Raven Stole the Moon (32 page)

“I never slept with your wife,” he said.

Robert was stopped dead. Now he was confused. Denial was not what he expected. He wanted tears, rage, a fight, an event. He was not ready for rebuttal. He grabbed the photograph off the table and thrust it at Eddie.

“Then what the hell is this?” he demanded.

Eddie looked at the photo carefully and shrugged.

“Who took that?”

“Do you deny it? It’s proof you shared a bed!”

Eddie laughed.

“Yeah, you’re right. You want to know what happened? A kid drowned right outside this house a few nights ago and they were here all night dragging the bay. It upset her so much she couldn’t sleep in a room by herself. I don’t know if you can tell from this lousy picture, but we’re both fully dressed.”

Robert snatched the photo away from Eddie and studied it carefully.

“I don’t believe you.”

“Look, Buddy, she’s told me you guys have been having a hard go of it, and I respect that. I rent out a room, that’s all. She needed to stay someplace that could take a dog and I said I could take her in here. I can use the money with my arm like this. But if you think we’re sleeping together and that’s what this is all about, you’re dead wrong. I’m not interested in her. She’s not my type. To tell you the truth, both of you are just screwed-up city folk to me.”

Eddie’s words were like icy spears shooting through Jenna’s chest. What was he saying? He was lying. She knew he was lying. He loved her. Why was he doing this to her?

But then she saw why. Robert had dropped his shoulders and crumpled the photograph into a tiny ball. He was looking down at the floor, breathing heavily, not moving. Eddie was biting his lower lip and staring at Robert, afraid to look toward Jenna. He couldn’t bring himself to meet eyes with Jenna because he knew he wouldn’t be able to carry it off.

Eddie knew the truth. That’s why he had said those things. He knew that whether or not he and Jenna had slept together was beside the point. There were other issues that had to be resolved.

Eddie patted Robert on the shoulder.

“Look, buddy, I’ll take a walk and you two can talk this out, but I promise you, I have no interest in your wife. No interest whatsoever.”

Without a backward glance at Jenna, Eddie moved to the door.

“C’mon, Oscar,” he called, and Oscar ran to his side. Eddie put the leash on Oscar and they went outside, leaving Robert and Jenna alone in the dim house.

Robert turned to Jenna and lifted his hands to her, palms up, in a plea for understanding.

“I don’t know what happened,” he said quietly. “I don’t know where we went wrong.”

Jenna didn’t look into his eyes; she looked at his hands. And through his gesture she could feel the gap that existed between them.

Jenna knew where they went wrong. She knew what happened.

I
T WAS A BAD DAY
from start to finish. When Jenna got up, Robert had already left for the day and the house seemed huge and empty. The black ice on the street had caused a truck to hit a tree that fell across a telephone wire and knocked out the cable TV, so Jenna couldn’t watch the morning talk shows. Then Mrs. Osborne called from the Children’s Theater Workshop and asked if Bobby was planning on returning for the spring program, since he had such a wonderful time the previous year. Jenna told her Bobby was dead and was not planning on making a comeback, but if he did, by chance, Mrs. Osborne would be the first to know.

Jenna was too depressed to make her appointment with the psychiatrist, so she called and feigned disease. Her sinuses were killing her, a splitting headache that made normal thought patterns all but impossible. She didn’t get out of her pajamas all day, and by early afternoon she felt dirty and ugly. So she finally decided she would fix herself up and maybe feel better. When Robert got home, they might even go out to dinner.

She took a long, hot bath, in the middle of which she thought she might treat herself to a little glass of wine, just to open her sinuses and make her relax a little. And maybe just a baby Valium, a little one, because she was so tense maybe it would break the ice and she could get out from under this dark cloud.

The wine and the Valium and the bath actually worked, and Jenna felt a thousand percent better. It was about three, and she thought maybe she would do her nails because they looked like hell and maybe it would make her feel better. So she got a little more wine, just a splash, she didn’t want to get drunk or anything because that would be depressing, and set about painting her toes and fingers, no small task, and the cable was back, just in time for the afternoon shows, which weren’t as good as the morning shows, but they would do.

