upset Lucas’s mother.”
“I guess that makes sense. Still, the guy was an-”
“Don’t say it.” I turned to my other side, so that I could look at him. “I don’t know why you’re upset with him. You’ve seen all kinds of reactions to death in a family-some people cry, some people get real quiet, some get angry.”
He sighed. “Yeah, you’re right. If I had met him under other circumstances, I might have seen it that way. But I just haven’t ever watched anyone act that way toward
I smiled. “I’m okay, Tarzan.”
He laughed, then reached up and stroked my hair. “If I wasn’t so damned tired, I’d make you regret that remark.”
I kissed him. “I’ll take a rain check.”
I turned back into spoon position. He nuzzled my neck, then yawned. I listened as his breathing became deep and regular.
That rhythmic breathing acted as a counterpoint to my troubled thoughts. It calmed me, kept me from dwelling on questions that could not be answered that night, kept me from worrying about June Monroe, Claire Watterson, and all the other wounded souls I could not heal. Holding me in bed that night, Frank was warm and solid, his simple act of affection as important to me as the beating of my own heart against his hand. “I like being married,” I whispered, thinking he was asleep.
“Me, too,” he murmured against my ear.
IWOKE UP almost as tired as I was when I fell asleep, and twice as cold. In the soft gray light of the approaching dawn, I saw that Frank had rolled to the other side of the bed, taking the covers with him. I lay there for a time, asking myself if it was worth waking him to reclaim the blankets; I decided that the possibility of my going back to sleep was so low, I would let him get away with the theft.
I eased out of bed, wrapped myself in a robe, and stood there for a moment, watching him sleep. His big body was wrapped up in the blankets almost mummy-style, although the toes of his left foot peeked out. One arm held a pillow over the top of his head-something he does when he’s especially tired. Only the lower half of his face showed beneath the pillow. To anyone else, right at that moment, he probably would have looked kind of silly. To me, well, he was going to have to make good on that rain check.
I slipped on a pair of jeans and a big sweater, put on a pair of running shoes; I thought I might take the dogs for an early morning romp on the beach. But as I approached the sliding glass door that leads to the backyard, I saw that June Monroe was sitting out on the patio, the dogs basking in her attention.
I almost stepped away, but the mutts had heard me, and came running over to the door. I went outside.
“Good morning,” she said. “This surely is a beautiful yard. Did you plant this garden?”
“No,” I admitted, sitting down next to her. “Frank’s got the green thumb.”
She looked out over the riot of crocuses, jonquils, daffodils, and other bulbs that were just coming into bloom and smiled. Deke nudged her hand and Dunk moved back and forth between us, vying for earscratching. “I’m surprised you can keep this garden with these two dogs back here.”
“When we first got them, they nearly destroyed it more than once. Fortunately, we have a neighbor next door who thinks of these dogs as shared pets-he even helped us pick them out at the pound. He has a remarkable ability with them. I would swear to you that he just talked them out of ruining the garden.”
“I believe it.”
She looked weary; her weariness, I suspected, was caused by more than a lack of sleep.
“Last night you said that Lucas lost his good reputation,” I said.
“Yes.”
“Because he was drinking?”
She looked surprised. “Drinking? No, no. That came later.” She leaned forward, lowered her voice. “You don’t know about the scandal?”
“No. What scandal?”
“At the college. Lucas was accused of cheating.”
“What? I don’t believe it!”
“Well, that’s a good start then,” she said with satisfaction. “A very good start. I never believed he cheated on anything. He was too smart to need to cheat. But they kicked him out of that college anyway.”
“This doesn’t make any sense.” The morning suddenly seemed colder. “Come inside, I’ll make some coffee and you can give this story from the beginning.”
SHE TOOK A SEATat the kitchen table. “When was the last time you saw Lucas?”
“In about 1975 or ’76.”
“Hmm. Yes, that was just before the whole mess happened. Things started getting bad in about 1977. Lucas almost had his master’s degree. He had just turned in his thesis. He was so proud of that thesis…”
Her voice trailed off, and she looked away from me. I busied myself with the coffeemaker. When it looked as if she had regained her composure, I asked, “What was the thesis about?”
“It was a study of one of the old neighborhoods in Las Piernas, how it was changing, what might be done to help make life better for the people that lived there. It was one of the neighborhoods included in the redevelopment plans.”
“I suppose it makes sense that Lucas would choose something like that for his thesis topic. He was doing work with Andre Selman.”
“Hmph. Andre Selman,” she said. “Someday the Lord just might teach me how to forgive that man.”
“Why?”
“I’m not saying he’s responsible for everything that happened to Lucas. Far from it. Some of that started in our own family, and before our family. But Andre Selman caused a whole lot of trouble.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“At first, he looked like a hero. Helped Lucas get a job on campus, teaching that statistics class. Took Lucas under his wing for the redevelopment study for Las Piernas. Told Lucas all this high and mighty stuff about how he was going to help Lucas go to a big university, get a scholarship-all on account of the work Lucas was doing for him with the redevelopment study. Even shared his office with Lucas; let him keep all his books and his work there. Lucas thought the world of him.”
I poured two cups of coffee, gave one to her. “That must have been what was going on when I knew Lucas. If he wasn’t out in the field doing research, or teaching a class, he was in that office. He seemed happy with his work and with the project. Although now that I think about it, he did warn me not to become involved with Andre.” “That doesn’t surprise me. Lucas said that professor was always making a fool out of one woman or another.”
I tried not to flinch. Failed.
She didn’t notice. “Of course he was happy with Dr. Selman,” she went on. “Try to understand what that kind of attention meant to him. Lucas was the first person in the Monroe family to get a college education. His father, his father’s father, his uncles and great-uncles-none of them ever went to college. I was the first college graduate in my family, and there were days when I would have sworn to you that Lucas’s father married me because he wanted his children to go to college and thought I could get them there. Charles never did too well in school, not because he wasn’t bright, but because-oh, he just let things distract him. But Lucas, he was driven. He loved school, loved sociology. He thought he could make a difference in the world.”
“I saw that when I was his student. You must have taught him something about teaching-he was very good at it.”
“Thank you,” she said softly, “but I think he was just naturally gifted.” She looked away from me then, looked back out toward the garden. “Yes, he loved school…” Her voice trailed off. But when she looked back, her expression was one of indignation, not sadness. “You can imagine,” she said, “how shocked we were when he called up to say he was being kicked out of the college.”
“What happened?”
She shook her head. “You know, Irene, the biggest problem was that it took so long to figure out what really
