Between Octobers Bk 1, Savor The Days Series (51 page)

“What do you mean ‘back’?” Ronnie asks.

John looks to me, asking without words if I
explained anything. I shake my head. So, he goes back to finding
out the trunk was missing. It was found, empty, about ten yards
from the back side of Grace’s car. There was also a shovel and a
very large hole. Their best guess thus far is that the body in the
canyon must have something to do with Grace being there, but none
can say for sure until it’s been identified, which might prove
difficult since animals have already gotten to it.

From what they’ve pieced together, she was
taken from the house, possibly the kitchen. That’s where the
cordless phone was found, atop the island counter. Pieces of the
broken coffee carafe had been swept into the trash. She was placed
inside a tarp, smashed into that trunk and taken far, far away to a
place where no one would ever think to look for her. Kings Canyon.
The irony sickens me.

She found a way out of the trunk, or was let
out and got away. They believe she had to have hid somewhere, or
been chased and found her way back to the car, where Baby was
born.

“She wanted to name him Ethan. Or Daniel,”
Ronnie says, wiping his eyes. He turns to me, “I want to see
him.”

There are still a lot of unanswered
questions, the main being why do GPS coordinates for Sheri’s car
show the location three blocks from the security gate at the bottom
of Grace’s hill?

The lead detective, whose name I don’t care
about at the moment, clears his throat. “A search of the vehicle
produced several items that lead us to believe that your former
manager may be involved.”

John sets a hand on my shoulder. “They found
a receipt for a shovel. The UPC numbers match those of the shovel
at the scene. And a binder full of research from websites on
suicides.”

“Sheri? That doesn’t make sense. No.
Why?”

“Mr. Matthews, is it true that Sheri Barry
used to work for you?”

“Yes.”

“What were your reasons for dismissal?”

“Confidentially, we suspect she paid someone
to film intimate moments between my client and his wife, then sell
and distribute the material.” Eric’s voice sounds from somewhere
behind me. “He’s in the process of suing her.” His hand appears
near my shoulder, holding out several business cards. His and my
lawyer’s.

I ask to be excused, which they kindly
grant.

Turning to leave the Bad News room adjacent
to the lobby, I look to John. “If I see any press upstairs,
everyone’s fired.”

Evan
—

I’ve spent the last few months readying
myself to have a conversation and I mean to have it. Lily says it
isn’t a good idea, but I need to.

They have me in the hospital basement, alone
in the hallway. There are three metal framed chairs and a long,
gray wall that looks like it’s been built from cinderblocks. More
than an hour passes before they take me into an adjacent room lined
with metal cupboards, accessible by swinging rubber doors.

A thin woman with mousy hair passes through.
Her hair’s pulled back, far too tight, in a low braid that hangs
down her back. She’s leaning over a lumpy gurney cloaked in a long,
white sheet. Between her arms, I see traces of hair.

And there she is. Covered from the neck down
by the draping white sheet. Her hair’s grown out since I saw her
last. It’s her natural color and much shorter. Cut at the
shoulder.

The room’s cold, like her, and my carefully
prepared speech means nothing.

The girl is joined by an older gentleman,
who seems to have nothing remarkable about him, except that he’s
giving instruction on things that I can’t grasp.

She’s right there and he wants me to listen?
I nod as to comply so they’ll leave and move closer.

She’s pale, looks like she’s sleeping. And
my knees can’t hold me.

It’s my fault.

My face falls onto her sheet. My fingertips
stroke her cool cheek. Her hair’s damp. I touch it with my lips and
feel a lump that shouldn’t be there. Grace never cared for
sacrilege so I keep my cursing inside while examining the rest of
her head.

“I’m so, so sorry,” my apology starts at the
beginning and won’t stop. I never told her about my addictions. One
secret I managed to keep from the public was a short stint in rehab
right after my first film took off.

“I was afraid you’d think I was no good,
especially after what I told you.” I think over my reason. “It
makes no sense, I know. I put you in the position not to trust me
when I lied about Noah’s truck. I knew you’d hate the idea of him
driving but . . . I wanted to give it to him. I also knew your
tunneled method of thinking would never allow you to consider it.
So I made your choice by putting it in front of you.”

