Breaking the Silence (31 page)

She looked at her watch. In a few minutes’ time, she could
be speaking to Sarah’s long-lost husband—who probably did not want to be found. “It seems so…forward,” she said.

“What do you have to lose?” he asked. “Want me to do it?”

She shook her head. “All right.” She studied the addresses. “Reno or Serene Lake?”

“Serene Lake,” Dylan said. “Sounds more interesting.”

Logging off the computer, Laura picked up the phone and dialed. A man answered almost instantly.

“Is this John Solomon?” she asked.

“Yes.” He had a deep, friendly voice. “Who’s calling?”

“You don’t know me, Mr. Solomon. My name is Laura Brandon, and I—”

“
The
Laura Brandon?”

It took her a minute to understand. “Oh,” she said, smiling. “Actually, yes. That’s me.”

“Well, why is a famous astronomer giving me a call?” He sounded nice. Really nice.

“It’s hard to explain, Mr. Solomon, and I’m not even certain I have the right person. Are you a journalist?” she asked. “Can you tell me if you ever worked for the
Washington Post?
”

He was quiet a long time, and Laura felt Dylan’s eyes on her.

“I have a feeling this is not something we should discuss over the phone,” John Solomon said.

Laura let out her breath.
It’s him.
She mouthed the words to Dylan. “I live on the other side of the country, Mr. Solomon, and so I don’t know how we can…Could I just ask you a few questions?”

“No,” he said firmly. “I’d certainly like to hear what you have to say, but there’s no way we can discuss this by phone.”

“May I write to you, then?” Laura asked.

“It’d be worse in a letter.”

“Maybe I could come out there,” she said, feeling impul
sive. “I…let me think about it and get back to you. Would that be all right?” She saw Dylan raise himself up on one elbow to get a better look at her. He must have thought she’d gone mad.

“Uh…you really have me mystified,” Solomon said. “What would an astronomer care about my work at the
Post?
Are you really Laura Brandon? Tell me something only Laura Brandon would know.”

“I wear a size seven-and-a-half shoe,” she said, grinning. She liked this guy, whoever he was.

Solomon laughed. “Who manufactured the telescope you used to find your first comet?” he asked.

“I did,” she said. “I built it myself. And I used it to find the first three, actually.”

“All right, then,” he said. “You’re legit. Can you tell me what…No, never mind. Not on the phone.” He sighed. “I hope you do decide to come out here,” he said. “Give me a call when you know your plans.”

She told him she would, then hung up and looked at Dylan. “I want to go,” she said. Resting her head on the back of her chair, she looked at the dark sky through the Plexiglas ceiling and thought through the ramifications of making such a trip. “I’d have to take Emma with me.”

“And me, too.” Dylan lay back on the pillows.

“What? You have a balloon business to run.”

“I know someone who can cover for me for a few days,” he said. “You’ll need me. I could watch Emma while you talk with John Solomon.”

If she went, she wanted him to come with her, and not only because she could use a baby-sitter.

“I’d want to go very soon,” she said. “And it would be hugely expensive to get tickets so close to the flight.”

“Just one more reason why you need me,” Dylan said. “I’m
an old airline pilot, remember? I can pull strings. When would you like to go?”

“Yesterday.”

He sat up from the pillows. “Let’s call the airlines now,” he said.

“No,” she said. “This is insane. And what kind of friend are you, trying to talk me into this wild-goose chase?”

“A friend who wants to know if this guy’s Joe Tolley just as much as you do,” he said.

Dylan opened his windows on the drive home to let the cool September night air fill his car.

He had not had this feeling since before Katy died. This exhilaration. This odd mix of satisfaction and longing. But with Katy, he’d been sure of himself and his feelings for her. His affection for Laura was not that cut-and-dried, and it was colored by the love he felt for Emma.

He’d meant it when he said he cared about her, but he hadn’t expected those words to slip out of his mouth just when they did. Had they surprised her as much as they had him?

If Laura were willing, maybe they could chance having something more than friendship. He wanted to give it a try, although it would mean losing his freedom to date anyone he wanted, whenever he wanted. He remembered Laura’s disbelief that he could find women willing to put up with that arrangement and knew she would never tolerate it herself. Right now, though, the thought of seeing anyone else was unappealing. No one but Laura would ever feel the way he did about Emma.

