Blood Red (9 page)

“Mick. Rhymes with Rick,” he says.

She never thought of that. She wants to assure him that it's pure coincidence, and that it has nothing to do with him, but of course he knows that.

He must.

Right?

“How about your kids?”

“None of them are named after me.”

“That's . . . I didn't mean that.”

“I know what you meant,” he says, “ but I was thinking about how when Liam was born I really wanted to name him Rick, not just after myself but after my father, but Vanessa didn't want to because her firstborn was named after her ex and after he left, she couldn't stand to hear the name. So she didn't want to name our son after me, I guess because she figured sooner or later, either I'd leave or she'd hate me or maybe both.”

She doesn't know what to say.

After an awkward moment of silence, he says, “You know what I want to know? Did you ever get your Victorian?”

“What do you mean?”

“Don't you remember how much we both hated our raised ranches when we were living in Westchester? I was always fantasizing about moving to a farmhouse somewhere, and you wanted a big old Victorian. You used to talk about exactly what it would look like: gingerbread porch, pocket doors, high ceilings . . .”

He's describing her house. Does he know? Has he . . . seen it?

“And you were going to furnish it entirely in period furniture,” he goes on. “You were so crazy about that era. Remember how we'd go to tag sales so that you could look for antiques? That one time, it took us an hour to walk two blocks with all the kids because we had to use one of the strollers to push that big old fringed lampshade you found.”

Unsettled by the memory—­particularly when she recollects that she'd casually lied to Jake about how much it had cost—­she quickly changes the subject. “Wait, you haven't told me about your kids. How are they?”

“Liam and Erin are both in college, like your older two. And Vanessa's boys have been grown up and out on their own for years now. They're both still in the city, but ever since she died, it's been—­”

“She
died
? I thought—­I mean, I assumed—­you'd gotten divorced. I'm so sorry. I didn't—­”

“It's okay. We were divorced a while back, and then . . . she died.”

What is there to say to that, other than “I'm sorry,” again.

To think she'd considered that Vanessa—­poor dead Vanessa—­might have been responsible for sending the package.

But . . . Rick? Could he really have sent it?

The waitress appears, providing a brief respite from the conversation as Rowan orders the coffee she'd sworn off earlier. She needs it desperately now, having expended every ounce of energy she possessed just to propel herself to this place—­not just physically, but emotionally. Now that the initial confrontation is over, the sheer exhaustion of the night before—­the
week
before—­has caught up with her. She's finding it difficult to sort through her thoughts, and the conversation has already drifted so far off script that she has no idea how to steer it back.

She toys with the upside-­down coffee cup on her scalloped paper placemat as Rick orders a toasted sesame bagel.

“Cream cheese?”

“No, butter, thanks, Bernice,” he tells the waitress, and Rowan remembers that he always did have a folksy way of addressing waitstaff by the first names printed on their name tags, and that he never did like cream cheese. He always ordered his bagels with butter. Sesame bagels. Real butter, not margarine—­which he specifies to Bernice an instant after the memory flits into Rowan's mind.

“Real butter.” Bernice nods, writing it down. “Anything else?”

“Just ice in a go-­cup with a lid and a straw and a lemon.”

A new wave of memories: he'll keep adding hot water to his tea as they sit here, and when he leaves, he'll dump what's left into the cup and take it with him. Voilà—­iced tea. Two beverages for the price of one, he used to say, and she thought it was clever. Now it seems like cheating.

“What about for you, hon?” The waitress has turned to Rowan, pen poised on her pad.

“Just the coffee, thanks. I'm not hungry.”

“You can share my bagel if you change your mind,” Rick tells her after Bernice leaves.

An image flashes into her brain: Rick leaning across the table feeding her as they laugh together.

It's not a memory; it never happened—­and never will happen.

How dare he offer to share his food?

Irrational anger flares within her.

He has no business getting so . . . so cozy with her, especially considering that they haven't been alone together since the moment fourteen years ago when they were jerked back to their senses courtesy of the blasting smoke alarm.

“Rick.” She clenches her hands in her lap. “About the package . . .”

He just looks at her, waiting. Not a hint of recognition in his eyes.

If he were responsible, there would at least be a telltale flicker, right?

But if he didn't send it, and Vanessa is dead, then who else could it have been?

“You sent it. I know you did.”

He blinks. “Sent what?”

