The Summer Bones (23 page)

Her temple throbbed. She put up a hand and rubbed it, turning toward the stairs. “Good night, Michael.”

“Tell me,” he said in answer to her back, “have you slept with him?”

She stopped and stood as if struck. “What?”

“I asked if you've slept with Damon.”

She turned around, staring. “Are you crazy?”

He said reflectively, “I don't think I am. If it was a long time ago, I think I can understand. He's a good-looking guy, no doubt about it. At eighteen or nineteen he must have been quite capable of turning the head of a girl … what were you, sixteen? Or was it later? I could see how it would happen … the tension is there, my dear, most definitely there. I suppose what I'm really asking is if you are
still
sleeping with him.”

“Damon is my cousin!” She snapped out the words. Her face felt tight, like the flesh was drawn over the bones.

“He is that. But what I sense is more, Victoria, and I make a living reading lies in other people. You two are close, I know that. You have the bonds of childhood. You have family and heritage and the whole ball of wax. But that isn't what I see.” Michael lifted his drink and took a sip, but his eyes held hers deliberately. There was a small stain on his cuff, droplets of wine like dribbles of blood.

“What is it you think you see?” she asked stiffly.

“I think I see you lying to yourself.”

“You're being ridiculous. What is it with men? Ronald has your same problem. Damon is good-looking, yes, but so are a lot of other men I haven't slept with either. Jesus, Michael.”

“You didn't like seeing him with Andrea, did you?”

That stopped her cold. She took in a slow, trembling breath.

She said, “Good night, Michael.”

Stumbling on the first step took the grandeur out of her exit.

Small groups of people stood in huddles, talking in low voices. Their conversations were hushed, reverent, edged and formed by sympathy. Black was the color of the day—black shoes, black suits, black dresses—black against a drying lawn of dusty green and all of it punctuated by the crisp, clean outline of a white steeple against an azure sky.

Aunt Kate moved down the steps of the church and across the lawn to join Victoria and Michael where they stood by a gleaming rhododendron that didn't seem to mind the heat in the least. The leaves looked glossy and dark green with health. Michael was talking to Uncle Jim, his face uncharacteristically somber as he eyed the dispersing crowd. Hallie Helms wouldn't be buried until Tuesday. The whole town was waiting, especially this congregation.

The entire Sunday service had been a burden. Victoria was sorry she had dragged herself out of bed to attend. The Helms family members weren't the only people receiving pity and attention. One after another, friends approached, asking after Emily. If one more person patted her hand, Victoria thought blackly, she would scream.

She and Michael had barely spoken. And then there was Damon. An apology for her behavior last night ached in her head, unsaid. He hadn't said a word to her, or even looked at her, all morning. She wasn't sure what impulse had driven her to be so rude and irritable, but nevertheless, she wanted to say she was sorry for snapping at him that way.

The whole family had gone to church in separate cars—she and Michael in silence in the Jaguar, her grandparents in the Buick with Damon driving, and Rachel and her husband with Uncle Jim and Aunt Kate. Her father had driven down from Indianapolis by himself. Yet they all would go to the farm to be together for Sunday dinner.

Have you slept with him?

Michael's words still rang in her ears.

Aunt Kate touched her arm, her eyes so luminous and concerned that an instant and unexpected lump rose in Victoria's throat. “Victoria, honey, are you ill?” She drew her off to the side, the question low, one hand gently on her arm. “You're so pale today.”

Was it better to tell the truth
? Victoria wondered bitterly.
I'm fine, Aunt Kate, I just drank too much last night and snapped your son's head off for pointing out I didn't need to drink any more. Not to mention Michael accusing me of sleeping with him. And let's not forget Em and the possibility that something awful has happened to her. Other than that, everything is just absolutely fine.

“No,” she admitted aloud, compressing her mouth and fighting that absurd urge to cry. “I think it's the tension. It's getting to me. The tension and this infernal heat.”

“It's no wonder.” Kate touched Victoria's cheek with the back of her fingers, a cool light gesture. “Your fiancé is a nice man,” she added kindly.

