44

VIENNA

CLAIRE WAS GOING TO be late for her first day back at the foundation, her first day of work in over a month. Randy had delayed her at his town house with waffles and conversation; he was not happy about her return to work. She’d rushed home to change into clothes appropriate for the office, and she kept one eye on the clock as she tugged on her gray skirt and red cardigan.

She was anxious about seeing everyone who knew, to varying degrees, her role in what had happened to her marriage. She was anxious, too, about seeing Jon, about how the two of them would work together when their etched-in-granite team approach had been so thoroughly blown apart.

Grabbing her keys from the table, she raced out the front door and almost crashed head-on into a woman coming up her walk.

“Oh!” Claire said, startled. “Can I help you?”

The woman’s straight blond hair was shoulder-length and swept to the side above large blue eyes. At first Claire guessed her to be about thirty, but then she noticed the faint lines at the corners of her eyes and mouth.

The woman simply stared at her, and Claire felt a chill of recognition.

“Vanessa?”

“That’s right.”

Claire broke into a smile. “Vanessa!” She moved forward to embrace her sister, but Vanessa stiffened visibly, and Claire quickly drew back.

She glanced at her watch. Jon and the foundation would have to wait. “Come in,” she said.

Vanessa followed her the few steps toward her door, and Claire’s hand shook as she fit the key into the lock. It was obvious that her sister was not here to rekindle a relationship with her. She stepped through the door and motioned for Vanessa to join her inside.

“Would you like some tea?” she offered. “Something warm? The cherry blossoms are out, but the weather doesn’t seem to know it’s spring yet.”

Vanessa shook her head. “All I want is a few minutes of your time.”

Claire shivered at the ice in her sister’s voice. “All right,” she said. “But I’m late for work. Let me run next door to my landlord and call my office to let them know I’ll be late. I don’t have a phone here.” She opened the front door again, but Vanessa stopped her.

“Don’t bother, Claire,” she said. “I’m only going to be a minute.”

Claire reluctantly shut the door again, realizing as she did so that she had wanted to escape from this stranger with the riveting eyes and chilly voice.

She gestured toward the sofa. Vanessa slipped her purse from her shoulder and took a seat on the sofa’s edge, hands folded over her knees. She was wearing a peach-colored linen dress, beautifully fitted over her slender figure, and Claire felt a stab of long-forgotten envy.

Pulling one of the wrought-iron chairs from beneath the table, she sat down herself. “I’m very glad to see you, Vanessa,” she said. “I barely recognized you. Your curls are gone. It looks good, though, your hair. I—”

“Please.” Vanessa held up a hand to put an end to her rambling. “I can’t deal with the small talk. I’m only here because I have to be.” She raised her head in the air like a racehorse. “I’m here to cleanse myself, to get rid of all the garbage I’ve been carrying around most of my life.”

Claire felt a sudden jolt of fear, something close to panic. “I’m not sure I understand,” she said.

“Then I’ll get right to the point.” Vanessa leaned forward. “I know what you did back then, when we were kids. I know you betrayed me, in the worst way a sister could betray a sister.”

Claire shook her head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She didn’t know, did she? Then why did she feel this urge to leap up and run from the room? Her skin felt itchy beneath her sweater, and she rubbed her arms.

“Zed Patterson,” Vanessa said. “Is it coming back to you now?”

Claire frowned. “Zed Patterson? Was he the sheriff in Jeremy?”

Vanessa cocked her head to one side, narrowed her eyes. “You really don’t remember this, do you?” she asked.

“I’m sorry, I don’t have any idea—”

“Well, I remember it very clearly, because I still have nightmares about it. I still have the scars. Want me to refresh your memory?”

Claire saw a silver spoon dipping into a jar of honey. She could taste honey on her tongue, and the air in the apartment was suddenly thick and suffocating. She began to tremble. Please, Vanessa, slow down. Be gentle with me. She pulled her cardigan tighter across her chest. “Vanessa, I’m not sure—”

“It was that last morning we lived together as sisters, remember? We shared that room at the farm, that big attic room with the yellow flowered wallpaper. And very early that morning, you woke me up to tell me that Zed wanted me to come out to the barn. You were nervous. I was only eight, but I could tell. You couldn’t look me in the eye.”