“The box.”

“What box?”

“Come on, stop playing stupid. I know that you—­”

“All righty, here we are.” The waitress is back to turn over Rowan's cup and fill it with steaming black coffee.

“Cream?”

“Please.”

They gaze at each other in uncomfortable silence as the waitress briefly steps away and returns with a small silver cream dispenser.

“More hot water?” she asks Rick, gesturing at the little teapot in front of him.

“Please. Although I think I'm
in
hot water,” he replies, “and I'm not sure exactly why.”

“Don't worry. I'm sure she'll tell you,” Bernice returns with a sly grin, probably assuming this is one of those typical men-­from-­Mars, women-­from-­Venus conversations.

After she's gone, Rick tells Rowan, “I'm not playing stupid, I swear. Apparently, I just
am
stupid, because I have no idea what you're talking about.”

“You didn't send the package.”

“To you? No. What kind of package?”

“Come on, Rick. Please. It had to be you.”

He frowns, shaking his head. “As much as I'd love to take credit or blame for whatever was or wasn't in it . . . I can't.”

She wants desperately to believe him. Oh hell, maybe she
does
believe him.

Now who's stupid?

“What happened, exactly? Someone sent you something? What made you think it was from me?”

She hedges, unwilling to go there just yet. Or ever again.

“It was just a guess. I'm sorry. I honestly thought it was you.”

“But
why
? What was it?”

There's no way around it. The only way to explain the situation is to acknowledge that—­despite all her self-­denial—­something did happen between them that snowy day. Yes, it could have been much worse, and yes, she nipped it in the bud, but the uncomfortable reality can never be erased.

Clearing her throat, folding and unfolding the corner of her paper placemat, she begins, “Do you remember . . .”

She trails off.

Maybe he doesn't remember.

No, of course he remembers. He must.

Unless she was just one in a long line of extramarital conquests that eventually led to the demise of his marriage to Vanessa . . .

“I have a pretty good memory,” he prompts, and there's a gentle undercurrent in his tone that causes her to look up sharply.

He's thinking of that day. She can tell by the look on his face.

She shouldn't have come here; shouldn't have hunted him down or lied to Jake or snuck away to the city on a weekend afternoon when she should be home taking care of her husband and son, who can't even find their clean socks or the grape jelly when she's gone, dammit, dammit . . .

Off she goes on the emotional roller coaster again, but when it careens back around to the starting point—­the anonymous package—­she knows she couldn't have done this any other way.

You don't ignore something like that, and you don't share it with your husband.

Whoever sent it was counting on her to act, and she's acting.

“Who else knows?” she asks abruptly. “About what happened that day?”

He doesn't even pretend not to know what she's talking about. “The snow day?”

“The snow day. Yes.”

“No one. I never told anyone. Did you?”

She hesitates.

“Did you tell Jake?”

“Jake? No!” She shakes her head vehemently. “Did you tell Vanessa?”

“Are you kidding? No way.” He rubs his temples briefly. “Why are we here, Rowan?”

“Because someone sent me a box of thirteen burnt cookies wrapped in an old newspaper from that exact day fourteen years ago.”

He absorbs her words. “November thirtieth.”

“You remember the date.”

“I told you, I have a pretty good memory. For some things, anyway.” He stretches a hand across the table, reaching for hers.

She snatches it out of reach, nearly spilling her coffee. “What are you doing, Rick?”

“Sorry. I'm sorry.” His hand becomes a fist, pressed beneath his chin as he stares at her. “You're upset. I was trying to . . . I mean . . . look, I don't know what I was doing, but—­”

“I should go.”

“Wait—­who the hell sent that package?”

“You didn't?”

“Why would you think that?”

“You know, the smoke alarm and the burned cookies that day . . . and you once told me you lost your childhood home to a fire, and you had smoke inhalation injuries, and I thought maybe . . .”

She's babbling. He's looking at her as though she's lost her mind. Maybe she has.

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“It doesn't. Forget it. But if it wasn't you, and you never told anyone . . .”

“Then
you
must have told someone.”

She did.

She told one person, years ago, not long after it happened. She confessed her secret in a moment of weakness, needing to unburden her guilt, and she regretted it immediately afterward.

“Who did you tell, Rowan? Because obviously, whoever it was sent that package.”

She's shaking her head before he finishes speaking.

