The Cost of Silence

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“When will it be?”

“I think she said next month. She said they sent a registered letter, so I guess that will be waiting for me when I get home.”

He put his arm around her shoulder. To hell with the gossips. “I’ll be there,” he said. “We’ll bring Colby, if you think we’ll need that kind of ammunition. It’ll be fine.”

“Will it, Red? Will it really be fine? Sometimes I think nothing will ever be fine again.” She lifted her face toward his, and her eyes were sparkling again, as if she were losing the fight to hold back the tears.

“It will. I promise.”

He hoped he was right. If the board had called a hearing, they were taking Dylan’s transgressions pretty seriously.

The boy, who had recently turned fifteen, had pulled a few pranks in his time—mostly innocent stuff, like spray painting the back fence of a cranky neighbor. Nothing his dad couldn’t buy him out of.

But his father’s death had hit him hard. Abnormally hard. He’d become uncommunicative, surly, difficult for Marianne to control. Red had spent a lot of time trying to help. He’d known Dylan since he was a baby, and Red seemed to be the only person the boy didn’t hate right now.

But apparently even “Uncle” Red wasn’t enough. About a month after Victor’s death, Dylan had been caught at a friend’s “pharm party,” half out of his mind on the concoction of prescription drugs the kids had gathered from their parents’ medicine cabinets. A neighbor had called the police, and all the teenagers had spent a few terrifying hours at the local jail. Several of them, like Dylan, had been taken straight to the hospital. By the time the dust settled, most of the kids had landed in high-priced, in-patient rehab.

At first Marianne had been horrified, dead set against the idea of rehab. She believed Dylan to be a good kid, underneath all the acting out. But after Red had visited the rehab center a couple of times and talked to Dylan privately, he’d understood it was necessary. This hadn’t been Dylan’s first pharm party, not by a long shot. The boy was lucky to be alive.

“He wasn’t the only Baker kid at that party,” Red reminded Marianne now. “If they kick them all out, how will the trustees pay their country-club dues next year?”

She smiled weakly, but she didn’t say anything, and he couldn’t tell whether she believed him. She bit her lower lip and tortured the ends of the belt some more.

Then, abruptly, she lifted her head and said, “Dylan comes home next week.”

The minute the words were out of her mouth, tears began to stream down her cheeks. With a small sound, she lifted her hands to her face as if she thought she could catch them.

His heart twisted. No wonder she was so fragile—ricocheting between her grief over her husband and her anxiety about her son. Damn it, Dylan. Why didn’t the boy see that his wasn’t the only broken heart in the family? Why didn’t he give his mom a little support, instead of becoming another burden?

But Red knew that wasn’t fair. At fifteen, you didn’t understand a single thing. The world confused the hell out of you. Red had been fifteen when his own parents died. If it hadn’t been for Grandpa Colm and Nana Lina, God only knew what would have become of him. Of course, he’d also been lucky enough to have two older brothers who had no intention of letting their obnoxious younger sibling sink, no matter how much of a pain in their ass he was.

Dylan hadn’t had all that. He had one half sister, Cherry, who was a solid ally and a delightfully spunky person. But Cherry had moved out years ago, and had a life in Los Angeles now. After Victor died, Dylan had been left with only one frightened, forlorn mother who loved him but didn’t have a clue how to handle him.

And he had Red. He would always have Red.

He tried to nudge a smile out of her now. “Come on, Mari. Don’t cry. Isn’t being released a good thing?”

“I guess so. Dr. Packard says he thinks Dylan will make more progress if he’s at home, where he won’t feel so isolated.”

“Well, then. That’s enough to convince me.” Red gave her shoulder a brief squeeze. “You know how strict Dr. Packard is. It’s not as if Dylan can wheedle him into believing he’s doing better than he really is.”

“Yes, I know. I’m sure Dr. Packard is right. If he says Dylan’s ready, he’s ready.” She turned her bloodshot gaze to Red. “But what about me?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean…am I ready?”

“Of course you are.”

“I’m not so sure.” She forced her hands into her lap and braided them together. The knuckles were white with tension. “I feel so inadequate. He’s so angry…with me, with his father, with everyone. When I visit him, it’s as if we’re strangers. I don’t even feel as if I know him anymore. When he was little, we were so close. But lately…”

“That’s part of being a teenager,” Red assured her. “Adolescent boys are always trying on new attitudes. Deep inside, we’re still the same stupid little dweebs we always were.”

She smiled, a fleeting sunbeam of thanks for his attempt to cheer her. But he could see that it hadn’t really helped much. “Maybe. But…I’m such a mess myself. Half the time I forget what I was supposed to be doing. I’ll open the freezer to take the casserole out for dinner, and then I’ll realize I’ve stood there crying for twenty minutes, and everything is melting. How does a basket case like that take care of anyone? What if I do something wrong? What if I can’t protect him?”

“You’ll do fine. You’re not a basket case. You’re hurting. Give yourself a little slack, Marianne. It’s only been two months.”

“Fifty-seven days.” Her voice caught. “It’s so strange. Sometimes, when I wake up, it seems like Victor must surely be in the next room. I can almost hear him breathing. But then, other times, it seems like he’s been gone forever. Or as if he never really existed in the first place. As if he was only a dream I had.”

Red didn’t know what to say. Platitudes were useless here. Her grief was so real it shimmered darkly around her, like a terrible halo. He wondered what it must be like to love someone that much.

It must be terrifying.

They sat in silence a couple of minutes, watching the trees stretch olive shadows across the bright green grass. They heard children laughing and splashing in the distance, from behind the administration building. It must be nearly five. The breeze had cooled, and the streaky pink clouds hinted at gold to come.