Kate's profile was clear and clean against the hazy shimmer of light in the churchyard. She must have been very young when she married Jim, Victoria realized with a small rush of surprise. It wasn't something she had ever thought about. In her memory, Kate was always young and serene and exquisitely beautiful. She still was.

“We aren't engaged,” she heard herself saying tiredly.

“Oh?” Perfect black brows curved upward. “He says you are. We had a nice talk on Friday night. He mentioned something about next summer for your wedding.”

“We've talked. Nothing is settled.”

A sympathetic look came into Kate's eyes at that statement. “You don't sound like you're as sure as you should be about Michael.”

It wasn't the place for it. If she would pour her doubts, her fears, her uncertainties, out for anyone, it might be Kate, but not in the middle of a crowded church lawn while the people around them sweated gently into the Sunday noon hour and the old ladies bunched into gossipy circles.

“We had an argument.” She waved her hand in a frustrated gesture. “The whole thing was completely stupid,” she added dejectedly.

“Arguments usually are. I'm not trying to put you on the spot.” Kate hugged an arm around her shoulders. “I just wondered if you knew how miserable you look this morning.”

“It's Emily,” Victoria said. It wasn't a whole truth. She felt ashamed using it. It
was
Emily, but also a lot more.

“Oh, honey, I know.” Kate's eyes darkened.

From a distance, Michael turned and glanced back at the two of them. His hands were casually thrust into his pockets and he was handling the Sunday-after-church socializing with his typical ease of manner, chatting with Jim and her father. If he felt any ill effects from the evening before, it didn't show. She managed a wobbly but artificial smile. He smiled back, listening with one ear to something Jim was saying. She didn't need to see the detachment in that smile to realize that something had changed between them last night. Michael had always been more certain about their relationship and where it was heading than she had been. Perhaps the conclusions he had drawn about her and Damon were simply a manifestation of his frustration.

“The situation just seems to get worse,” Kate murmured. She lifted a hand and waved to a departing friend, an older woman in a pink suit and stout black shoes. More people passed, speaking in low voices. There were more waves, the slamming of car doors. “I'm not sure whether to be grateful that we haven't heard from Emily, or to be terrified.”

Yes, that was it—passive waiting or active horror. Victoria stood there and felt the heat of the day radiating from the baking grass and shimmering sidewalks. Even the birds seemed quiet and subdued under the onslaught of deep summer.

“It's hard to know how to act,” Victoria said inadequately.

“Yes.” Kate looked around the yard, her gaze fastening on her son where he stood next to Andrea. Tall and dark in a gray suit, he was a studied contrast to Andrea's fair prettiness. “Speaking of which”—the question seemed innocent—”do you have any idea what's bothering Damon this morning? He'll barely speak.”

“No.” The lie came out hoarsely. Victoria turned away, hiding her eyes.
A breeze,
she thought desperately,
if only there was a breeze.

* * * *

It was a seemingly inevitable separation—a natural drifting apart, a division caused by years of behavior patterns and socially diverse interests. One by one, as soon as dinner was consumed, the dessert plates cleared, and the coffee cups emptied, the men migrated out to the back porch. They took up places along the rails, on the steps, in the swing. Jim, waxing eloquent on college basketball, stood solidly in the middle of the group, his discourse more audible than the others. Victoria listened absently through the open screen, his mellow voice rising and falling with the strength of his opinion on this coach or that team. Rachel's husband seemed to be arguing for Purdue against the University of Indiana. Dangerous ground, she thought wryly.

She wiped the last dish and handed it to Rachel. “How is it,” she observed sardonically, “that we get stuck with the dishes every time? Whatever happened to the feminist movement?”

Rachel shot her a disdainful look and put the dish in the cupboard. “I don't mind doing the dishes.”

No use arguing the principle with someone like Rachel. Victoria shrugged and glanced at the table. Her grandmother and Aunt Kate sat murmuring over the church service. Rachel moved to join them, plopping down with pleasure. As per character, Rachel had been ghoulishly intrigued by the finding of Hallie's body and instantly turned the subject that way.

