lips and shook my head, as if the tragedy were too horrible for words.
“So you’d already heard?” Martin asked.
“The counterman at the hardware store said he’d heard it from Hugh Harbor, yes. But we didn’t think we knew the Harbors well enough to call and ask them what the facts were. We heard Hugh is really sick… and we didn’t see Craig’s funeral announcement in the paper.”
“The body hasn’t been released by the medical examiner yet,” I said, finally managing to strike the right tone. Sober concern, that was appropriate. For the first time, I realized I was sleep deprived in a serious way. As if hearing his psychic cue, Hayden began to make noises upstairs. It was amazing how clearly his little voice came over the receiver, which I was clutching in my left hand. I’d been afraid to put it down.
I half turned to Martin, said, “I’ll check, honey,” (as though Martin had moved). I plodded up the stairs, to see the little arms and legs nailing above the edge of the bumper pads.
He wasn’t crying, so I figured he wasn’t hungry. Maybe you were supposed to hold off on the bottle until they asked for it? Since the only way for a baby to ask for a bottle was to cry, wasn’t that kind of mean? On the other hand, sticking food in their mouth every time they were awake would create a bad pattern… Gosh, there was nothing easy about this. You might as well get your answers by interpreting the pattern of chicken bones tossed under the full moon. I propped Hayden back on his side and began to pat him. To my pleasure, he went back to sleep.
While I’d been tending to Hayden, the Granberrys had been establishing common ground with Martin. I’d hoped they’d be a source of information about Regina and Craig, but I knew we’d have to let a polite conversational time lapse before questioning them. They’d been talking about the possibility of snow during the night, and I came in on the tail end of the weather discussion.
Margaret liked babies. I could tell by the way her eyes latched onto the nursery monitor as I came into the room.
“I didn’t realize you and Martin were parents,” she said slowly. “How old is your baby?”
Martin, who’d gotten a straight chair from the kitchen, looked resigned.
I said, “He isn’t ours.” After they refused a drink, I eased back into the chair, tired as I’d ever been in my life.
“You’re baby-sitting?”
“This is Regina’s baby,” Martin said.
Even her next-door neighbors hadn’t known Regina was going to have a baby? My doubt that Regina had ever given birth was beginning to consume me.
“Regina’s baby?” Luke asked. He seemed just as startled as his wife. “Where on earth has it been?”
“With Regina missing and Craig dead, we had to step in,” Martin said smoothly, as I opened my mouth to tell them the whole story.
“That was the best plan,” I said, just to justify my open mouth.
Obviously, the Granberrys were curious, but too polite to ask any more questions. After some idle talk about how long we might stay, and a polite offer on our visitors’ part to help in any way they could, the Granberrys rose to leave. Margaret was holding Luke’s hand, and I thought that was sweet. I love to see people who’ve been married a while still act like lovers.
Though, I considered, she might actually need the support. Margaret was looking a little shaky.
“We didn’t know Regina was going to have a baby,” I said, kind of throwing out a line, as Luke and Martin were shaking hands.
Margaret nodded. “She was very secretive about it, apparently. Listen, if you get lonely, give me a call? Our number’s in the book. If Martin has catching up to do with friends here in town, you may be at loose ends. Or maybe you’ll need me to baby-sit.”
“Thank you,” I said. “I’ll call you. And thanks for coming to check on the house. We appreciate your being concerned.”
“We’ve tried to keep an eye on the house since we heard about Craig,” Luke said. He looked from Martin to me, to make sure we both understood his sincerity. “If you need anything, anything, while you’re here, just let us know. We’ll be glad to see you.”
As I gave Hayden his bottle later, I said, “They seemed nice, Martin. I think we should try to get together with them again and see if they know any more about Craig and Regina than the little we know. It sounded to me like they saw them fairly often. What do you think?”
“They seem too damn trusting,” my husband said. “Coming all the way over to what they think may be an empty house at night, to check on lights. What if we’d been burglars?”
“He had a rifle in the gun rack in the cab of his pickup,” I said, moving Hayden to my shoulder to burp him. “I noticed, because it made me feel right at home.” In Lawrenceton, everyone seemed to own a gun, a rifle, or a shotgun, whether or not they hunted. Martin had a gun himself; Martin had not always been a business executive, as I would do well to remind myself.
This day had contained more than its fair share of hours. I was ready for it to be over. The ancient dryer was taking too long to dry the newly washed sheets. Martin occupied Hayden while I went in search of more. I was surprised and relieved to find another set in the upstairs bathroom closet, and it took me a minute or two to remake the bed. I had to put on the same blankets and bedspread, but I resolved to wash them in the morning.
I knew, as I scrubbed quickly in the ancient bathtub, that any mild obligatory affection I had had for Regina had ebbed away with this close examination of her marriage. I loathed her life. I loathed her little mysteries. But most of all, I loathed the nasty situation she’d dragged to our door, because I had a deep conviction that Regina had known exactly how imperiled she was when she’d driven from Corinth to Lawrenceton. If she’d been open with us, if she’d been frank, everything that had happened since then-and I visualized a long set of dominos, one toppling against the other-could have been prevented.
My distaste and disapproval for a member of Martin’s family made me feel like a bad Christian and a bad wife. I’d often thought being a Christian meant by definition being a bad one, since nothing is more difficult than Christianity, so I was more or less used to that feeling. But I was not used to being a bad wife.
Maybe I could make it up to Martin, a little.
He was dozing when I crawled in the bed next to him. I’d switched off the light in the bathroom off the landing, and making my way to the bed was something of an adventure. But once there, he wasn’t hard to find. I slid down, down under the covers. Martin made a startled noise. But it was definitely on the happy-startled side.
Afterward, when he held me and kissed me, he murmured, “Oh, honey, that was so good.”
“I hope I haven’t made you crazy today,” I ventured.
“You’ve made me crazy from the moment I laid eyes on you,” he told me, his voice drowsy with sleep and satisfaction.
I snuggled into my pillow, praying for a Hayden-less night.
“I love you,” Martin said suddenly. “I have a feeling that’s gotten shunted to a sidetrack the past few days.”
Past few months, more like.
“I know you love me,” I whispered.
“When we got married…”
I was so exhausted I had to force myself to listen. None of the Advice to the Lovelorn columns told you that some days you’d be too sleepy to listen to a declaration of love.
“… all I wanted was to protect you from any harm. To make you safe. Not to let anything worry you… frighten you… and make sure you never wanted for anything.”
Bless his heart, that was just not possible. But it was the most attractive illusion in the world, wasn’t it? What had I wanted to give Martin in return? I remembered hazily that I’d resolved to help him in his career by being a good hostess and a good guest, attending every event promptly and in appropriate clothes, expressing appropriate sentiments. I’d wanted to provide him with a house that was a home: clean, comfortable, good cooking smells in the kitchen, laundered clothes.
But after a while I’d felt compelled to work at least part-time, to go back to the library, because I loved the job and the books and the people. And there were days I had indulged myself by reading rather than doing the laundry,
