Guilt by Association (11 page)

“I never asked them,” came the stiff reply. “I mean, after all, what difference does it make?” What was this upstart from Maine trying to do? she wondered. Could he tell from her voice that she had fabricated the whole tale? “The important thing is that she’s going to get better, and that’s what we should concentrate on.”

At his end of the line, Peter wondered why she sounded so defensive.

“Are the police investigating?” he asked.

“What is there to investigate?” Beverly retorted. “No witnesses have come forward, and Karen certainly didn’t get much of a look at whoever hit her.”

“Sometimes, people don’t come forward because they don’t realize they saw anything,” Peter suggested. “But they might, if the circumstances were publicized widely enough.”

That was all they needed, Beverly thought in annoyance. She wanted to slam the receiver down in his impudent ear, but she resisted the urge. Although he intended to be some kind of engineer—an occupation that ranked barely above a garage mechanic by her standards—it was quite possible that this was the best match her daughter would be able to make, under
the circumstances, and it would be foolish of her to do or say anything to jeopardize that.

“I think we would all just as soon forget about the past and focus our energies on the future,” she oozed. “I’m afraid you’ll only succeed in upsetting Karen enormously if you insist on pursuing such really unimportant issues.”

As he turned left into the residential village of Russell Gardens, Peter realized that it still rankled him to think that the person who had injured Karen so seriously, and then simply abandoned her there in the street, should be allowed to get away with it.

It was close to eight o’clock when he pulled into the Kerns’s circular drive on Knightsbridge Road, and the sun was preparing to set. It danced off the colonial’s brick walls, which now seemed more pink than red, set the white trim to shimmering, and glinted off the windows, turning them into solid gold. So it was that he didn’t see Karen standing in the upstairs hall window,
looking down at him with a mixture of anticipation and apprehension in her eyes.

She had been standing there, waiting, for more than an hour. She had been preparing herself for his visit for more than a week, ever since he had called to say when he would arrive.

“I’ll be there the day after the party,” he told her. “I’ll leave early and drive straight through.”

“We’ll have dinner waiting,” she promised.

For over two years now, whenever Karen had contemplated her future, it was at Peter’s side—as his wife, as his helpmate, as the mother of the children they both wanted to have.

She had stolen many hours from her studies to scribble “Karen Bauer” in the margins of her notebooks, and fashion elegant monograms out of two
K
s and a
B.
Peter was her biggest supporter, her best friend, her hero—the only man in the world who could make her heart turn over just by smiling. He was so much a part of her life that had she tried to picture it without him she would have come up blank.

Yet, at this moment, as she looked down on his sandy hair
and lanky frame, he seemed a stranger to her, standing on the far side of a canyon of catastrophe, without a bridge.

It had been easy to maintain the link from opposite ends of a long-distance telephone line. There was safety in that. He had called twice a week, always with a joke or a story to make her laugh. Between the calls were the cards and the flowers. But now he was here, and Karen was suddenly sweating and shivering at the same time, wondering what he would think when he saw her. Would he be repulsed by the ugly scars, frightened by her frailty, shocked by her crutches? Would his love turn out to be trivial? She shut her mind against the thought, because he was the reason she was struggling so hard to become whole again,
when so much of her had been lost. Turning awkwardly from the window, she maneuvered her crutches down the hall in the direction of the stairway.

She looked like a cadaver, Peter thought, as he stood in the foyer with Beverly and watched Karen, closely followed by Winola,
negotiate the broad curving steps with infinite care, planting one crude wooden support firmly into the thick carpet, while holding on to the banister with the other hand, hopping off her good right leg, and then swinging the bad left one down under her. She was barely more than skin and bones beneath her cotton dress, her skin had a strange translucent quality to it, and there was something about her eyes, an expression in the blue-gray depths that he couldn’t define and didn’t remember ever having seen before.

“It takes me forever to get anywhere, but I have to be careful not to fall on this knee,” she said as she finally reached bottom, took her other crutch from Winola, and started toward him across the polished hardwood floor.

A fleeting frown puckered his narrow face and was gone. The Karen he knew would have said something like: “I didn’t want to fall at your feet and risk you getting all swelled in the head.”

