Journey Of The Heart

“Forgive my impudence,” he said, as if sensing her displeasure. “I was hoping you’d recognize me. You and Monsieur Logan used to come here sometimes. If memory serves me, he always ordered the sixteen-ounce sirloin with fries on the side.” Disapproval flashed in his eyes. “But you,” he continued, now smiling, “preferred our finer selections. As I recall, your favorite was the coq au vin.”

“Michel! Michel Dubois! I’m sorry, I didn’t recognize you.” She flushed, embarrassed that she’d mistaken him, the proprietor, for a waiter.

“It’s the goatee,” he said, fingering a sparse spread of whispers on his chin. “It even confuses my wife. Bien, here’s your friend now.” He pulled out the chair for Cassie. “Will you be having your regular?” he asked as she sat down next to Laura.

Cassie was as chic as ever, in a high-neck jade shell and a knee-length black skirt, her outfit complementing her lively green eyes and bobbed dark hair. Next to her Laura felt dowdy. In her shower that morning, it was as if Jake had sneaked in beside her, and afterward she had wanted to cover up as much of her flesh as possible, as though to compensate for having exposed herself to his eyes—and touch. Now, sitting in the golden September sun, she was uncomfortably warm in her gray cashmere turtleneck and black wool slacks. She should have reserved a table inside.

“Yes, I’ll have the regular,” Cassie said. “How are you, Michel? And how is Madame Dubois?”

“I’m fine,” he answered. “Madame is well, too. She’s in her last month, big as a bathtub and still growing. The doctor says twins for sure.” Laura’s back stiffened in her chair. As though he had taken her gesture as a personal rebuke, Michel took on a more formal demeanor. “It’s nice to see you again, Madame Logan. I’ll send a waiter over with the menus shortly. I hope you enjoy your meal.” He nodded at the two women, and after bowing his head, walked off to another table.

There’s something wrong with me, Laura thought. Other than not being able to have children. Other than I’m having wild fantasies about the most wretched man in the world, even though I’m engaged to the most wonderful man in the world. Why is it that everywhere I go, I seem to tick someone off? I can’t go through life alienating people this way. I can’t go through life pretending that people don’t have children.

Cassie instantly picked up on Laura’s frame of mind. “Did you see him bow?” she said, lowering her head as Michel had done, trying to make her friend laugh. “Give me a break! How pretentious can one get? Let me tell you, the man is as French as an English muffin.”

Leave it to Cassie. That woman could probably cheer up a turkey the week before Thanksgiving. “Tell me, is your regular still a gin-vermouth martini, straight up with an olive?” Laura asked, smiling in spite of her mood. “No, make that two olives. Not very French, either, I must say.”

“As if there’s anything French at all about this restaurant. Michel Dubois, my foot! His real name is Mike Dunbar and he’s from New Jersey.”

“Shhh! What if he hears you?”

Cassie waved her hand dismissively. “As if his day could be worse than mine. Last night, after I left your house, I got an offer on an estate for a smooth ten million, and this morning I found out that the mortgage company won’t finance. The whole deal fell through. That commission would have put a guest house, gazebo and pool in my backyard.”

“But you don’t own a house,” Laura said, laughing out loud at her friend’s outrageous fabrication.

“So I’ll buy one. I’ll buy your house”

“My backyard’s not that large, and you hate yard work.”

Eventually the joking settled down. Cassie sat back in her chair, her legs crossed at the knees, while Laura leaned forward, her elbows on the table.

“So tell me,” Cassie said. “How was the meeting with John this morning? Any surprises?” She stared across the table. “Laura?”

“What? Oh, John Collins. The lawyer. It went just as I suspected. No surprises. The money’s all gone. Every red cent.”

A server arrived with the martini, and Cassie took a healthy swig. “If it’s just as you expected,” she said after he left, “what’s got you so down?”

“It’s like you said. My aunt got a free ride, living in the house. I can’t believe she spent all the money from my parents’ insurance! The will stipulated that the money was to be used for expenses, which to me includes the upkeep of the house. It’s obvious she never made any repairs. What did she do with it all?”

“You already knew there was nothing left. John only confirmed it.” Cassie reached across the table and took her friend’s hand. “What’s really going on here? This is me you’re talking to.”

