Just then the door burst open and Matthew came running in, followed by all three of the Rottweilers. Graham caught a glimpse of Derek Rottweiler’s face and wished he’d thought to close the door to his study and put their new camera out of reach. But then Matthew was standing in front of Graham and he could think of nothing else.
Matthew was suntanned and grass-stained and mosquito-bitten. His lovely thick brown hair was matted and greasy, and a long red scratch traced along one cheekbone. A cluster of red dots that might well be poison ivy showed on his neck.
“Camp—was—fantastic!” Matthew said, and Graham gathered him close.
Camp was fantastic, which meant life was fantastic. Audra was fantastic. The Rottweilers were fantastic. Chicken and rice was fantastic. Who needed fruit and vegetables? Not Graham, not now.
Graham’s only regret was that he hadn’t known ahead of time that Matthew would love camp, that Matthew could go off in the world and sleep in strange places and have new experiences and love doing it, just like any other kid. If Graham had known that, he could have enjoyed this week, relished it, even. He could have lived life like other parents, the way he’d always wanted to.
Graham leaned down and pressed his cheek against the top of Matthew’s head. Matthew smelled like woodsmoke and pine needles and sweat, but Graham could still smell maple syrup. Camp had worked its miracle, but underneath Matthew was still Matthew.
And then Graham understood that it was almost too late. He had spent so much time wishing Matthew were different, wondering how to make Matthew different, when it was actually the process of living that did it. Life forced you to cope. Life wore down all your sharp corners with its tedious grinding on, the grinding that seemed to take forever but was actually as quick as a brushfire. What Graham had to do was to love Matthew right now, right this instant—heart, get busy—before Matthew grew up and turned into someone else.
Chapter Eight
It was a Friday night not so different from any other. Graham and Audra were having dinner in their apartment with Doug and Lorelei and Doug’s mother, Mrs. Munn.
Whenever Mrs. Munn came to stay with Doug and Lorelei, Audra invited them all over for a meal. Graham was unsure whether this was a higher level of friendship or more a type of community service, but he knew Audra did it in hopes of relieving Lorelei of the stress of having houseguests. Only it didn’t really relieve the stress, it just sort of diluted it. Now, for example, instead of just Doug and Lorelei spending the evening making small talk with Mrs. Munn, Audra and Graham had to spend the evening making small talk with her, too. You know, it would be far simpler and more effective if you could march your houseguest over to a bench in Central Park and say, You just sit right there while I go home and read the newspaper in peace. I’ll be back to pick you up in two hours. And if your houseguest was of the older, feebler variety, and you feared they might be mugged or beaten in the park, you could take them to a movie, possibly a matinee. Actually, there should be a houseguests’ club, like the kids’ club in a resort, where your houseguest could watch movies and play games and have a snack while you recharged your batteries. Although, Graham recalled, Matthew had refused to attend kids’ clubs since babyhood, screaming so loudly that the staff always called them back within the hour. Now, casting a seasoned eye on Mrs. Munn, Graham suspected she would object just as forcefully.
Mrs. Munn was an overweight woman in her seventies, with extra bolsters of flesh under her chin and stacked on her midsection. She had a deceptively obliging and soft-spoken manner. She had softly complimented Audra on the “lived in” feel of the apartment, and gently praised Doug for not checking his phone all the time in company the way he did at home. She had quietly admired the long hours Lorelei worked and said it was no wonder Lorelei looked so tired. She had commented sympathetically on how boring grown-up conversation must be for Matthew and how she understood completely that he would rather have a sandwich in his room. She had sweetly congratulated Graham for feeling comfortable enough to leave guests while he spent long stretches in the kitchen (he was having some trouble with the gravy) and remarked how unpretentious it was of him to use supermarket salad dressing. She had serenely dominated the dinner conversation talking about how she understood why people lived in New York City but that it wasn’t for her while she ate large forkfuls of roast chicken and sweet potatoes. (Graham was beginning to truly comprehend how long this visit must be for Doug and Lorelei.)
Mrs. Munn pushed her plate away slightly and reached for her water glass. “I’m sorry,” she said. “This was delicious, but I’m afraid my eyes were bigger than my stomach.”
“How big is your stomach?” Audra asked in the sort of sincere but idle way she might wonder aloud how long a hummingbird’s life span was.
Mrs. Munn’s glass knocked against her teeth with a startled clunk.
The phone rang and Graham leapt out of his chair so quickly, he nearly knocked it over.
“I’ll get it,” he said unnecessarily. He ducked into the kitchen. “Hello?”
“May I speak to Graham Cavanaugh, please?” A man’s voice, unfamiliar.
“This is he.”
“My name is Ronald Perkins,” the man said. “I am a senior partner at Stover, Sheppard, Perkins, and Lemke.”
Elspeth’s firm. Graham gripped the phone more tightly. “Yes?”
“I’m terribly sorry to be the one to tell you this,” Mr. Perkins said, “but Elspeth has passed away.”
“She what?” Graham said.
“She passed away,” Mr. Perkins repeated politely. “She died.”
He paused and waited for Graham to say something, but Graham couldn’t. Died? Elspeth died? The word had no more meaning than any other. It was like playing Balderdash with the dictionary and choosing a word you were pretty sure no one knew the definition of. Bibble, cabotage, ratoon. It was a nonsense word. He could make nothing of it.
Mr. Perkins cleared his throat. “I’m sure it’s a tremendous shock to you,” he said. “It was to all of us.”
“What happened?” Graham asked finally. “Was she—in a car accident?”
“Elspeth failed to show up for work on Wednesday,” Mr. Perkins said. He had a precise way of talking, as though his sentences were perfect strings of pearls with knots between the words. “She missed several meetings and that was completely out of character. Naturally, we grew concerned, but we waited until noon, thinking perhaps Elspeth had a personal appointment that we knew nothing about. In the early afternoon, her secretary, Miss Zapata, went to Elspeth’s apartment in person. She thought perhaps Elspeth was ill. She had a spare key and let herself in after ringing the doorbell repeatedly. She found Elspeth on the bathroom floor. It appears she slipped while getting out of the bathtub and hit her head.”
“This happened Wednesday?” Graham said. It was Friday. Forty-eight hours had gone by and he hadn’t even known?