When she was done, she felt about two thousand percent better, and she thought, being on a roll and all, maybe she would get all dressed up. That way, when Robert came home, maybe he would be happy. Maybe she would give him a blow job, since they hadn’t had sex in she didn’t know how long and she could sense he was getting a little restless, constantly touching her breasts at night and all.

So she put on some sexy lingerie, black push-up bra, garter belt and stockings with the seam, and her tight black dress that showed a lot of cleavage and a lot of thigh. She looked pretty good standing in front of the mirror with her hair coiled up on top of her head. Maybe she was a little fat, though. She’d pretty much stopped exercising altogether, though she occasionally danced around in front of the TV. She’d have to get back on track with that. She put on some bright red lipstick that she hadn’t used in years and enjoyed watching the color spread over her otherwise pale lips. Now her shoes. She wanted to find her nice black pumps, the ones that hurt to walk in, because they made her legs look the best and she knew Robert liked them and they wouldn’t really be walking anywhere anyway. She didn’t remember where they were. Maybe up in the closet. She had reorganized a long time ago and some things were lost forever because of that.

Sure enough, there they were, up on top in the black box, and she had to stand on a chair to get them down. Right behind them were some papers that she didn’t remember. She didn’t know how they could have gotten there. After the reorganization there were no more loose papers stashed away like that. She pulled them down, figuring she would put them away later, and slipped on the shoes, a good fit.

There she was, a little before six o’clock, all dressed up and looking good. Now she felt about six thousand percent better and she was really glad she had taken the time to fix herself up. It was time to shrug it all off, the black cloak she had been wearing pulled up around her ears for the past six months. How many months now? August, September, October, November, December, January, February. Seven months. Seven months of pure hell, and now she was going to put it aside and be herself again. Maybe a little sip of wine would put a nice finishing touch on the afternoon, before Robert gets home. It would be hell if he caught her drinking in the day again. He was constantly badgering her about her drinking. It was only wine. Nothing hard. A soft yellow warm liquid. Really quite harmless.

She went into the kitchen with her glass and the stack of papers she had found, maybe she would file them now, and filled the glass a little more than she normally would have because she was putting the bottle away and thought she could have a little bonus. One for the road. Sitting at the table, she took the rubber band off the envelopes and looked at them. Most were from a bank and addressed to Robert. First Interstate Bank. That’s strange. That’s not their bank. The last envelope was a business envelope. It had a logo on it, but nothing else. RGB.

The first statement was for August and it said seventy-two thousand dollars. Each month the amount went up because of all the interest, until the last one, for January, which was $73,512.55. Seven three five one two five five. A pretty penny. Why did Robert have that kind of money sitting around in a bank?

The RGB envelope had a piece of paper in it that explained it all. It was a settlement. That’s how Robert had that kind of money. He had settled with the resort people and never told Jenna. The letter was filled with all sorts of legal sentences about indemnification and liability and also a little item about keeping all matters confidential. When was it signed? July thirtieth. Exactly two weeks after the drowning. Hardly enough time for the corpse to get cold.

Well, this deserves another glass of wine. Rules are rules, but sometimes the situation makes things less obvious. What’s going on here, anyway, on this day of days with the black ice killing Leeza Gibbons and the bottle’s more than half empty, less than half full, so just finish it off and be done with it. When did I open it anyway? Was it today? It couldn’t have been a whole bottle today, that wouldn’t be good. There must be more, there’s always more. Not under the sink, because Robert checks there. There are better places than behind a shoe box. If you’re going to hide something, you’d better hide it good around here. Under sinks and behind shoe boxes are the first places people look. Robert doesn’t know about the secret door. The gun box. They told her that in the old days people hid guns in their houses, and in the hall closet they have a hollow wall that has a little door with enough space inside for a couple of guns or maybe a few bottles of wine. Kind of like a little wine cellar. Why didn’t Robert know about that? If he had, wouldn’t he have hidden the papers there instead of behind her shoes? Maybe he wanted her to find them so he wouldn’t ever have to tell. It would just come out by itself, magic, he figured probably that it would be a long time before I ever put on my nice shoes again to go out, since I’m so depressed, and all we do is order ginger chicken from the Chinese place and soggy dumplings that taste like little turds wrapped up in soggy white mush. If there were a gun in the secret gun box, maybe it would be used. If there’s a gun on the wall in act one, it has to go off by act five. Or is it act four? Three. No, five. Seven three five one two five five. Just take the corkscrew in there and open it right away. Sit down right in the hall and crack it open, have a drink, maybe two. Better finish before Robert walks in wearing a gray suit and a red tie. That’s the kind of day it is today. It’s a gray suit day. Thank God nobody killed Montel.