What if it didn’t work out between them, though? What if she wanted more than he was willing to give? They would have to go into this with their eyes open, putting Emma’s needs first. If he and Laura screwed up their relationship, he didn’t want Emma to get screwed up along with it.

Maybe Laura wasn’t even interested. Always a possibility. Whether she was or not, though, didn’t matter right now. He still had a phone call to make once he got home.

It was after eleven when he reached his house, but Bethany was a night person. Sure enough, she sounded wide-awake when she answered the phone.

“Hi, Beth,” he said.

“Hey, Dylan. Are you calling to firm up plans for tomorrow night?” she asked.

“Actually…I have to cancel.” He was sitting on his bed, gazing at the aquarium. “I’m sorry.”

“Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, everything’s fine,” he said, “but I wanted to let you know that you were right. I was more hung up on Emma and Laura than I knew. It took me a while to admit it to myself, I guess.”

“Laura, too?” she asked.

“Yes. I don’t know if she and I will actually…get together, but my mind is on her. I’m not fit company for anyone else right now, as you’ve noticed.”

Bethany let out a long sigh. “Well, shit,” she said.

“I’m sorry if I misled you.”

“Oh, you never misled me, Dylan,” she said. “I knew you didn’t know what you were doing and what you were feeling. Even though you were clueless. It was pretty obvious.”

“I’m not going to be seeing anyone else for a while,” he said.

“You mean, like me.”

“Like anyone.”

“For a while?”

“Well, at least.”

That sigh again. “Can’t say I didn’t see this coming.”

“Thanks for being so understanding.”

She laughed. “I only wish you’d been a lying, cheating bastard,” she said. “It would have been so much easier to write you off.”

He hung up the phone, lay back on his bed and forgot about Bethany more quickly than was charitable. His mind was already on the possibility of a trip to Nevada, traveling with his two favorite women.

T
HERE WOULD BE NO WALK TODAY
. T
HE RAIN SHEETED OVER
Laura’s windshield as she drove to the video store, and for the first time since spring, she turned on the car’s heater.

By the time she’d run from her car into the store, she was soaked. Shivering, she picked out an old movie she hoped Sarah would enjoy and ran back to the car, where she sat and stared at the jewelry shop next to the video store. The jeweler had been leaving messages for her for months, asking when she was coming in to pick up her repaired necklace. She’d put it off. Her beloved old pendant had become linked to unpleasant memories: her father’s final moments, when he’d accidentally torn it from her throat, and the day of Ray’s suicide, the day she’d taken the necklace in to be repaired.

Grow up
.

She got out of the car again and went into the jewelry store.

There was no answer when she knocked on Sarah’s apartment door. Possibly she was in the lounge or one of the activity rooms. Laura knocked again, and was about to try to find Carolyn, the attendant, when Sarah slowly drew the door open. She was smoothing her half-buttoned blouse with her hand,
looking as if she’d dressed in a hurry. Her eyes were rimmed with red, her gray hair tousled. Laura was alarmed by the sight of her.

“Sarah,” she said, pushing past her into the living room, “what’s wrong?”

Sarah fumbled in the pocket of her skirt for a tissue and wiped her eyes. She seemed too distraught to speak.

“Is it the rain?” Laura asked, although surely this was an extreme reaction to not being able to take a walk. “I brought a movie we can watch instead.”

“It’s Joe,” Sarah managed to say.

“Joe?”

“I can’t find him!” A look of despair came into her face.

“Oh, Sarah, I know, dear.” Laura slipped her arm around the older woman’s shoulders. “I know you looked everywhere for him and couldn’t find him. That must have been terrible.”

“No, no!” Sarah protested. “I can’t
find
him.” She pointed to the end table, and Laura suddenly understood. Joe’s picture. That’s what Sarah was talking about. The framed picture that was in Laura’s purse.

“You mean Joe’s picture?” she asked. “It’s right here. Remember, I borrowed it yesterday? You don’t need to be upset.” She reached into her purse and withdrew the photograph, hoping Sarah didn’t ask her why she’d wanted it. She would not tell her about John Solomon until she had all the facts.

