“You weren’t going to tell me?”
No. She wasn’t. She’d thought about it, feeling she owed it to him after he had helped her, but in the end, she had decided against it. “I knew you’d try to talk me out of it.”
“I already tried that. Clearly, it didn’t work. And you don’t need my approval.”
“No, I don’t. But I wish you could understand why I have to do this. I’m not going to Riddlesville to break Loretta Rawlings’s heart.”
“I know you’re not. And it’s not her heart I’m worried about.”
Christy-Lynn wasn’t sure how to respond to that, and so she said nothing at all.
“Take care of yourself,” Wade said, his voice suddenly gentle. “It’s a long way to West Virginia.”
“I made it here from Maine.”
“True enough. Still . . .” He reached for the cell phone peeking from the side pocket of her purse and began tapping the screen. After a moment, he handed it back. “All right. I’m in there. Just in case you get sleepy while you’re driving. Or if you just want to talk.”
She smiled awkwardly. His concern was both touching and unsettling. “I’ll be fine.”
“Yes, you will. Just the same, I’ll leave mine on.”
Riddlesville was a gray and gritty town, made all the more dismal by the steady drizzle that had been falling all afternoon. Christy-Lynn couldn’t help cringing as she drove through the derelict downtown—block after block of run-down buildings, vacant storefronts, and dirty sidewalks. She was relieved when she finally reached the stop sign at the edge of town, though what awaited her on the other side proved no less depressing. Ramshackle houses with crumbling chimneys and sagging porches, yards choked with broken baby strollers and cast-off recliners—all reminiscent of a childhood she’d just as soon forget.
Organized neighborhoods eventually gave way to a more sparse landscape, lots pocked with rusty trailers and rotting barns. Christy-Lynn’s stomach clenched when she spotted the sign for Red Bud Road. She’d been driving for hours, wondering if she’d ever reach her destination, but now that she was close her doubts began to resurface. How did one go about broaching the subject of adultery with a grieving grandmother?
Christy-Lynn followed the deserted clay track for more than a mile, wondering if she’d missed a turn or misread the sign. Finally, she spotted a small clapboard structure set back from the road, the yard a rough patch of sparse brown scrub. She let her foot off the gas, approaching at an idle, certain now that she had made a wrong turn.
The place was little more than a shack with a listing front porch and a roof patched in places with squares of weathered plywood. In the side yard, a cracked kiddie pool contained several inches of slimy green water, and there was an old Chevy slowly rotting around back, the rear windshield caved in, back tires flat to the rim. Surely no one lived here. But the number on the mailbox matched the one on the paper Wade had given her.
She pulled into the drive and got out, picking her way along a weedy track meant to pass for a path to the porch. Skirting a cluster of mismatched pots filled with pink and white geraniums—the only signs of life in an otherwise abysmal landscape—she mounted a set of creaky steps, took a deep breath, and knocked before she could change her mind.
It was some time before the door opened, but finally a wizened face with eyes the color of old chambray appeared through a narrow opening.
“Yes?” The voice was creaky with age and unmistakably wary.
“Are you Loretta Rawlings?”
“Who wants to know?”
“My name is Christine Ludlow, Mrs. Rawlings.” The name felt strange on her tongue, foreign after so many months as Christy-Lynn Parker. “My husband was Stephen Ludlow. Does that name mean anything to you?”
The door eased open another few inches. The old woman stood looking her over, heavily stooped at the waist and shoulders. “You’ve come then,” she said hoarsely. “I wondered if you would.”
“I’m not here to cause trouble, Mrs. Rawlings. I just . . . there are questions. About your granddaughter and my husband. I was hoping we could talk.”
The old woman glanced back over her shoulder, as if she might have something on the stove. Christy-Lynn tried to peer inside but could make out nothing beyond an old plaid couch and a floor lamp with a yellowed shade.
“Give me a minute, and I’ll be out.”
She closed the door then, leaving Christy-Lynn standing on the porch. Moments later, she returned with two glasses of lemonade. She wore a scruffy wool sweater despite the afternoon heat. “There,” she said, nodding toward a pair of plastic chairs. “We’ll sit there.” She handed Christy-Lynn a glass that was already beginning to sweat, then fumbled in the pocket of her housedress, eventually producing a soft pack of Basic Menthols and a disposable lighter.
She eased stiffly into one of the chairs, waiting until Christy-Lynn had taken the other to withdraw a cigarette from the pack and clamp it between her lips. Her hands, blue-veined and skeletal, trembled as she lit it. “Hope you don’t mind. I don’t smoke in the house anymore.”
“No. Not at all.”
Christy-Lynn studied the woman as she took that first long pull, her leathery cheeks caving in as she dragged in a lung full of smoke and then exhaled it with a faint rattle. It was impossible to guess her age. She was skin and bone, all joints and sinew, her skin the texture of old parchment. Somewhere in her eighties was probably a safe bet, though she could have been younger. Something told her life had been less than kind to Loretta Rawlings.
For a time, Christy-Lynn said nothing, balancing her untouched lemonade glass on her knee and wondering where to begin. In the end, it was Mrs. Rawlings who broke the silence.
“Ask what you came to ask,” she said in her flat, phlegmy voice. “I’ll do my best to answer.”
“I know how uncomfortable this must be for you, Mrs. Rawlings. It’s uncomfortable for me too. But there are things I feel I have a right to know, like the precise nature of your granddaughter’s relationship with my husband.”
Loretta Rawlings turned her head, her hazy eyes unsettlingly steady. “You don’t need to mince words, Mrs. Ludlow. I’ve been around a long time. Not much shocks me.”
Christy-Lynn nodded, wishing she could say the same. “All right then, was your granddaughter having an affair with my husband?”
Loretta took another long pull on her cigarette as she mulled the question. “I’d stopped thinking of it that way, but I suppose that’s what it was. No way around it really, since it was you wearing the wedding ring and not my Honey.”
The blunt answer left Christy-Lynn scrambling for a response. She had expected something else, a defense of her granddaughter’s behavior, excuses, justification. Instead, she had answered the question head-on. “Can you tell me how long they were . . . how long they knew each other?”
She seemed to give the question some thought, tracing a shaky finger around the rim of her glass. “I suppose it must be almost four years now. It was right after the book about the plane crash. Honey loved that book. When she heard they were making it into a movie, she convinced herself that if she could just meet the author she could talk him into giving her the part of Sandra. Used to walk around practicing her lines like she was moving to Hollywood any day.”
“Your granddaughter was an actress?”
Loretta smiled sadly. “My granddaughter was a dreamer, Mrs. Ludlow. And determined to get out of this town.” She turned her face away, her voice suddenly thick. “She got half her wish.”
Christy-Lynn squirmed as the moment stretched, sad and more than a little awkward. “I’m sorry you lost your granddaughter, Mrs. Rawlings.”
“No one calls me Mrs. Rawlings. Call me Rhetta. And thank you for that. It’s big of you to say after . . . everything. How did you find out?”