22

VIENNA

THE CALL FROM AMELIA came at nine o’clock, just as Jon was wheeling in the back door of the house. She wanted to speak to Claire.

Jon hesitated for a moment, mentally replaying the message Claire had left on his voice mail. “Isn’t she with you?” he asked. “She said you two were going to a movie.”

“That’s news to me. You’re sure she said Amelia?”

“Yes. Absolutely. Maybe a later movie?”

“I’d know about it by now, Jon, don’t you think? Look, tell her I called, okay?” She laughed. “And tell her that next time she uses me as a cover she’d better let me know so we can get our stories straight.”

He didn’t smile.

“Jon? Is everything all right?”

“Yes. Fine. I’ll tell her you called.”

He hung up the phone and sat in the middle of the kitchen for several minutes, thinking. Somewhere there lurked a logical explanation for this. He wouldn’t spend his energy hunting for it, though. She could tell him when she got home.

He built a fire in the fireplace and sat in the recliner, sifting through a stack of articles he’d collected over the years. There were magazine and newspaper pieces on museums and day trips and restaurants and parks, and a batch of pamphlets on wheelchair accessible events. He’d gone through this file of articles twice since their talk in Baltimore, putting together a partial list of things they could do for fun. As far as he knew, Claire hadn’t even begun her own list. He felt like a nag each time he brought it up and so hadn’t mentioned it in several days. He would present her with his list this weekend. If she didn’t make one of her own, he supposed that was her choice.

He lost himself so thoroughly in the brochure on wilderness adventures that he was only vaguely aware of the knot in his stomach, the tension in his arms. When he next looked at the clock on the mantel, it was after ten.

She was with Randy. He leaned his head back against the recliner, shutting his eyes. She was with Randy, and she had lied to him about it. And why would she lie unless something more was going on there than friendship? What had happened to him and Claire, to their marriage? He couldn’t believe he’d reached the point of suspecting—no, of knowing—that she was betraying him. Was this the first time? She hadn’t mentioned Randy more than once or twice since that weekend in Baltimore, and he’d hoped that their argument in the hotel had shaken her up sufficiently to put her back on track.

An hour later, Jon was in the kitchen, taking his medication before going to bed, when Claire walked in the door.

“I’m sorry I’m so late,” she said, setting down her purse. “We were talking, and I didn’t realize what time it was.” She was rosy-cheeked, and she kept her coat on as she opened the dishwasher and began unloading the dishes. Not long ago, she would have walked in the door and kissed him before she did anything else. Now she was not even looking at him.

“Who was talking?” he asked.

She didn’t answer. She pulled a frying pan from the dishwasher and set it on the counter.

He stiffened his spine, girding for battle. “Amelia called here at nine, looking for you.”

Holding a glass in her hand, she turned to stare at him, mouth open, and he felt something like hatred toward her. He wheeled his chair toward the hallway door.

“Get whatever you need from the bedroom,” he said. “Because you’re not sleeping with me tonight.”

She set the glass on the counter. “Jon, wait. Listen to me.”

“Go to hell! I don’t want you anywhere near me. You’ve got a choice. Susan’s room or the guest room. Or you can go back to Randy.”

He heard her start to speak, but she quickly stopped herself, and he turned to face her again.

“What? You’re going to try to tell me you weren’t with him tonight?”

She drew the lapels of her coat together like armor. “I was with him, but it’s not what you think.”

His heart contracted painfully in his chest. He wished he’d been wrong.

“You lied to me about being with him,” he said, “and I’m supposed to assume there’s nothing between the two of you?”

“There is something between us. A friendship. And it’s important to me. I didn’t want to lie to you, but I know you’re…uncomfortable about him, and I don’t know how to see him without upsetting you.”

“Where were you tonight?”

She swallowed hard. “Dancing,” she said.

“Dancing. You always said you didn’t care about dancing.”

She sat down at the table and, with a tired gesture, swept her hair back from her cheek. Her coat fell open, and he could see that she was wearing the violet dress he’d bought her the year before,

“I don’t care about dancing,” she said. “It’s not that important to me.” She shut her eyes and drew in a breath. “That’s not exactly true,” she said. “It’s not a big deal, Jon, but I’ve always said I don’t care about it so you wouldn’t think it mattered to me that we couldn’t do it.”

He had an urge to pick up the glass from the counter and throw it at her, hard. “And what else have you lied to me about over the years?” he asked. “What else can’t I do that you’re yearning to do, that you want to do so much you’d do it behind my back?”

“Oh, Jon.” She knelt down next to him, her hand on his arm. “Please, please, let’s stop this. I’m sorry.”

He could see the soft, inviting place where her breasts met under her dress, and he recoiled at the thought of Randy having that same view of her. Worse, of touching her there. He brushed her hand from his arm.