Two doves flew into the courtyard and landed near the next table. “I’ve decided to keep the house,” Laura said, watching the birds as they pecked at crumbs. “I know it’s a mess right now, and it’s dark and gloomy. But it’s not hopeless. I could make it into a kind of retreat. I could spend my spare time there, painting, gardening, relaxing…”

Cassie nodded her approval. “I was hoping you’d sell so I could make a big fat commission, but hey, this is much better. I’d love to have you back again, but what does Steady Eddy say? He doesn’t strike me as a small-town kind of guy.”

“It’s not like I’d be asking him to commute. We wouldn’t actually be living here. And if we change our minds, we can always sell.”

“You mean you haven’t consulted him?” Cassie narrowed her eyes. “Exactly when did you make this decision?”

“When you threatened to buy it,” Laura kidded. In truth, although she’d been mulling over the idea, only now had it crystallized into something tangible, something attainable. It had something to do with the sound of the cicadas in the yard, and the smell of the night air when the temperature dropped. She belonged in Middlewood, where she had grown up, and if she couldn’t move back permanently—Edward was a New Yorker through and through—at least she could visit. And she would paint, on weekends, over the holidays, on her vacations.

“Actually, I just decided now,” she said. “So tell me, what do you think?”

Cassie smiled broadly. “I think it’s a wonderful idea! So why the blues?”

“Repairs aren’t cheap. And don’t forget the property taxes.”

Cassie let out a derisive laugh. “You can’t be serious. Steady Eddy would lend you the money in a heartbeat. He’d even give it to you, no strings attached. What kind of marriage are you entering into? Don’t tell me he’s making you sign a prenup!”

“I suggested it, but he wouldn’t hear of it. One thing about Edward, he’s very generous. But the house is my responsibility, not his.”

“He’s going to be your husband. Why not let him help? You said it yourself, repairs aren’t cheap. You’ll need to completely revamp the plumbing, not to mention the roof. And I imagine you’ll want to paint and redecorate.”

“I don’t want Edward’s money,” Laura said firmly. “Besides, I’m not helpless.” Ideas were forming in her head faster than she could speak. “I could do a lot of the work myself. Like painting the rooms and tiling the kitchen floor. I could do it over time. As for the immediate problems, like the plumbing and the roof, I could take out a loan. It’s not as if I have a mortgage to pay. Aunt Tess’s room is the largest, so I’ll use that as my studio, once I figure out how to bring in more light. I wonder how much it would cost to double—no, triple—the size of the window. You’re in the business, Cass. You could probably refer me to someone who would cut me a good deal.”

“Oh.” Cassie’s eyes went cold. “You don’t need me to cut you a deal with him.”

“Don’t ‘oh’ me. I have no intention of going to Jake for help. But even if I did, it would be strictly business.”

“Right. Strictly business. I should have known. Your glum mood has nothing to do with Michel’s wife being pregnant, and it has nothing to do with money.”

“Don’t give me that look,” Laura warned. “I know what you’re thinking.”

Cassie raised her hand defensively. “I know you don’t want to hear my opinions about Jake, but I have to tell you, I’m worried. You finally have your life in order, and there’s a great guy waiting for you in New York. I’d hate to see you screw it up.”

“If you think Edward is so great,” Laura said testily, “why do you always refer to him as Steady Eddy?”

“You know I’m only teasing. I think Edward’s perfect for you. You’re both so…organized. It’s a match made in spic-and-span heaven. And you’re always saying he has your best interest at heart, which is something Jake never did.” Cassie studied her friend’s face. “Trouble in paradise?”

“No, of course not. Edward and I are fine. Look, I’m sorry I snapped at you. I know I’m being ornery. It’s just that coming back here has revived old feelings as well as old hurts. But don’t worry, it’s just a momentary lapse into the past. Call it a momentary lapse of sanity, if you want. Forget I ever mentioned Jake. I’ll bring in a team from New York to work on the house.”

“Can you?”

Laughter suddenly erupted from the table next to theirs. “Can I what?” Laura asked, studying the man seated there. With his classically handsome profile and short-cropped dark hair, he bore a striking resemblance to Edward.

“Can you forget you ever mentioned him?”

Laura’s gaze left the scene at the next table and fell back on the two doves. They were now less than a foot away, squabbling over a crust of bread.

She didn’t answer.