The memory was wispy and vague, but it was there, and it was real. She remembered the anxiety—that same wired sort of urge to escape she felt now—but she couldn’t recall its source. “The sheriff said he needed your help,” she said uncertainly. It sounded more like a question than a statement. Was it the genuine truth, or a truth she had concocted?

“No,” Vanessa said. “He said he needed your help. I went out there, and he said, ‘Where’s your sister? I like dark-haired little girls best. I told Claire I wanted her to come out here, but I guess she’s a scaredy-cat. Sends her little sister instead. Guess you’ll have to do.’”

Claire gripped the wrought-iron arms of the chair. “What are you saying? Are you saying he…molested you? He wouldn’t have. He was a nice man, from what I remember. He—”

“Don’t act so damned innocent!” Vanessa rose to her feet. “Yes, he molested me. He raped me.”

Claire drew back in her chair. “My God, Vanessa.” She couldn’t even entertain the idea. It was crazy. “Maybe you’ve remembered this wrong. It was so long ago, and you were just a child.” Was it physically possible for a grown man to rape a child that young?

Vanessa stared at her sister. “I thought it must have happened to you, too. I figured that was why you knew not to go out there yourself.”

“No.” Claire shook her head. “Nothing like that ever happened to me. So if—when—I told you he needed your help, I couldn’t possibly have known what he wanted.” She looked down at her hands, afraid to continue. Yet she had to. She was desperate to cast doubt on Vanessa’s story. When she spoke again, her voice was tentative. “Lately, I’ve discovered that I’ve twisted up some of my memories from back then,” she said. “Could you possibly be doing the same thing?”

Vanessa paced across the floor. “Unfortunately, my memory of that morning is very clear, down to the last detail,” she said. “It happened on that goddamned merry-go-round. On the chariot.”

“The chariot?” Claire asked. Vanessa’s memory was flawed. There had been no chariots on the carousel, only horses.

“I was eight years old,” Vanessa continued. She was still pacing. “Do you know what that was like, what it felt like? Do you know the kind of toll that sort of experience exacts on an eight-year-old child?”

Claire wouldn’t think about it. She felt nauseated; swallowing was an effort. “Vanessa,” she said, her voice strained, “we need to sort out our memories together. I think your memory is a little distorted. There were no chariots on the carousel, for example. Maybe what you think happened never did, and it’s made you angry with me all these years, and I—”

“God, you remind me of Mellie.” Vanessa folded her arms across her chest and stopped her pacing to stand close to her. Her smile was cynical. “You are fucking Mellie all over again, aren’t you? I’d practically forgotten what she was like until you started talking.”

“I’m not like Mellie.” Claire felt an indignant innocence. Suddenly she saw her mother’s face, as clearly as she’d ever seen it, smiling across the table from her in the farmhouse kitchen. Mellie was winking at her. And she could see a spoon being lifted from a jar of honey, a thick ribbon of amber spilling from the silver. The nausea teased her again, and she swallowed hard.

“It happened,” Vanessa said. “You sent me out there, and the bastard raped me.” She leaned against the wall, arms still folded. “As a teenager, I looked far and wide for the man who could purge that encounter from my mind. I had sex with everyone. Didn’t matter who they were. I just wanted to find someone who could take away that pain.”

Through the fog of nausea, Claire could see the slight shiver in her sister’s lower lip, a barely perceptible betrayal of the fragility behind the tough exterior.

“I don’t know what’s fact and what’s fiction anymore, Vanessa,” she said. “If something really did happen to you, I’m terribly sorry.” She reached up to touch her sister’s arm, but her hand was shrugged away.

Vanessa drew in a breath, her lip quivering again. “Do you know how much I loved you when we were small?” she asked. “How much I looked up to you?”

