Cast a Pale Shadow (31 page)

In sheer black stockings and new trim pumps still shiny from Nicholas' care, Trissa turned left and right and all around to marvel at the young woman in the mirror. "Yes, I'll be quite all right. I doubt that my mother will even recognize me," she said at last.

"Ahh, shame on the mother who doesn't know her own daughter, that's what I say."

"And what about the husband who doesn't know his own wife?" asked Cole in a low, solemn voice from the doorway. "May I come in?"

"Oh, Nicholas, look at you," Augusta said. She took his hand and drew him into the room, making him turn for them so they could see all sides of his sharp, black suit and crisp white shirt.

"It's Maurice's tie," Cole said with a grin that was both pleased and boyishly bashful.

"Honey, that tie never had it so good. It will refuse to be seen around Maurice's neck again. Too much like slumming after this." Augusta adjusted the handkerchief in Cole's coat pocket slightly, then patted his shoulder and turned toward Trissa.

She stood silently by the mirror, her hands fidgeting at her sides. She didn't know what to say. Her heart was so flooded with love and worry for him that it closed her throat. She couldn't let him go with her, yet she remembered that when she first started dressing this morning, she had doubted her legs would support her without him there to bolster her.

"I overheard Beverly in the kitchen. I told her I would take her place."

"No."

"It's a husband's duty, Trissa."

"But, you have no car." It was an unsolved mystery, where Nicholas's car had disappeared to since the night he'd gone to meet her father.

"I asked Fitapaldi to drive us." He shrugged and smiled wryly. "It may start a new trend. Plan ahead to avoid emotional distress. Take along your own personal psychiatrist."

Trissa looked past Cole to see Augusta nodding. "I think it's a very good idea. Quite the best solution I've heard all morning for this sad business."

Trissa sighed her defeat. "All right. If you're sure you feel up to it." She spoke little as the plans were made. They joined Fitapaldi in the kitchen, and the two men discussed the various times they could join the funeral services -- at the funeral parlor, the church, the graveside. Trissa absently buttered the toast which was the least Augusta would allow her to eat before leaving the house. The brim of her hat shadowed her face so they could not see her eyes as she followed their conversation and nibbled at the crust. When they seemed to have decided on the cemetery, she dabbed her lips with the corner of her napkin and stood.

"We are going to the church." No one questioned her. Augusta hurried off to find the pair of black kid gloves and soft, black leather clutch bag she intended to loan her. When she returned, she hugged her warmly and told her to remember how much she was loved. "I will," Trissa answered. Cole and the doctor fell in behind her as they filed out the back door into the mellow April sunshine.

The church was heady with the fragrance of old incense and the funeral flowers that banked the altar, lilies, freesia, and gladioli. Trissa led the trio to a rear corner pew on the Blessed Virgin's side. She knelt for a moment then slid back on the smooth wooden bench.

When she looked up, she met the eyes of Detective Chancellor who occupied the identical pew as theirs but on St. Joseph's side. She acknowledged his unreadable gaze with a sedate nod then nestled back between the carved side of the pew and Cole's warm shoulder where she felt very safe and sheltered.

Clusters of mourners entered the church, parishioners she remembered, old friends of her mother, and strangers she knew she'd never seen before. From the choir, the organ sounded sonorously as the organist tested her chords. Two men in black suits walked briskly up the aisles bearing more floral arrangements to place at Mary and Joseph's altars and at the foot of the main altar.

Outside, Trissa heard the muffled slamming of car doors and the low murmur of voices. Her backbone tensed as she braced herself for her ordeal. Beside her, Cole gently coaxed her clenched fingers open and took her hand in his. When Father Donner and four servers emerged to begin their slow walk from the sacristy to greet the mourners and the casket, she knew she would not have been able to stand were it not for his firm support.

Trissa concentrated on the beads of holy water that speckled the bronze casket as it rolled past her. She could not think that that metal box contained her father, loved, hated, and now lost to her forever. She tried to block from her mind the cold sneer on his face when he had threatened her and Nicholas, the last time she saw him alive. She tried to erase the swath his scar made across it then, and to remember instead how he had smiled at her and held her hand walking proudly with his daughter down this same aisle.

