together twice.” Her voice was weary. “The first man I’ve been with since law school.”
Why was I not surprised?
“I didn’t want it to happen. Neither of us did. Not with him—not with him married.”
Now that did surprise me. As many backhanded jabs as she’s made at my love life, I knew that Cyl’s personal code of morality was straight out of the Old Testament. She might be able to rationalize fornication but no way could she do adultery without a heavy load of guilt.
“We didn’t realize what was happening until it was too late,” she said. “It was just friendship. Talking. A cup of coffee. He helped me through that rough time, the day I found out what happened to Isaac. He was so easy to talk to. Almost like talking to Isaac when I was a little girl. I felt as if there was nothing I couldn’t tell him, that he would just listen. Without judging or condemning.”
Isaac was Cyl’s uncle, a boy who’d been more like an older brother than an uncle, a brother she’d idolized. He disappeared when she was only eight or nine years old and everyone thought he’d fled to Boston without a backward look, which was probably why Cyl had grown up feeling betrayed and abandoned and wary of trusting again. I was there the day she learned how he died, a day of high emotions, another rainy day like this one, with Cyl so full of grief that—
“Ralph Freeman?” I exclaimed.
Cyl looked almost as shocked as I felt. “How did you guess?”
“Hell, I was standing right beside you when you asked him for a ride back into town. He shared his umbrella with you out to the parking lot. I remember asking about his wife and children and he said they were visiting her family back in Warrenton. Is that when it happened?”
“Nothing happened,” Cyl protested. “Not that day, anyhow. We just talked. Then, two weeks ago, he came by the office to ask about a man in his church that he was trying to help. A misdemeanor. It was a Friday afternoon. Everyone else was gone. I pulled the shuck to check the charges. He was reading it over my shoulder. I looked up to say something. Our lips were so close. And then they were touching, and then—”
She broke off but I couldn’t help wondering. Right there on Doug Woodall’s couch?
“We knew it was wrong. But it felt so right.” She sighed and shook her head sadly. “We knew we’d sinned, and we said we’d never do it again. But it was like not knowing how hungry you are till you see the food spread out before you and God help us, Deborah, we were both starving. Touching him. Being touched. It was a banquet. Afterwards, I guess we tried to pretend it was a one-time thing. An aberration. We stayed away from each other for a week and then, Saturday morning . . .”
She fell silent for a long moment and tears pooled again in her large brown eyes. “It was even more wonderful,” she whispered.