Robert came in the back and found the bank statements and an empty bottle of wine first. He found Jenna sitting on the floor in the hallway wearing her nice black dress drinking another bottle of wine second.

“What are you doing?”

Jenna rolled her head along the wall until she saw him standing there.

“Getting drunk.”

“Why?”

He reached down and grabbed her arm. She jerked away violently, knocking over the bottle of wine. Glug, glug, it said, spilling onto the floor. Robert reached for it and set it upright.

“Get hold of yourself,” he said, grabbing her arm tightly. Jenna wrenched away.

“Don’t touch me!” she screamed. “Don’t touch me!” And she screamed until Robert let her go and took a step back. He looked down at her, pathetic drunk; he could see her underwear, skirt hiked up like that.

“I’m taking you to a hospital—”

“Seven three five one two five five.”

“A clinic where they can dry you out. You’re a drunk. You need help.”

“Seven three five one two five five.”

“What the hell is that?”

She leveled her eyes on him with hatred and spoke out of her clenched teeth.

“It’s how much your son is worth to you.”

Then she watched how it hurt him. In the stomach and he winced with pain, turned around, and walked off a few steps, then came back.

“I was going to tell you when you were ready.”

“I’m ready. Tell me.”

He turned and walked away again.

“Tell me!” she shouted at him, so he stopped, but he didn’t face her.

“You already know, don’t you? So what’s to tell?”

“Tell me how you felt when you signed it two weeks after he died. Did you feel good about it?”

He still didn’t face her. He couldn’t. But he rubbed his face with his hand and loosened his tie.

“Of course not.”

“Then why did you sign it? Why did you take the money?”

“There was nothing else to do.”

Now he turned and looked down at her. It was dark in the hallway. Jenna hadn’t turned on the light. They were two shapes with fading faces.

“They offered the money and I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to talk to you about it because you were so upset. I knew we couldn’t sue them . . .”

“Why not?”

“It wasn’t their fault. What could we sue them for? And then you would have to testify and Steve promised me they would fight it if we tried and there would be a lot of pain on all sides.”

“Steve.”

“He said we wouldn’t win and it would hurt you more and cost us a lot of money.”

“We wouldn’t win because why? Because it was my fault.”

“No . . .”

“Because it wasn’t their fault; it was my fault.”

“No, it wasn’t anybody’s fault. It just happened.”

“And you
agreed
with them.”

“It was an accident.”

“You took the money.”

“There was nothing you could have done.”

“Because I killed Bobby.”

There was silence then, finally, almost total silence except for Jenna’s sobs in the darkness and a creak of the floorboards as Robert shifted his weight. He moved to her and knelt beside her, stroking her neck. He wanted to touch and be touched, to love and be loved. Because the love was gone. The joy was gone. It was too far away, forever distant on the horizon.

“You didn’t kill Bobby. It just happened.”

He helped her to her feet and cradled her in his arms.

“Let’s go upstairs and you can get some sleep. I’ll order food.”

He led her to their room and undressed her, laying her down between the sheets and tucking her in, like a child, his own child who was sick and needed to be in bed. He stroked her forehead as he sat on the edge, watching her lips part as she breathed and he remembered he had loved her once, but she had become so shriveled since Bobby died, so cold and dead inside that he couldn’t see the real her anymore. He kissed her lightly and left the room, the door open so he could hear if she got up, and went downstairs to order some Chinese food.