THIRTY
The baby’s crying, Mom.”
Lucinda opened her eyes. Uly stood beside the sofa, in his pajamas, his eyes barely open, his hair wild from sleep. Lucinda stirred and realized she was under a blanket, the blue one she kept in the hall closet.
“How did this get here?” she asked, trying to come fully awake.
“I put it over you when I got in last night. You looked cold.”
“Thank you, Ulysses.” She sat up and rubbed her eyes.
“Want me to get Misty?”
“I’ll take care of her.”
“Where’s Dad?”
“At the shop. He slept there last night, I imagine.”
“At the shop.” Uly looked at her as if he knew it was a lie, because it had been one of the lies over the years. Sleeping at the shop. Along with: Gone to the Twin Cities to deliver a custom order. Or: He went to a gun show. Before that, when Will was still in the Marine Corps, it was much easier. She would simply tell the boys that their father was on special-duty assignment for a few days. “Whatever,” Uly said, and shuffled back to his room and to bed.
It was early, although already well past dawn. Beyond the living room picture window, long morning shadows fell across grass still wet with dew. The birds were going crazy in the trees. In Alejandro’s old bedroom, the baby cried for her first feeding and changing of the day.
Lucinda threw back the blanket and rose to her life.
After she’d taken care of Misty and brewed coffee for herself, she tried calling the shop. No answer. Of course. She wondered why she even bothered. After her own breakfast of oatmeal and half a grapefruit, she went to the bedroom she shared with Will, and she opened the top dresser drawer. Inside was a cedar case the size of a small loaf of bread that Lucinda proceeded to open. The case contained the medals and ribbons Will had received during his service as a marine-Purple Heart, Vietnam Service Medal, Meritorious Service Medal, Combat Action ribbons, Good Conduct Medal, Drill Instructor ribbon, Presidential Unit citations, Kuwait Liberation Medal-as well as his dog tags and an extra set of keys to the shop. Lucinda took out the dog tags, wrote down the last four digits of his social security number, then put everything back into the case except the keys to the shop. She bundled up little Misty and secured her in the car seat, got behind the wheel of her Saturn, and drove to Will’s shop. His van wasn’t there, but she parked at the curb anyway and walked to the door.
Through the shop window, she could see that inside everything was dark. No surprise. She rang the buzzer but got no response. She used the key to unlock the door. As soon as she was inside, she reached out to key in the disarm code-the last four digits of Will’s social security number-on the alarm pad beside the door, but she was surprised to see that the alarm was already disengaged. This was unheard of because Will was more than just careful about locking up and turning on the alarm; with a shop full of firearms, he was maniacal about security. There were bars on the windows. The door had been special ordered and the lock carefully chosen for strength. A camera monitored the doorway day and night.
“Will?” she called toward the rear of the shop.
Receiving no answer, she returned to the car and disengaged the car seat, Misty still buckled inside. She went back into the shop and set the car seat on the counter. She used another key to unlock the door to the back room. Before she entered, she hesitated, aware that she was about to trespass on Will’s sanctuary. Finally she eased the door open and groped for the light switch on the wall. The shop was suddenly illuminated. No Will. No cot. Only the air full of the mixed smells of gun oil and cutting oil and solvent, the rows of shelving neatly stacked with cardboard boxes that held components for the firearms Will constructed, and the floor and the work areas clean, the way Will always left them. Except for the emptiness of her heart and a profound determination that came to her out of the silence of that room, Lucinda was alone.
When she arrived for work that Thursday morning at the Aurora Professional Building, Jo O’Connor found Lucinda in the waiting area of her office.
“Luci?”
Fran Cooper, Jo’s secretary, smiled from her desk and said pleasantly, “I explained to Ms. Kingbird that you had a full agenda today and I’d be happy to schedule her for an appointment as soon as you had an opening.”
“I asked to wait,” Lucinda said. She didn’t want to get the secretary, who’d been kind to her, in any trouble.
“That’s fine, Fran. Shall we go into my office, Luci?”
“Thank you.”
It was nice inside. Warm, civilized, Lucinda decided. Not like Will’s shop, full of bits and pieces of cold metal that created instruments of death. Here there were only books. And two plants that were well cared for. And a chair for her to sit in. And on the other side of the desk, a woman who was willing to listen.
“Would you like some coffee, Lucinda?”
“No, thank you.”
“How is little Misty?”
“She’s well. Ulysses is watching her for me. He’s very good with her.”
“What can I do for you?”
Lucinda looked down at her hands, folded in her lap. They were old hands, she thought, dried and cracked now because, with the baby, she was always washing them. She felt old, like her hands. Old and lost and frightened.
“I want to leave my husband,” she said in almost a whisper.
She glanced up and was relieved to see that Jo didn’t seem shocked or disappointed.
“Is there a particular reason?” Jo asked.
“I have lived for twenty-six years with a man I do not know. I know his voice, his walk, his smell. But his heart, his mind?” She shook her head.
“Does Will know how you feel?”
“I think my husband does not care how I feel.”
“Have you talked with him about this?”
“No.”
“Has he abused you, Luci?”
“Never.”
“Is there something that’s precipitated your decision? Is he involved with someone else, or are you?”
Lucinda hesitated. “Involved?”
“An affair.”
Lucinda considered this and finally said, “No.”
“Do you love him?”
This she didn’t know how to explain, but she knew she had to try.
“I was sixteen years old when we met. I had a cousin who was a marine. He introduced us. Will was so handsome, so respectful, so full of bravado. He is the only man I have ever had. I have followed him around the world. I have given him sons. I have tried always to respect him.” She stared deeply into the soft blue of the other woman’s eyes. “Is that love?”
Jo reached across the desk and took Lucinda’s hands in her own. “Oh, Luci, there’s so much that’s good in that. Are you sure you want to leave him?”
Lucinda looked into the other woman’s face and saw compassion there and she felt something like gentle fingers reach into her heart and slowly tug it open. She began to cry, softly at first, then huge sobs that shook her whole body. Jo came to her and embraced her and all the grief that Lucinda had been holding back with her denials flooded out.
“My boy, my Alejandro, gone,” she wailed, rocking in Jo’s arms. “And Rayette, bonita Rayette. All gone, all gone. Oh, God. Oh, Mother Mary, please help me.” She wept and wept and at one point drew away and tried to explain. “Will never cries. He does not understand. It is weakness to him.”
