Possessions (5 page)

“Not a detective,” Ross said to the boy. “Have detectives been here?”

“Not yet—I don't think—but my dad was supposed to be home last Friday and lots of people are looking for—”

“We don't answer questions from strangers,” the girl broke in.

“But you ask them,” Ross said, smiling at her. She was about nine, his son's age, and she promised to be a beauty, with heavy dark hair and high cheekbones in a delicate face. Her mouth was more determined than her brother's and her enormous hazel eyes were bold. For the first time, Ross wondered about their mother.

“It's our house,” the girl said firmly. “We're supposed to ask questions. I'll bet you ask plenty when strangers come to your house.”

He smiled again, liking her spirit, wanting her to like him. “You're right, I do. Especially when they don't introduce themselves. My name is Ross Hayward. I'm an architect, I live in San Francisco and I've come to see your mother, to talk to her about your father. I'd like to help,” he added, though he had not intended to say any such thing. “If there's anything I can do.”

They studied him, shading their eyes against the noon sunlight. The girl made the decision. “I'm Jennifer Fraser. This is my brother, Todd. Mother is in the house and I think it's all right if you come in. You can follow us.”

“Thank you.” Ross followed them up the curving walk, thinking,
Jennifer. Her name is Jennifer.
As they reached the front door he slowed. The children had left it open and for a fleeting moment it seemed to be an entrance to a mysterious cave.

“Don't worry,” Jennifer said impatiently. “I said it was all right for you to come in. I'll get Mother.” She ran off as Todd led Ross through an arch into the living room.

After the shadowed entrance hall, the brightness was striking. A curved wall of windows looked south and west, across the deep blue of the bay to the city of Vancouver and, beyond it, Vancouver Island. Though the house was only about two hundred feet above the water, the expansive view gave an illusion of greater height and also made the living room seem twice as large as it really was. Ross, the architect, the builder, scanned the room, running his hand along the window frames.
“Well done,” he murmured, admiring the vision of another architect and builder.

“I beg your pardon?” a voice said behind him, and he turned as Jennifer came in with her mother.

“I was admiring the windows,” he said. “They're very fine.”

“My husband designed them.” She stopped, keeping the length of the room between them. “I trust Jennifer's instincts, but I'd rather not have visitors right now, so if you'll just tell me why you've come—”

He walked to her and held out his hand. “Ross Hayward,” he said, watching for her reaction as she briefly put her hand in his, but there was nothing; either she did not recognize the name or she was so exhausted she could not respond. He could see her exhaustion: an aching weariness etched in her face, her body swaying slightly as she took her hand from his and rested it against the doorjamb, her neck muscles tense with the effort of holding up her head. But the architect and artist in him saw, beneath her pale exhaustion, the delicate structure of her face—high cheekbones, a broad, clear forehead, long-lashed eyes with a faint upward turn at the corners, a generous mouth. Her dark hair was pulled carelessly back, but a few tendrils escaped the rubber band that held it and clung to her cheeks. In better times, Ross thought, she could be a lovely woman, and he found himself wanting to help her, to ease the strain in her face, to see her smile.

Instead, she frowned, meeting his searching look with her own puzzled one. Twice she began to say something, then caught herself. Finally, she said, “I asked why you've come. If you won't tell me, you'll have to leave.”

“Mrs. Fraser,” he said. “Does my name mean anything to you?”

“Your name?”

“Hayward.”

She shook her head. “Why should it?”

“Your husband never mentioned it?” Again she shook her head and Ross, watching her closely, said, “He never . . . used it?”

“Of course not; why would he? He has his own name.”

Ross nodded. He looked at Jennifer and Todd, standing silently behind their mother. “I think—” he began gently.

“That's not fair!” Jennifer cried, knowing what was coming. “We let you in! You can't tell us to leave!”

Katherine felt a chill of warning. “Maybe we should go along with this,” she said slowly to Jennifer. “I don't know what it's about, but—why don't you and Todd wait in the front yard? I'll call you as soon as Mr. Hayward finishes all his secrets.”