Claire wanted to reach for her again, but stopped herself. “I don’t remember much of anything from back then,” she said. “I wish I did.” She remembered being jealous of her golden sister. That was all.

“Well, you’re lucky, I suppose.” Vanessa picked up her purse from the sofa and slipped it over her shoulder.

Claire stood up slowly, afraid of getting sick. She stood between her sister and the door. “I’m going through a rough time, Vanessa.” Her voice sounded weak. “The reason I’m separated from my husband and in this apartment is that I’m trying to figure out—”

“You wrote in a letter long ago that you had a child.” Vanessa interrupted her. “A daughter?”

Claire’s knees could no longer hold her up. She stepped away from the door to sit on the arm of the sofa. “Susan, yes. She’s nineteen.”

Vanessa looked at the floor with its thin, drab carpet. “I have a daughter too,” she said. “Anna. Only I suppose that’s not her real name. I’ve never seen her. They took her from me when she was born because I was just a kid myself, and I was drinking and using drugs and taking overdoses of sleeping pills and generally doing everything in my power to either erase my existence or make it somehow bearable.” She looked out the window at the new buds on the maple tree, and Claire could see the shine of tears in her eyes. “I’m not saying that all of that is your fault,” she said. “I blame you for one thing only. For betraying me.”

“I didn’t,” Claire said, “or if I did, it wasn’t inten—”

“You know they were lovers, don’t you?” Vanessa asked.

“Who?”

“Mellie and Zed. That’s why Daddy left.”

Claire pressed her fingertips to her temples. Mellie and the sheriff? “Oh, that’s insane,” she said. “You must be mistaken.”

“I heard all about it from our father. Six days in the car with him on our drive to Seattle. I heard more than I ever wanted to hear.”

“He never let us know where you were, Vanessa. Do you know that? We had no way of—”

“He’s still doing it.” Vanessa clutched her purse close to her side.

“Who? What?”

“Zed Patterson.”

“Doing what?”

“Did you know he’s now a senator from Pennsylvania?”

Claire shook her head blankly.

“Goes by Walter Patterson.”

Yes, Claire thought. She’d heard that name before.

“A girl recently accused him of molesting her, but he got off because no one believed her story. I should have come forward to lend some support to her allegation, but I was a coward. Now though—” she let out a sigh. “I run programs for teenagers who were abused when they were younger, and now I’m going to testify on Capitol Hill to try to get funding for those programs. I’m going to come out in the open, for the first time, on all the crap I’ve carried around.”

“What if you’re wrong, though?” Claire asked, alarmed. “Or even if you’re right and all of it did happen to you, do you actually want to dredge it up? Maybe you need to put it behind you.” The old Claire was talking, she thought. How quickly she could regress to that comfortable state of denial.

She wasn’t surprised when her sister shook her head with disdain. “I’m through here,” Vanessa said, walking toward the door.

Claire followed her. “Where are you staying?” she asked. “How can I get in touch with you?”

“I’m at the Omni Shoreham. But I don’t see any point in us talking again. I’ve said all I want to say. I should have said it all years ago.” She stepped outside, then turned to face Claire. “You know, maybe I’m the lucky one after all,” she said. “At least I know who I am and what I did and didn’t do. At least I know I have nothing to feel guilty about or ashamed of.”

Vanessa didn’t give her a chance to respond. Claire watched her sister walk out to the street and get into a waiting cab parked at the curb. Then she locked up her apartment and got into her own car, pulling out onto the road. The temptation to drive to the Fishmonger was strong, but she was already far too late. She would call Randy the instant she got in. She’d ask him to meet her for lunch in the theater. And she wouldn’t think about Vanessa’s visit until she was safely with him.

She sped toward the foundation as though someone were chasing her, as though if she drove fast enough, she could leave the memories behind. But she couldn’t. They were with her, edging in. And when she looked in the sideview mirror, it was filled with green.

WELL, CLAIRE WAS NOT off to a great start. Jon looked at his watch again and pursed his lips. She’d seemed so sincere about wanting to come back. Had she completely forgotten, or was she simply going to be abysmally late? And how much should he tolerate?

