Tobias was already trying to determine what Hugh was worth. Outrageous. But more condemning evidence.
“Yes. Thank you, Anina. I am doing my best. How could I not? But you will come to the memorial tomorrow at the gallery? Good. Then I go to London for some weeks. We will reschedule our meeting after London.”
He leaned too far to the right and nearly lost his balance.
“Hello? Anina? Hello? Agh, shit.”
Abbas continued cursing his dropped call until he saw me through the windshield.
“Nora!”
I pressed the button and my window rolled down.
“Hi, Abbas.”
“My God, Nora.”
He came around to the driver’s side. Then he leaned in the window to look more closely at my face through the rising steam of our breath. It was good to see him.
I wondered what he thought of that brutal eulogy.
“Dear girl, you came. I didn’t see you inside.” He shook his head. “The brother. His talk was terrible, no?”
“Awful,” I agreed.
“You must come to the city tomorrow. We will do a beautiful thing at the gallery at three.”
He began to study me the way I’d seen him evaluate a work of art so many times in the past. Lips pursed. Close-set eyes narrowed and penetrating as he took measure of the painting’s effect on him. Analyzing where it fit into the marketplace and how much he could profit from it.
“You are looking stunning today. Like Cossack princess.”
“Thank you.” I couldn’t help smiling a little inside. Even at a funeral, Abbas’s chauvinism was irrepressible.
He raised an eyebrow. “I think you must have a new man.”
Ben. Our dinner was tonight, and I had so much to tell him. I hoped I’d find the nerve.
“I do.”
“I am happy for you, Nora.” He sighed. “You know my feeling. Hugh should have never let you go. He should have given you a baby. You were good for him.”
So that’s how he saw it. I guess he wasn’t keen on Helene. But what about whether Hugh was good for me?
“Thanks . . . For the record, I was the one who let him go.”
“Ah, of course. Anyway . . .” He trailed off and looked sad. He rubbed his eye. He was starting to cry. “So much history. I see you and I remember. How much time Hugh and I spent together, how much we enjoyed arguing for sport. How he loved my baba ghanoush.” He blinked, fighting back his tears.
“Three, four times a week we were talking. Three, four times a week for all those years. In my mind, I am still speaking with Hugh all the time.”
I opened my glove compartment, dug out a recycled, brown-paper napkin and gave it to Abbas. His feelings for Hugh touched me. But I was also a little envious that Abbas could mourn Hugh without ambivalence. Hugh hadn’t betrayed him.
Abbas blew his nose. “Now he is gone. And why? Who does this terrible thing?”
“I wish I knew.”
I’d had the urge to tell him that the man he was helping today was likely Hugh’s killer. But I checked it. I needed to get to those car rental calls and find some real evidence to present to the police. Wait . . . maybe Tobias had said something incriminating to Abbas?
“So, you’re going to evaluate Hugh’s paintings today? At the studio?”
He tilted his head. “Who told you this?”
“I heard you on the phone just now. Why the rush, if you don’t mind my asking?”
Abbas looked defensive. “Tobias asked for my help. He has financial decisions to make for the child. He is flying home this afternoon, right after burial, with his wife and the little one. He asked me to stay and take an estimate on the paintings in Hugh’s studio before I leave for London. I’ll be gone for almost a month.”
His phone buzzed and he checked the caller.
“I need to be answering this. You are coming to the cemetery now?”
“No.”
“Then you must come to memorial tomorrow, dear girl. We must talk more.” He reached in, grabbed my hand and kissed it, then put the phone to his ear. “Anina? Anina? You can hear me now?” he shouted, turning away.
He crossed the lot doing battle with his phone and finally gave up in frustration, climbing into his dark green BMW. As he backed out of his parking space, my passenger door opened. Grace slipped in beside me. I held up my hand before she could speak.
“I’m pretty sure it’s Tobias. It looks like he’s already counting the money.”
Big, shaggy flakes began falling as soon as we left the chapel. So much for the “coastal effect”; global warming messed with cold-weather patterns, too. A thick dusting already covered the lawn by the time we pulled our cars up to Grace and Mac’s house, a mid-nineteenth-century Cape on one of Pequod’s prettiest streets. Mac, Otis and Leon were out front wearing dark wool caps and toggle coats, lobbing the season’s first snowballs. The scene looked like a Currier & Ives litho—if you cropped out the Pequod Volunteer Ambulance parked by the curb for Mac to jump into at a moment’s notice.
We greeted Mac and the boys and went into the house. Behind the traditional exterior, the home’s inside was unconventional. Walls lined with dozens of flea-market paintings of flowers—roses, zinnias, sunflowers—all sorts of blooms. Colorful pillows and throws on creamy couches. Eclectic, ethnic furniture set on an assortment of vibrant Turkish rugs.
Grace went into the kitchen to whip up a snack, insisting I rest.
“You look like you need to lie down,” she said.
I sprawled on the chaise by the window and stared across at shelves full of books and family photos, lingering on the picture of Grace and Mac at their wedding. I’d glanced at it so many times in passing. But I studied it now. Gallant, snowy-haired Mac stood behind his bride with his strong arms wrapped around her waist. She leaned back into him, her hands covering his, secure at her center. Both of them were beaming and genuinely thrilled.
Snapshots of my own wedding arose in my mind unbidden. Grace’s oldest, Leon, toddling down the aisle and flinging rose petals up in the air at whim. Dappled sunlight shining through the windows of our loft onto fluted champagne glasses. The smiling, expectant faces of guests watching the civil-court judge conduct the ceremony.
But had those faces really been smiling? Or was that how I’d chosen to remember them? Because worried expressions began to appear in my mind, on Grace’s face, on Mac’s and Aunt Lada’s. Did they know marrying Hugh would bring me so much unhappiness? Had they suspected his infidelities? Even the groom seemed subdued, in retrospect. Was Hugh in turmoil at the altar? Had he just lacked the nerve to call off the wedding? The trouble with having a partner who lies and cheats is that it can make you question everything.