“Mother, it's not fair!”

“I know. I want you to do it anyway.”

Jennifer shrugged glumly. She took Todd's hand. “Come on. Nobody wants us.”

Ross and Katherine watched them leave. “I like them,” he said. “I have two of my own, about their age—”

“Do you,” she responded distantly, and Ross fell silent, feeling the awkwardness of his intrusion. Why should she be interested in anything about him, except why he had come?

“Could we sit down?” he asked and led the way to the couch where they sat at opposite ends, facing each other. Katherine could not take her eyes off him. Tall, broad-shouldered, with an easy stride, he had a narrow, tanned face that was stern in repose, then suddenly lightened by the warmth of his smile. His dark eyes were deep-set beneath heavy brows and unruly dark blond hair, and he wore his clothes with the confident air of a man accustomed to wealth. He was everything that Craig was not—and yet, somehow, the longer Katherine looked at him, the more he reminded her of Craig.

“I'm sorry,” she said, turning away, picking up a thread from the carpet. “I know I'm staring, but you remind me of . . . something about you reminds me of my husband. I don't know what it is, you're really quite different from Craig, but something about you . . .” She faltered. “It's absurd, I know; I suppose I'll see Craig everywhere, now that—” She stopped again and took a breath. “What is it you want?”

Ross opened his briefcase and took out the newspaper folded at the picture he had been looking at on the plane. “I saw this yesterday in San Francisco.” He held it out, but Katherine, recognizing it, made no move to take it. A little awkwardly, he put it on the couch between them. “I have a cousin,” he began. “Or I had one. Craig Hayward.” From an inner pocket he pulled out a small photograph and laid it beside the newspaper.
“This was taken in 1966, when he was twenty-two. He was home from college for the summer, in San Francisco. A month later he was killed in an accident. At least, we thought he was killed. But when we saw this newspaper, it seemed a good idea to talk to you.”

There was a silence. “Yes?” Katherine said politely. Relief was sweeping through her and she barely glanced at the picture. He had nothing important to tell her. “I still don't know what you want from me.”

“Some of my family,” Ross said carefully, “think the two pictures are the same man.”

Katherine frowned. “I thought you said your cousin is dead.”

“We thought he was dead.”

“Well, it doesn't matter whether he is or not. My husband has nothing to do with him. He has a different name; he comes from Vancouver, not San Francisco; and he doesn't look anything like your picture. Even if he did, what would it mean? The world is full of people who look like other people and no one thinks anything of it. I'm sorry you've had a trip for nothing, but you're wasting your time, and mine, too, so if you'll please go—”

“You're probably right,” Ross agreed, but he stayed where he was, looking from the photograph to the newspaper picture and then around the room. “But as long as I'm here, I'd appreciate it if you'd answer a few questions. If you don't mind.”

“I do mind.” There was something about his voice, too, that reminded her of Craig, and she was becoming uncomfortable.

“Mrs. Fraser,” said Ross quietly. “Do you really believe your husband told you everything about himself? Isn't it possible that he had some secrets from you, that he kept a part of himself separate—”

“No!” Abruptly, Katherine stood up, hating him for making her lie. “It is not possible and it is none of your business; nothing here is any of your business!”

He sat still, looking up at her. “I want a few answers. Then I'll leave. The more you help me, the sooner that will be.”

“I can't help you! Can't you understand that? Can't you understand that I have no interest in you or your cousin? You said yourself there was probably nothing in it; what more do you want? You walk in here and accuse my husband of being someone else, which is ridiculous; you show me a picture that
doesn't look at all like him; and you expect me to let you talk all day about it? I have other things to think about and
I want you to go.
I don't even know why you came here, trying to upset us—”

“I'm not here to upset you. I'm here because my grandmother sent me.”

