in his arms in bed but sitting next to him in one of my mother’s old Adirondack chairs outside the summerhouse, staring at the velvet silhouette of the mountains and the star-spangled sky over the valley. One of us always brought a bottle of wine and we’d drink it while he recounted the history of one of the constellations or explained why Pluto had been demoted as a planet or told me some piece of astronomical trivia that fascinated him. Then he’d position the telescope—a Starmaster, the Rolls-Royce of telescopes—so all I had to do was look through the eyepiece as the familiar scent of his cigar floated through the air and we listened to the summer night sounds of a hoot owl or a crying fox or the autumn serenade of the tree frogs and cicadas.
This was the first time he’d been out there during the day. I grabbed a jacket from the mudroom and threw it on over Ali’s clothes. As expected, he was in his customary chair, smoking a Swisher Sweet cigar and staring at the valley. I knew he must have heard me, though he didn’t turn his head.
“Harlan Jennings tried to commit suicide this morning.” I sat next to him in my own chair. “He tried to drown himself.”
That roused him.
“Oh, my God, you’re kidding.” He looked at the rolled cuffs of my pants and the horsey sweater. “Whose clothes are those? You own a sweater with saddles and bridles on it? Where have you been?”
“The clothes are Ali’s. And I’ve been in their swimming pool, pulling Harlan off the bottom.”
“Jesus, is he alive?”
“He was breathing with the help of a respirator when the ambulance left, but he wasn’t conscious.”
“I’m really sorry to hear that.”
“Me, too.”
“Why did he do it?”
“Why do you think? Didn’t you read the
“No,” he said. “I figured a news blackout for the next six months or so would do me good until this blows over. Why, what’s in the
“In a word, yes.”
He knocked the ash off his cigar and watched it drop to the ground. “Suicide is a coward’s way out. You leave behind everyone else to clean up your mess. I feel sorry for Ali and the boys.”
“Me, too.”
“If he recovers, I’d like to punch his lights out.”
“Quinn!”
“So sue me. I would.” He shifted in his chair and looked me in the eye. “I lost absolutely everything, Lucie. Every cent of my mother’s money and all my savings. I’m flat broke.”
I reached for his hand with both of mine, but he pulled away.
“We’ll start over,” I said. “Mick asked me to buy his grapes for the fall harvest. I can’t possibly do that without you—”
His laugh was harsh. “Yeah, I heard about that. Mick lost a bundle, too.”
“Mick still thinks Humpty Dumpty can be put back together again.”
“There isn’t enough Crazy Glue in the world. It’s over, Lucie. And thanks for your offer, but no, thanks.”
“What do you mean, ‘no, thanks’?”
“I’m not interested.”
What was he talking about? He was still the winemaker here.
I said, “You think it’s too much for us to handle? You want to bring on an assistant winemaker?”
“Do whatever you want,” he said. “I’m out.”
“Out how? You’re not quitting?”
“Look, back off, will you? I got enough stuff to deal with right now without you hammering at me.”
“I’m
His eyes locked on mine and I knew we were on the brink of crossing another of those can’t-go-back boundary lines we’d crossed once or twice before in our relationship. A winning combination—as Frankie would say—of bullheaded ego and stubborn pride because he wouldn’t back down and I couldn’t.
This time, though, it was for all the marbles. If he quit and left, I’d lose him for good. We needed to step back from this ledge before one of us jumped.
“Wait,” I said. “Don’t answer that. Forget I asked. We’re both upset and overwrought. We don’t have to do this now.”
“Why?” he said. “It isn’t going to change anything or get any easier.”
“Quinn,” I said. “For the love of God, just … don’t say anything right now, okay? I don’t think I could take it.”
“This isn’t about you, Lucie, so stop acting like it is.”
I never should have said what I said next, but I did—and there was no taking it back. An hour ago I was on my knees trying to breathe life into Harlan Jennings who toxed himself up with enough alcohol and drugs to ease the pain of walking off a diving board into nine feet of water. No, it wasn’t about me, but I’d been pulled into it, anyway.
“What do you know about it? Rebecca Natale dragged me into the middle of Asher Investment’s free fall and she didn’t ask my permission. Since then she’s gone missing and presumed dead, Ian Philips is dead, and Harlan Jennings just tried to kill himself.” I ticked their names off on my fingers as my voice rose. “It’s too bad you lost your money but at least you’re still around to talk about it, which is more than any of them are. So stop wallowing in self-pity and venting your anger at me. It’s not my fault you built your future on a house of cards. I’m only trying to help.”
His eyes blazed, and now the point of no return was well in the rearview mirror.
“I’m going inside,” I said before he could speak. “Do whatever you have to do or want to do. I need a shower and my own clothes. I’ll see you tomorrow for work and we’ll figure out where we are then.”
I got up and left and didn’t look back. He never said a word. I made my way through rosebushes that were just beginning to shake off their winter dormancy, and banged the veranda door shut on my way inside in case he hadn’t figured out just how mad I was.
By the time I showered and changed, the Mustang was no longer in the driveway. I walked into the library and threw myself on the sofa, knocking the book of Alexander Pope’s poetry, which I’d left on one of the cushions, to the floor. It landed faceup, open to the much-viewed epistle to Richard Boyle. I picked it up and read, for the hundredth time, the long passage Rebecca had marked.
What if I’d been looking for the wrong landmark? What if there was a summerhouse—like mine—somewhere in Washington? I got my laptop off the desk and brought it back to the sofa. The Internet search took me to the U.S. Capitol website in seconds. The Summer House was a small open-air, hexagonal, brick building designed by Frederick Law Olmsted in the late 1800s and set in a secluded grove on the Senate side of the Capitol.
There was a picture of the place with its charming arched entrances, basket-weave brickwork, wrought-iron gates, and Spanish mission tile roof. It looked like a whimsical folly, completely different from the elegant, austere Capitol. I kept reading. Built as a resting place for visitors and their horses to get a cool drink of water on a hot day, Olmsted’s original fountain had been replaced by modern drinking fountains. Plans for a southern summerhouse near the House of Representatives had been scuttled by Congress over concerns improprieties could be already taking place on Capitol grounds since the northern building was so secluded and well hidden from public view.
I had read about this last night at the Library of Congress—the last display showing Olmsted’s landscaping