The door to his office suddenly burst open, and Claire stood in front of his desk in her gray skirt and a red sweater. Her face was pale, and she was trembling.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” she said, “but I need one more minute for a phone call.”

He set down his pen. “Are you all right?”

“Yes. Fine. I’ll be back in a sec.” She turned to leave.

“Claire, wait.” He wheeled out from behind his desk. “What’s wrong?”

She ran a shaky hand through her hair, and he could see her debating between telling him and racing off to the phone. He felt as if they were both on the edge of a precipice. “What is it?” he asked.

She drew in a long breath. “I just spoke with Vanessa—my sister. She showed up at my apartment.” She pressed her hand over her mouth as though she’d shocked herself with her words, and with a jolt, Jon noticed that she had taken off her ring.

He motioned toward the sofa. “Sit down,” he said.

“No. I need to make a—”

“The phone can wait,” he said, wheeling toward the sofa himself. “Come here.”

She hesitated a moment before sitting down.

“Vanessa called the house for you a few days ago,” he said. “I

gave her your address. I thought she’d write to you, or call you here at the office. I didn’t know she’d show up. I’m sorry. Maybe I should have checked with you first, but—”

“No, that was fine.” She hugged her arms across her chest, shivering, hunching over as if her stomach hurt. “Oh, God,” she said, “I feel so sick.”

“Sweetheart.” Jon wheeled close to her, resting his hand on her knee, and although her body remained stiff and tremulous, she offered no resistance to his touch. “What did she say that’s got you this upset?” he asked.

She shook her head, eyes closed.

“Claire,” he said. “Tell me.”

“I’m afraid to talk about it,” she whispered.

Jon gnawed on his lip, thinking that if Randy were sitting this close to her, touching her, she would be more than willing to talk. And if he were Randy, he wouldn’t be afraid to hear what she had to say.

“Tell me, Claire,” he tried again.

With her eyes still squeezed shut, she began to talk, quickly, as though once she started she couldn’t get it out fast enough. She told him about Vanessa’s accusations, about how she had sent her sister out to the barn, where she was raped by the sheriff, Zed Patterson. Jon wasn’t certain if he was listening to Vanessa’s memories or Claire’s, but he listened hard. He needed to know exactly where she was in the process of discovering her past.

“She despises me,” Claire said when she’d finished giving him the account of Vanessa’s visit. “I could see it in her eyes. She’s hated me ever since that day.”

“Is it true, though?” he asked carefully. “Do you think that what she said happened to her actually did happen? Do you think you meant to set her up?”

A tremor ran through her body, and she leaned closer to him, clutching his hand in both of hers.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I was starting to remember some of it in the car on the way over here, but I feel like I’m trying to piece together a dream.” She looked at him directly. “I’ve been remembering more and more lately,” she said. It sounded like a confession.

“Yes.” He nodded. “That’s good.”

She pressed his hand hard between hers and stared into space. “I know that the sheriff—Zed—was helping my grandfather that summer. Not with the carving, of course, but with the mechanical stuff. Grandpa was sick, I think, and Zed really worked hard. Oh!” She let go of his hand to hold her fists to the sides of her head. “I just parroted Mellie,” she said. “Mellie used to say how hard Zed worked, wasn’t he a great worker, etcetera. Maybe there was something between them.”

He caught her hands again, holding them once more on her knee. Her fingers felt fragile beneath his. He hoped she would talk on and on and they could sit this way forever.

“What was he like, this Zed guy?” He wasn’t certain how far to push her. How far would Randy push? “Was there any reason for you or anyone else to suspect he’d be abusive?”

“Oh, do you know who he is, Jon?” she asked suddenly. “I didn’t realize this, but Vanessa said he’s Walter Patterson, the senator from Pennsylvania.”

Jon couldn’t mask the shock in his face. “The victims’ assistance guy?”

“I don’t know about—”

“Yes, you do. Remember? He was a big supporter when we were trying to get the Americans with Disabilities Act through?”

