I had known the Wynns only slightly, and that when I was more or less a child, so it was almost like meeting them for the first time. Sandy and Marvin Wynn were into their seventies, but they were both healthy and lean as whips. They’d always eaten correctly, walked four miles a day, and done things like taking square-dancing classes, or tai chi for beginners. Poppy, their late-in-life and unexpected child, had not had a chance of being included in this harmonious twosome. As much as they seemed to care for their daughter, when she’d begun to act out in high school, the Wynns hadn’t had a clue how to handle the problem. They’d clung to their sanity and hoped that Hurricane Poppy would lose its impetus in time.
Tonight, they were exhausted and grief-stricken and stunned. Somehow or other, they’d seen Poppy steered safely into the harbor of marriage and motherhood in suburbia, and now she had been killed in a horrible way, despite her achievement of a smooth life.
I had no idea what the Wynns needed. I didn’t know whether to try to get them to talk, to hustle them into their bedroom, or to feed them… I’d had enough experience with grief to know that its effects can be unpredictable.
Phillip shook their hands, though I don’t think he registered with them. Sandy hugged me as though we were very close, which we had never been, and Marvin hugged me, too, murmuring into my ear that he was so grateful to me for putting them up; the drive had been so long and confusing…
“Have you eaten?” I asked.
“Yes, I think we stopped a couple of hours ago,” Sandy said. “I think we ate. I’m not hungry. Are you, Marvin?”
I remembered Marvin Wynn’s hair as being red. Now it was snowy white. His face was lean and lined, and he had broad shoulders. He looked as though normally he could climb a mountain without breathing hard, and Sandy could probably drag a sled through the snow for a few miles. But right now, their faces were gray and sagging. Marvin shook his head. “No, not hungry.”
I showed them the bathroom they would share with Phillip (which I had restored to its orderly state) and then their bedroom. I’d opened boxes of tissues and left them on the bedside tables. There was free closet space and a couple of free drawers, extra blankets at the foot of the bed.
“If you need anything during the night, just come get me,” I said, showing them where my bedroom was. “Otherwise, there are cold drinks in the refrigerator, muffins in the bread box, and the coffeepot is right here.”
“We don’t drink coffee,” Sandy said earnestly. “But thank you. We’ll just wash up and go to bed, if that’s okay.”
“Anything you want is fine with me,” I said. “Here’s a key to the house. You may need it tomorrow.” I put it out on the counter, making sure they couldn’t miss it in the morning.
“You’re being so kind,” Sandy said, and her eyes overflowed. “Everyone is being so kind.” Marvin had put their suitcases in the bedroom, and now he put his arm around his wife. They went into the small room I’d prepared for them. I heard the door close.
I stared after them, the memory of the misery I’d plumbed after my husband died yawning wide at my feet. I would be useless the next day if I let myself step over the brink back into that awful time. With all the will I had, I wrenched myself back into the here and now. My brother’s alarmed face was staring at me. He really did look only fifteen at that second.
“Phillip, everything I told them-coffeepot, muffins, if you need me-I would have told you before we went to bed. Anything you want to ask?”
“Is there anything in the refrigerator you don’t want me to eat? Anything you’re saving for supper tomorrow night or something?”
“No, feel free. Eat me out of hearth and home.” I could tell he was trying to be a great houseguest, and that touched me.
“What do we do tomorrow?” he asked.
“Tomorrow, I’m going to have to do stuff connected with poor Poppy dying,” I said. “And I have to work, too. In fact, I have to get up early in the morning and go to work. I’ll leave a note here with my phone number on it. Why don’t you use the computer in the study to send your folks an E-mail? The password is on a slip of pink paper in the drawer.”
“The study? The room with all the windows and books?”
“Right. Sometimes Robin works in there, if his apartment gets to feeling too small. So don’t rearrange the piles of books.”
He snorted, as if that was ludicrous. “I’m not that much of a reader,” he explained. “That book of Robin’s was the first one I’d read in months. I’m not much on school, either.”
Meaning, I gathered, that the day he touched books voluntarily was a day that should be marked on the calendar. I suppressed a sigh. It was hard to believe a brother of mine wasn’t a reader. I had never been able to figure out what non-readers
I knew he had other pastimes. I was thinking, of course, of the condoms, and I thought about health issues. I tried to smile at him. “Tomorrow, you and I are going to talk about some stuff.”
His smile faded. “Uh-oh.”
“It won’t be as bad as all that,” I said. I hugged him, and just when I was about to let him go, I pulled him tighter instead. “Phillip, I’m so glad to see you. I was wondering if I’d ever get to see you again. I’m sorry you’ve been having a tough time. I’m happy you’re here.”
He patted my back awkwardly and made some indeterminate noises. I’d embarrassed the hell out of him, and he was fifteen and didn’t know what to do about it. After a second or two, I realized he was crying. I could only guess at the correct response. I remained still, my arms around him, rubbing his back gently. He wiped his eyes on the shoulder of my sweater, a childish gesture that somehow won me over completely.
“Good night,” he said in a clogged voice, then retreated to his room so quickly, I only glimpsed a reddened face.
“Good night!” I called after him, keeping my voice low so I wouldn’t disturb Marvin and Sandy Wynn.
The silence sank into my bones. With a deep sense of relief, I went into my own bedroom. It had been a very long day, maybe twice as long as my days usually were, at least in terms of emotional content. Either Poppy’s death or Phillip’s arrival would have given me a full slate of thoughts and feelings, and to have both at one time had sent me into overload. I needed to sleep more than I needed anything, and the only thing that would have made my bed look more welcoming would have been a shock of red hair on the other pillow.
I sat on the side of the bed and realized that what I missed was not Robin exactly, and not sex exactly. And it wasn’t missing Martin, either, though still at rare moments I felt I was being stabbed, the flash of grief was so intense. What I was missing at this moment was the state of being married. I missed having someone there to share the little moments of my day. I missed having someone someone to whom I was the most important person on earth. I missed being part of a team, whose job was always to back each other up.
Even the least perfect marriage has moments that are wonderful, and mine had been far from the least perfect.
I made myself go into my bathroom and begin my nightly routine. I was being ridiculous. My sister-in-law had died an awful death this morning, and here I was, blubbering about not having anyone to sleep with tonight. I was a ridiculous human being. I should know better, I told myself. There were far more terrifying things in the world, and one of those things was very close.
Somewhere in our town, tonight, a person was talking, or brushing his teeth, or making love to a spouse. Yet that person knew he-or she-had committed murder. That person had knocked Poppy down with vicious blows. That person had watched the life drain out of one of the most vital women I’d ever known… and done nothing to help her.
Now that was something to brood about.
Chapter Four
I woke up when my alarm went off the next morning. It was 6:30, and the glass doors onto the patio showed me it was a beautiful day. I felt wonderful for about thirty seconds, until I remembered the events of the previous
