Cast a Pale Shadow

chapter Eighteen

Augusta lifted the black linen pillbox from Trissa's head and tried the felt cloche. She pursed her lips and frowned at the hat's reflection in the mirror. It had a large onyx and rhinestone hatpin and rhinestone-clustered netting that was all wrong for someone so young. "Are you sure you won't listen to reason and stay home?"

"Augusta, I'm not going to miss my father's funeral just because we can't find the right hat." Trissa angled the cloche forward making the net dip past her chin. She grimaced and removed the hat and handed it back. "Maybe no hat at all would be okay. Or I could just wear a scarf."

"There has to be something here that's appropriate. But why in the world..." Her voice grew muffled as she burrowed through the hatboxes in the deep recesses of her closet. She emerged in a moment with three more boxes balanced precariously in her arms and two hats perched atop her own head. "A mother who would abandon her own daughter is beyond me."

"Please, I've already explained. My mother and I were both victims." In the long, dark hours while they waited at Nicholas' bedside, Trissa had confided a bit of her own story to Augusta, a condensed version that did not include the truth about how she and Nicholas met, nor the fact that they were not really married. Now that Nicholas, himself, did not remember this little detail, Trissa was the only one in the world who knew for sure. She intended to keep it that way.

"Hmmmph, if you ask me I'd say she was more accomplice than victim. What does Nicholas say about you going?"

"He doesn't know. He's meeting with Dr. Fitapaldi this morning. I thought I'd just go and not bother them."

"I bet he won't like it. Not one bit. Lorenzo wouldn't either, if he knew." She brushed Trissa's hair behind her ears and tried a beaded French beret. It gave her a Continental look that was interesting but inappropriate for a funeral. "At least, let me go with you."

"You know Roger needs you this morning. He's more worried than he lets on about those heart tests"

"Yes, poor Roger pretends to be brave, but underneath he's such a softy." Augusta flicked her fingers distractedly through Trissa's hair, smoothing it for the next hat. She was worried too and trying to hide it.

"Anyway, Beverly is going to drive me. I'll be all right."

"Beverly? Well, I guess she does have the experience being she's a whatchamacallit."

"Grief consultant." Trissa opened one of the boxes and discovered a broad-brimmed black straw sailor with a stiff grosgrain bow in the back. Augusta nodded enthusiastically as she lifted it out and placed it on her head.

"Perfect. I knew we'd find something." She opened her closet door wide and steered Trissa toward it. There in the full length mirror was a portrait in black that Trissa had difficulty recognizing as herself. Augusta had outfitted her in a prim, black challis dress with a crocheted ecru collar. She had lightly brushed a bit of color on Trissa's cheeks and lips to relieve the starkness of her fair skin against the black. The effect added a dewy look that drew attention to her eyes, which sparkled a deep ultramarine blue today below the brim of the hat.

In sheer black stockings and new trim pumps still shiny from Nicholas' care, Trissa turned left and right and all around to marvel at the young woman in the mirror. "Yes, I'll be quite all right. I doubt that my mother will even recognize me," she said at last.

"Ahh, shame on the mother who doesn't know her own daughter, that's what I say."

"And what about the husband who doesn't know his own wife?" asked Cole in a low, solemn voice from the doorway. "May I come in?"

"Oh, Nicholas, look at you," Augusta said. She took his hand and drew him into the room, making him turn for them so they could see all sides of his sharp, black suit and crisp white shirt.

"It's Maurice's tie," Cole said with a grin that was both pleased and boyishly bashful.

"Honey, that tie never had it so good. It will refuse to be seen around Maurice's neck again. Too much like slumming after this." Augusta adjusted the handkerchief in Cole's coat pocket slightly, then patted his shoulder and turned toward Trissa.

She stood silently by the mirror, her hands fidgeting at her sides. She didn't know what to say. Her heart was so flooded with love and worry for him that it closed her throat. She couldn't let him go with her, yet she remembered that when she first started dressing this morning, she had doubted her legs would support her without him there to bolster her.

"I overheard Beverly in the kitchen. I told her I would take her place."

"No."

"It's a husband's duty, Trissa."

"But, you have no car." It was an unsolved mystery, where Nicholas's car had disappeared to since the night he'd gone to meet her father.

"I asked Fitapaldi to drive us." He shrugged and smiled wryly. "It may start a new trend. Plan ahead to avoid emotional distress. Take along your own personal psychiatrist."