“Yes. God, I never realized…I don’t believe…He was a nice man, I thought. My memory’s vague, but I remember him giving me things. A doll, once—a Barbie—which, looking back, seems like kind of an odd gift from a man, but I thought it was great at the time. And he’d tell me I was pretty, but…I think I did feel a little uncomfortable around him. I can’t put a finger on it. I can’t remember. Maybe I was picking up on whatever was going on between him and Mellie. But I do remember the day Vanessa’s talking about. It started coming to me in the car driving over here.” She suddenly froze. “But I don’t want to think about it. I’m afraid to.” She made a sound, a small whimper, like a hurt animal. “Oh, Jon,” she said.

“What? Tell me.”

She shook her head. “I’m afraid to remember, because I think I really did betray her.”

“I’d like to hear about it,” he said. “From your perspective, not Vanessa’s.”

“I can’t.”

Jon shut his own eyes, thinking of the phone call she was so anxious to make. “What does Randy do or say that makes it easy for you to tell him these things?” he asked. The words burned his throat.

Claire hesitated before she answered. “I don’t know,” she said. “He listens well, I guess. He asks questions.” She glanced at him, a mild accusation in her eyes. “He doesn’t try to change the subject.”

“I’ll listen very well,” he said. “I promise.” He lifted his hand to brush her hair back from her cheek. “Go ahead. What do you remember?”

She looked out the window as if she could see her story taking shape in the trees and the pond. “It was the night before my father took Vanessa away,” she said. “Zed told me he could use my help in the barn very early the following morning. I can’t remember why I was uncomfortable about it, but I know I was afraid to go. Somehow, on some level, I must have known what he was really after. Although I was only ten. I mean, how did I know that? But I did.” She suddenly furrowed her brow. “Oh, Jon, maybe I’m making this up! Maybe Vanessa’s planted the seed, and now I—”

He shook his head. “Trust yourself, Claire. Go on. What happened?”

She drew in a trembling breath, turning her hand so that her fingers were locked with his, and he ran his thumb over the pale band of skin where her ring had been.

“I was so afraid of having to go out to the barn in the morning that I couldn’t get to sleep that night,” Claire said. “And sometime during the night I must have gotten the idea to send Vanessa. In the morning, just like she said, I woke her up and told her Zed had asked for her to come out and help him.” She leaned away to look at him. “Why did either of us have to go? Why didn’t I simply roll over and go back to sleep?”

“I don’t know.”

“Maybe he told me I’d get in trouble if I didn’t help him.”

“What happened after you told Vanessa to go?”

“She left, and I remember going downstairs and sitting at the breakfast table with Mellie and my grandparents while she was out in the barn. My grandfather was eating eggs. I remember that because the smell made me sick.” She looked at him. “I was very nervous, Jon. I remember being nervous.”

He nodded.

“My grandfather called me ‘Sunshine,’ and I couldn’t even smile at him. Then Mellie or someone asked me where Vanessa was and I told them she was out in the barn helping Sheriff Patterson. I think Mellie said something about what a good little girl Vanessa was, because I felt jealous. Oh!” She nearly smiled. “The honey!”

“The honey?”

“I’ve been having this flashback of a jar of honey and I think it’s from that morning. We were eating English muffins, and I was putting honey on mine, letting it dribble from the spoon into all the little holes, and my grandmother told me not to play with it. And that’s when Vanessa walked in the door.”

Jon was astonished at the workings of her memory. If he hadn’t known better, he would think this tapestry of scenes was nothing more than the creation of a fertile imagination.

“Mellie said, ‘Good morning, Angel,’ to Vanessa and offered her a muffin,” Claire continued, “but Vanessa said she wasn’t hungry. I couldn’t look at her, Jon.” She let go of his hand to press her fist to her mouth. “I just stared at my muffin, at the way the kitchen light was reflected in the little pools of honey.”

For a moment, she seemed lost. He waited quietly, finally prompting her. “Claire?”

“I didn’t like her,” she said softly. “I still don’t. She’s gorgeous. That’s a petty reason, I know, but she was so pushy and forceful and rude in my apartment.”