It seems like a lifetime ago when we stood
in the garage, arguing over a birthday present.

“Then, the whole disaster with the rubbers,”
I thought I was doing the right thing by Noah. “I didn’t want to
offend you. I was afraid of betraying his trust and broke your
faith in me. “But I wasn’t unfaithful, Gracie, not like you
think.”

I imagine her eyes are open and bend in to
clarify. “That night in my room, I looked in your face and knew it
was over. You didn’t believe me and I was so pissed.”

I want her fixed, blue gaze to burn into me,
make me explain myself. “I should have lied. The way you are, I
could’ve told you whatever you wanted to hear and you’d forgive me.
We’d move on. My pride wouldn’t let you think of me that way. And
then, my vices got worse and before I knew it, I changed the way
you thought of me.”

My brain conjures contrasting images—one of
her looking at me, smiling, and another of her that day in the back
garden, crying with a red line across her forehead. From when I hit
her with the chopping board. “I’d hurt you so much. And I couldn’t
stand that piteous look.”

“I was pathetic to you. If I’d kept at you
like I wanted, you would’ve hated me and I wouldn’t have blamed
you.” I stare for a long moment. “Do you hate me, Gracie?”

I imagine her soft expression, her hand on
my face. Forgiveness is her way—I have no reason to keep anything
from her.

“What was I supposed to do? I bared my soul
to you. I showed you who I was when I could barely look myself in
the mirror. And then you walked away. You took everything. My home,
my family. You broke me before you even had the facts. You decided
we were over before I knew there was a problem.”

I take a deep breath, warming to my cause
and imagining that she’s listening. And she understands.

“It was all or nothing with you wasn’t it? I
chose all. You chose nothing. Not a damned word. What am I to do
now? I’m here. You’re gone.”

I look around the room, not seeing any of
it. “And I’ve got this boy—our boy—that I never knew existed. What
do I do now, Gracie?”

There are no answers to be had. Not from her
lips, not from her table, in this cold room. There’s nothing but
me, my empty questions, and their instructions not to touch
her.

“I miss holding you.”

I press my hands beneath her, shocked at how
heavy she feels, and draw her into my arms. Her head falls back as
I lift, and I remember how I used to pull her hair to gain the same
effect, to kiss her lovely neck. Her lips pull apart, but there’s
no answering smile, no lighted gaze of silver blue. I squeeze her
tighter, watching the sheet fall from her shoulders like her robe
that first night, but her skin isn’t soft and pink. It’s blotched
with purple. Her arms don’t give back, but dangle limply from her
sides.

“It’s not fair.”

We were supposed to grow old together. I
wanna roll my eyes when she complains about wrinkles and bring her
flowers for no reason. Take her to New York and her first premiere.
I was supposed to show her the world. We were going to have a home
in London and watch the boys grow up and be grandparents.

The room has become very noisy. White coats
with high-pitched voices wrap their hands over my arms. I fight
them, but soon can’t hold on.

I bend to kiss her before she’s gone and
spot a silver chain ‘round her neck. As she rolls away, the metal’s
wedged between my fingers. Her wedding ring, hanging from a broken
chain.

And the taut thread has held me for too
long. All at once, the strings untwist and I’m coming undone.

Evan
—

Though it feels like the world should stop
and pay its’ respects, the clock manages to keep ticking. Time goes
on, carrying me further from her.

There are no words to express the absolute
furious contempt I hold toward myself for allowing this. There’s no
excuse. I should have been there. Then we wouldn’t be here.

Lily’s holding the baby. He’s perfect and
beautiful and so needy. I’ve got nothing for him. For Ethan Daniel
Matthews.

I can’t get my shit together. Things are
happening, people are moving, but I can’t focus. I’m here, but not
really there. I’ve got about three feet of clarity; and beyond
that, it’s as if there are no true shapes. Only fuzz on a blank
slate.