So long ago now and never again. She tried to forget how she had wished him dead. So many times. The last time. She tried not to think why, after all her years and years of futile prayers, hopeless dreams, and wasted wishes, this last, horrible and desperate one had come true.

She shuddered and the tears she had told Dr. Fitapaldi she would never shed for her father, trailed down her cheeks. Calmly, like an anchor in a storm, Cole let go of her hand and put his arm around her trembling shoulders.

Her mother never acknowledged her. Though Trissa watched, unblinking, fearful of missing any tiny gesture of forgiveness, she passed her by without a glance, supported by her Aunt Ellen and followed by Trissa's cousins and second cousins. They were funeral relatives, drawn by the magnetic power of grief, to shake their heads and moan their sorrow, then disappear without a trace until the next family tragedy. She could not tell whether they did not see her, did not recognize her, or deliberately snubbed her as they passed, wringing their handkerchiefs in their hands.

*****

"Are you sure you want to go to the cemetery?" Fitapaldi stood by his car after the Requiem Mass. The hearse and limousines were lining up for the procession that would wind past Trissa's house before making its way to the graveside.

"Yes. I have to go. If my mother needs me, I have to be there."

"Trissa, why torture yourself? That women seems a stone to me," said Cole.

"I have to go."

Fitapaldi took his place behind the wheel. Cole shook his head, disappointed with the doctor's quick surrender. Cole had done his best to protect Trissa from the rude remarks of some biddies gossiping in the vestibule. Runaway daughter, conniving little bitch, and prime suspect were words Cole hoped she hadn't overheard. To distract her, he'd whispered support in her ear, tilting her bonnet off kilter, as they walked out to the church steps. He took a moment now to straighten it for her before giving her his hand as she stepped into the car.

"Doctor, this can't be good for her. Tell her we should go home."

"She must decide for herself. If she does not, she may feel guilt about it later."

Cole scowled at him and fell into silence, but his thumb ceaselessly stroked the back of her hand as he held it. Trissa did not speak or look up again until they passed through the gates of the cemetery.

"Over there are the babies," she said pointing to a vale of small, identical headstones in the webbed sunshine of the trees. "I don't know why they put them all together, all alone, away from their families. I used to think it was the saddest place in the cemetery. But they're in heaven, my mother always told me, and they never knew how bad earth could be. I guess she was right."

They parked the car around a curve from the main procession and had to cross an area where several new graves had already been dug and gaped open. Fitapaldi walked behind Trissa and Cole. Cole stumbled as they passed the first of these. It was only a slight misstep, and because they walked arm in arm, it barely broke their stride.

At the second, though, the wobbliness of his legs was more pronounced. Fitapaldi must have noticed. He quickened his pace to catch up with them and provide support on Trissa's other side. Cole's skin went all clammy and beads of sweat formed on his brow. When he saw that the doctor had a firm grip on Trissa, he released his own arm and stepped away from her.

"Cole, what's wrong?" Trissa asked.

"I'm sorry. Go on without me. I'm sorry, I can't."

"Are you sick? Should we take you--"

"No. No. I'll wait for you in the car." Cole fled backpedaling unsteadily down the hill.

"What's the matter with him, Doctor?" he heard Trissa ask.

"I don't know." Fitapaldi urged her to turn toward the people gathering at the graveside. Detective Chancellor was there, arms folded, watching them. Fitapaldi led her past him, and they stood in the outer ring of mourners waiting for the service to start.

*****

The hole. The hole. And he was at the bottom of it, the damp and crumbly earth forming four walls around him. At his feet, she lay, wrapped in a quilt, and tied with rope, like a bundle ready for the laundry.

Who was she? Who was she? His fingers fumbled at the knots, trying to untie them but tangling and tightening them instead. Who was it? He had to know. He didn't want to know. He gnawed at the rope with his teeth and it disintegrated to dust, coating his tongue, choking down his throat.

