27

CHARLOTTESVILLE, VIRGINIA

JON TURNED OFF THE highway onto the road leading to Monticello. Beside him, Claire was singing along with the tape player. “Mr. Tambourine Man.”

She was singing loudly, badly. It was hard to say who had the worse voice—Claire or Dylan. Didn’t matter. She drowned Dylan out, reciting every obscure verse, and Jon reveled in the unbridled happiness in her voice.

Monticello was on Claire’s list of things to do. They’d been alternating between his list and hers during the past week and a half, starting with a weekend in Ocean City, where they’d encountered a hailstorm on the boardwalk and spent most of their time in their hotel room eating and making love. Next, they visited the aquarium in Baltimore, then attended a play at the Kennedy Center. He had to admit that some of their fun had a forced air about it. Their relationship had taken a hit in the past couple of months, and it was bound to be a while before they settled back into their old, comfortable ease with one another. Almost two weeks had passed since she’d announced she would no longer see Randy, and they had packed those weeks so full of activity that there was little time left over to wallow in sadness or regret. They’d even taken a couple of days off from work, which, whenever he stopped to think about it, would throw him into a panic. There was so much to be done before the retreat.

Claire was really trying. A casual observer would probably think she was back to her old self. Touched by her resolve, Jon tried to ignore the heaviness in her gait and her lackluster appetite. He didn’t comment on her uncharacteristic teariness after they made love or the fact that major portions of the play they’d seen had gone over her head. She was not carrying her share of the work at the foundation, either. He hadn’t said anything to her about it, but he knew that she was far behind schedule on her retreat responsibilities.

Sometimes, lately, she’d get up in the middle of the night. She never used to do that—she’d always been a sound sleeper. He would ask her if she was okay. She would say she was fine, and he would accept her answer. Should he challenge her on it? Good old Randy would have. Screw Randy. Jon blamed him for this whole mess. That was easiest. Neatest. As far as he knew, none of the people who were truly responsible were still alive to blame.

But Claire was better in other ways. A bit better every day. He didn’t know if she was still experiencing the odd visual images she’d discussed with Randy, and he was not about to ask her. If she was no longer having those intrusive flashbacks and he mentioned them, they might start up again.

She was still singing “Mr. Tambourine Man” as she held his chair steady for him while he transferred into it from the car. She was even dancing a little, and she bent down to hug him from behind, kissing the top of his head.

They joined a small tour group inside the foyer of Thomas Jefferson’s home. Their guide was a graceful woman with a wealth of knowledge, and Jon was quickly absorbed by tales of Jefferson’s intellect, wide-ranging interests, and a genius that bordered on the eccentric. They passed through his library and parlor and dining room, finally reaching his peculiar bedroom. The room was divided in two by a bed squeezed between two walls. An intriguing clock hung on the wall at the foot of the bed. Jon started to point it out to Claire, but she was staring at something, her chin tilted upward, her hand pressed to her mouth. He followed her gaze to the high wall above the bed, where three glassless oval windows opened into darkness. A storage closet was behind the windows, the guide was saying, looking up at the odd openings herself. Jefferson had stored his out-of-season clothing there.

Claire’s face had turned gray, and Jon felt sweat break out on his chest. There were a few people between them, and he couldn’t easily get to her with his chair. She glanced at him, nothing short of terror in her eyes, then quickly passed behind the guide and out of the room.

The guide stopped her lecture midsentence. “Ma’am?” she called after Claire, but they could hear Claire’s footsteps hurrying down the hall.

Jon wheeled out of the room after her. From behind him, he could hear the guide opening a door, telling someone that a member of her group needed to be escorted from the building.

Claire had made it only as far as the library before getting sick. She was leaning against the wall, tears running freely down her cheeks. Another guide, this one a middle-aged, gray-haired man, was already at her side by the time Jon reached her. Claire gave Jon a look of stark humiliation, then grabbed the guide’s arm. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I can’t believe I…I couldn’t find my way—”

“That’s all right.” The guide looked down at Jon. “You’re her husband?”

Jon nodded, his eyes on Claire. “Are you okay?” he asked.

Claire nodded. She was breathing rapidly. She didn’t look okay at all, and he hoped the guide could get her out of the house before she was sick again.

The man took Claire’s elbow and led her toward the foyer, Jon following behind them. “These things happen,” the guide said kindly. “And it’s just one of those sturdy carpets used for foot traffic. Not an antique. Nothing we can’t clean.”

They had reached the front door. There were steps leading down into the yard. Jon wouldn’t be able to get out that way.

“I have to go around to the lift, Claire. Will you be all right out there?”

Claire nodded, then headed for the stairs, the door swinging closed behind her. The guide looked down at Jon. “Stomach flu?” he asked.

“No. No, I think it’s something else.”

The man studied him quizzically. He should have said it was the flu and left it at that.

It took him a few minutes to find the lift and wheel himself around the outside of the house to the bench where Claire was sitting. She looked at him sheepishly. “I feel like an imbecile.” Her voice was weak. Jon wanted to turn back the clock to those hours in the car when she’d been singing merrily along with Bob Dylan.

“What happened back there?” he asked.

She shrugged. “I made a fool out of myself, that’s what.”

He leaned forward to hold her hand. “It was warm in there,” he said. “Stuffy. Was that it? Do you feel better now?”

She pulled her coat tighter across her chest with her free hand. There were tears in her eyes as she stared out across the grounds.

Jon sighed, giving in to the inevitable. “It wasn’t just the stuffiness, huh?”

She shook her head. “No.”

“I love you, Claire,” he said. “Talk to me.” He sounded remarkably strong, but his bravado was a facade. As false as her good cheer had been these past couple of weeks.

“The same stuff,” she mumbled.

“You mean, you had some sort of…flashback in there?”

She nodded, gnawing her lower lip, tightening her grip on his hand. “Those oval windows,” she said.

“What about them?”

“I don’t know. They just…freaked me out.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “This is the first time in a while, though, isn’t it? I mean, you haven’t had those flashbacks since…for a couple of weeks, right?”

She looked directly at him. “I have them all the time,” she said softly.

“You do?” he asked. “Are they still those bits of memory that don’t make any sense?”

She nodded, and he knew she was waiting for him to ask her more. What did she see, what did she feel when those memories cut her down? She wanted him to ask. She was begging for it with her eyes, with the coiled stiffness in her hand beneath his. But he was not equipped to ask those questions. Or perhaps he was too well equipped. Maybe that was the problem.

“Will you see a therapist, Claire? Please?”

For a moment, she simply stared at him. “All right,” she said finally, and he could see the disappointment in her face as she turned away from him, as she pulled her hand from under his and slipped it into her pocket.

She stood up, and they moved in silence down the path toward the car. He couldn’t blame her for her disappointment. She had given him the chance not only to recapture their old intimacy but to build on it, lift it higher.

And he had let her down.