“There's no way. She wouldn't do something like that. Not in a million years.”

“Who?”

“My sister.”

 

From the
Mundy's Landing Tribune
Archives

Obituaries

May 12, 1985

Katherine D. Carmichael

Katherine “Kate” (Devlin) Carmichael died at home yesterday following a brief illness.

She was born in Mundy's Landing on April 17, 1941, to the late Seamus I. and Mary O'Hara Devlin. She graduated from Mundy's Landing High School in 1958 and from the University of Buffalo in 1962 with a bachelor of science in education. She had been employed as a teacher at Saint Helena's Parochial School since 1974. A devoted wife and mother and avid homemaker, she enjoyed sewing, knitting, cooking, and gardening. She was an active parishioner at Holy Angels Catholic Church, where she served as president of the Blessed Sacrament Society and sang in the choir.

She is survived by her devoted husband, Jonathan “Mickey” Carmichael, whom she married on July 14, 1962; their four children: Mitchell, Daniel, Noreen, and Rowan; three brothers, Seamus (Eileen) Devlin of Schenectady, Thomas (Joanne) Devlin of Mundy's Landing, and Rev. Robert Devlin of Boston, Massachusetts; two sisters, Margaret (Anthony) Bartone of Punta Gorda, Florida, and Maureen Devlin of Saint Louis; and many nieces, nephews, and cousins.

A wake will be held at Dunnewyk Funeral Home at 225 Fulton Avenue in Mundy's Landing tomorrow from 2:00 to 4:00 and 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. A Mass of Chris­tian Burial will be celebrated Tuesday morning at ten o'clock at Holy Angels Church, followed by interment at Holy Angels Cemetery.

 

Chapter 4

A
s Noreen Carmichael Chapman pulls her Mercedes SUV into the private subdivision after dropping two of her four kids at Saturday lessons, she notes that the Holdens have yet to put up their Christmas decorations. The other half-­dozen brick mansions on the cul-­de-­sac off Cove Neck Road, including the Chapmans', are tastefully decked in live wreaths and garlands. At dusk, the surrounding landscape will come alive with white twinkle lights and spotlights.

The Holdens, when they finally do get around to decorating, won't use the local florist ser­vice to hang their greens and set up their lights, unlike every other house here. They probably won't dare to set up an enormous blow-­up snowman, as some of the neighbors irrationally fear, but there will be a crèche on the lawn and they'll use strings of bright-­colored bulbs, each as much an abomination in this up-­market neighborhood as their absence would have been in Noreen's hometown years ago.

Growing up in her parents' well-­worn Dutch Colonial in a village that had seen better days, she always envisioned a different sort of future for herself, and one very much like the life she now lives: transported to a classy New York City suburb, married with children and a career and enough money that she's never had to make a week's worth of groceries last a month the way her mother sometimes did.

Mom never seemed to mind, though. And she gladly went back to work as a teacher at the parochial school when Rowan started first grade, though her paycheck barely covered gas money to get there, Dad often pointed out with a laugh. Mom always responded that she loved being back in a classroom so much she'd do it for free.

Whenever autumn rolled around, Dad supplemented his insurance salesman's paychecks working weekends at the local hardware store so that Santa Claus could pay his annual visit in December. Christmas gifts were one of the few things that were never in short supply in the Carmichael household.

And love—­there was always plenty of love to go around.

We just didn't appreciate it then.

Pulling into the large circular driveway in front of her house, Noreen briefly considers leaving the car parked by the door, but quickly decides against it. Having survived the chaotic Carmichael household, she thrives on domestic orderliness: everything in its proper place. Not to mention
everyone
—­though that particular objective has been elusive of late.

Opting to exercise control wherever she still can, she pulls around into the four-­car garage, even though she has to leave again shortly to deliver the kids from their lessons to a sports practice and a birthday party.

Kevin's work at an understaffed, overburdened inner city hospital keeps him away for days at a time. Their eldest, Sean, is enrolled at Notre Dame University but spending a semester abroad in Paris. High schooler Shannon is away this weekend at a debate team tournament. That leaves just Noreen to shuttle the others, Sabrina and Samantha, from one weekend activity to another.

She'd willingly traded her commute to a large Manhattan law firm specializing in CEO and celebrity divorces for motherhood and a local practice in Garden City. Her work is mostly confined to weekdays so that she can be here whenever her kids are—­which is not as often as it used to be. They're growing up, busy with their own lives.