Trissa looked past Cole to see Augusta nodding. "I think it's a very good idea. Quite the best solution I've heard all morning for this sad business."

Trissa sighed her defeat. "All right. If you're sure you feel up to it." She spoke little as the plans were made. They joined Fitapaldi in the kitchen, and the two men discussed the various times they could join the funeral services -- at the funeral parlor, the church, the graveside. Trissa absently buttered the toast which was the least Augusta would allow her to eat before leaving the house. The brim of her hat shadowed her face so they could not see her eyes as she followed their conversation and nibbled at the crust. When they seemed to have decided on the cemetery, she dabbed her lips with the corner of her napkin and stood.

"We are going to the church." No one questioned her. Augusta hurried off to find the pair of black kid gloves and soft, black leather clutch bag she intended to loan her. When she returned, she hugged her warmly and told her to remember how much she was loved. "I will," Trissa answered. Cole and the doctor fell in behind her as they filed out the back door into the mellow April sunshine.

The church was heady with the fragrance of old incense and the funeral flowers that banked the altar, lilies, freesia, and gladioli. Trissa led the trio to a rear corner pew on the Blessed Virgin's side. She knelt for a moment then slid back on the smooth wooden bench.

When she looked up, she met the eyes of Detective Chancellor who occupied the identical pew as theirs but on St. Joseph's side. She acknowledged his unreadable gaze with a sedate nod then nestled back between the carved side of the pew and Cole's warm shoulder where she felt very safe and sheltered.

Clusters of mourners entered the church, parishioners she remembered, old friends of her mother, and strangers she knew she'd never seen before. From the choir, the organ sounded sonorously as the organist tested her chords. Two men in black suits walked briskly up the aisles bearing more floral arrangements to place at Mary and Joseph's altars and at the foot of the main altar.

Outside, Trissa heard the muffled slamming of car doors and the low murmur of voices. Her backbone tensed as she braced herself for her ordeal. Beside her, Cole gently coaxed her clenched fingers open and took her hand in his. When Father Donner and four servers emerged to begin their slow walk from the sacristy to greet the mourners and the casket, she knew she would not have been able to stand were it not for his firm support.

Trissa concentrated on the beads of holy water that speckled the bronze casket as it rolled past her. She could not think that that metal box contained her father, loved, hated, and now lost to her forever. She tried to block from her mind the cold sneer on his face when he had threatened her and Nicholas, the last time she saw him alive. She tried to erase the swath his scar made across it then, and to remember instead how he had smiled at her and held her hand walking proudly with his daughter down this same aisle.

So long ago now and never again. She tried to forget how she had wished him dead. So many times. The last time. She tried not to think why, after all her years and years of futile prayers, hopeless dreams, and wasted wishes, this last, horrible and desperate one had come true.

She shuddered and the tears she had told Dr. Fitapaldi she would never shed for her father, trailed down her cheeks. Calmly, like an anchor in a storm, Cole let go of her hand and put his arm around her trembling shoulders.

Her mother never acknowledged her. Though Trissa watched, unblinking, fearful of missing any tiny gesture of forgiveness, she passed her by without a glance, supported by her Aunt Ellen and followed by Trissa's cousins and second cousins. They were funeral relatives, drawn by the magnetic power of grief, to shake their heads and moan their sorrow, then disappear without a trace until the next family tragedy. She could not tell whether they did not see her, did not recognize her, or deliberately snubbed her as they passed, wringing their handkerchiefs in their hands.



*****



"Are you sure you want to go to the cemetery?" Fitapaldi stood by his car after the Requiem Mass. The hearse and limousines were lining up for the procession that would wind past Trissa's house before making its way to the graveside.

"Yes. I have to go. If my mother needs me, I have to be there."

"Trissa, why torture yourself? That women seems a stone to me," said Cole.

"I have to go."

Fitapaldi took his place behind the wheel. Cole shook his head, disappointed with the doctor's quick surrender. Cole had done his best to protect Trissa from the rude remarks of some biddies gossiping in the vestibule. Runaway daughter, conniving little bitch, and prime suspect were words Cole hoped she hadn't overheard. To distract her, he'd whispered support in her ear, tilting her bonnet off kilter, as they walked out to the church steps. He took a moment now to straighten it for her before giving her his hand as she stepped into the car.

"Doctor, this can't be good for her. Tell her we should go home."

"She must decide for herself. If she does not, she may feel guilt about it later."

Cole scowled at him and fell into silence, but his thumb ceaselessly stroked the back of her hand as he held it. Trissa did not speak or look up again until they passed through the gates of the cemetery.

