"I was in Barbuda. Didn't know I'd be coming back to this."
She placed her hand gently on my shoulder. "You'll get through it," she said. "You need anything, just call." She hugged me again and rose to her feet.
"Taking off?" I asked.
"Yeah, I'm beat."
"You're welcome to stay at my place," I said. "It's just an hour from here."
"I appreciate that," she said, "but I'm staying at the Radison a few blocks away. I got an early flight out of Greensboro tomorrow morning. Gotta get back to New York."
I glanced past Cynthia and saw Beth Lancing making her way through the crowd towards me. She held the hand of her four-year-old son, John David. I couldn't face her.
"Take care, Andy," Cynthia said, taking my hands into hers. "Call me sometime this week, will you? Just to let me know how you're doing."
Beth now stood several feet away, waiting for me to finish. I stood and embraced Cynthia once more. Kissing her on the cheek, I said, "Thanks for coming. I'll call you soon."
As Cynthia walked away, blending into the pool of dark suits and dresses, I sat back down on the sofa. Before anyone else could get to me, Beth stepped forward with her son, and hesitantly, I looked up into her eyes. A stunning woman, tonight she wore a brown dress that dropped to her small ankles. Curly, blond hair bounced above her shoulders. As I looked into her face, I saw misery. The makeup couldn't hide the deep bags beneath her eyes. They were bloodshot, too, as if she hadn't slept in days. Weakly, I smiled at her and winked at John David, dressed like a man in his little, black suit. I stood and hugged Walter's wife, and she broke apart in my arms, her tears streaking the wool of my suit.
"Sit down, Beth," I said after a moment, and we both sat on the sofa as John David knelt on the floor and began crawling around on the dark red carpet.
"I'm sorry about your mother," she said, wiping tears from her eyes with a tissue.
"Thank you for coming," I said, but I knew why she'd really come. When I returned from Vermont, there were ten messages on my answering machine from her, wanting to know if I'd heard from Walter. "Anything from the police?" I asked, my voice soft and conciliatory. I touched her hand which rested on her knee.
"No, nothing." She shook her head. "They won't do anything, Andy. He'll have been gone a week tomorrow morning." Tears filled her eyes again. "The detectives think he left me. They won't come out and say it, but they keep asking if we had a good marriage. If he had ever cheated on me. But it makes me wonder after awhile, you know?"
John David jumped onto the sofa and snuggled up between me and Beth. His mother ran her fingers through his short, blond hair and he leaned back into her. "He asks about him constantly," she whispered, motioning to her son, and I felt tears coming from the iceberg of guilt that floated behind my eyes. "Jenna's a lot worse, though. She knows things aren't right."
"How are you?" I asked though I didn't want to know.
"If I didn't have to be strong for my kids, I might be dead. It's the nights that are especially hard." She looked down at her son, needing him in a way his innocent psyche could never comprehend. Kissing the top of his head, she smiled at him when he glanced up at her. "I know you're busy," she said, looking back at me. Then standing, she lifted John David into her arms, and he laid his head down on her delicate shoulder. "Can I call you tomorrow?" she asked.
"Sure," I said, rising to my feet. "I'll let you know if I hear anything. You do the same."
"Thank you, Andy. And I'm very sorry about your mother." She kissed my cheek and tried to smile, but it failed miserably. Then she turned and walked slowly away, towards the doors which would lead out of the funeral home, to an empty house.
# # #
When the visitors had gone, leaving only myself, family members, and the pale-faced funeral director, I walked towards the open casket. It had been crowded since I'd been here, so I had waited, wanting to see my mother for the last time, alone, in a quiet room, without the disturbances of a thousand acquaintances. The mortician had warned me that the bruise around her neck would be difficult to hide, and he was right. As I set my hands on the metallic shell of her casket and peered down at her vapid face, it was the first thing I saw.
To someone who didn't know what to look for, the bruise might never draw a glance. But I'd seen her in the cold morgue, and the blackish-purple ring around her neck had been strikingly obvious then. It had looked as if someone had scribbled with black and purple magic markers on her soft, white neck. But now, in this reverent visitation room, only a light periwinkle shown through the makeup on her throat, like dull violets poking through snow.
I cried, touching her face. Though stiff and unnatural, it was hers. Her hands had been folded on top of each other, and they rested on her chest as if she merely slept. When I leaned down to whisper in her ear, I felt a pair of cruel, penetrating eyes staring through my back. My heart froze, and a cold sweat beaded on my forehead. Quickly, I spun around, darting my head towards the two sets of double doors on either end of the long, rectangular room. Jim, Hannah, and Wendy stood in a small circle, chatting by the entrance, and there was no one at the other end. I took a slow, measured breath, and turned back towards my mother, waiting for the icy feeling in my heart to retreat, though it never did.
# # #
White lights sparkled on the opposite shores, and a biting wind swept across the cold water. I stood shivering atop the grassy bank, watching the white Cadillac glide into the murky water. As it filled and lowered into the depths of Lake Norman, the air inside rushed out, breaking into tiny bubbles like a boiling cauldron on the surface. Then it was gone, the black, glassy surface smooth and calm again, except for where the wind stirred it.
I walked back through the woods, towards my property, the ground muddy from the construction that had begun on a new subdivision. No houses were finished, but concrete foundations, gravel roads, and skeletal wood frames were already in place. A wide swath of forest had been gutted, giving the landscape a bruised, beaten demeanor. It would be another six months before anyone moved here, and though my house was nearly half a mile up the shore, I still hated that I would one day have neighbors so close. I might even move when the yuppies came, with their four-wheel-drives and bratty kids.
Rarely did I think of Walter. Only when his wife called, wondering if he'd contacted me, did his face cross my mind and torture me. But for the most part, I'd mastered the management of guilt, simply by disconnecting myself from his memory. I hadn't killed him. Though heartbroken for the loss, it was business, another casualty of Orson. He knew the risk when he went to Vermont. He made the choice. It was remarkable how numb I felt.
Walter hadn't told Beth where or with whom he was going. All she knew was that on Wednesday morning, November 2nd, Walter had left before dawn with enough luggage for several days. He'd told her nothing, and she had trusted him. Now, for reasons unknown to me, Beth had chosen my shoulder to cry on. I'd been on the phone with her earlier tonight before I drove her husband's car from my garage to this muddy section of woods and sent it rolling into the lake. Though I hated myself for lying to her, there was no other way. No one could know that Walter and I had been to Vermont. As I walked in the dark, feeling my way between frozen trees, I thought, I'll help her come to terms with the possibility her husband might be dead. I'll help her through this, for Walter.
Leaves crunched beneath my footsteps, and occasionally I'd step on a stick that snapped the silence. These woods are so different from the pine forests of Vermont, I thought, picturing that dark, intimate gravesite, cloaked in pines. Here the trees were larger, spread farther apart, the forest floor soft and deep with the decades of dead leaves.