The Second Silence (8 page)

But when she pulled into the driveway, no one rushed out to greet her. She climbed from the Lexus and stretched to ease her cramped limbs before starting across the still-damp lawn. Mounting the creaky porch steps, she was struck by the unusual silence. At this hour, just past ten, there ought to have been the faint sounds of life stirring inside the house. The rattle of pipes and the hiss of running water, the radio tuned to WMYY.

She rang the doorbell, waiting with heart in throat for her mother to answer. Her response to this house never varied. Poised on its threshold at the end of a long absence, she always felt a conflicting sense of homesickness and despair. Nothing ever changed, but each time she couldn’t help feeling she was about to embark on a journey from which there would be no turning back.

She heard footsteps, then the click of the latch. The heavy oak door swung open. An old lady stood framed in the doorway, peering out at her. At first Mary scarcely recognized her own mother. Doris, in her double-knit turquoise slacks and matching floral top, might have stepped off a tour bus filled with a group of similarly dressed seniors on their way to view the Acropolis or Old Faithful. Blinking in the sunlight, she fixed her gaze on Mary as if to get her bearings.

‘Hello, Mama.’ Mary bent to plant a kiss on a dry cheek smelling faintly of talcum—and something else, something faintly and unpleasantly medicinal.

Seeing how much her mother had aged in just the last six months was a shock. Doris’s ginger hair was now snow white and her illness had left her frail; the flesh on her face appeared to be melting like tallow from the bones underneath. Only her eyes were the same, sharp and blue as sparks from flint.

‘You made good time,’ she said, stepping aside to let Mary in.

‘Luckily there wasn’t much traffic’ Mary lowered her voice. ‘Is she awake yet?’

‘Just. She’s upstairs now trying to get Robert on the phone.’ Mary caught a flash of worry before her mother’s expression settled back into its familiar groove: stoic perseverance mixed with a trace of scorn.

Moving more slowly than usual, with the crabbed gait of someone ailing, Doris led the way down the hall, her rubber-soled shoes squeaking against the old dark-stained floorboards. Mary followed with a knot of trepidation in her stomach. A glance into the darkened living room confirmed that Noelle had indeed spent the night there; the coffee table had been pushed aside, and a blanket was scrunched at one end of the brocade sofa.

In the kitchen Doris retrieved a mug from the drainer on the counter. ‘You look as if you could use some coffee,’ she said. ‘There’s milk in the fridge. Help yourself.’

‘Thanks, but I take it black.’ It was a little game they played, her mother pretending she didn’t know Mary took her coffee black and Mary acting as if Doris had merely forgotten.

She watched her mother fill the mug from the old-fashioned percolator on the stove. The kitchen was as tidy as ever, its speckled green linoleum and beige Formica counters gleaming. Even the souvenir plates on the rail over the table shone as if freshly washed. Noelle must have gone out of her way to keep it nice, knowing how much it meant to her grandmother. Mary felt a tiny stab of unwarranted jealousy.

She sat down at the table by the window. It looked out over the backyard, where an old tire swing hung from the stout branch of a linden tree, its shadow a flattened oval on the scuffed grass below.
Nothing ever changes,
she thought. Even with life as she’d known it about to erupt like a sleeping volcano, her mother moved about the kitchen exactly as she had on any one of a thousand mornings, wiping the stove-top where a few drops of coffee had spilled, carefully rinsing the sponge, then poking a finger into the African violet on the sill to see if it needed watering. Mary had the sudden uneasy sense of her past as something tangible, a book she could open at random, in which the story of her life was written, predetermined and immutable. It must have shown on her face because Doris paused to glance at her curiously as she carried the steaming mug to the table.

‘You hungry? I could scramble some eggs.’

How could I possibly eat at a time like this?
Mary wanted to scream. But all she said was, ‘No, I’m fine. I’ll make myself a sandwich if I get hungry later on.’ Hearing the creak of floorboards overhead, she froze with the mug halfway to her lips. In a low, fraught voice, she asked, ‘Did she say anything about what happened last night?’

Doris shook her head. ‘No, just asked after Emma. When I told her that Robert had her, she went white as a sheet and rushed upstairs to phone him.’

She lowered herself carefully into the chair opposite Mary. Sunlight poured in through the gingham curtains, reflecting off the gold crucifix that had snagged on the top button of her blouse. It seemed to wink like an all-knowing eye, reminding Mary that it had been years since she’d been to church. She felt like praying now, getting down on her knees and begging the Lord to make all this go away.