"Over there are the babies," she said pointing to a vale of small, identical headstones in the webbed sunshine of the trees. "I don't know why they put them all together, all alone, away from their families. I used to think it was the saddest place in the cemetery. But they're in heaven, my mother always told me, and they never knew how bad earth could be. I guess she was right."

They parked the car around a curve from the main procession and had to cross an area where several new graves had already been dug and gaped open. Fitapaldi walked behind Trissa and Cole. Cole stumbled as they passed the first of these. It was only a slight misstep, and because they walked arm in arm, it barely broke their stride.

At the second, though, the wobbliness of his legs was more pronounced. Fitapaldi must have noticed. He quickened his pace to catch up with them and provide support on Trissa's other side. Cole's skin went all clammy and beads of sweat formed on his brow. When he saw that the doctor had a firm grip on Trissa, he released his own arm and stepped away from her.

"Cole, what's wrong?" Trissa asked.

"I'm sorry. Go on without me. I'm sorry, I can't."

"Are you sick? Should we take you--"

"No. No. I'll wait for you in the car." Cole fled backpedaling unsteadily down the hill.

"What's the matter with him, Doctor?" he heard Trissa ask.

"I don't know." Fitapaldi urged her to turn toward the people gathering at the graveside. Detective Chancellor was there, arms folded, watching them. Fitapaldi led her past him, and they stood in the outer ring of mourners waiting for the service to start.



*****



The hole. The hole. And he was at the bottom of it, the damp and crumbly earth forming four walls around him. At his feet, she lay, wrapped in a quilt, and tied with rope, like a bundle ready for the laundry.

Who was she? Who was she? His fingers fumbled at the knots, trying to untie them but tangling and tightening them instead. Who was it? He had to know. He didn't want to know. He gnawed at the rope with his teeth and it disintegrated to dust, coating his tongue, choking down his throat.

Who was she? Who was she? With trembling hands he folded back the corner of the quilt reveal the face of --

"My God! My God, what's happening to me?" Cole shuddered and stumbled into the back seat of Fitapaldi's car, sprawling on his face as the vision wracked him again. He buried his eyes in the armrest, pushing it hard against his lids, trying to crowd out the hallucination with the whirling and spangled lights the pressure brought.

But it did not work. Once again the hole gaped before him. Then he was inside it with her, wanting to stay, wanting to pull the dirt in around them forever. Once again he muddled with the rope and folded back the quilt. Once again he saw her cold, white face.

"Trissa! No, oh my God, I can't do this. I can't go on like this anymore." His brain was scorched with the vividness of the visions. Trissa's face glowed white and still as the moon. "Stop. Stop. Stop." He punctuated each command with the smack of his head against the seat cushion.

"It can't be Trissa. I won't let it be. I won't." It seemed he gulped for breath through the rope dust that clogged his mouth, then as quickly as they started, the visions stopped, and he was left with only his throbbing head and his pounding heart.

He gripped the armrest and pulled himself up. Far away, up the hill, the mourners moved away from the graveside in clumps of twos and threes. He found Nicholas Brewer's cigarettes in his pocket and lit one, cranking the window open to let the smoke chimney through it. His hand still shook when he raked it through his hair.

He saw Trissa and Fitapaldi stop to talk briefly to someone. Chancellor? Then they made their way down the hill toward them. The limousine slowed as it passed them, then stopped. The door opened and Trissa stepped in, leaving Fitapaldi on the curb.

"No!" Cole flung open the door and heaved himself out. "Don't go. Don't go," he whispered as he tried to will his feet to take him past the minefield of graves between them. "Don't leave me!"

But the limousine did not move. Fitapaldi saw him and waved and Cole began to run. The limousine door opened again, and Trissa stepped out. His wind left him in a deflating rush and Cole went to his knees in the dirt. When she saw him, Trissa broke away from Fitapaldi's supporting arm and ran down the hill toward him, her hat sailing back off her head. He had just managed to reach his feet when she flew into his arms.

"Are you all right? Are you hurt?"

"I thought... I saw you get in the car. I thought you were going with her. I thought you were leaving me."

"No! Oh, no, I wouldn't. I promised I wouldn't, remember?"

Fitapaldi lumbered closer, smiling, with Trissa's hat in his hand. Cole stiffened and she let him go. "Still, it would be best if you did. I'm insane, you know."