“Oh!” A smile spread across Sarah’s face. She took the picture from Laura and held it to her chest.

Laura waited for her to ask her why she had it, but Sarah did not seem at all interested. All she cared about was that she had Joe back.

She settled Sarah into her favorite chair, then inserted the video into the VCR. Sarah watched the movie halfheartedly,
still sniffling, and occasionally running her fingers over the picture in her lap.

And Laura knew for sure that she would make the trip to Nevada.

L
AURA LEANED OVER TO CHECK
E
MMA
’
S SEAT BELT
. E
MMA
was a seasoned traveler, and as had been her habit since she was a baby, she’d fallen asleep as soon as the jet was in the air. Dylan, though, was another matter. At first Laura thought she was imagining his anxiety. His hand had a small but noticeable tremor when he handed his boarding pass to the attendant, and his face had been ashen as they looked for their seats. Laura had said nothing. It had to be her imagination. He’d been a pilot for many years. Maybe it was making this trip with her and Emma that had him uptight.

Now that he’d ordered his second drink, though, she had to know what was bothering him.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

He offered her a weak smile. “I will be, as soon as we land in Reno.”

“You’re…afraid of flying?”

“I don’t like the word
afraid
,” he said. “Makes me sound like a wimp.”

“What word would you prefer?”

“I…simply don’t care for it,” he said.

“Oh. Well. Is that why you quit the airlines?”

The flight attendant delivered his drink, and he took a swallow, staring at the seat in front of him. “Six years ago,” he said, “I was scheduled to fly a 747 from New York to San Francisco, but I had an ear infection and decided not to fly. Usually the doctor grounds you with that sort of infection, but the company doc said it was my choice. Well, I didn’t see the point in risking my eardrum, so I canceled.” He took another sip of his drink. “That plane crashed,” he said.

“Oh, my God.”

“Everyone on board was killed. The investigation was short and swift. It was pilot error. He’d been up late the night before, had some drugs and too much to drink.” He looked at her squarely. “If I’d been flying that plane, it wouldn’t have gone down.”

“But you were sick.”

“True. But I could have flown. It was my call.”

“It was the pilot’s fault,” she said, “not yours.”

“I know that, in my rational moments, at least.” He set his drink on his tray table and rubbed his palms together, slowly. “Some of the crew on that plane were my friends,” he said. “Including one of the flight attendants. Her name was Katy. We’d lived together for years. We’d finally decided to get married. The wedding had been planned for a few months after the crash.”

The enormity of what he was saying took a minute to sink in. Laura wrapped her hand around his arm. “I’m so sorry,” she said. No wonder he was the way he was. No wonder he dated women helter-skelter, committed to his life of no commitment.

“The crash changed everything,” he said. “I quit the airlines. I started drinking. That’s when I met you. Or at least, so you say. I still don’t remember it.”

“That’s okay.” She squeezed his arm.

“I sort of…lost my direction,” he said. “The accident made
me realize that my life—that
anyone’s
life—is nothing more than a fleeting blip on the screen of eternity.”

She nodded. “You can’t be an astronomer and not be aware of that fact,” she said. “Studying the stars makes you come to grips with your insignificance pretty quickly.”

Dylan eyed his drink but didn’t touch the glass. “Well,” he said, “when I figured that out, I decided I would live for the day. I wouldn’t think about the future. There was no assurance I’d have one, so what was the point? And that’s how I’ve been existing ever since. It’s actually not a bad way to live, one day at a time. But then I met Emma.” He wrinkled his nose. “Hard to have a child and not think about the future,” he said.

“I know,” she agreed.

He handed his unfinished drink to the attendant as she passed by his seat. “I really don’t want to get drunk,” he said, leaning his head against his seat. He looked at her. “Although once when I got drunk, a wonderful thing happened.”

“It did?”

He nodded toward Emma, and she understood.

“We are a guilty little threesome,” she said. “You for the crash, Emma and me for Ray’s death.”

“Not doing us a hell of a lot of good, is it?” He closed his eyes, a small smile on his lips. “Wake me when we get to Reno.”

Truckee was a quaint little town just across the border in California, not far from Serene Lake. The woman at the car rental company had suggested they stay there, and they were able to find adjoining rooms in a small hotel near the main street.