Mary sighed, cradling her mug with both hands. ‘Has she told him yet—that she’s leaving him?’

Doris nodded. ‘They had dinner together last night to talk over what was best for Emma.’ Her mouth tightened. ‘I warned her not to. I had a feeling it would lead to no good. And I was right.’

Mary felt a flash of annoyance. That was what counted most, wasn’t it? Her mother always had to be right, first and foremost. Well, Doris wasn’t the only one with a dim view of Robert. Mary recalled how horrified she’d been nearly nine years ago when Noelle announced that she was engaged … to Corinne’s former boyfriend. A man old enough to be her father. A man whom Mary was convinced to this day had somehow pushed her friend into committing suicide.

In the shock of the moment she’d said something that had taken Noelle years to forgive her for. Stunned and disbelieving, Mary had blurted, ‘You can’t be serious! The man’s a monster. He’ll destroy you, just like he did Corinne.’

Her words had been like a sharp instrument puncturing her daughter’s bubble. The rosy flush drained from Noelle’s cheeks and her eyes glowed unnaturally bright in a face pale as ash. ‘I don’t recall asking your advice,’ she’d said, her voice cold. ‘I learned a long time ago that it didn’t pay to ask
anything
of you.’

Mary’s heart ached now with the knowledge that she’d been right all along. Unlike her mother, she’d have given anything to have been proven wrong. For years, she’d noticed how unhappy Noelle was and recently, when Noelle began confiding in her, she’d urged her to—

‘He wouldn’t even let me speak to her.’

Mary swung around in her chair. He daughter, white as chalk with dark circles under her huge gray-blue eyes, stood barefoot in the doorway. Her curly black hair lay in a tangled skein about her shoulders, and she was still wearing her dress from last night, a light blue silk sheath now hopelessly wrinkled. She glanced at Mary as if only mildly surprised to find her mother, who lived more than a hundred miles away, seated at the kitchen table having coffee with her grandmother.

Mary longed to jump up and embrace her, but something in Noelle’s face warned her to stay put. ‘Oh, honey,’ she cried softly in dismay.

Noelle spoke as if in a deep trance. ‘He says I don’t
deserve
Emma, that she’ll be better off with him.’ The full weight of it struck home, and she collapsed bonelessly into the chair next to Mary’s. Hoarsely she whispered, ‘He accused me of being drunk last night.’

‘Were you?’ Mary forced herself to ask.

Noelle shot her a look of unadulterated scorn. ‘Would you believe me if I said no?’

‘Of course.’

Noelle’s hard expression dissolved into one of confusion. ‘I don’t know
what
happened. I started feeling dizzy at the restaurant, and the next thing I knew I was on the floor.’ She ran a trembling hand over her face. ‘I can’t be sure, but I think Robert might have slipped something into my soda.’

Mary had no doubt Robert was capable of such a thing. Even so, the idea was like something out of a soap opera. Sitting in this sunny kitchen with its African violets on the sill and Porky the Pig cookie jar on the counter by the breadbox, she thought it more than a little absurd.

At the same time she was acutely aware that a great deal hinged on her reply. ‘I wouldn’t put it past him,’ she said crisply. ‘How do you feel now?’

‘Like I got hit over the head with a croquet mallet.’ Noelle groaned.

‘I’ll get you some coffee.’ Mary started to get up, but Noelle’s hand shot out with lightning quickness to fasten about her wrist.

It was her haunted eyes, though, that held Mary captive. ‘I know what it looks like, but you’ve got to believe me.’ Noelle’s fingers tightened, digging into her flesh. ‘He
wants
everyone to think I was drunk. It’s all part of his scheme.’

‘What about the police? Do you think it would help if we phoned them?’ Even as she said it, Mary was dubious. The deputy sheriff, Wade Jewett, was an old buddy of Robert’s.

‘I already threatened to do that.’ Noelle dropped her hand from Mary’s wrist and sat back, eyes brimming with unshed tears. ‘Robert just laughed and told me to call his lawyer. He claims to have gotten a judge to sign an order of protective custody.’

Doris bolted upright in her chair. ‘Why, of all the lowdown, dirty—’

‘Do you think he’s telling the truth?’ Mary interrupted.