“I thought you handled that rather masterfully,” he said with a smile, stepping forward to take her in his arms for the first time in so many months.

Karen stiffened. She had prepared herself for this moment, had even looked forward to the comfort of having him hold her.
But, when he drew close, all of a sudden, it wasn’t Peter reaching out to grasp her but Bob, and with a little cry she jerked backward, almost losing her balance.

“I’m sorry,” he exclaimed. “I didn’t realize a little hug would hurt.”

“She’s still pretty sore,” Beverly said to cover the awkwardness.

“Well, would a kiss on the cheek be okay?”

“Sure,” Karen replied. But she had to steel herself against a shudder when she felt his warm breath on her cheek and his lips graze the corner of her mouth. One of the crutches slipped out from under her.

“Are you all right?” he cried, steadying her.

“These things have a mind of their own,” she said with a brittle smile as she slipped out of his grasp and planted the perverse pole more firmly on the slick floor. “I figure by the time I get the hang of them, I won’t need them anymore.”

“And that won’t be much longer now, will it?” Beverly chimed in. “Since you’re making such excellent progress.”

Peter glanced from mother to daughter. “I’m glad to hear it,” he said.

“Don’t you agree our precious girl looks a whole lot better than the last time you saw her?” the mother coaxed.

“She certainly does,” he replied politely, thinking he had never seen her look worse.

“Never mind about me,” Karen said brightly. “Tell us about graduation, Peter. Was it everything you hoped it would be? And the drive down—was it terribly long? Are you famished? You must be absolutely exhausted. Do you want a nap first? Or would you rather have dinner?”

“Dinner would be fine,” Peter replied. He had stopped outside Portsmouth for a quick lunch, but that was more than eight hours ago, with only a candy bar in between, and his stomach had begun to rumble. He could rest later.

“Wonderful,” Beverly said quickly, thinking if they waited
much longer the roast would be ruined. “Why don’t you go wash up and then we’ll eat.”

“Do you want me to see you to your room?” Karen offered, although the thought of having to navigate the stairs again, under his watchful eye, made her wince.

Peter grinned. “That’s all right. I know the way.”

This was his third visit to the Kern home, and on each occasion Beverly had put him in the big corner guest room with the damask curtains and antique-rose wallpaper. Peter took his suitcase and climbed the stairs. He had identified the strange expression in Karen’s eyes. It was fear.

He took his time in the bathroom, letting the cool water run -over his head and neck. Then he changed out of his jeans into slacks and a crisp sport shirt. By the time he entered the dining room, everyone was seated. He shook hands with Leo, who had come to the table in his suit and tie, winked at Laura, a teenager in ponytail and shorts who reminded him of his own sisters, and slipped into the chair beside Karen.

Dinner began. Salad followed the soup, a rib roast followed the salad, and peach pie followed the roast. Coffee cups were filled, emptied and filled again. Second helpings made their way onto Peter’s plate without his asking for them, and, all the while, the Kern family talked around one another, in a strange kind of play in which he was expected to take a part, except that he didn’t know any of the lines.

“Spring is such a lovely time of year,” Beverly began.

“You can feel the energy in the air,” agreed Leo, blinking his myopic eyes.

“There’s still two more weeks of school,” Laura fretted.

“It’s the season when life begins anew,” Beverly continued. “A fresh start, a clean slate. Isn’t nature grand?”

“If you like spiders, mosquitoes and yellow jackets,” Laura parried. “There’s a hornet’s nest behind the garage.”

“The garden has never looked so beautiful,” Beverly said proudly. “Everything is in bloom. It’s absolute perfection.”

“Perfection is in the eye of the beholder,” sniffed Laura.

“I thought that was beauty,” Karen put in.

Beverly pouted. “They said it was going to rain today.”

“I took my umbrella,” Leo replied, “but I didn’t go out.”

“That’s why it didn’t rain.”

“Probably.”

“My arthritis flared up for nothing.” Beverly massaged her left thumb.

“Do you like the rain, Peter?” inquired Laura.

“Sometimes,” Peter answered, trying to keep up.

Four pairs of eyes turned to him.

“What does
that
mean?” the girl demanded.

