thought about the overbearing older man.
'Now the bad news,' Culhane said.
'Will I need a cup of coffee?'
'Make it easy on yourself'
Jeff smiled, anxious, and picked up a stick of gum. 'I guess this will do.'
Culhane didn't smile. His lips were pressed together tightly and his eyes were narrowed and almost hostile.
'I'm ready,' Jeff said, still trying to sound unconcerned about whatever bad news awaited him. 'Go ahead.'
'I want to know why my niece won't return any of her aunt's phone calls. Or mine, for that matter.'
For the first time in all the years he'd known Culhane, Jeff saw real hurt in Culhane's eyes.
'I'm afraid I don't know what you're talking about,' Jeff said.
'You don't?'
'No. Why wouldn't Mindy return Irene's phone calls?'
'That's what I'm asking you.'
'Mindy and Irene are friends.'
'Mindy sure doesn't act that way anymore. No matter what time of night or day Irene calls, she gets that damned answering machine. She always asks Mindy to call her back and Mindy never does. What the hell is going on over there, anyway?'
Naked. Snow. Crashing through the ice in the brook Diane throwing coat around his shoulders.
'Nothing special,' Jeff said cautiously.
'Do you know we haven't seen Jenny once since she got back?'
'I'm sorry. It's just all the shock-the doctors say that seeing people right now is just too stressful for her.'
'We don't even get one peek at her in nearly three months?'
Jeff sat back, steepled his fingers, tried to exude the air of a relaxed, forthright young man. 'We're planning to invite you over for dinner.'
'You are?'
'Yes,' Jeff said. He'd never been much of a liar, which was why he'd given up copywriting and had become an account executive.
Ray Curhane managed to look pacified and irritated at the same time. 'Then why the hell doesn't Mindy call Irene and tell her that?'
'I'll see that she does it tonight,' Jeff said.
But Culhane wasn't finished. 'Do you have any idea how much we love you people?'
Jeff blushed. This definitely wasn't the kind of conversation he expected to have with former football great Ray Cuthane. 'I appreciate your concern.'
'And everything's fine?'
The snow. The brook. The curious light in the upstairs hallway.
'Fine.'
'No…marital trouble?'
'No.'
'No…drug problem or…psychiatric problem?'
Jeff shook his head. 'Everything's fine. Everything. Honestly.'
Mindy's screams, hiding in the closet. Hearing the footsteps come closer, closer…
Culhane sat back and sighed. He looked relaxed now, fingering the hard brim of his Stetson, glancing around the office. 'Still haven't gotten rid of all those fruity paintings, I see.'
Jeff laughed, almost grateful for the more familiar, arrogant Culhane tone. 'I guess I'll have to burn them someday, won't I?'
Culhane, standing up, laughed, too. 'You wouldn't get any objections from me if you did.' After setting his Stetson back on his head, cocked at a jaunty angle, Culhane put out his hand. Jeff took it. 'You're like my own son, Jeff. I know how corny that sounds, but you are. And Mindy's like my own daughter. When my brother and his wife died…' Culhane's eyes dropped for the moment. He had never made his peace with his brother's accident. The slightest mention of that terrible day always plunged him into what appeared to be clinical melancholy. He raised his eyes again. 'When my brother died, I vowed that the one thing I could do for him was to see that his family was raised properly-and that meant not only Mindy and Jenny, but when you came along, you too.'
Jeff smiled. 'We know that and we appreciate it, Ray.' He had never called him 'Ray' before.
'I apologize for my anger a few minutes ago.'
'I understand. I would have been angry, too. I'll see to it that Mindy starts returning those phone calls.' Culhane met Jeff's eyes squarely. 'You sure everything's all right?'
The blood over Mindy's face. Hiding in the attic. The footsteps.
'Everything's just fine, Ray. Fine.'
Jeff walked him to the door, clapped him on the shoulder, and then held the door for him as he went out.
Dropping back behind his desk, picking up his Cross pen so he could get back to work, Jeff realized suddenly that for the first time in all the years he'd known the man, Jeff actually felt good about knowing Ray Culhane.
He tried not to notice his headache or the terrible vivid images that kept cutting through his consciousness every few minutes.
Everything was fine, just as he'd told Ray.
Fine.
He had to remember that.
Had to.
Unless he jogged at noon, afternoons were generally lost to Jeff. Listless, sluggish, he generally found himself trying to sustain interest and energy by ingesting generous amounts of Snickers and Diet Pepsi.
This afternoon proved no different. Stranded at his desk, the sunny day having been replaced by a gray, oppressive one, Jeff worked through his papers with a mixture of anxiety and depression. Occasionally, the violent images still rent his mind; even more occasionally, he felt drained, as if he could lie right down on the floor and take a nap.
He was catching himself dozing when his intercom buzzed. He felt like a schoolboy who'd been caught sleeping through history class.
'Yes?'
'Your wife on line three.'
'Oh. Thanks.'
He paused a moment, staring at the phone, trying to remember why he felt so nervous about speaking with Mindy. As if he had been drunk last night, he had spent a fourth of this day trying to reconstruct memories that seemed impossible to connect.
Snow.
Naked.
Brook
Ice.
Crash.
Diane.
Overcoat.
And for some reason even more unfathomable than the murky memories that teased at him…for some reason, Mindy was upset with him…though he had no clue as to why.
He picked up.
She said, 'You didn't do it.'
'Mindy?'
'You didn't do it, you bastard. You promised and you didn't do it.'
'What do you mean, I didn't do it? I don't even know what you're talking about.'