He would ask Fitapaldi tomorrow to cure him or destroy him. All his blind fear of madness and psychiatry and winding up in a room next to his father was nothing compared to the fear of losing her. Or hurting her. But he had to come to her whole and healthy. Or not at all.

She did not respond to his declaration of insanity, but turned to smile back at Fitapaldi. "Are you hungry? How about Rigazzi's for lunch?"

"Aah, sounds like my kind of place. If more people knew of the curative powers of pasta, doctors like me would be put out of business."

Cole limped stiffly ahead of them back to the car. "Cole, would you rather go home and rest?" Trissa asked when he settled into the front seat next to her.

"No, I'd better get me some of that pasta. I need all the help I can get," he said grimly.



*****



By the time they got home late that afternoon, Trissa had spent the last of her tears over a heaping plate of toasted ravioli. No one looked when Fitapaldi slipped her his glass for a few sips of wine after she told them what her mother had said when she got in the car. Blinking like owls in the dim light of the limousine, her aunt and cousins had looked on while her mother called her an ungrateful little slut who deserved nothing from her and would get nothing. Trissa had replied with all the dignity she could gather that she had expected nothing more from her than she had given in the past, not even love. It was obviously something she was incapable of giving.

They told sparse details of the funeral to Augusta and the others of their housemates who waited anxiously for them, then Cole offered to take Trissa to her room. Before they left the kitchen, Fitapaldi took her aside to whisper in her ear. "He loves you, Trissa, I can see it. He's just afraid to admit it yet." With a puckish wink, he added, "Be gentle with him."

Cole accompanied her to the door of their room, then hugged her briefly, like a distant relative at a family reunion. "I'm sorry I deserted you this morning. Goodbye, Trissa."

There was something so final in the words, goodbye and not good night, in the desperate sadness of his eyes that she could not let him go. "No," she said, clinging to his lapels, reaching up to lightly kiss his chin. "Come in and talk for awhile. I don't want to be alone." She stepped backward through the door, still holding him, and he came with her. She noticed again his stiff, labored limp. "You're hurting, aren't you? You need a long soak in a hot tub."

"I'll go back to my room, take a few aspirins, maybe a nap."

"But this is your room. The bed is much bigger and more comfortable. You probably miss it in that cramped little one down stairs."

"I've slept on far worse."

"I know what. I'll trade bedrooms with you, now that you're all the way up here anyway. Go ahead, relax. I'll get the aspirin." She nudged him toward the bed and pushed on his shoulders until he sat on the edge.

An idea tickled the back of her brain. She could try it, if she could trap him long enough. She hurried to the bathroom, turned on the faucet in the tub, and sprinkled in some spicy bath beads that May had given her for helping with the musicale decorations. "I'll be right out," she said cheerily, peeking at him through the crack of the door. She got the bottle of aspirin and a glass of water. He took the medicine from her gratefully and as he drank, she sat down beside him and bent over to tug at his shoestrings.

"What are you doing?"

"Well, you're not going to take a nap with your shoes on, are you?"

"I'm not going to take a nap in this bed at all."

"Good, because I really think the soak in the tub is a better idea. More relaxing. But you won't need your shoes for that, either." She managed to remove one shoe and sock by lifting his foot off the ground, throwing him off balance as he tried to keep the glass of water from spilling all over the bed.

"Okay, now the other." She yanked on his pants leg until he was forced to comply. This was the foot with the poor, missing toes. Cole shifted it to its side to hide the damage in the very same self-conscious movement that Nicholas had always used. Seeing that gave her a sudden surge of hope. She removed her own shoes and wriggled her toes, then collected the two pairs to place them side by side in the closet as Nicholas always did.

"Now your jacket, sir." When he stood stiffly to accommodate her demand, he groaned a bit. "You see, you really do need some tender, loving care." She pulled the suit coat off of him, then untied his tie, undid his cuff links, and took them all to the closet.

When she returned, he was still standing, looking somewhat bewildered. She shooed him toward the bathroom. "Go on, you're perfectly capable of undressing yourself. I'm not your maid, you know," she scolded. "What did you think? That I had ulterior motives for disrobing you? Relax. Get in that tub and soak. I have to get some towels."

She was pleased to see that he had obeyed her when she came back, so loaded with towels that she had to nest her chin in them to keep the pile from toppling and to elbow the bathroom door open. "Towels!" she announced blithely as she invaded his privacy.