With a few hours to kill before going to John Solomon’s house, they drove to Lake Tahoe and rented a sea kayak. It took them a while to persuade Emma to get into the boat. The
young man in the rental booth told her that the kayak could not possibly tip over, and although Laura thought he was twisting the truth a bit, she didn’t mind. He also fitted Emma with their “very best, highest quality” life jacket. Still, Laura was surprised when Emma actually agreed to climb into the boat. She sat in the center, while Dylan took the stern and Laura, the bow.

The air was chilly but not uncomfortable, and the lake was beautiful, surrounded by mountains and filled with deep green, translucent water. Although Laura was anxious to meet John Solomon, this time with Dylan and Emma felt precious to her. There was a lightness inside her she had not experienced in a very long time.

The drive to Serene Lake took about forty-five minutes. From the road, the lake looked small and calm, the water a luminous blue. The houses circling it were of the mountain chalet variety, and each of them had a long covered walkway extending from the front door to the street, to cut down on snow shoveling, Laura supposed. There were already a few inches of snow on the ground, but the roads were clear.

They found John Solomon’s address. He lived in an A-frame cabin close to the lake’s edge. In the side yard, Laura spotted a huge woodpile and an ax jutting from a tree stump. In the backyard, a red canoe rested upside down on a couple of sawhorses. It suddenly seemed doubtful that they had the right man. This was the house and the lifestyle of someone young and active.

She didn’t voice her concern to Dylan as they walked up the covered path to the front door. Emma clung to her hand, as if uncertain about this new situation, but she laughed when Laura pulled the leather strap hanging from a bell on the door, producing a resonant
clang
.

In a moment, a man stood in the doorway, and Laura couldn’t help but smile. She
did
have the right man. She remembered Sarah’s description of Joe Tolley when she’d first spotted him on the train so long ago. He’d looked like Jimmy Stewart, she’d said. And he still did.

“Mr. Solomon?” She held out her hand. “I’m Laura Brandon.”

“Come in, Laura,” he said.

They stepped into a slate-floored foyer. The living room was directly beyond the foyer, and the triangular glass wall gave them a magnificent view of the lake.

“This is my friend, Dylan Geer,” Laura said. “And my daughter, Emma.” Emma leaned against her leg.

A female voice came from behind them. “Let me take your coats.”

Laura turned to see a woman walking toward them. She was no older than sixty, with short salt-and-pepper hair, a warm smile and a vibrancy that radiated from her. A woman hard to dislike, Laura thought, and yet she instantly wished her gone from this scene. She had not pictured another woman in John Solomon’s life.

“This is my wife, Elaine,” John said.

They walked into the living room, and Laura felt Dylan’s hand squeeze the back of her neck in a gesture of comfort.

“What a beautiful setting you have,” Laura said as she sat down on the long, contemporary sofa. All the furniture had straight, trim lines. The flow of the room was open and clean, spilling out into the treed yard and the lake, and she found herself blinking back tears at the comparison between this life, this space, and Sarah’s tiny apartment and fading mind.

The conversation was at first superficial. They talked about the weather and the Lake Tahoe area.

“How much snow do you get?” Dylan asked. He was leaning forward, elbows on his knees, looking as though the answer to that question truly mattered to him.

“About seven hundred inches a year,” John said, some pride in his voice. “And would you believe our son and daughter both moved to Alaska in the last few years? Seven hundred inches wasn’t enough for them, I guess.”

“You have children?” Laura could not keep the surprise from her voice. Could that daughter be Janie, perhaps?

“Uh-huh,” Elaine said. “Just the two. And a grandson about Emma’s age. As a matter of fact, Emma, I have one of those neat coloring books from the last time he was here. You know, the kind where you paint water on the pages and the colors appear?”

Emma nodded, suddenly interested.

“Would you like to color in it?” Elaine waited for an answer.

“She’s not talking too much these days,” Laura said. “But I think she’d love it.”

Elaine walked into another part of the house, returning a moment later with a glass of water, a paintbrush and the coloring book. She settled Emma at the coffee table, then took a seat on the arm of John’s chair.

“So,” John said to Laura. “How did you know I used to work for the
Post?
”

Laura took in a deep breath. “This feels very awkward now that I’m here.” She smiled an apology at her hosts. “Do you know Sarah Tolley?” she asked.

