Aurora 06 - A Fool And His Honey (16 page)

There wasn’t a peephole, and the door was solid wood with no glass window, so he just had to open the door on trust, a habit we’d discarded. Big-city crime was drifting from Atlanta through outlying suburbs like Lawrenceton at an alarming rate.

I don’t think Martin could have looked very welcoming, but the couple on the steps didn’t seem alarmed. They were smiling in a friendly way, and they maintained their smiles even when faced with Martin’s stern expression.

I ventured out into the living room when I heard the man say, “Hi! I’m Luke Granberry, and this is my wife, Margaret. We have the farm to the south of here.”

“Martin Bartell.” My husband held out his hand and Luke shook it exactly the right amount.

“We can just barely see the farm from our house, and we noticed more lights on tonight than there have been, so we felt we ought to check it out,” Margaret said. Luke Granberry seemed to be about thirty or so, and Margaret was within five years of that, more or less, I estimated. The closer I got to her, the stronger I was willing to bet on the “more.”

Hers was the most beautiful skin I’d ever seen, pale and smooth as silk, with fine webbing at the corners of her eyes and mouth. Her hair was red, flaming red, bushy and full. She wore it pulled back from her forehead with a cheap barrette. As she bent to shake my hand, I noticed she wore no jewelry besides her plain wedding ring.

“Please come in,” I said. “I’m Martin’s wife, Aurora.”

Martin stood aside to let the neighbors in. As Luke Granberry edged past Martin, I could see that our visitor was the taller and broader. He had huge shoulders and a mildly handsome face, distinguished mostly by high cheekbones that made his small brown eyes seem perpetually scanning the distance for some adventure. His dark hair and brown eyes made his wife look even paler.

“Regina told us about you,” Margaret said. “The aunt and uncle, right?”

“Yes, I’m Regina’s mother’s brother,” Martin said.

“Barby’s brother,” Luke said. He looked at Martin as if trying to see a trace of Regina in his face. “We heard a rumor that there was some problem . . . ?” Luke spread his big hands in a gesture that seemed to imply that the Granberrys wanted to help, if only they knew how.

“Regina is missing,” I said. Unfortunately, because I didn’t know these people and so couldn’t burden them with our emotions, I sounded like Regina’s disappearance was just a little whim of hers. I was sorry the minute the words left my mouth.

“We’re sure she’ll turn up just any time,” Martin said, to give me some support.
We really do
care, we just have a positive attitude,
his voice implied.

“Where are Craig and Rory?” Margaret asked, looking around the room as if she expected we’d stuck them in a corner.

“Please come in and have a seat,” I said, glancing anxiously at Martin. “I’m afraid we have some bad news about Craig.” I had no idea if these neighbors had known Craig well, and could not gauge how much preparation they needed for the bad news.

Since there was only the couch and one chair in the living room, seating was a pretty cut-and-dried process. The Granberrys took the couch, which I indicated with a hostessy sweep of my hand, and I perched on the edge of the chair so my feet could touch the floor, Martin standing just behind me. I looked back at Martin, but his face gave away nothing.

“Ah . . . Craig is dead, I’m afraid.” I gave them my most serious expression, which Martin always said looked as though I suspected I was having a heart attack.

“Oh, it’s true, he’s dead!” Margaret said. She turned to her husband, the thick red hair sweeping across her shoulders. Her white hands clutched his. “Luke!”

“I’m so sorry,” Luke Granberry said, in a slow and solemn voice that I thought would be perfect for reading Poe out loud. I hastily put a cap on that thought, since I’d actually opened my mouth to say it, and instead pursed my lips and shook my head, as if the tragedy were too horrible for words.

“So you’d already heard?” Martin asked.

“The counterman at the hardware store said he’d heard it from Hugh Harbor, yes. But we didn’t think we knew the Harbors well enough to call and ask them what the facts were. We heard Hugh is really sick . . . and we didn’t see Craig’s funeral announcement in the paper.”