He hunched quickly forward in the steaming tub and had a washcloth placed strategically for the sake of modesty. She hoped her rehearsed smile of maidenly shyness hid the hint of mischief she had planned. She plunked the pile of towels on the closed toilet lid and began shaking them out and ringing the floor around the edge of the tub with them. "For splashes," she answered before he had a chance to ask.

"Splashes?"

The steam had turned the hair that fringed his neck and brow to dark, damp ringlets, making the lighter curls on top seem to shine like gold. She tweaked a curl and let it spring back. "Yeah. Scoot forward, I'll rub your back."

"I don't think--"

She stuck her lower lip out in an exaggerated pout. "I bet you let that big, blond nurse who was always hanging around your room give you a back rub."

"Which big, blond nurse?"

"Ah hah! Just as I thought, there was more than one!" She feigned a snatch for the washcloth he was using as a breechcloth, and he was forced to draw his knees up to avoid her maneuver. The action moved him forward in the tub just as she wanted.

"I thought the idea was to allow me a long, relaxing soak."

"Oh? Am I disturbing you?" A just audible moan escaped him as he covered his face with his hands and shook his head. Swiftly, while his eyes were still covered, she discarded her own clothes and stepped into the tub behind him, one foot along each side of his hips.

"Trissa! What the...!"

"Shhh," she hissed as she settled herself in the hot water. "This is a Japanese style back rub. We saw it in that movie, remember? Oh, no, I guess that was Nicholas. It's an extremely ancient, quite reputable tradition. Very therapeutic. Just relax."

"I'm getting to be very wary of that word," he said. But even he could not remain aloof to her very gentle strokes from his neck, down his spine, and feathering out to his ribs. His bruises were dark and ugly around his lower back, and she was extra careful there. She hummed under her breath as she felt his tension drain out through her fingertips.

"What are you singing?"

"'Pretend you're happy when you're blue, it isn't very hard to do,'" she sang. "Our song, remember?"

"No."

She did not let his terse answer discourage her. He would remember, eventually. She continued singing and massaging. And when the bar of soap slipped by, she caught it and sudsed up Cole's back, edging herself ever closer, so that only a whisper separated them.

Finally, when it seemed that his muscles had turned to butter with her touch, she grasped his shoulders and leaned back taking him with her. His skin was so slippery with the soap and the bath oil, and he offered so little resistance that when she tilted him and jostled him left, he tipped and they slithered together like playful seals.

Giggling and giddy with her easy triumph, she let her hands slide off his shoulders and she dipped beneath the water under him. He grabbed for her and she came up sputtering and gasping, savoring the silken slide of his skin against hers.

"Now what?" he grumbled, his voice tight and rasping.

She struggled to catch her breath before she answered, a project complicated by her determination to place a string of kisses around his neck and end at his heart. "Well, I don't want you to drown me, so what else do you suppose we could do in this position?"

"What you don't understand is that I can't," he said gruffly. "There have been other opportunities. With other women, some bought, some offered freely. But it is impossible."

"I know different."

"That was Nicholas. Not me."

"You are Nicholas. The same face, the same body, the same heart. And if I was promised to be loved with all of this heart, then it's still mine, and I will have it." Her confidence grew with every pulse of his heart, for he did not move away. He held himself so close and so still against her that it seemed the world had ceased turning and waited, waited. And she held her breath and waited too.

His eyes burned into hers, glinting bronze ingots. "I don't want to love you, Trissa," he groaned.

"Oh yes, you do. You're lying." She traced the clenched line of his jaw and the deep furrow of his brow with her fingertip, then she pressed it to his chin. "Let me see your tongue."

"My tongue..." Cole began, but as soon as he opened his mouth, he was lost. She invaded him with a kiss that sent them both plummeting. He braced their bodies against the side of the huge, old tub, and the water, like a warm caress, sloshed around them. Her legs lightly twined with his, and her body moved against his as gently as tropical waves lap the shore.

"Don't, Trissa. I won't," he protested as she ended the kiss, as if he did not know that his fingertips ardently grazed her aroused nipple, as if he did not notice the evidence of his own arousal.

"Don't lie to me. I can taste your lies. I can feel them. Here." She brushed the tip of her tongue against his lips, as her fingers massaged tender, lazy circles down his chest and stomach. "And here." His denial and resolve shattered with her intimate touch and they both sighed with sudden, wild contentment as she guided him home within her. She wrapped her arms around his neck and whispered in his ear. "Don't worry about the splashes. That's what the towels were for."

