wondered if a family as sundered as this one seemed could still cloak each other. The Goertz family huddled together against truth like it was a cold, driving rain.
I felt a sharp tang of fear for Bob Don. He wasn't going to trust me with his secrets; he wasn't going to let me help him.
A knock sounded at my door, softly. “Come in,” I called.
Gretchen entered, shutting the door firmly behind her. “I wanted to see if you're okay,” she said.
“You surprised me. Lying like you did to protect me.”
She didn't answer at first. She sat on the corner of my bed, curling her legs beneath her like a cat. “You and I have to stick together, Jordan. We're the outsiders here.”
“Outsiders?”
She smiled a half smile of shaky resolve. “We're Goertzes, all right, but we're not quite up to snuff. Didn't you hear how hard Lolly was on everyone at dinner? And those are the real family. How do you think you and I ranked in her eyes-the family drunk and the unexpected illegitimate child?” She ran a hand through her permed, graying hair. “We're distant blood-not quite part of the family, but still there.”
“When Lolly was ragging on Aubrey about his book- about the various characters he could discuss-she said the family slut, and she looked right at you.” I sat down next to her on the soft quilt. “Why is that?”
“Jordan, I-” she started, then stopped. “I've caused a lot of grief to this family. I'm sure most of them wished I'd never come along.”
“I'm sure that's not true,” I offered. “Deborah and Sass obviously care about you.”
“Do they? I marry a Goertz and leave him for his brother. I drove a wedge between two men who should have been the closest of friends but who became the most bitter of enemies. I destroyed Paul's life, and Lolly could never forgive me for it. She was always hateful toward me. She told me once it was fitting I was a drunk. I deserved it.”
“You can't feel guilty about leaving Paul. You had to do what was right for you.” I touched her shoulder, and she didn't flinch away. “No one can begrudge you your happiness.”
“Happiness? I've given little joy to myself or to anyone else.” She massaged her forehead, a tired expression furrowing her brow. “Do you know what guilt is, Jordy? Real guilt, the kind that never lets you sleep or eat or think for a long stretch of time. It hovers near your shoulder, like a little devil whispering in your ear.”
I attempted comfort. “You said you didn't give happiness to people. But you made me happy today. When you stuck up for me.”
Gretchen Goeitz looked hard into my eyes. All the old discord between us seemed to have happened a century ago as we sat together on the bed listening to the wind crescendo around us and the first patters of hard rain slammed against the windows.
She took my hand, for the very first time, and her palm felt cold against mine. A thin sheen of damp covered her fingers and they trembled in my grasp.
“You must know. You must know how much he loves you.” Her voice sounded small, like a child's whisper.
“He doesn't want me here. He won't trust me-”
“He's so afraid of losing you. He knows now, what with Lolly's threats against you, her death-he should never have brought you here. He doesn't want you to pay for our sins.”
“Sins?” I leaned in closer to her, our noses and mouths nearly touching. Our voices were mere murmurs.
“Do you love your father, Jordan? Do you?”
I took a long, shuddery breath. “I'm still not used to thinking of him as my father-”
She stilled my talk with her cold fingertips. “Enough analysis. Enough posturing. Enough denial. Push has come to shove. His life may depend on this. Tell me. Do you love him?”
His life may depend on this. Her fingers felt icy against my lips, her palm smooth against my jaw. I pressed my tongue hard against the roof of my mouth. “Yes,” I managed to croak. “Yes, I love him.”
Gretchen closed her hand around my face and for one moment I thought she would kiss me. Her eyes were half-closed and she breathed slowly, her mouth open, her breath smelling of mint gum.
“I want to help him, but he won't let me. Why?” I whispered.
She pressed her lips together and regarded me again with surprising frankness.
“I was afraid-because I'd been such a bitch-you could never love him. Could never accept him. I used to want that, I wanted you never to want him as your daddy. But no more.” She clasped both my hands in hers. “You've got to help me, Jordan. Help me protect him. I don't think I can do it alone.”
“Tell me.”
“You have to promise me. You'll help protect Bob Don. Please.”
I wavered for a moment. “Just what did he do?”
“Promise me!” she insisted.
“I promise. I'll do everything I can to protect him.” I kept my words barely louder than a soft breath. “He and I aren't distant blood, right?”
She shuddered. “Blood again. This has been a place of needless death ever since those sailors were butchered on the beach. I want to leave here and never come back.”
“Tell me.” I squeezed her hands.
Long silences-the ones that last years and graft themselves into your very bones-are the hardest to break. She tensed, like steel had hardened in her arms and legs, and she didn't look at me for minutes. I held her and waited. The outside squall roared and the rain went from drops to solid sheets, enveloping the house in rattles and hums.
“Paul. He killed Paul.” She forced the words out like a dying cough.
“But Paul committed suicide,” I whispered. “That's what Deborah said…”
“Ruled suicide. The body was never recovered.” Now that she'd made the dreaded admission, the words came a little easier. Tears dribbled from the corner of her eyes and she smeared them across her face with the back of her hand.
“Deborah said Paul left a suicide note-left it on the front door. Said he walked into the ocean because he couldn't live with the guilt of shooting Nora. But Deborah's sure her father didn't kill her mother.”
“I am,” Gretchen said. “Oh, I am. Because after Paul killed Nora, he came here to kill me.”
Down the hall, a door slammed, and I heard a sharply angry Deborah bickering with Aubrey that he had to go talk to Mendez next. Aubrey sounded reluctant and morose. Deborah urged him along, and shortly their voices faded down the stairs. Lightning flashed its hard light in my window, and I oddly imagined God taking a snapshot of Gretchen and me clutching each other's hands.
Her tongue flicked over her lips. “There's a taint in every family, something in the blood that can warp any poor soul that gets too much of the bad ingredient. In mine it's loving booze. My brother was a drunk, too. And our grandmother before us, although no one ever wanted to admit it.”
“Yeah. In my family it's being sharp-tongued and nosy,” I whispered back.
She laughed then, briefly, and I felt the first true connection between us take shaky life. I watched her wipe away another tear.
“So what's the taint of the Goertz blood?”
“Silence. And a horrible, horrible pride. The kind of pride that forces an entire family to its knees in its service. A pride that leads to insanity because it shackles you so. Paul suffered from it, and Lolly did, too. That's why they're dead.”
“Tell me what happened.”
She spoke now without hesitation, relieved to have her needed ally. “Paul was an artist, a gifted sculptor. When I left him he quit working. He became terribly depressed.
Mutt and Lolly insisted-Lolly and Paul were always close, they were cut from the same cheap bolt of cloth- that he go into treatment. He met Nora when he started work again; she was his favorite model. They married soon after.” She paused. “Deborah's so like her mother-trusting, kind-hearted, smart, but maybe too book smart. And Nora was sweet. It would have been easy for her to hate me, considering what I'd done to Paul. But she never did. At least she didn't ever show me anything but kindness. I loved her, too, and she didn't deserve such a terrible death.” A sob broke her words and I stayed quiet while she composed herself.
“We all thought Paul was finally happy. Deborah and Brian were born in fairly quick order and he seemed to