“The body hasn’t been released by the medical examiner yet,” I said, finally managing to strike the right tone. Sober concern, that was appropriate. For the first time, I realized I was sleep deprived in a serious way. As if hearing his psychic cue, Hayden began to make noises upstairs.

It was amazing how clearly his little voice came over the receiver, which I was clutching in my left hand. I’d been afraid to put it down.

I half turned to Martin, said, “I’ll check, honey,” (as though Martin had moved). I plodded up the stairs, to see the little arms and legs nailing above the edge of the bumper pads.

He wasn’t crying, so I figured he wasn’t hungry. Maybe you were supposed to hold off on the bottle until they asked for it? Since the only way for a baby to ask for a bottle was to cry, wasn’t that kind of mean? On the other hand, sticking food in their mouth every time they were awake would create a bad pattern . . . Gosh, there was nothing easy about this. You might as well get your answers by interpreting the pattern of chicken bones tossed under the full moon. I propped Hayden back on his side and began to pat him. To my pleasure, he went back to sleep.

While I’d been tending to Hayden, the Granberrys had been establishing common ground with Martin. I’d hoped they’d be a source of information about Regina and Craig, but I knew we’d have to let a polite conversational time lapse before questioning them. They’d been talking about the possibility of snow during the night, and I came in on the tail end of the weather discussion.

Margaret liked babies. I could tell by the way her eyes latched onto the nursery monitor as I came into the room.

“I didn’t realize you and Martin were parents,” she said slowly. “How old is your baby?”

Martin, who’d gotten a straight chair from the kitchen, looked resigned.

I said, “He isn’t ours.” After they refused a drink, I eased back into the chair, tired as I’d ever been in my life.

“You’re baby-sitting?”

“This is Regina’s baby,” Martin said.

“Regina’s
baby?” If such a thing were possible, the pale Margaret, whom I was beginning to warm to, turned a shade whiter. She stared at us, stunned.

Even her next-door neighbors hadn’t known Regina was going to have a baby? My doubt that Regina had ever given birth was beginning to consume me.

“Regina’s baby?” Luke asked. He seemed just as startled as his wife. “Where on earth has it been?”

“With Regina missing and Craig dead, we had to step in,” Martin said smoothly, as I opened my mouth to tell them the whole story.

“That was the best plan,” I said, just to justify my open mouth.

Obviously, the Granberrys were curious, but too polite to ask any more questions. After some idle talk about how long we might stay, and a polite offer on our visitors’ part to help in any way they could, the Granberrys rose to leave. Margaret was holding Luke’s hand, and I thought that was sweet. I love to see people who’ve been married a while still act like lovers.

Though, I considered, she might actually need the support. Margaret was looking a little shaky.

“We didn’t know Regina was going to have a baby,” I said, kind of throwing out a line, as Luke and Martin were shaking hands.

Margaret nodded. “She was very secretive about it, apparently. Listen, if you get lonely, give me a call? Our number’s in the book. If Martin has catching up to do with friends here in town, you may be at loose ends. Or maybe you’ll need me to baby-sit.”

“Thank you,” I said. “I’ll call you. And thanks for coming to check on the house. We appreciate your being concerned.”

“We’ve tried to keep an eye on the house since we heard about Craig,” Luke said. He looked from Martin to me, to make sure we both understood his sincerity. “If you need anything, anything, while you’re here, just let us know. We’ll be glad to see you.”

As I gave Hayden his bottle later, I said, “They seemed nice, Martin. I think we should try to get together with them again and see if they know any more about Craig and Regina than the little we know. It sounded to me like they saw them fairly often. What do you think?”

“They seem too damn trusting,” my husband said. “Coming all the way over to what they think may be an empty house at night, to check on lights. What if we’d been burglars?”

“He had a rifle in the gun rack in the cab of his pickup,” I said, moving Hayden to my shoulder to burp him. “I noticed, because it made me feel right at home.” In Lawrenceton, everyone seemed to own a gun, a rifle, or a shotgun, whether or not they hunted. Martin had a gun himself; Martin had not always been a business executive, as I would do well to remind myself.

