“I don’t know.” But I did know. I remember the nights I had lain awake thinking that if I ever discovered who had murdered our daughter I could kill that person without hesitation or regret, and I remembered the weapon in the empty paint can in the garden shed. At some point I realized I would have to find a way to dispose of it. “I couldn’t have endured it if you died too.” My throat burned. “I couldn’t stand losing you too.”
Both of us knew I was speaking now not of the past but of our future. The yodel of a loon reached us from somewhere in the distance. “Have I, Soph?” I finally dared to ask. “Have I lost you too?” My breath caught, held as I waited for her answer. With the easy effort of a teenager, she stood. Wordlessly, she took my hand, pulled me up beside her. As she led me up the grassy rise to the house, droplets of water from the cove dripped from our feet, marking our path in the August-browned grass as we progressed up the rise, past the Adirondack chairs and blue-painted table, across the wooden porch, through the living room, and up the narrow, age-stained stairs. Into the bedroom. Into her bed. It was only then that I fully let out a breath I hadn’t been aware of holding—a long sigh that was the only sound in the room. And then the creaking of springs as we turned to each other at last. We held each other like young lovers, but lovers whose bones held marrow-deep sorrow. We moved slowly as we explored, touched, tasted, as if not only our bodies but the air itself was fragile and a misstep would shatter all.
I entered her, went deep, and knew that joy could be pain too.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Ever since he recalled where he found the little toy figure doll, Father Gervase had been worrying over the information like an old woman fingering her beads.
Now, as he had for the past three days, he finished breakfast and headed over to Will’s studio to deliver this information. Sometime in the night the oppressive heat had at last lifted, and this shift put him in an optimistic mood. He was hopeful that today he would find the artist and could tell him what he remembered about Lucy’s little toy and put the whole matter to rest, but when he again found the double doors closed and locked his disappointment was acute, as if he had appeared with a gift carefully wrapped and the recipient was nowhere in sight. After a moment of indecision, he left the harbor and continued over to Governors Street. The Lights’ drive was empty of cars, but still he climbed the wide steps to the porch and rang the bell, recalling as he did the day months before when he had first approached Will about painting the saints—it had been, let’s see? May? Yes. May. He remembered it clearly now, a spring day that in the fluid way of time seemed at once far distant and only days past. Well, one season had passed and another edging toward autumn. The priest realized he had reached that stage in life when time spun faster, months passing as if only days, years as weeks. Too fast. As fleeting as a child’s giggle eaten by wind. Reluctant to accept defeat, he rang the bell a second time.
“He’s not home.”
The man in the neighboring lawn shouted over to Father Gervase. The priest looked over and frowned. In spite of the watering ban still in effect that restricted residents to watering lawns on the odd-numbered sides of a street on odd-numbered days and even-numbered houses on the even days, the man was spraying his grass with a hose. He looked vaguely familiar, but Father Gervase was unable to place him, but then his memory, never strong in the matter of faces, had grown more unreliable in this area.
“Do you happen to know when he’s due back?” he called.
“Haven’t a clue.” The man barked a short laugh. “But then I’m not my brother’s keeper, am I, Father?”
“Well—” The priest was considering how to respond—aren’t we all our brother’s keepers?—when he realized the man intended the remark to be some sort of jest. He was able to summon a weak smile. But the mystery of where Will Light was off to remained unsolved. Well, the artist had a perfect right to take time off. Perhaps a vacation. Perfectly his right. Still, the neighbor’s remark irked him. He remembered a time when neighbors cared about and watched out for each other. “All right then,” he said, but the man had already turned away, back to hosing the lawn.
Back at the rectory, mindful of the need to stay hydrated—the last thing he needed was another fainting episode—he headed directly for the kitchen for a glass of water, where he found Mrs. Jessup busy wiping out the refrigerator shelves.
“Good morning, Father,” she said, and she heaved her shoulder in the silent way she had of letting him know he was interrupting her day, an attitude, he now realized, she never adopted with Father Burns and one that tended to make him feel like a tenant on her property.
“Is there something I can get for you?”
“No. No. I’ll just get a glass of water, and then I’ll get out of your way.”
“Here. Let me get it.” She poured ice water from a pitcher into a tumbler.
In spite of his promise to leave, he took the glass and sat, a bit concerned that the walk to the harbor and then over to Will Light’s house had left him spent. He resolved, in spite of his bad hip, to start up again with the daily walks he’d abandoned during the worst of the heat spell. Beads of condensation rolled down the sides of the tumbler and pooled on the table. Mrs. Jessup swiped them away with a wad of paper towels. His mother had employed a stack of worn tea towels for all such tasks. He refrained from mentioning the wastefulness of paper towels. As he watched her mop up the condensation, his thoughts returned to Will Light. Certainly Will wasn’t expected to punch in a time clock or report to him—it wasn’t as if the cardinal had hired him for a regular nine-to-five job—but the artist’s absence troubled him. Surely he hadn’t gone off and given up on the project. The idea of having to face the bishop with that news made him light-headed. And he felt, too, the disappointment at not being able to tell Will where and when he had found his daughter’s toy. Probably not important, but he couldn’t rid himself of the thought that it might possibly be significant and that he should tell someone.
“Do you remember Lucy Light?” he found himself asking.
“Lucy Light?” she said. “Oh, you mean the child who was murdered. Lord, yes. They never did find out who did it, did they?”
“No.”
“That poor, poor family. What a dreadful thing to happen. Absolutely dreadful. I can’t imagine it.”
Father Gervase didn’t want to imagine it and in fact had deliberately tried, not always successfully, to keep any thoughts of Lucy Light’s last moments from forming in his mind.
Father Gervase regretted bringing up the subject.
“It is hard to believe though,” Mrs. Jessup continued. “I mean, this isn’t one of those places where that kind of thing happens.”
“No.”
“But why did you ask about the girl?”
Unable to stop, he confided in her. “Well, here is the strangest thing. A while back, I found something in the chapel that belonged to the girl. As least, when her father saw it, he was certain it was hers.”
“You found it here?” she said. This news caused her to pull a chair out from the table and plop down. “In our chapel?”