But Cole had no space in his mind for worry. It was caught up in the web of pure pleasure that she spun from the core of her to gather him in. If this was a dream and the water that enveloped them but the mist of sleep.... If this were Nicholas reaching out from his soul to take her, if this was madness to relinquish his will to the sweet power of Trissa's love, he did not want to know. The water cascaded between them as he lifted from her then sluiced away as they surged together again.

"Cole," she whispered against his neck and he loved her all the more for saying that name and not the other. "I love you, Cole."

Trissa felt a ravenous joy rising within her, devouring all her fear and worry, bobbing and dipping toward the brink like a barrel on the Niagara. "Trissa!" he cried out as they plunged together, and she could not care that it was Cole and not Nicholas. They were one.

All three, one.

It was a long while before they trusted their jellied bones and melted muscles enough to chance standing. It was only when he heard Trissa's teeth chattering though he held her as close as it was possible to hold her. The sound of them startled her as well and she giggled shakily. "Maybe your big, blond nurse would have stayed warm longer."

"Maybe, but I doubt that the tub would have held her and me both."

"Oh, you thug, you do remember her," she scolded, and she cuffed his shoulder as he sat up and strained to reach a dry towel to wrap her in.

"With fleeting fondness," he admitted. They depended on each other's support and their tenacious grip on the rim of the tub to get over the edge. Trissa squealed as her toes squished into a soggy towel on the floor. "We will have a lot to explain if it starts to rain on the dinner crowd," Cole said, grabbing the terry robe she'd brought him from its hook on the wall. "My guess is this tub is situated directly above Hattie's place at the table."

"Oh, God, what if they heard us?" Trissa's eyes sparkled blue as a starlit sky against the flush on her face from her chagrin and the heat of their bath. She huddled in her large, plush towel like a blanket.

"We'll just tell them that it's an extremely ancient, quite reputable tradition. Very therapeutic." To Cole's astonishment, he could not resist gathering her in his arms and kissing her again with a fervent passion. She had burned through the frigid soul of him he had guarded so well for so long. The thought alarmed him. He broke the kiss and gently but firmly put her at arm's length. "You'd better get dressed. I'll clean up here."

"But your sore back..."

"We seem to have worked the kinks out," he said dryly, and gave her a little nudge out the door.

Later when the floor and tub were dry and shining, he emerged to find the bedroom silent and deserted. He went to the closet and searched for some clothes he recognized. In the eight or so months Nicholas had been in charge, he had apparently discarded some of Cole's old favorites. Eventually he found a comfortable pair of khaki pants and a hunter green pullover, not his, but they'd do. He collected a few more articles to move to his room downstairs. If his time with Fitapaldi went badly tomorrow, he wanted the things he'd need handy to be packed. He did not know whether he would be around to do the packing or even be coherent enough to give instruction.

A shiver of the old, cold loneliness attacked as he put the clothes over his arm, and he stood still bracing for the worst of it. How curious that it should feel so foreign so quickly. But he guessed he had better get reacquainted. It had been foolish for him and cruel to the girl to pretend it could go away for long. Pretend you're happy when you're blue. He heard the whispered melody flutter through his mind. It was just a song, worse than a wish for breaking the heart.

A muffled thud thumped against the door. "Cole, open up." Trissa called, sounding a bit frantic and breathless. He yanked the door open to find her loaded down with a tray full of food and with the newspaper and her folktale book tucked under her arm.

"Augusta sent sandwiches. She said she thought we might need fortifying." As he took the tray from her, her face wrinkled in a bemused frown. "I hope she meant from the strain of the funeral."

"I'm sure she did."

She puttered around arranging the sandwiches and fruit salad cups on the coffee table. "Roger's heart tests went well, though he is disappointed that they refused to let him go back to limited duty. It looks like his retirement will be made final. Otherwise, they said if he takes it easy there is nothing -- Cole, where are you going with those clothes?"

"I thought I'd move them downstairs."

"But I brought the paper. Don't you want to hear the baseball scores? And I promised to read Finn MacCoul and the Fenians of Erin, remember?"

"Trissa, I can't stay here tonight."

"Oh."

"You do understand, don't you?"

"No."

"I can't let myself get too attached."

"Oh."

Her clipped, hurt words were like pricks to the heart with a tiny dagger. His will seeped away through the wounds. "But, I guess, there's no harm in reading. This room's the same as any other for reading."

She put one hand over the folktale book and the other at shoulder height, palm forward. "I solemnly swear to read and only read."

She did not keep her pledge. She never had any intention to keep it. And in the end, he had to admit, even to himself, he was very glad of that.