“Of course! The computer!” He laughed. “You
“Good idea!”
PEGGY WOKE UP AND GLANCED at her bedside clock. She was sobbing so hard she couldn’t catch her breath. She tried to recall what happened and wasn’t sure. Her hands were shaking, and her heart was pounding fast.
Shakespeare, her Great Dane, made a noise in his throat that she’d come to think of as his questioning sound. He looked at her with his brown eyes half open, wanting to know what was wrong. Even if it was fantasy that people could communicate with animals, she didn’t care. She might be a scientist, but at that moment she was a human being, cold and alone. She locked her arms around his golden neck and sobbed into his fur.
Paul or Steve, maybe both, were probably downstairs. She wasn’t sure. But for that moment when Darmus’s death really hit her, she couldn’t move; she could scarcely breathe. She clung to Shakespeare, and he lay still beside her as she poured her grief out onto him.
“Now I’ve got you all wet, too.” She laughed and patted his velvety head that was bigger than hers. “Thank you for letting me cry on you. You’re a good friend.”
He licked her hand, then laid his head back down on the pillow beside hers and went back to sleep. In the short time he’d lived with her, he’d come to appreciate his comforts.
But Peggy was awake for the night. She didn’t want to go downstairs. Paul or Steve, maybe both, would offer comfort, and she didn’t need that right now. Right now, she needed to do something constructive about Darmus’s death. And the best thing she could think of was finding Rosie.
Maybe Rosie wouldn’t want to know about Darmus. Their breakup was a long time ago. But Peggy doubted if that pain ever went away. It had been Darmus’s decision to leave their marriage. He had a chance to go and study African culture in Zimbabwe as part of his thesis. Rosie didn’t want to go so far away from home.
Peggy remembered long nights spent sitting up with Rosie after Darmus was gone. They had talked for hours and burned a thousand candles trying to figure out why life turned out the way it did. There were no answers.
Eventually they stopped seeing each other so much. Peggy suddenly met John, and her life revolved around him. Darmus had left in February, and sometime after March, Peggy called Rosie and found she was gone. Peggy felt incredibly guilty for not talking to her friend for weeks. She wrote countless letters and called Rosie’s parents, but they told her Rosie didn’t want to talk to her. She started several times to go to Asheville and see Rosie but chickened out. She was afraid she had become part of Rosie’s bad memories of Darmus.
Now, more than twenty years later, she opened Explorer and went to Google to type in Rosie’s name.
Steve knocked softly on her door and saw her at the computer. “I thought I heard tapping up here. Everything okay?”
She wiped her face on her pajama sleeve and sniffed. She must look terrible. Redheads got so blotchy-faced when they cried. It would have been nice if that changed when she got older and her hair started turning white, but it didn’t. “Fine. I’m looking for a friend.”
He got a chair and sat beside her. “Anyone I know?”
She explained about Rosie while she searched the Internet. “I tried to get Darmus to stay with her. She was the best thing that ever happened to him; she was the only person I ever knew who could keep him from being so serious. But he said he was
“You think she kept Darmus’s name?” He watched her fingers fly across the keyboard.
“I don’t know. I’m checking her maiden name first.”
“She could be remarried, too.”
“I thought about that.”
Peggy scanned the names that came up on the first search. There were two hundred Rosie Sheratons. “Her family lived in Asheville, I believe. Maybe I could use that area to refine the search.”
“You’re down to six,” Steve remarked when the new list came up on the monitor.
“Let’s cross-reference that with business.” Peggy typed that in and came up with a single name. “Rosie Sheraton. Reflexologist. That sounds interesting. Rosie wanted to be a nurse.”
“You think anyone’s told her about Darmus yet?”
“Maybe. Although I don’t think anyone else knows Darmus was married except for Luther and me. Not anymore anyway. And I doubt Luther would tell her. They never got along.”
“That sounds like a good place to start then. Are you going to call her first?”
“It’s been so long.” Peggy sighed. “Too long. I’m ashamed I haven’t contacted her before this. I think I’ll just go up there and see her. If I call, I might have to tell her about Darmus on the phone, and I don’t want to do that. I’ll take my chances it’s not her.”
“All right.” He shrugged. “When do you want to go?”
“Maybe after lunch?”
“Sounds good to me. What is that? Two hours up?”
“Yes. Do you have anything early tomorrow? I mean today.”
“Not at all.” He kissed her. “You?”
“Opening the Potting Shed.” She put her arms around his neck. “But that will be early.”