“Your apologies are starting to have an empty ring to them,” he said.

Claire stood again, then said softly, “I’ll sleep in Susan’s room.”

Sometime during the night, he felt her slip into the bed beside him. She lay next to him, weeping softly, those tears as rare as diamonds, and there was no way he could cast her out again. Almost reflexively, his arms moved to encircle her, to draw her to him, and her body shaped itself to his as he pulled her closer.

“I’m scared,” she whispered. “What’s happening to us, Jon?”

He shut his eyes. “What’s happening is that you seem to be getting involved with someone else.”

She didn’t speak for a moment. “I know it must seem that way to you,” she said finally, “but my interest in him is not romantic. I swear it.”

“What is it then?”

She hesitated. “It’s…remember I told you about those little flashbacks?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I’m sorry, but I’m still having them. They’re worse, actually.”

“Oh, Claire.” He buried his face in her hair. She was apologizing the way a sick person might for being a burden. “Why haven’t you told me?” he asked.

“I think you’d rather not hear about them.”

He ran his hand over her hair. “Why do you say that?”

“Because you want me to be cheerful and happy, and right now that’s impossible for me.”

It was true that he would give anything to have his beautiful, effervescent wife back. But he pulled this scared, sad woman closer to him. He took in a long breath, let it out. “And so, you and Randy talk about the flashbacks?”

“Yes. For some reason, he brings them out in me, and I don’t feel so afraid of them when I’m talking to him. He tries to get me to think about what they mean. Where they’re coming from.”

You asshole, Donovan. The man had no idea what he was getting into.

“Try telling me about them, Claire,” he said bravely. “Give me a chance to listen.”

For a long time, she said nothing. When she finally spoke, her voice was halting, not her own. “Well, there are the ones I told you about. The bloodstain and the mirrors. And at work the other day, I kept seeing a robin. A drawing of a robin, like from a coloring book, and…Oh! ‘Let Me Call You Sweetheart.’ I heard it in a music box and I—”

“You mean, from the carousel?”

“The carousel?”

“That was one of the songs your grandfather had on the carousel, wasn’t it? Didn’t you tell me that, or maybe Mellie—”

“Yes, you’re right. But why should that upset me?”

“Oh, Claire, hon, I don’t know.” He hugged her. “All this is tangled up in your head, and somehow it’s gotten linked to Margot and the bridge and Randy.”

She said nothing.

“Why open the past?” he asked. “I’ve heard you say that to people more times than I can count.” Claire had no tolerance for therapists who mucked around in their patients’ childhoods. He didn’t completely share her philosophy, but right now, he felt desperate to have her heed her own message. “Focus on the here and now,” he said. “That’s what you always say, isn’t it? Leave the past alone.”

“But it won’t leave me alone.” She pulled away from him, punching the mattress as she spoke. “I mean, I don’t remember any of it, but if you look at the facts—Vanessa getting dragged away from her mother and sister forever—if you look at that one fact alone, it’s enough to make my childhood look hideous.”

He stared at the ceiling as he stroked her hair. He wished he could pull her back from the path she was on, but already it seemed too late. She’d started a journey—one he knew in his heart she needed to make—and it had no shortcut. If she wanted to see it through to the end, there was nothing he could do to put a stop to it. Nor did he have that right. But couldn’t she continue the journey without Randy Donovan?

“Is it platonic, Claire?” he asked.

She seemed to catch her breath. “How could you think anything else?”

“Well, to start with, you lied to me.”

“I shouldn’t have lied. It’s just that I knew you’d be upset.”

He sighed. “You and I are in trouble here. Our marriage is in trouble, and—”

“Don’t talk that way. Please. We’ll be fine.”

He pressed his lips to her hair. He wanted to believe her, but these days, Claire’s assurances had lost the ring of truth.

“I have to ask you for something,” he said. “I don’t ask a lot of you, Claire, but this is very important to me.”

She raised herself up on her elbow to look at him, and he was relieved when he saw the love in her eyes. “Anything,” she said. “You know that.”

“I want you to stop seeing Randy.”

She didn’t respond, but lowered her head to his shoulder again, slowly.

“Claire?”

“It’s not fair to ask me to do that.” She was sniffling. “Please, Jon. Please don’t give me ultimatums.”

He lay very still for a moment. He could think of nothing more to say. He was gentle as he let go of her, even managed to brush his lips across her cheek before he turned on his side, away from her.

She touched his shoulder. “Don’t pull away,” she said. “Please. Talk to me.”

But he shut his eyes, and after a moment, her hand slipped from his shoulder.

So, she would spend her time with Randy Donovan. She would slip further from her marriage, further from him. And she would chip away at the memories of a childhood that, Jon knew, was far more hideous than she could ever imagine.