The hearty color drained from John Solomon’s face, and from his wife’s, as well. Elaine put her hand on her husband’s shoulder.

“Go on,” John said to Laura.

“It’s a bit complicated,” she said. “For some reason I still haven’t figured out, my father, just before his death, asked me
to check up on Sarah. I’d never heard him mention her before. I had no idea who she was.”

“What was your father’s name?” John asked.

“Carl Brandon.” She looked at him with hope. “Does that mean anything to you?”

He shook his head.

“So, I went to see Sarah. She lives in a retirement home, where she has her own little apartment. She’s in the early stages of Alzheimer’s, so she can’t—”

“
Alzheimer’s
,” John said.

“Yes. And she isn’t allowed out on her own. She doesn’t have any family, at least none that they know of. She’s told me a lot, though. We go for walks. She loves to get out. Her memory of the past is very, very clear. She told me about Joe Tolley.”

She looked at John’s face. There were tears in his eyes, or perhaps it was only the blur of her own tears that made her think so. John nodded for her to go on.

“She told me about meeting Joe on a train. Falling in love with him and marrying him. She told me about her work at a psychiatric hospital—”

“Saint Margaret’s,” John interrupted her.

“Right. Where they were doing mind control experiments. And Joe—
you
—”

John nodded.

“Checked yourself in to do some investigative reporting, but you disappeared and they told her they lobotomized you and—”

“That’s what they told her?” He leaned forward in his chair, and Laura could see that there were indeed tears in his eyes.

“Yes. And they wouldn’t tell her where they’d taken you. She tried to find you in the institutions around there, but she couldn’t. They threatened her. And they threatened your daughter.”

“Janie.” He was leaning forward so far, he was almost out of his seat. “You said Sarah has no family. Where is Janie?”

Obviously Janie was not the daughter he’d mentioned. “I don’t know,” she said. “Sarah once told me that Janie was hiding. But Sarah doesn’t think clearly. I know that the doctors at Saint Margaret’s made some veiled threats about harming her. Harming Janie.”

John’s nostrils flared. “Those doctors were capable of anything,” he said. He looked up at his wife and took her hand, then leaned back in his seat again, eyes on Laura. “This is very hard for me to hear,” he said slowly, then hastened to add, “but I’m glad you’ve come. Very glad. I’ve needed answers. And you need them, too, don’t you?”

“Please,” Laura said.

“First let me assure you that Elaine knows everything about Sarah and the past,” John said. “You don’t need to mince words with her.”

Laura nodded.

John continued. “Obviously, or at least I hope it seems obvious to you, I’ve never been lobotomized. And I had not known that Sarah was told that lie. I figured they told her I was dead.”

“What did they do with you, then?”

“Well, my memory is sketchy on this. I was pretty thoroughly drugged. I’d had shock treatment. I was physically very weak. But I am assuming, piecing things together, that someone—or several someones—from the government whisked me away from Saint Margaret’s. At least they told me they were from the government. I’ve never known for sure. They flew me here, to Nevada. To Reno. They gave me a complete new identity. New social security number, Nevada driver’s license, everything in my new name, John Solomon. They told me never to try to contact Sarah or Janie, or their lives would be
in jeopardy. Frankly, I was so out of it, I wasn’t sure who Sarah and Janie were. I wasn’t sure some days if I was really Joe Tolley or John Solomon. They set me up in some ratty hotel in Reno, and I stayed there for over two years, just trying to survive. The drugs they gave me had a lasting effect. To be honest, I don’t remember much about those years even now. But very slowly…
very
slowly…the fog began to lift. I remembered my life back in Maryland. I remembered the threats made against Sarah and Janie if I tried to find them, but I tried, anyway. They were my family. All I had.” John shut his eyes momentarily, and his Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat. Elaine rubbed his shoulder as he continued. “I even hired a private investigator,” he said, “but I couldn’t find them. Sarah seemed to have disappeared. Old neighbors wouldn’t talk to the P.I., and I think, in retrospect, that they—Palmiento and his government gang—got to them. Threats were cheap in those days, and soon, even the P.I. wouldn’t return my calls.”