Just Between Us

“No, the kids are restless—let’s go. No one will notice if we’re missing—not with this crowd.”

The hot and heavily perfumed air, along with Christine’s comments, had given me a headache, which only got worse when I spotted one of the detectives in the crowd as we left. “Let’s go,” I said, urging Owen to walk faster as I swung Aubrey up into my arms.

“What was Christine talking about?” Brian asked, hustling to keep up with me as I wove between cars in the parking lot. “You took Aubrey to the ER one night?”

“I think she confused me with another neighbor,” I said. “She does that all the time—maybe it’s early dementia?”

He accepted this, thank God. A momentary feeling of relief washed over me once we were all actually in our car and driving away. Nobody knew anything, I reminded myself. The video Sarah sent proved that. And it was done now. Viktor was gone and buried, and while the police might keep searching for his carjacker, plenty of cases went unsolved. I just had to keep reminding myself of that. Random acts of violence happened every day; why shouldn’t Viktor’s death just get chalked up as one of those? These first few weeks after his death would be the worst, but the stress was almost over.

I didn’t realize until later that day that this was only the beginning.





chapter twenty-two





ALISON


In that sweltering crush of mourners, I’d broken into a sweat, remembering another funeral, years ago, in a church that I could barely remember. It was all just a blur of dark wood and flickering candles, except for my very clear memory of the lifelike crucifix hanging over the altar, a frail Jesus dangling from what had looked at a distance like real nails.

“Suffer the little children.” I could still remember the breathless voice of a large woman who’d attempted to comfort me and Sean, bending over with clear effort in front of our pew, the skirt of her immense dress fluttering against me like a great black moth as she tried to stroke my head. She’d meant it kindly, but I’d flinched from her, leaning against my brother. I remembered the way she’d exchanged glances with a man standing next to her, and I could still hear that voice, her labored whisper, saying to him, “See them?” Pausing to breathe heavily. “What’s going to happen to these poor children?”

The bishop at Viktor’s funeral was also a heavy breather, the microphone picking up every inhalation during his long sermon. There were sniffling sounds as some people quietly wept, and faint rustling as they searched pockets and purses for tissues.

“Viktor Lysenko was a loving son,” he said, “a devoted husband and father, a gifted healer, one of a select group of men and women in our world who have been entrusted with easing the suffering of those around them.”

I snorted without thinking. Michael gave me a surprised look and a woman in front of me glanced over her shoulder. I quickly pressed a tissue against my nose, pretending to be blowing. Gifted healer. Images flooded me—the bruises, the burns, the shards of glass all over their kitchen floor. I squirmed in my seat as I listened to the accolades, which went on and on. After the bishop, the priest spoke, detailing how charming Viktor had been as a little boy new to this country, and telling a story about how as a teenager he’d helped nurse a stray cat back to life and found his calling. His mother sobbed throughout, falling conspicuously quiet only when the priest turned his attention to Heather, remarking on how Viktor had bloomed again through love after being unexpectedly widowed.

Finally he was done speaking, but the service dragged on and on. After communion, when Lucy stage-whispered “How much longer, Mommy?” just as Matthew started drumming on the pew, I made the snap decision to take both children out.

Nudging Michael, I nodded silently toward the rear of the church before ushering Lucy and Matthew out of the pew and down the side aisle, grateful that we were toward the back and trying to move quietly so we wouldn’t disrupt the end of the service. I’d never seen a church so packed. When my grandmother died, we’d had half as many in the congregation, but that was the difference between dying young and dying in your eighties—there were just more people still around to mourn you. Plus, everyone thought Viktor had been the victim of a violent crime, and that brought out the curiosity seekers and hysterics, people who believed that they were somehow connected to the death of a man they’d never met outside of the local TV or newspapers.

There were dozens of people like that, some clutching bouquets of flowers, others straining to see past the heads and shoulders of those in front of them. As I glanced at the crowd as we left the church, one familiar face jumped out—the short, balding detective. He recognized me as well, I could see it in his eyes, and I looked away, pretending to be absorbed in helping the children, while I fought the urge to run from the building. What was he doing here?

“It’s cold out here, Mommy,” Lucy said in a reproving tone as we stood outside on the church steps and I gulped mouthfuls of crisp air.

“Yes, doesn’t it feel good?”

“No. It’s too cold and I don’t have my mittens.”

“No,” Matthew echoed with a big grin. “I don’t have my mittens.”

“Stop copying me.” Lucy gave him a severe look. “Tell him, Mommy, tell him to stop copying me.”

“Stop copying, Matthew,” I said, digging in my purse in a vain search for ibuprofen to curtail the headache I could feel mounting. “He copies because he admires you, Luce—you should be flattered.”

“No, he does it to bother me,” Lucy said, crossing her arms across her chest, a gesture that Matthew promptly copied, putting paid to my theory. She stamped her foot. “Stop it!”

“Stop it!” Matthew echoed.

“Both of you stop it,” I snapped. “We’re at church, not a playground. You need to be quiet at church.”

As I pulled out my cell phone to text Michael for backup, the doors of the church suddenly opened and music poured out along with a parade of people. I hastily pulled the kids off to one side, all of us watching as the coffin was hoisted onto the shoulders of the pallbearers while Heather followed, tears running unchecked down her face.

Was the detective watching that? I hoped so. You had to be extremely cynical not to be moved by this public display of grief from the slain doctor’s young, beautiful widow. Even I had to swallow against a sudden lump in my throat.

Julie and Brian passed by on the other side of the crowd with their children, and she waved a hand to me in passing, but didn’t stop, heading toward the parking lot with a speed that I envied, especially after we got stuck in the procession, a funeral-home attendant slapping a magnetic flag on our car before we could pull out.

“Oh, well, how long could this take?” Michael said with a careless shrug completely at odds with the panicked look on his face. The answer to that was forever, an interminable parade of cars moving at a snail’s pace all the way back to Sewickley and up a sharply winding hill to the cemetery. Michael stayed with the kids in the car while I picked my way along with others across a snow-covered hillside to the grave site. I kept perched on my toes, trying not to let my heels sink into the damp ground, praying fervently for this torture to come to an end. More incense and droning from the priest—it just went on and on. I suppose as a Catholic I should have felt that this was penitential in some way, or as our yoga instructor Shanti might have put it, karmic. I’d caught a glimpse of her in the crowd at the church, looking exotic in a green silk sari, that bloodred bindi a third eye among her crazy blond ringlets.

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