I can’t eat or sleep, or think past that
moment I found out she wanted to talk. What was happening to her at
that moment? Was she still at home, did she hear my messages? Who
broke the coffee pot? Who swept the shards into the trash?

I gave very specific instructions not to let
anyone in unless they verifiably, personally know Grace, but
there’s lots of fuzz behind us.

We’re not in a church because I can’t bring
myself to set foot in one. I’m so angry and full of shit, I’d
probably catch fire at the threshold. Her vicar, Tony Something, an
Italian Southerner as far as I can tell, is conducting the service,
here, at the cemetery. She’s being laid to rest in one side of our
mausoleum. Sol’s nearby, in the family plot beside his father.
There are people outside the gate, people on the grass, people,
people, everywhere.

Noah’s hands are shaking around a folded
paper. I try to reassure him, but my comfort sounds like random
words strung together. I hear myself tell him he’s strong, he can
do this, and it doesn’t make sense to me. I’ve got no idea what
he’s doing.

His eyes are dry and red as he stands. His
suit’s sharp, shoes shining through the rain as he walks the carpet
set atop the grass, sheltered by the tent. When he reaches the
podium, he unfolds the page and mumbles.

“Mom wrote this just after my dad was
killed.” He clears his throat. “‘I live a small life. When it’s my
time—long after all chances of greatness have passed me by and I’ve
humbly settled with my remarkable family—I expect to have a small
funeral gathering. This is good, because grief makes people crazy.
I don’t want anyone to make a fuss over me. But funerals aren’t for
the guest of honor, are they?’”

He stops and takes a deep breath. “‘I hope
that when people think of me, they remember I truly believe that
the next life is the best life and the purpose of this one. All I
want are a few friends and no tears. If Lily outlives me, she’ll
get to play dress-up one last time. And though I don’t really care
one way or the other what happens, I might like it if she chose
something silly and inappropriate. Like me. Rainbow wigs and clown
noses all around.’”

Noah looks up from the paper and pans the
crowd. “You’re wrong, Mom. You lived larger than you thought. We’re
all here because we love you.”

I’m sitting, wondering what’s happening as
people actually applaud. When he takes his seat back beside me, I
see he’s wearing a red clown nose. He opens his palm, where there
sits another. He offers it to me, along with the paper that’s
folded again. I take them both, but the nose won’t stay on.

Her script stares at me from the stapled
pages. Half of one page is highlighted. The part he’s read from.
The other page has my name and that’s where I start reading. An
entirely different entry photocopied from her diary.

“It’s ridiculous,” she writes. “In
such a short time, he’s become an intrinsic part of me. He’s
beautiful and funny and I know I’ll never have enough, or get tired
of him. I may get tired
from
him (Evan snores so loud! It actually wakes me up at night.
I’m thinking of checking him into a sleep clinic!) But never
tired
of
him.”

After her casket is in place, the service
ends. The crowd starts to disperse. A woman steps towards Lily and
introduces herself. I hear the name Esther and look up from the
ground. There’s a young girl clinging at the womans waist. The
girl’s wearing a brightly colored dress, and her mother’s dress is
black, covered in tiny little fluff balls. The kind cheap t-shirts
get when you sleep in them. She says she knew Grace through a
women’s shelter. And I remember her.

I took Grace down to Vine Street to
show her the star of James Dean. I’d been offered the role of Jim
Stark in a remake of
Rebel Without a
Cause
. I was excited about it and Grace thought it was
a horrible idea. I was too old for the part, she said, and remakes
are overrated. As we stood, talking, Grace spotted a homeless
woman. Esther’s mother. We crossed the street so Grace could talk
to her. I remember bristling when the woman, reeking of alcohol,
asked her for money. She said it was for a taxi to go visit her
daughter, the clinging girl. Of course, Grace gave her all the cash
she had on hand. When we got back to the car, I told Grace she was
naïve to think that this woman was going to use it for anything
besides drink.

She’d looked at me with her large, lovely
eyes. “It’s her money now. She can use it for whatever she
wants.”