Laura knew what Cassie had been thinking.

She picked up another carton. She was planning to spend the afternoon going through the boxes in the pantry, keeping the good memories, discarding the rest.

Her thoughts returned to the conversation at lunch. Cassie was wrong. Laura had no intention of jeopardizing her relationship with Edward.

Steady Eddy, Cassie called him.

So what if he liked things just so? So what if he was…fastidious? So was Laura. They were completely compatible. There were no ups and downs, no roller coasters in this relationship.

And no surprises, either. She sat down on the faded linoleum floor, imagining what the meticulous doctor would say about the way she was dressed now. She knew exactly what he would say—in a breezy but disapproving tone—about her old gray sweats and bunny rabbit slippers.

She debated calling him. She wanted to talk to him about keeping the house, certain he’d agree it was a good idea. A home in Connecticut would make a wonderful place for entertaining. A wonderful place to schmooze with the bigwigs who worked at the hospital—as long as he didn’t have to mingle with neighbors.

She decided she would call him later.

She sliced open the top of the box with a knife. Inside was a bundle of envelopes bound together with a stretched-out rubber band. With a start she realized that these were the letters Cynthia had given to her for safekeeping. Letters written to Cynthia by a man whose existence Jake had never suspected. Letters given to me so that Jake wouldn’t find them, Laura recalled with hostility. She’d always felt like an accomplice in her friend’s deception, and had resented Cynthia for involving her.

After the accident, there had been no reason for Laura to keep the letters, but she hadn’t been able to bring herself to dispose of them. They were a part of Cynthia, and Laura hadn’t been ready to relinquish any part of her friend, as if preserving a memory, even a shameful one, could somehow bring her back.

No, that wasn’t it at all. She had kept them because she was angry. Angry with Cynthia for deceiving Jake. As long as I held on to my anger, Laura rationalized, I could justify loving my best friend’s husband. I kept them to remind me of her guilt, hoping to dispel my own. I would not have married Jake if Cynthia had lived.

Cynthia had also asked her to keep a few mementos as well, but no matter how curious Laura had been, she had never once considered going through her friend’s things or reading her letters. She carried the small carton into the kitchen, without further examining what was inside.

The garbage trucks would be coming by on Monday. Several of her aunt’s cartons were already lined up next to the door, to be taken out to the curb for removal. Why on earth had Aunt Tess kept all this stuff? Why would anyone hang on to torn curtains and linen? Who would keep old shoes and hats? These cartons were Aunt Tess’s links to the past, Laura realized, thinking about her own memory boxes. Laura hadn’t thrown those out, either, when she’d left home.

She picked up another box. Inside was a child’s tea service, complete with cups and saucers, sugar bowl, creamer and teapot. Had the set belonged to her mother? She tried to picture her aunt and mother as children sitting at their kitchen table in Ridgefield, hosting a tea party for themselves and their dolls. But Tess had been six years older than Laura’s mother. Would she have been interested in a child’s tea party? Maybe what Reverend Barnes had said was true. Maybe Aunt Tess had been a warm and doting sister, Caroline’s true caretaker.

Laura remembered another child sitting at a different kitchen table, passing a cup and saucer to a fair-haired woman. The child, wearing a brightly colored party dress, could not have been more than three years old. I was that child, Laura realized. Fingering the delicate bone china, she tried to bring the memory into focus.

The sound of the doorbell broke into her daydream. She wiped her hands on her sweatpants. Back in New York, she never would have answered the door dressed like this, but this was Middlewood. Pretentious was not a word in the town’s dictionary.

The doorbell was ringing insistently, and Laura hurried through the hallway, calling “I’m coming! I’m coming!” She threw open the front door without asking who was there—something else she would never have done in New York. Under the overhang outside the front door stood a tall, thin boy. Laura hadn’t seen him in five years, but she recognized him immediately. Although he wore a frown, and his cheeks were smudged with dirt, his face was still the mirror image of Cynthia’s, and like Cynthia’s eyes in her final year, his were filled with sadness.

Chapter Four

“I heard you were back and I was wondering if you wanted to be on my paper route.”

Cory’s shoulders were almost level with hers. He’s so tall, Laura thought. Tall like his father. But it was Cynthia’s face she was looking at, her high exotic cheekbones, her gold-flecked hazel eyes, her smooth olive skin. “I think we should talk about this,” Laura said, trying to imitate the serious tone in Cory’s voice. “Come on in.”