The unexpectedness of it caught Katherine in mid-flight. She tried to picture Ross's grandmother—how old she must be!—sending him to Vancouver on a wild goose chase. Ross leaned forward. “You see, Victoria is absolutely certain this is
her
Craig, her grandson, and she asked me—instructed me,” he added with a private smile of such tenderness that for a moment Katherine liked him. “Instructed me to drop everything and come to Vancouver to confirm it.”

“And if you found it wasn't true?”

“I would tell her that and she would accept it. After all, she'd already lost him once.”

“Lost him.” For the first time, Katherine picked up the picture and really looked at it. A thin young man, clean-shaven, wearing a sports shirt open at the neck, tilting his head and smiling, but with an air of sadness, as if a thought or a memory haunted him. Shakily, she sat down. The eyes were like Craig's. The face was Todd's.

Ross was watching her. “You see why I wanted answers.”

Stalling while she tried to think, Katherine asked, “What does that mean—lost him?”

“He disappeared. There was a sailing accident in San Francisco Bay and we never saw him again. We assumed he drowned and was swept away. The current is especially strong near the Golden Gate Bridge, where it happened. But he was very strong—a champion long-distance runner in high school and college. It's possible that he was able to swim to shore. And then walk away.”

“But why would anyone do that?”

“I don't know. Shock, perhaps. He'd jumped in the water to save his sister when she fell overboard.”

“And—did he?”

Ross shook his head. “She died.”

“That's . . . terrible. But still—”

“Her name was Jennifer.”

“Oh.” It was like a long sigh.

“And Craig never could face his own failures. He always ran away from them.”

The way your husband did.
The unspoken words hovered in the quiet room. But we don't know that, Katherine argued silently; we don't even know if he's alive. She thrust the picture at Ross. “Your grandmother is wrong. It's nothing more than a resemblance. My husband didn't even have a grandmother, at least none that he knew. He had no family at all; he was an orphan, just as I was. It was one of the things we talked about: how much we wanted a family.”

“No family. Who brought him up?”

“Oh, foster parents, but we meant we wanted a loving family. The Driscolls fed and clothed him but they didn't—”

“The Driscolls? That was the name he gave you?”

The note in his voice stopped her. “Do you know them?”

“My cousin and I used to play a game—that we were kidnaped and gave our kidnapers such a hard time they paid us to escape from them. We made it up from an O' Henry story we liked, called ‘The Ransom of Red Chief.' One of the kidnapers in the story, and in our game, was named Driscoll.”

In the silence Katherine heard the pounding of her heart. It's because he's so serious, she thought; he makes these coincidences sound more important than they are. “I'm not interested in your childhood games,” she said, making a move to stand up. “And if that's all you have to say, you'll really have to leave. We have so many things to do—”

“You have nothing to do but wait,” Ross said coldly. “Look, damn it, I don't like this any better than you do. I didn't even want to come up here—I thought it was a waste of time—but now I have the damndest feeling that it's not. In any event, there are too many things I can't explain, and I don't like loose ends. I'd think you wouldn't either; don't you want to know the truth? I want your help; whatever you can give me—”

“I can't give you anything!”

“Photographs. Letters. A diary. Didn't your husband have a desk? Craig always had one at home, with everything sorted out, alphabetized, organized into neat packs held with rubber bands or pieces of string that he'd collect and wind around his finger—”

“So what?” Katherine cried. “Millions of people organize their desks that way!”

“Or,” he went on, watching her. “You can tell me what you thought when you looked at this picture. Todd. Is that right? I think it is; when I first saw him, I thought I was looking at Craig at that age. Craig and I grew up together; he was only two years older—that would make him thirty-seven now; is that your husband's age?—and we were as close as brothers, especially since neither of us liked Derek, who really is my brother. Derek is one year older than I. We all came in a rush, as Victoria liked to say. Jennifer, too: if she'd lived, she'd be thirty-three now. And Todd is the image of Craig at seven or eight. Which is he?”

“What?”

“Todd. Is he seven or eight?”