In-Laws and Outlaws (5 page)

Dr. Tom was there, his sandy curls more noticeable than ever among so many ebony-haired Deckers. He and Annette spoke briefly and then moved apart; I wondered how many of the out-of-towners knew they were divorcing. Tom was standing by the buffet, scowling at a plate of ham slices. I went over to talk to him.

“Ah, Gillian,” he said when he saw me approaching. “What a sad homecoming for you.”

I said I would have come earlier if I'd known about the other deaths in the family. Tom didn't look much better than Rob, but he was holding up about as well as could be expected of a man who'd lost a son, a nephew, a niece, and a brother-in-law all in a period of four months. I told him how sorry I was about Ike.

Then, oddly, he said the same thing Annette had said: “Ike's dead now. There's nothing we can do about that.” He straightened his shoulders and changed the subject. “Are you going to Martha's Vineyard with Connie?”

“Oh, I don't think so. I'll have to get back to Chicago.”

“Is that where you're living now? Are you still directing plays?”

I told him about the museum. “I'm going to stay with Connie a few more days—I don't think she should be alone with only the house staff for company. Just until the worst of it is over.”

He nodded. “Yes, Connie needs people around her. All the time. It's going to take more than a few days for her to get over this.”

I sighed. “I know.”

“Can't your museum struggle on without you for a week or so?” Tom asked. “Come down to the Vineyard for a few days anyway—it'll give us a chance to get reacquainted.”

“You're going down?” That surprised me, because of the divorce.

He nodded absently. “I need some time alone, to do some thinking—Annette's off to Paris in a few days.”

And he was going to sit in that empty house, without his wife or his child … and think himself into a depression? He looked halfway there now. “Do you think that's a good idea?” I asked cautiously.

“It's necessary,” he answered shortly. “These past few months have been torture. We could all do with an accident-free environment for a while.”

I hesitated, and then took the plunge. “Connie thinks they weren't accidents.”

Before he could answer, I felt a hand on my arm. It was Michelle, looking solicitous. “We're all concerned about Connie, Gillian,” she said in the same deliberate speech that her twin used. “She's not very strong, and these fantasies she's having about murder are just making things worse. It would help if you didn't encourage her.”

Hello, Michelle
. “Of course. I understand. But Connie seems to be handling it fairly well.”

She smiled, a little. “It's the tranquilizer that's doing the handling, I'm afraid.”

“She's on tranquilizers? I wondered if she'd taken something.”

“It's all right,” Tom said. “I prescribed them.”

Michelle said, “Gillian, we need to sit down and have a good long talk. So many years … we have a lot to catch up on. Why don't you come stay with us tonight?”

“But Connie—”

“Annette is staying with Connie tonight,” Michelle interposed silkily. “She won't be alone, if that's what you're thinking about.”

“Well, yes, that was—”

“Don't worry, Gillian. We're not going to leave her by herself.”

“In that case, I'll be glad to come. Thank you.”

Michelle murmured something and slipped away. “That was smooth,” Tom said, one eyebrow cocked. “As usual.”

I looked past his shoulder and saw Michelle whispering to her twin; Annette nodded once in response. “Yes, it was smooth,” I replied. “They don't want to leave me alone with Connie.”

Tom shot me a quick look. “You picked up on that, did you? Well, well. Does it begin to feel familiar?”

Being manipulated
, he meant. And yes, it was beginning to feel familiar. I'd almost managed to forget how good the Deckers were at arranging everything exactly the way they wanted it.

Everything.

4

The Kurlands lived in Sherborn, so for the second time that day I got into the back seat of someone else's car for a ride I didn't want to take. Michelle had tossed off her hat before climbing in—and yes, her hair had the same short crop as her twin's. Joel was quick to shed necktie and suit jacket before getting in the back with me. Michelle drove because Rob said his eyes were hurting; I asked if he'd been ill.

He swiveled around to look at me. “No,” he answered in his raspy voice. “Why?”

I shrugged. “You look so thin, Rob.”