He glanced inside. Shrugging, he stepped into the hallway.

She motioned for him to follow her into the kitchen. “Are you hungry? I have peanut butter cookies and cake. Marble cake with vanilla frosting. Why don’t you wash up at the kitchen sink while I fix you a snack?” she suggested, glancing at his muddy hands. “So, tell me. Are you still in Peewee? No, of course not. You’d be in Little League by now.”

“Nah, baseball’s dumb. All they do is swing a stupid bat and run around a field.” He turned on the faucet. Underneath the sink, a pipe rattled. “How come the water’s brown?”

“Give it a few seconds. It’ll run clear.” She filled a plate with cookies and squares of cake from yesterday’s gathering and placed it on the table. “I won’t be needing the paper during the week, but maybe you have a weekend deal?”

“Sure, no problem. Lots of people only get the paper on the weekend. You know, for the comics.” The clanking of the pipes suddenly stopped, and clear water began gushing from the tap. “Tommy’s grandmother saw you at the funeral. I’m sorry about your aunt. She said you looked different, skinnier. I mean, Tommy’s grandmother said it, not your aunt. She’s dead. I don’t mean Tommy’s grandmother. She’s alive. Anyway, I’m sorry. I mean, about your aunt.”

“Thank you, Cory,” she said, suppressing a smile. She searched through her memory. Tommy? Tommy Pritchard? Wasn’t he that short, frail-looking kid who’d been in Cory’s kindergarten glass? “And how is Tommy these days?”

“He’s okay.” Cory turned off the faucet and wiped his hands on a dishcloth, leaving a dirty stain in the floral pattern. Eyeing the cookies hungrily, he sat down.

“Go ahead, take one,” Laura said, pouring him a glass of milk. She sat down across from him. “Take two, if you want.”

“Dad says my teeth will rot.”

“You’ll brush when you get home. Go ahead, eat.”

He reached for a cookie and started munching. “Dad said that you were sick and that’s why you went away. Are you better now?”

Seeing him again, sitting across from him, listening to him speak, was almost more than Laura could bear. “What else did your father say?” she asked, suppressing the urge to jump up and hug him.

“He said you were never coming back. Can I have some cake, too?”

“Help yourself. That’s what it’s here for.”

He picked up a square and popped the entire piece into his mouth. Traces of frosting dotted the sides of his face. “He lied. You came back.”

Gingerly, she reached across the table and wiped away the icing. He didn’t pull away. “Your dad didn’t lie,” she said in a thick voice. “He didn’t know I was coming back.”

“But you’re here. So what he said wasn’t true. How come you left, anyway?”

What could she say that he could understand? She thought for a moment, and then spoke slowly. “Sometimes married people, even though they still love each other, can’t live together. I got sick, and we thought the best thing I could do was go to New York. They have good doctors there. I got better, but the problems between your father and me didn’t go away.” It wasn’t the complete truth, but it was all he needed to know.

“This is where you tell me that your going away had nothing to do with me. You still love me and all that crap.”

She ignored the crass word—for now. Apparently, Cory had been given this lecture before.

He took a big swallow of milk. “Tommy’s parents got divorced. His father takes him every second weekend and buys him neat stuff. He bought him a computer. How come you never bought me a computer?”

She knew that Cory wasn’t talking about electronics. “You aren’t my natural child,” she said plainly and honestly. “If you were, I would have taken you with me to New York after I got better. I wanted to come back and see you a million times, but I thought…your father and I thought…it would be better if I didn’t.”

“You made a mistake,” Cory said, his face solemn. “You should have come.” He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “But that’s okay. No one’s perfect. Dad says even grown-ups make mistakes.”

“Your father is right. No one’s perfect.” Especially grown-ups.

He reached for another piece of cake. “Tommy heard his grandmother say that you stole my father from my real mother. Tommy said that’s why you got sick. Because God punished you.”

Laura gasped. “That’s a load of…crap. What did you say? You didn’t believe him, did you?”

“Nah, he’s crazy.” Cory grinned. “Hey, you’re okay, Lulu. Dad always yells at me when I say that word. He says it sounds like hell. Oops, I mean heck.”