This day had contained more than its fair share of hours. I was ready for it to be over. The ancient dryer was taking too long to dry the newly washed sheets. Martin occupied Hayden while I went in search of more. I was surprised and relieved to find another set in the upstairs bathroom closet, and it took me a minute or two to remake the bed. I had to put on the same blankets and bedspread, but I resolved to wash them in the morning.

I knew, as I scrubbed quickly in the ancient bathtub, that any mild obligatory affection I had had for Regina had ebbed away with this close examination of her marriage. I loathed her life. I loathed her little mysteries. But most of all, I loathed the nasty situation she’d dragged to our door, because I had a deep conviction that Regina had known exactly how imperiled she was when she’d driven from Corinth to Lawrenceton. If she’d been open with us, if she’d been frank, everything that had happened since then—and I visualized a long set of dominos, one toppling against the other—could have been prevented.

My distaste and disapproval for a member of Martin’s family made me feel like a bad Christian and a bad wife. I’d often thought being a Christian meant by definition being a bad one, since nothing is more difficult than Christianity, so I was more or less used to that feeling.

But I was not used to being a bad wife.

Maybe I could make it up to Martin, a little.

He was dozing when I crawled in the bed next to him. I’d switched off the light in the bathroom off the landing, and making my way to the bed was something of an adventure. But once there, he wasn’t hard to find. I slid down, down under the covers. Martin made a startled noise. But it was definitely on the happy-startled side.

Afterward, when he held me and kissed me, he murmured, “Oh, honey, that was so good.”

“I hope I haven’t made you crazy today,” I ventured.

“You’ve made me crazy from the moment I laid eyes on you,” he told me, his voice drowsy with sleep and satisfaction.

I snuggled into my pillow, praying for a Hayden-less night.

“I love you,” Martin said suddenly. “I have a feeling that’s gotten shunted to a sidetrack the past few days.”

Past few months, more like.

“I know you love me,” I whispered.

“When we got married ...”

I was so exhausted I had to force myself to listen. None of the Advice to the Lovelorn columns told you that some days you’d be too sleepy to listen to a declaration of love.

“... all I wanted was to protect you from any harm. To make you safe. Not to let anything worry you . . . frighten you . . . and make sure you never wanted for anything.”

Bless his heart, that was just not possible. But it was the most attractive illusion in the world, wasn’t it? What had I wanted to give Martin in return? I remembered hazily that I’d resolved to help him in his career by being a good hostess and a good guest, attending every event promptly and in appropriate clothes, expressing appropriate sentiments. I’d wanted to provide him with a house that was a home: clean, comfortable, good cooking smells in the kitchen, laundered clothes.

But after a while I’d felt compelled to work at least part-time, to go back to the library, because I loved the job and the books and the people. And there were days I had indulged myself by reading rather than doing the laundry, talking to my mother and my friends rather than starting preparations for an elaborate meal. And since I had a big contrary streak running all the way through me, I had sometimes rebelled in my own tiny way by wearing bizarre glasses to a Pan-Am Agra wives dinner, or by saying what I actually thought rather than what people wanted to hear.

“So,” I said suddenly, “have I been the wife you wanted?”

“I didn’t want ‘a wife,’ ” he muttered, clearly putting the phrase in quotation marks. “When I saw you standing on the steps in front of that house with the wind blowing your hair, looking so anxious, in that suit... I remember the color ...” “You thought, Gosh, I want to marry her and keep her forever?”

“I thought, God, I want to get in her pants...”

I began to giggle, and Martin’s hand came out of the darkness and stroked my cheek.

“Good night,” he said, on the edge of sleep. “You have never disappointed me.”

“Good night,” I answered, and let go of the day.

My little traveling clock on the night table told me it was seven-thirty, and the wailing from next door told me Hayden had started his cycle.

I hopped out of bed before I was fully awake, and the cold of the floor gave me a nasty shock.

Our house in Lawrenceton had hardwood floors too, but they never felt this cold. I slid my feet into slippers as I headed for the door, and I crossed over to the “nursery” with the soles slapping the floor pleasantly. The house seemed very quiet, except for Hayden, who was red faced and sobbing when I got to him.