He nodded, remembering Vanessa’s cold voice on the phone. “Go back to that day at the farm,” he said. “What happened next?”

“I think she asked if she could take a nap. Mellie was worried that she was sick and said she’d be up to check on her in a while. I remember wanting to get out of the house so I wouldn’t have to see her or talk to her. I really remember this,” she said, as if surprised by the clarity of her thoughts. “I remember thinking I would do everything I could to avoid being alone with her that day.”

“Why?”

“Because I betrayed her. I sent her out to get hurt. I don’t know how I knew that, but I did.” She sat back on the couch, taking his hand with her, and he had to lean forward a little. “This is the first memory I’ve had where I can feel the emotion attached to it,” she said. “Usually I just remember things in a dry sort of way. This is harder. I don’t like it.”

He didn’t want her to leave the past. Not yet. Her story didn’t shock or even surprise him. He only wished it went further than it did. “So did you manage to avoid her all day?” he asked.

She nearly laughed. “I managed to avoid her for the rest of my life,” she said. “The day she went to the barn was the same day my father showed up and dragged her away.” She shook her head, suddenly smiling. “The drawing of the robin,” she said, cryptically. “I was coloring a picture of a robin when he showed up.” She squeezed Jon’s hand, leaning forward. “Things are starting to come together,” she said. “The flashbacks are falling into place. I bet this was it—this thing with Vanessa. This must be what I’ve been hiding from myself all these years.”

“Maybe,” he said, although he knew better.

She slipped her feet from her shoes and drew them up on the couch, covering her legs with her long gray skirt. Resting her head on her knees, she shut her eyes. “This sounds terrible,” she said, “but I remember being relieved when my father took her away. I was so afraid of talking to her or seeing her, that I was glad to see her go. With her gone, I could convince myself that nothing bad had happened. I could erase the whole memory. But I was thinking like a child—you know—I wanted that immediate satisfaction of having her gone. It never occurred to me that I might never see her again.”

“You were a child, Claire,” he said. He dared to lift his free hand to her head, to stroke her hair. Once, twice, three times. “You didn’t intentionally set her up to be abused.” He was playing her game, he thought. Denying any nasty intent, making the bad things go away with a few weak words of reassurance.

He could hear her breathing, but that was the only sound in the room. Her trembling had subsided, and he knew that soon she would pull her hand away. Damn Randy. Anytime he felt like it, Randy could touch her like this. He could run his fingers through her hair or feel the delicate weight of her hand in his. He could make love to her any time, any way she wanted it.

Claire lifted her head from her knees and looked at him. The color was back in her cheeks. “I feel better now,” she said.

He could nearly make out his reflection in her eyes. He touched her cheek with the back of his fingers. “I’m sorry I haven’t been there for you these last few months, Claire,” he said.

“And I’m sorry I laid all this on you.”

Jon shook his head. “What do you think will happen to me if you tell me terrible things? Do you think I’m going to crack up? Slit my wrists?”

She smiled weakly. “I don’t know.”

“Are you afraid I’ll cry?” He tugged gently on a strand of her hair. “That might happen. I might cry if you tell me about something that hurt you. Would that be so terrible?”

She lowered her feet to the floor. “It’s a habit, not telling you things that might upset you.”

“Yeah, I know. But you don’t need to protect me anymore, Claire. You don’t need to keep your sad or angry or otherwise shitty feelings from me. I can handle them now, all right? Give me a chance to be there for you.”

“That’s what you said in your speech.”

“My speech?”

“At G.W. I was there for your keynote speech—the one I was supposed to make with you. But you were really wonderful all by yourself.”

He smiled, touched and surprised to learn that she’d been there. “But lonely, Claire,” he said. “I was fine, but I was lonely up there on that stage. And that pretty much sums up my life lately. I’m fine— but lonely for you.”

She smiled at him, then leaned over and hugged him hard. “I miss you too,” she said, standing up, backing away from him, and she left his office quickly, anxious, no doubt, to make her phone call.