“He’s right.” She tried to keep her face stern, but inwardly she was smiling. He had called her Lulu. Lulu had been the first word he had ever spoken, at fourteen months, two months after Cynthia had died, and it had remained his name for her.

“I beat him up.”

“Who?”

“Tommy. I told you, he’s crazy. And he has a lot of uncles. You know, guys who stay over and pretend to like him. They buy him stuff, too. But nothing like a computer. Stupid stuff. Yesterday this short guy with a big head and no neck bought him a yo-yo. How stupid is that? But I told Tommy it was the perfect present, seeing how Tommy is a yo-yo himself. He said I probably have a lot of uncles in New York. He said you probably brought me back a dozen yo-yos. So I hit him.”

“Sorry, no yo-yos.”

“What about uncles?”

“Nope. No uncles.” Would he consider Edward an uncle?

“No uncles,” he repeated. “That’s good. I hate yo-yos.”

She regarded him closely, remembering how he had towered over all his friends at school. “Do you think it’s fair beating up on guys who are smaller than you?”

“Who, Tommy?” Cory’s eyes widened. “I’m a midget next to him! He’s a whole head taller!”

They sure grow up big in Middlewood, she mused. Must be the brown water. She looked at the torn pocket at the front of Cory’s backpack. “I can mend that for you, if you’d like. How did it happen?”

“Last week Tommy called me a geek. So I punched him. He got mad and threw my backpack across the schoolyard.”

“You punched him because he called you a geek?” She shook her head. “What does your father say about all this fighting?”

“He yells a lot. Says I’m a problem child. Maybe he’ll send me to correction school. You know, jail for kids? I hear New York’s full of those schools. And you don’t have to sleep there. You go there in the daytime and you sleep at home, or wherever. I mean, you could stay at somebody’s house, if you knew someone in New York. I used to hope he’d send me to one of them. I mean, when I was little.”

“I don’t think you need correction at all,” she said, tears welling up behind her eyelids. Maybe a little attention, she thought. No, make that a lot of attention. An idea began to take hold in her mind. “I could sure use some help around this place,” she said, wiping the moisture from her eyes. “Look at this pigsty! I know you’re busy with homework and friends and your paper route, but maybe you could come over once in a while and give me a hand. I’d even pay you.”

“Like a real job?”

“Exactly.”

“I’d have to ask my dad. I can’t do anything without asking him first.”

She looked at him with squinted eyes. “Does he know you’re here?” She dreaded the thought of calling Jake, dreaded hearing his voice.

“Oh, yeah, sure. I told Rose. She must have called him. But she’s really old. Maybe she forgot. Dad says I have to tell her where I’m going. He treats me like a baby. He thinks I’m going to have an accident and die like my real mother.”

“Fathers worry,” she said, trying not to appear shocked at Cory’s words. Stepmothers worry, too, she thought. As a parent, she had been just as protective as Jake. She remembered how she had felt after moving in. What did she know about being a mother? Even though Rose Halligan, Jake’s longtime housekeeper, had been there to guide her, Laura had been plagued with anxiety.

“Where have you been all this time?” she said, frowning. The elementary school was only two blocks from her house, and school had let out an hour ago.

“I went to the park. You know, to mess around.” He stared down at his hands. “So is it true what Tommy’s grandmother said? Did you steal my father from my mother?”

“No. Tommy’s grandmother was wrong.” A thought suddenly occurred to her, and she added, “Your father must have told you that your mother and I were friends when we were kids. Would you like to see some pictures?”

“You have pictures of my mother?” he said, his face lighting up. “Dad doesn’t keep any around the house.”

Laura wasn’t surprised. Jake had never wanted mementos of his first wife. You’d think I would have been happy, she thought. A second wife doesn’t need constant reminders of the first one—a face on the mantel in the living room, next to the bookcase, on the desk in the den…. But the lack of any pictures had had a reverse effect. It had confirmed what Laura had always feared, and apparently, nothing had changed. After all this time, Jake still hadn’t recovered from the pain of losing Cynthia.

“You don’t have any pictures of your mother?” she asked, thinking about her own parents. It had been terrible growing up not knowing what they looked liked. It was still terrible, not knowing.

“I have some in my room, but she was all grown-up when they were taken. It would be cool to see what she looked like when she was a kid.”