“Why does it have to mean something?” her father asked.

“Because,” Laura told him, “everything means something.”

“No,” Karen said, with an unfamiliar edge to her voice, “not everything. There are some things that have no meaning at all.”

“We’re not going to talk about that, are we?” Beverly exclaimed.

“We’re not talking about anything,” Karen replied.

“There you are,” Beverly cried, flinging down her fork. “A perfectly good pie, ruined.”

“A perfectly ruined pie,” chirped Laura.

“Don’t be silly,” Leo argued. “The pie is perfect.”

Laura giggled. “There’s that word again.”

“Very funny,” Karen said.

“Did someone make a joke?” Leo wanted to know.

“Go ahead,” said Beverly. “Laugh all you want to.”

But no one was laughing.

“Is there more coffee?” Peter asked, feeling as though he had somehow stumbled into the Mad Hatter’s tea party.

“Of course there is,” Beverly crowed, replenishing his cup with a flourish. “There, you see, Peter understands.”

But Peter didn’t understand at all.

“I like the rain when it’s fine and misty and you can’t hear it and you can barely see it,” he told Laura. “Then it’s fun to go out walking and feel the wet on your face.” It was called Ithaca rain, and he and Karen had often walked in it.

“Oooh, how romantic,” cooed the teenager.

Peter grinned, remembering. “It can be.”

“We don’t have rain like that,” Laura grumbled. “Here it just pours down and drowns you.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Karen replied.

“Romance doesn’t matter?” Laura asked.

“I think romance matters,” Peter said.

“The rain doesn’t matter,” Karen amended.

“Nothing matters to you anymore,” Laura said moodily.

Beverly dropped her coffee cup, the fine bone china shattering in the saucer. Leo almost choked on a piece of the perfect peach pie.

“Are you satisfied?” Karen glared at her sister.

“Don’t take it out on me,” Laura retorted with a toss of her ponytail, her eyes flashing. “It wasn’t
my
fault.”

“Nobody said it was,” Karen hissed.

“No, indeed,” Beverly added.

“Of course not,” Leo soothed.

“
I
wasn’t careless.”

There was a sharp intake of breath around the table.

“That’s enough of that,” Beverly barked.

Leo sighed wistfully. “It’s been such a nice dinner.”

“I hate living like this,” Laura cried. “Nobody can ever say anything.” She jumped from her seat and ran from the room. “I hate it.”

“Teenagers,” Beverly sighed with a dismissive shrug. “They can be so emotional.” She smiled benignly at Peter and then nodded at Karen. “It’s such a lovely night. Why don’t you take Peter into the garden?”

“Yes, Mother,” Karen said obediently.

They went out onto the patio, seating themselves in separate lounge chairs, Karen’s crutches drawn up on either side of her.
The night air was warm and fragrant, and the lights from the house cast long shadows across their faces.

“What’s going on around here?” Peter asked, as soon as they were settled.

“What do you mean?” Karen responded.

“I mean the tension at dinner,” Peter declared. “It was like everyone was afraid to breathe.”

“Nothing’s going on,” Karen told him.

“Is it something about me?” he pressed.

“Of course not,” she assured him. “Everyone’s been looking forward to your visit. I guess they must just have had a bad day,
that’s all.”

“And what about you?” he asked softly. “Have you been looking forward to my visit?”

“Of course I have,” Karen replied in genuine surprise. “How could you even ask that? Why, I was standing in the window for over an hour tonight, just waiting for the first glimpse of your car.”

“I’m sorry,” Peter said quickly.

“But I suppose I do owe you an apology,” she added because it was easier to talk in the dark. “You know … for my knee being bad, and for you not being able to hug me.”

“You don’t have to apologize,” he declared. “I was just feeling a little sorry for myself. Look, maybe you shouldn’t even be sitting out here like this. Maybe you should be in bed with a heating pad or something.

Karen sighed into the shadows. He was such a good person, always so considerate, so caring, so willing to accept blame that wasn’t his.

“We can sit a little longer,” she said.

He smiled broadly, although she could barely see it, and then leaned over to pick up her hand. “It won’t hurt to hold hands,
will it?”