He gave a mirthless laugh. “We've all lost weight these last few months. Even Joel.” Of course they had; I should have known. I looked at the boy next to me.

He favored me with a lopsided grin. “You aren't going to start lecturing me on how I should eat more, are you, Aunt Gillian?”

“I wouldn't dream of it,” I assured him earnestly.

“Fantastic!” he grinned. “Everybody else at the funeral did, all those out-of-state relatives. The Newport people were the worst, especially Aunt Elizabeth. Mom, is she really my aunt?”

“She's your great-aunt by marriage,” Michelle said over her shoulder. “Elizabeth
is
a bit of a fussbudget, but she was just concerned about you.”

“Yeah, I know. Well, it's all over now, so everybody'll start eating again anyway.”

“Joel,” his mother and father said together. He fell silent.

Uh-oh—why did they shut him up? What had Joel been on the brink of saying that his parents didn't want me to hear? I tried to meet Michelle's eyes in the rearview mirror but she wouldn't look up.

When the last of the postfuneral callers had left the house on Mt. Vernon Street, I'd gone to tell Connie I'd be staying with the Kurlands that night. She already knew; Annette had explained. For a woman who less than twenty-four hours earlier had been frantic for me to come to Boston, Connie now seemed remarkably indifferent as to whether I went or stayed. Maybe it was Raymond's funeral, or maybe it was the tranquilizers. Or maybe the twins had been working on her.

Connie really needed to get away from that house for a while, but I didn't know that Martha's Vineyard was any better—where her husband had died, and only recently; that place would have as many memories as the Mt. Vernon Street house. I said to Michelle and Rob that a trip to some place like Montego Bay or Hawaii might be good for Connie. Michelle replied she'd already made such a suggestion but Connie hadn't been too enthusiastic about the idea. Rob said they'd try it again later, when Connie was feeling a little better.

They could probably talk her into it, if they put their minds to it; Connie was very suggestible. But in the meantime, it looked as if Martha's Vineyard offered the best temporary retreat. I thought of Tom Henry standing by the buffet table, urging me to go down to the island. I halfway wanted to go.

I had a house on Martha's Vineyard. It had been Stuart's, the newest and smallest of the various Decker households there. When I left ten years ago, I told the twins to feel free to use it as a guest house or in any other way they wanted; that was what had finally convinced them I was leaving for good. In ten years I'd never once received a maintenance bill or a tax notice, not even during the years when the Deckers knew where I was. But the house would be ready for occupancy tomorrow if I wanted it; it was a Decker house, after all, and the Deckers took care of their own.

Brighton, Newton, Wellesley—eventually we reached Sherborn. The minute the car pulled into the garage of a big house surrounded by woods, Joel was out of the car and heading indoors before he remembered his manners and came back for my suitcase. “Which room, Mom?”

“The one next to yours.” Michelle said we might as well get me settled first, so we followed Joel inside and up the stairs to the second floor. He deposited my suitcase in one room and disappeared into the next. Across the hall was another boy's bedroom; I glanced in and looked away quickly.

Michelle noticed. “Yes, that's Bobby's room. Neither Rob nor I have felt up to packing away his things. But I think I can do it now.”

Why now?
I didn't ask.

My room was spacious and comfortable and had a frequently used look to it. Michelle watched me unpack. “Is that all you brought? Aren't you staying?”

“I have obligations in Chicago,” I reminded her.

“I know, but I thought you'd stay a little while, at least. Come down to Martha's Vineyard with us, Gillian. You can take a week or two, can't you?”

As a matter of fact, I could; there was nothing urgent demanding my presence in Chicago. And I did want answers about what had been happening to my relatives. “I'll call my assistant later,” I temporized. “Perhaps something can be worked out.”

She gave my hand a squeeze. “Good. You
should
stay. You walked out of our lives … how long ago?”

“Almost ten years.”

“Ten years! It's been that long, has it. For ten years we don't hear a word from you, and now you want to leave again so soon? Well, I won't hear of it. You get that assistant of yours on the phone and tell her … her?”

“Him.”