‘I don’t doubt it for an instant. He planned the whole thing. He set the trap. And I—I walked right into it with my eyes open.’ Noelle’s shoulders slumped, and she buried her face in her hands. When she lifted her head, her cheeks were wet with tears.

‘You’ll need a lawyer of your own,’ Mary told her.

Noelle’s expression was dismal. ‘The only lawyers I know are the ones who work for Robert.’ She caught her lower lip between her teeth, frowning in anger, not just at Robert but at her own naïveté.

Mary suddenly remembered her old friend Lacey Buxton. They’d fallen out of touch, but she’d heard Lacey was back in town, setting up practice. ‘I know someone who might be able to help,’ she ventured. ‘A woman I went to school with.’ She spoke carefully, so as not to arouse false hope. ‘Let’s hope her home number is listed.’

‘I’ll check.’ Doris rose to her feet and shuffled over to the phone on the wall, reaching into the drawer below to retrieve a directory that was thinner than Mary’s address book at home.

‘Look under Buxton,’ Mary directed. ‘Lacey Buxton.’

Doris glanced up sharply, her mouth flattening with disapproval. ‘Well, if that’s your idea of a life rope we might just as well call the undertaker.’

‘What do you have against Lacey?’ Mary wanted to know.

‘As if you didn’t know,’ her mother sniffed.

A sharp ping sounded in Mary’s head, like a taut string snapping. Anger, clear and bracing, swept through her. ‘You mean because thirty-odd years ago Lacey Buxton was caught naked with her father’s best friend? Mama, with everything that’s going on right now, do you really think all that ancient history amounts to a hill of beans?’

Doris’s lips were buttoned so tightly to her teeth they quivered. Mary tensed, bracing herself for a blast of righteousness, but all at once her mother’s expression softened into one of profound weariness. In a hollow voice she conceded, ‘I don’t suppose it does.’

Mary exchanged a look with her daughter. In that instant they were united, if only briefly. Two women who’d grown up in the same house, butting up against the same wall of hidebound beliefs and prejudices. However devoted she was to her grandmother, Mary knew it couldn’t have been easy for Noelle either.

She felt a rush of protectiveness so strong it left her weak-kneed. Once before her child had been in peril, and Mary, too frightened and inexperienced to do otherwise, had allowed her mother to take charge. Now she knew exactly what to do.

‘Why don’t you get dressed while I make the call?’ she suggested. ‘If Lacey’s home and will see us, I’ll drive you over there. Once you know where you stand, I’m sure we’ll
all
feel better.’

CHAPTER 3

I
N THE CAR NOELLE WATCHED MARY
root about in her purse for the keys.
I ought to thank her,
she thought. For coming in the first place, for going to all this trouble. But something kept her from doing so. She didn’t know why, exactly, but ever since she was little, she’d had this sense of withholding something precious from her mother, something you don’t dare expose to the air for fear it might crumble. She reached over to touch Mary’s arm.

‘You don’t need to do this.’ It came out more stilted than she’d intended, and she was quick to add, ‘I mean, I appreciate it, but I wasn’t expecting—’

‘Nonsense, I wouldn’t dream of letting you go alone. Besides, I certainly didn’t come all this way for nothing.’ Mary’s voice was determinedly upbeat.

As they drove along Cardinal, the tension between them stretched to fill the silence.
We’re like two ends of something broken,
Noelle thought. Forever butting up against each other in a useless attempt at a perfect fit. Maybe they weren’t trying hard enough. Or maybe they were trying
too
hard. Either way, it could never be the way it was with her and Emma …

Noelle thought of her daughter, waking up in the house on Ramsey Terrace. Confused, calling out in panic. What would Robert tell her? That Mommy was sick? At least that part wouldn’t be a lie. Noelle felt awful, her stomach rolling, her head like something that had been screwed on wrong. But she’d have walked barefoot over broken glass to get Emma back. She prayed this lawyer friend of her mother’s could help.

Lacey Buxton lived across town on Egrement Drive, less than a mile from Ramsey Terrace. As they started up the long, winding hill that led past St Vincent’s and the Fin & Feather funeral home just beyond, she thought,
Suppose she can’t do anything. What then?

For a terrible moment Noelle wondered if it
had
happened the way Robert claimed. In the early days of their marriage there’d been too many mornings when she’d woken to only the fuzziest recollection of the night before. Mornings when panic would sweep over her like a dirty gray tide awash with the flotsam of shame and recrimination.