Victoria looked out the screen door at the group on the porch, and then back at the table. She couldn't bear either, she decided bleakly. She wasn't at all interested in basketball, nor could she stand to hear Rachel's speculations on what had happened to that poor girl. What she wanted, wanted acutely, was to be alone for a few minutes—alone and away. No Michael. No Aunt Kate watching her with empathetic eyes. Certainly no Rachel, with her morbid delight in the misfortunes of others. It was hard to believe that Rachel was Kate and Jim's daughter, or Damon's sister, for that matter.
You can choose your friends …
Victoria mused idly. She gave one more quick look around for stray dishes.

“I'm going for a short walk,” she announced, and left the kitchen through the downstairs hallway. In order to avoid Michael, whom she knew would want to accompany her, she rather guiltily let herself out the little-used front door.

The sun was shining. Naturally. The only topic currently more discussed in Mayville than the death of Hallie Helms was the weather. Victoria went down the front steps and began a wide circle of the back of the house, skirting the backyard. She passed the twisted lilac in the corner, its branches knotted and deformed with age, the leaves smelling dry and narcotic in the heat. The grass, long on that side of the house, brushed her legs with rasping fingers. The fields to her left were alive—moving, growing, dying in the heat. A robin, startled by her unexpected approach, beat up out of a sapling redbud tree, whirling out over the gleaming roof of the house. Victoria's purpose was to stay out of sight as much as possible. Her destination, without a conscious decision being made, seemed to be the pond. She passed the old shed, the lichened roof gleaming gray and green, and went into the quiet shadow of the big barn.

It was cooler there. The air was rife with the smell of manure and warm rotting wood. Victoria slipped around the structure and through the gate, throwing one brief glance over her shoulder. She could see the porch, her uncle still standing like a schoolmaster, commanding attention and waving his arms. Damon had removed his coat and was standing by the railing, dark head bent, talking to Michael. His white shirt was stark against the muted gray of the porch. She felt another spasm of guilt as she moved down the worn path toward the water. She should be there, part of that quiet Sunday family scene. Once she had stolen a few minutes of solitude maybe she could face going back.

The relentless heat of the sun was broken by the trees hanging over the pond. They cast cobalt shadows that hovered, motionless, lying along the water. It smelled richer here, of growing plants and hidden depths. Victoria walked slowly out onto the dock. It shifted and whispered under her weight as her shadow crept along to darken the warped boards. The old rowboat listed slightly in response.

The locusts called incessantly. A weight settled in her chest, a heaviness born of stress and depression. Disregarding her linen dress and hose, she took off her shoes and sat down. Even the water was warm to the touch as she reached over and filtered her fingers through the surface, cupping her palm full of tepid liquid. A hundred hot, lazy childhood days had been spent playing in this water, racing down the lane, climbing in the trees. The child inside her that had lived those memories now ached for the past. Sitting there in the sun, she felt again like the quiet, trailing child who had calmly watched her sister play, tease, and charm the world around her—lovely Emily, who lived life impulsively and happily; Emily, who was the antithesis of herself, but just as much a part of her life.

“Emily?”

She said the name out loud on an impulsive whisper and felt her voice echo and die.

Nothing but the teem of the insects in the trees and the stealthy rustle of the leaves. The entreaty was lost.

The good intentions of going right back to the house died away. The sun felt good on her shoulders, burning through the thin material of her dress. She sat alone, brooding, as the dappled water moved, fluid and serene, against the weedy shore. The list of variables burned as hot as the sun—Emily's lover was a shadow, her husband was unstable, her business partner was uncooperative. She'd been bruised in April, pregnant in May, missing in July.

Victoria struggled to set all the facts into an order she could view with detachment. Minutes passed. Her head ached vaguely, remnants of last night's wine.

It's no good.
Getting to her feet, she shook the hair out of her eyes and brushed her cheek with absent fingers. The facts were a mess, lacking logic and motivation. They made no more sense now than before.
Best to go back to the house and spend some time with Michael before he leaves to go back to Chicago
. At least—the thought was a sigh—he wasn't insisting she come back with him. Reluctantly, Victoria walked back down the dock toward the shore.