Who was she? Who was she? With trembling hands he folded back the corner of the quilt reveal the face of --

"My God! My God, what's happening to me?" Cole shuddered and stumbled into the back seat of Fitapaldi's car, sprawling on his face as the vision wracked him again. He buried his eyes in the armrest, pushing it hard against his lids, trying to crowd out the hallucination with the whirling and spangled lights the pressure brought.

But it did not work. Once again the hole gaped before him. Then he was inside it with her, wanting to stay, wanting to pull the dirt in around them forever. Once again he muddled with the rope and folded back the quilt. Once again he saw her cold, white face.

"
Trissa! No, oh my God, I can't do this. I can't go on like this anymore."
His brain was scorched with the vividness of the visions. Trissa's face glowed white and still as the moon.
"
Stop. Stop. Stop
."
He punctuated each command with the smack of his head against the seat cushion.

"
It can't be Trissa. I won't let it be. I won't
."
It seemed he gulped for breath through the rope dust that clogged his mouth, then as quickly as they started, the visions stopped, and he was left with only his throbbing head and his pounding heart.

He gripped the armrest and pulled himself up. Far away, up the hill, the mourners moved away from the graveside in clumps of twos and threes. He found Nicholas Brewer's cigarettes in his pocket and lit one, cranking the window open to let the smoke chimney through it. His hand still shook when he raked it through his hair.

He saw Trissa and Fitapaldi stop to talk briefly to someone. Chancellor? Then they made their way down the hill toward them. The limousine slowed as it passed them, then stopped. The door opened and Trissa stepped in, leaving Fitapaldi on the curb.

"No
!"
Cole flung open the door and heaved himself out.
"Don't go. Don't go,"
he whispered as he tried to will his feet to take him past the minefield of graves between them. "Don't leave me!"

But the limousine did not move. Fitapaldi saw him and waved and Cole began to run. The limousine door opened again, and Trissa stepped out. His wind left him in a deflating rush and Cole went to his knees in the dirt. When she saw him, Trissa broke away from Fitapaldi's supporting arm and ran down the hill toward him, her hat sailing back off her head. He had just managed to reach his feet when she flew into his arms.

"Are you all right? Are you hurt?"

"I thought... I saw you get in the car. I thought you were going with her. I thought you were leaving me."

"No! Oh, no, I wouldn't. I promised I wouldn't, remember?"

Fitapaldi lumbered closer, smiling, with Trissa's hat in his hand. Cole stiffened and she let him go. "Still, it would be best if you did. I'm insane, you know."

He would ask Fitapaldi tomorrow to cure him or destroy him. All his blind fear of madness and psychiatry and winding up in a room next to his father was nothing compared to the fear of losing her. Or hurting her. But he had to come to her whole and healthy. Or not at all.

She did not respond to his declaration of insanity, but turned to smile back at Fitapaldi. "Are you hungry? How about Rigazzi's for lunch?"

"Aah, sounds like my kind of place. If more people knew of the curative powers of pasta, doctors like me would be put out of business."

Cole limped stiffly ahead of them back to the car. "Cole, would you rather go home and rest?" Trissa asked when he settled into the front seat next to her.

"No, I'd better get me some of that pasta. I need all the help I can get," he said grimly.

*****

By the time they got home late that afternoon, Trissa had spent the last of her tears over a heaping plate of toasted ravioli. No one looked when Fitapaldi slipped her his glass for a few sips of wine after she told them what her mother had said when she got in the car. Blinking like owls in the dim light of the limousine, her aunt and cousins had looked on while her mother called her an ungrateful little slut who deserved nothing from her and would get nothing. Trissa had replied with all the dignity she could gather that she had expected nothing more from her than she had given in the past, not even love. It was obviously something she was incapable of giving.

They told sparse details of the funeral to Augusta and the others of their housemates who waited anxiously for them, then Cole offered to take Trissa to her room. Before they left the kitchen, Fitapaldi took her aside to whisper in her ear. "He loves you, Trissa, I can see it. He's just afraid to admit it yet." With a puckish wink, he added, "Be gentle with him."

Cole accompanied her to the door of their room, then hugged her briefly, like a distant relative at a family reunion. "I'm sorry I deserted you this morning. Goodbye, Trissa."