“You know what I think sometimes?” Marianne’s sudden words were clear in the crisp air. “Sometimes I think Victor was taken away from us because I didn’t deserve him.”

“What?” He frowned, but she held up her hand quickly.

“I know how absurd that sounds. Even egotistical. Not even the cruelest fates would take a father away from his children to punish his wife, would they? No matter how unworthy she was.”

Though he’d vowed he would respect her feelings, whatever they were, Red couldn’t let this nonsense pass. “That comment certainly is absurd—on so many levels. For starters, what on earth would make you think you didn’t deserve him?”

She lifted one tired shoulder. “I didn’t.”

“Mari. That’s ridiculous.”

“It’s not, though. At least for the past two years, I’ve been a crummy wife. Always nagging. Always complaining.”

He shook his head. “I don’t believe it.”

She gazed at him, but with eyes slightly unfocused, as if she stood at a great distance and could hardly make out his details. “That’s because you are so easygoing, Red. You never demand too much of other people. I do, or at least I demanded too much of Victor. He was everything to me, but I was only one piece of his life. I resented how hard he worked. I resented that he wasn’t at home with us. I—”

He waited, and finally her limpid gaze fell. She stared at her hands, her cheeks reddening. “I wanted to have another child. When it didn’t happen, I was so disappointed. So angry. I blamed his work, especially, because it took him away so much. We fought all the time.”

Clearly she expected Red to be shocked.

And, until a couple of months ago, he would have been. Until Victor had told him about Allison and the secret baby, Red had considered the Wigham marriage to be idyllic. Everyone did. The elegant town house on Russian Hill had seemed to hum with peace and tranquility. He’d envied Victor his loving family. How lucky was a guy to find true love not once, but twice?

But under the serene veneer, apparently the same pain and confusion that complicated other lives had roiled at the Wigham house, too. Marianne had been dissatisfied, unhappy. Dylan had been escaping into recreational drugs. Victor had found himself in Windsor Beach, in the arms of a stranger.

What part had Marianne’s unhappiness played in all that?

But in all their discussions, Victor had never once blamed Marianne. To his credit, he’d never uttered the clichéd words she just didn’t understand me, never subtly hinted that his wife had been cold and critical, driving him into another woman’s arms. He had taken full responsibility for his adultery, had spoken of it as an unforgivable, selfish act. He had clearly been eaten up with shame.

Red could still feel the bone-cracking grip with which Victor had clutched his hand that last hour of his life. “She must never know,” he’d whispered. “Never. Promise me, Red. It would break her heart. She doesn’t deserve that.”

He glanced at Victor’s widow now. “I’m sure you weren’t as bad as—”

“I was.” She drew her eyebrows together, as if girding herself to remember everything. “By the time I found out he was sick, we were hardly speaking. Can you imagine how I felt? Dylan knew. He hated me for it. He probably hates me still, for driving his father away.”

“But you didn’t drive him away. Married couples fight. All of them. It doesn’t mean anything. If Dylan doesn’t see that now, he will see it eventually. You didn’t drive him away.”

She was hardly listening, he realized. She kept talking. “The disease claimed him so fast. We had so little time. A few months, that was all, to make it up. To make him know I had always loved him, no matter how terrible I acted.”

The tears were falling freely now, trailing silver down her cheeks and then disappearing over the roundness of her chin.

“Over and over, I ask myself whether he believed me. Whether he still loved me, even though I’d been so…” She swallowed hard. “His love was the best thing that ever happened to me, Red. If I killed it, how can I ever look our son in the eyes again? If I killed it—”

“You didn’t.” He put his hands on either side of her face. “You couldn’t. There aren’t many things I’m sure about in this crazy world, Marianne Wigham, but I’m completely sure about that.”

He had a momentary mental flash of a dark haired young waitress, a baby in her arms and her golden eyes fiery with fury. He pushed the vision away. He didn’t understand what had happened between Victor and Allison York. He probably never would understand.

But somehow he knew that, whatever it had been, it didn’t change what he was about to say now.

“From the moment he laid eyes on you, until the moment he took his last breath, your husband loved you with all his heart.”

CHAPTER FIVE

ALLISON YAWNED AS SHE PICKED up a sweet potato and perched it atop all the other vegetables in her canvas bag. The yawn came from deep in her soul and went on forever, too wide and heartfelt to hide behind her hand.

“Excuse me,” she said, laughing. She reached for another potato.

“No!” Jimbo barked from behind her. He reached into her bag and pulled the yam out again. “No, no, no. Too stringy. We want only the fat ones. I told you this was a bad idea. I saw that yawn. Apparently you’re too tired to know a decent vegetable from a runt.”

She was tired, definitely. But they’d had this battle, or one like it, every Saturday for months. She loved the farmer’s market, adored strolling through the sun-dappled dirt lot with Eddie nestled against her in his sling pouch.

Jimbo, however, would have preferred that she stay home. He was the kind of chef who liked to hand-pick every ingredient, trusting no one’s judgment but his own. Before they checked out, he always pawed through her choices and put half of them back.

The attitude made her laugh. The restaurant would be hers, at least on paper—which meant the payments would come out of her checkbook. But Jimbo’s heart was every bit as invested as hers. If Summer Moon failed, it wouldn’t be for lack of love.

It might, however, be for lack of money. She had spent a couple of hours this morning with a rep from the food distributor, and his estimate had taken her breath away. A quarter higher, at least, than she’d planned for.

Against her will, her thoughts darted to Red Malone’s check, the one he’d dangled in front of her the other day, the same way she might shake a ring of plastic keys in front of Eddie to distract and amuse him. The arrogant bastard. Red had so clearly sized up her apartment and concluded that she’d be easy to buy off. She needed the money too much to afford the luxury of pride.