She presses the alarm keypad and lets herself into the house. Her heeled boots tap hollowly across the hardwoods, accompanied by the steady hum of the housekeeper, Luz, running the vacuum upstairs.

In the marble-­tiled foyer, she takes off her coat and hangs it in the cedar-­lined closet. The woodsy fragrance mingles with the scent of furniture polish, this morning's coffee, and the fresh evergreen garland draped along the curving banister and hall balcony above.

Next weekend, the florist who decorated the house inside and out will bring in a pair of fresh-­cut ten-­foot balsam firs. They'll be elegantly trimmed with white lights and Waterford ornaments and velvet bows: one in ice blue to complement the living room decor, the other in maroon to match the great room. Right before Christmas, one more tree will be delivered, this time to the beach house in Southampton where the Chapmans always spend the holiday itself.

This year . . .

This year might be different.

When the time comes, though, she'll take it in stride just as she has everything else, just as she's always taught her kids to do. Change is never all bad any more than it's all good.

She closes the closet door and finds herself looking into the full-­length mirror remembering her son's high school graduation day. As he stood in this spot checking his reflection and adjusting his cap and gown, she stood by with a camera, wondering where the years had gone and wondering where Kevin had gone, wondering why he never seemed to be here when he should have been.

And now you know.

“Why do they call it commencement?” Sean asked her, wise beyond his years. “It's not really about the beginning. It's the end.”

She told him what her own mother had told her when she left for college decades ago: “Because it's easier to say good-­bye if you focus on what lies ahead instead of what lies behind you.”

The irony, of course, is that Mom's immediate future held the hardest good-­bye of all. Noreen chose not to remind her son of that, and as she studies her own reflection, patting her wind-­tousled hair into place, she wishes she hadn't thought of it now.

O
n the sidewalk outside the coffee shop, Rowan buttons her coat in the drizzle, watching Rick do the same.

She wishes she'd never come here. She's run out of things to say to him—­ran out after the first five minutes, which they spent speculating about who might have sent the package. But they stayed for another half hour, mostly sharing details about where their lives had led them since they'd left Westchester.

It turns out Rick and Vanessa moved away not long after Rowan and Jake did. He said Vanessa was tired of the long commute, so they moved to Hoboken, which was much closer to her office in the financial district. Like Rowan, and like her mother before her, he went back to work when his youngest started preschool.

“What do you do?”

“These days, I'm in administrative ser­vices.”

“Really? Where?”

“Trust me—­you never heard of it.”

She asked him if he had a card, and he said, “I gave you my cell number when we messaged on Facebook, if you need—­”

“I know, but I like something tangible.”

He searched his pockets and, then told her he didn't have a business card on him. Maybe it was the truth; maybe not. Maybe he works in administrative ser­vices; maybe he doesn't. Maybe he was evading her; maybe she's just paranoid. Who the hell knows?

He didn't talk much about the divorce, other than to say it was a long time coming and they stuck it out until the kids were more or less out on their own. And he hasn't revisited Vanessa's death at all.

She's curious to know how it happened, but it's not the kind of thing you come right out and ask. And he didn't volunteer the information, though he's spoken pretty freely about some things.

When she asked where in New Jersey he's living now, he gave her the exact address in Weehawken, adding that it's almost on the very spot where Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton famously dueled to the death. “You probably teach your students about that in social studies, right? Fourth grade?”

She was almost positive she hadn't told him which grade she's teaching.

A little later, he let it slip that he knows where Katie is going to college.

“Winters can be brutal that far upstate,” he commented when she mentioned her daughter in passing. “My kids didn't have the grades to get into Cornell, but I thought maybe they'd like Ithaca College, so we drove up and looked. It was snowing like crazy, and that was in late April. They wouldn't even get out of the car to take the tour. Liam wound up in Texas and Erin's in California. They're both at decent colleges but nothing like Cornell.”

Had she even told him where Katie goes to school? She was almost positive that she hadn't.

To be fair, he'd admitted in his message last night that he'd found her on Facebook long before she found him.

But she never mentions her job there because the principal frowns on social networking. And Katie's Facebook profile is privacy-­protected, so even if he'd spotted her on Rowan's friends list, he wouldn't see anything more than her name and headshot.

