Her eyes had started to fill with tears. She took out a crisp, folded white handkerchief, shook it out, and dabbed at her eyes.
I made my voice as gentle as possible, hoping I was on the edge of a genuine revelation. “No wonder what?”
“No wonder I fell in love with Eric.”
It was guilt, as much as sadness. Some small part of her must still have felt that falling for someone else was a betrayal. Both of her husband and of their son.
“He doesn’t want to change the world,” she added, “or stand up for justice.” She gestured to the house. “This is enough for him. We spent more time together in our first six months than your father and I did in our last five years together. It must make me sound so very selfish…”
The tears started to flow again.
I shook my head.
“Not at all. And I’m happy you found him. You deserve this. You deserve to be happy. Everyone does.”
We were both silent for a long moment as she shed a few more tears, dried her eyes and composed herself. Then she stood, refolded her handkerchief and placed it carefully back inside her pocket.
“Let’s get some food.”
Sitting in his rental car across from Flo Line Autos, Sandman studied his target with unerring concentration.
The high-performance car shop’s owner, Marcus Siddle, was showing some guy and his girlfriend around a newly customized Chevy Impala low rider. The client oozed the testosterone and barely suppressed violence of a soldier in one of Miami’s many drug gangs, while his girlfriend was a classic Florida muscle-car babe-apart from the ubiquitous tattoos scattered around her curvy body, she was, even in December, wearing denim micro-shorts the size of knickers and a midriff-baring, too-tight T-shirt. Her only concession to the weather was a pair of knee-high UGG boots and the extra coke she had to be snorting to ward off the goose pimples.
Siddle’s outfit had gone the whole nine yards on the thug’s car. The Impala was a deep purple color, its rear sitting barely an inch off the ground. The sound system was at full blast and was so loud it was making Sandman’s car vibrate.
At the flick of a switch, the rear suspension jumped skyward, sending the rear of the car at least three feet off the tarmac. The owner clicked the fingers of one hand together, his gold bracelets fighting to stay on his wrist, grinning like the babe had just told him she’d invited her girlfriend over for a three-way.
As the guy climbed into the Impala to check out the interior, Siddle walked over to the babe, casually brushed his right palm against her ass and slipped a business card into a rear pocket of her shorts.
Sandman knew of Siddle’s seductive abilities when it came to the opposite sex, but he still couldn’t wrap his head around how the guy managed it with such ease. On top of being certain that his target would find him attractive, he had to be absolutely sure they wouldn’t mention his approach to their husband or boyfriend, especially if it was someone who, by the looks of it, was far from averse to inflicting serious pain on anyone who crossed him. Sandman supposed it was all down to selection. Identifying a target, then choosing the right moment.
In that way, it was very much like Sandman’s own line of work.
Timing was everything.
40
I said yes to the offer of coffee, which Eric went off to make, then thanked my mom for lunch-and for agreeing to talk about dad.
The meal had been accompanied by small talk-Kim, Alex, Eric’s grandnephews, the snow, the appalling ignorance and downright negligence of people planting and even selling the wrong kind of viburnums-anything except mention of Colin Reilly. But with Eric out of the room, the mood changed, both of us lost in thought about a man neither of us had known as well as we wanted to, needed to, or thought we did.
She looked across the table at me. “He loved you.”
I wanted to say, “He loved you too”, but as the thought formed, something from a long-buried part of my brain made me wonder if, toward the end, maybe it wasn’t true. Maybe he cared for her-I’m sure he did-but did he love her? I mean, he must have loved her once. I’d seen their wedding photos. Pictures of them with me as a baby. I was pretty sure that love had come through, loud and clear. Why had that changed? Was it a chemical imbalance that made it unavoidable? Was it simpler-his job, his introversion, his dedication to work at the exclusion of everything else? Or was there something else?
So I said the only other thing I could. “I know he did. And you loved him too. I know that.”
She looked up, as if she’d find him floating there. “Yes. But too much and for too long, when I was nothing but the housekeeper who kept everything ticking over, a shadow he passed on the stairs.”
I looked directly at her. “Thank you, though. Thank you for staying with him, throughout. I can’t imagine it was fun, but I also can’t imagine how my life would have gone if I’d lost you both.”
She stood, unable to deal with this, some part of her still feeling guilt that she’d failed him somehow-maybe failed me too.
I realized that the way things were going with my life, I might not be able to see her again, so this time I stood up and I hugged her tight. I held her for a few seconds-past the point when she instinctively tried to pull away, all the way through to the moment when she gave in and let herself feel my embrace.
Finally, I let go and stepped back. There was the faintest smile on her face-a perfect memory.
So I waved, turned and headed for my car.
Eric followed me outside, holding a travel mug.
“Figured you’d be on your way.”
I took it. “Thanks.”
Then that thought again, but louder.
I knew Eric could keep his counsel; it was one of the things I respected about him. And, as if sensing my thoughts, he said, “It’s tough for her, talking about that time. You know, things weren’t great between them towards the end. And the last thing she’d want is to tarnish your memory of him.”
The thought was now too loud to ignore.
I asked, “Was there someone else?”
He just looked at me for a moment, his expression neutral.
“I can’t raise it with her, no matter the stakes. I just can’t, knowing how she’d react,” I added. “It’s where I draw the line. And if you knew anything about what I’ve been through these past few days-weeks, even-you’d appreciate what that means.”
He shook his head and smiled. “I don’t need to know about it. You love her and you don’t want to hurt her. That’s where you and I climb the same tree.”
He gestured for us to head over to the BMW, as far from the house as possible.
“I don’t know,” he said.
“But you know something?”
He shrugged, the discomfort apparent in the deepening furrows across his face. “It was years ago. Your mom and I, we were just flicking through the channels one night. We came across the remake of the Thomas Crown Affair. As we started watching it, I made some comment about how Rene Russo couldn’t hold a candle to Faye Dunaway. I must have struck a nerve or something, cause your mom bristled at the mention of Dunaway and, after a while, she asked if we could watch something else. I didn’t press it, but I was curious. And when I asked her about it later, she just shrugged it off and asked me to drop it. I couldn’t help but want to know what was going on, and a few days later, I picked my moment and asked again. She just said she didn’t care for the name much, said it reminded her of someone and that it had to do with your dad, and asked me to leave it at that. I did.”
“Was that all she said?”
Eric hesitated, then added, “No. She did say it was an assistant of your dad’s. One of his grad students. Another Faye.” His look filled in any blanks I still had.