“Tell him to start
assisting
, because you're going to be busy getting acquainted with your family again. Oh, Gillian, I
am
glad to see you. Don't run away this time!”

She was so hostessy-earnest that I had to laugh. “All right, I'll stay a while.” It was hard to say no to either of the twins. Michelle stood staring out a window while I took some things into the bathroom. When I came back, she was still standing there, motionless, the late afternoon sun highlighting her profile, her clear-cut features framed tidily by the short-cut black hair. She looked … serene. At a time like this, she looked serene.

“I was sorry to hear Annette and Tom are divorcing,” I said—and wondered at what I'd just done, choosing that particular moment to introduce so unpleasant a subject. Because I wanted to see that serenity disturbed? A meanspirited thing to do. Small.

But Michelle took it in stride; Michelle took everything in stride. She waved a hand dismissively, not wanting to talk about it, and assumed what I recognized from ten years ago as the twins' favorite pose: left hand on left hip, right foot forward a little, nose tilted heavenward. She said, “Once Ike was gone, a lot of things were said that shouldn't have been said.”

Between Annette and Tom, she meant. “That's unfortunate.”

“Yes.”

“Well, I hope Annette finds whatever it is she wants.”

A shadow passed over Michelle's face. “What she wants is Ike back. The same way I want Bobby back.”

Then Michelle began to talk of her dead son. It wasn't an emotional outpouring of long-bottled-up anguish, but rather a calm looking back over what Bobby had done, what he'd hoped to do, what he'd hoped to be. “He had a kind of self-knowledge that's rare in an eighteen-year-old,” she said. “Bobby was confident but not headstrong. He wasn't afraid to make mistakes. He wasn't
afraid
, Gillian.” She spoke of her son with love and pride; I wondered how long a period of mourning would be needed before she could speak of Raymond the same way.

I asked to see a picture. She brought me a framed eight-by-ten full-body shot of a young man in shorts and tennis shoes doing something with a rope on a sailboat. “Why, Michelle … he was a man!”

“Yes,” she replied simply.

And an extraordinarily good-looking one at that. I could see nothing of the the child Bobby that I knew in the muscular, competent-looking young man in the photograph. Could only one decade have made such a difference? Obviously, since I held the evidence in my hand. My heart went out to Michelle; to watch a child grow up strong and capable and then see him struck down when he's only beginning to realize his potential … “Bobby's death must be hard for Joel,” I murmured. “I remember how close they were.”

Her face lightened. “That's the strange thing, Gillian—Joel surprised us all. He all but worshiped Bobby, you know. Ever since Joel was old enough to walk, Bobby looked out for him … taught him things, showed him the ropes. But when his brother died, Joel didn't shut himself away in his room and wait to be comforted.
He
comforted
us
. I'm sorry he had to grow up so fast, but Joel's turned out to be a lot stronger than we thought.”

“How old is he now?”

“Fifteen.” She pressed her lips together. “It all comes down to Joel, now. He's our last hope.”

Their hope for the future, for passing on the Decker genes and keeping the Decker family and business from vanishing into nothingness. A big burden for a fifteen-year-old.

After a few more minutes we went back downstairs. At the foot of the stairs, Rob was waiting with a cocktail shaker in his hands. “Gillian, I couldn't remember whether you liked martinis or not.”

“Didn't then, do now.”

“Ah. Well, have a seat and I'll bring you one.”

Just then Joel came thundering down the stairs, dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt. “Hey, I'm going over to Mike's—okay?”

“
Hey
, okay,” Rob said. “Back by six.”

“Righty-o.” Joel rushed out.

I looked at his parents. “Righty-o?”

Michelle smiled with mock resignation. “This year's fab phrase. Or is it a single word? Let's go in here.”

I followed her into a room that had more windows than wall space, but the afternoon sun pouring in had a tinge of melancholy to it. I was seeing this house for the first time, since the Kurlands had bought it sometime after I'd left; they'd lived in Brookline before. I could hear the engine of something smaller than a car starting outside and roaring away. Rob came in carrying three martinis; we each took one and found seats. “Would you like something to nibble on?” he asked in his raspy voice.