Okay—­so what if he snooped around online to find out where she works, and where her kids go to college?

Maybe she's reading too much into his motives. Plenty of ­people look up old friends and neighbors online. It doesn't have to mean anything ominous.

But it might, and she's anxious to be alone with her thoughts in the car, on her way home.

“I'm glad we finally got to see each other again after all these years,” he says as she fishes in her bag for her umbrella and keys and parking stub. “Even if it wasn't just to catch up and talk about old times. When you figure out who sent that package, let me know.”

“I will.”

“Maybe it didn't have anything to do with . . . you know. That snow day.”

She just looks at him.

“You're right,” he says quickly. “It must have something to do with it. But I didn't send it, and I swear I never told a soul, and if the only person who knows is your sister, then maybe she was just playing a joke.”

“Noreen would never joke about that.” She shakes her head, remembering her sister's reaction years ago to her secret.

Noreen came down hard on her, claiming that an extramarital emotional affair is as damaging as a physical one. Maybe she was right, but Rowan resented her just the way she used to when they were kids, resented that her sister made perfection look so easy.

“I have to go,” she tells Rick, jangling her car keys. She has to detour to Woodbury Common Outlet Mall before she can go home.

Jake will be expecting her to walk in the door with shopping bags. If she doesn't, he'll question her, and she'll have to lie again. This way, her initial lie will become a half truth.

“Does Jake know you met me here today?”

“No.”

“Are you going to tell him?”

She's tempted to pretend that she is, but hears herself say, “No. I'm not.”

“Where does he think you are right now?”

“He was sleeping. I didn't talk to him.”

“You just took off?”

“No, of course not. I left him a note. It was no big deal.” She shrugs, unwilling to tell him the details of her lie to her husband; hating that she lied to Jake, who means everything to her, but can't lie to Rick, who means nothing.

“Easy way out,” he says.

“What?”

“I once left a note, too. It's the easy way out.”

“What are you talking about?”

“When I left Vanessa the first time, that's how I did it. Left her a note while she was sleeping, saying I couldn't do this anymore, and walked out.”

“The first time?”

“It took a few tries before I managed to make it stick.”

Poor Vanessa, she thinks.

Wow. The emotional affair is over, if she had the slightest doubt.

I didn't
, she assures herself.
Not for a second.

If only she hadn't been forced to open this door to the past in the first place.

If only she could be sure it would remain closed from here on in.

W
hy is it, Mick wonders, that whenever he wouldn't mind having the house to himself—­which is pretty much all day, every day—­his parents are around, yet the one day it would have been useful to have at least one of them home, they're both gone?

He'd woken up early planning to go on his morning run, but rolled over and went back to sleep when he saw the crummy weather. Hours later, he re-­awakened to his dad calling through the bedroom door that he was heading out to run some errands.

“Where's Mom?” he asked groggily.

“At the mall.”

“When will she be back?”

“Not till tonight.”

“How about you?”

“Later” was the vague reply.

Mick fell back to sleep for another hour. When he finally got out of bed, he realized he'd have to ride his bike into town. Not fun even on a nice autumn day when you're sixteen years old and have a driver's permit, but positively torturous in this icy December rain.

But he's determined to carry out the plan that popped into his head last Monday night when he should have been working on his homework.

Operation Secret Santa, he calls it—­not that he's even shared it with his friends. Well aware that he's walking the fine line between pathetic loser and romantic hero, he figures no one will be the wiser if the plan fails. But if it works out, he'll tell the world what he did, and the world will think he's a genius.

Better yet, Brianna Armbruster will have fallen head over heels in love with him and dumped the college guy Zach told him about.

When that happens, everything—­even spending all the tip money he was saving for his ski trip and pedaling this uphill mile in freezing rain—­will be worthwhile.

Mick warms himself with thoughts of the future. When he and Brianna are married with kids, they'll talk about Operation Secret Santa the way his own parents often talk about the good old days when they first fell in love.

It's hard for Mick to even imagine Mom and Dad meeting and dating back when they were only a little older than his brother and sister are now. But he's heard the story often enough—­about how they were both home in Mundy's Landing for Christmas, and Dad was in Vernon's Apothecary looking for a present for Grandma Mundy, and Mom was there buying “something embarrassing,” as she always puts it. Even if Mick had the slightest desire to know what it was, there's no interrupting his parents when they volley the story back and forth.