The statements arrived. The funds went into the bank. The bills got paid. As far as Stephen was concerned, that was all she needed to know, and she’d been largely okay with that. She’d never been comfortable talking about money, perhaps because as a freelance editor, she earned so little in comparison. She didn’t even know the name of their broker.
The thought of what lay ahead left her exhausted as she mounted the stairs to the bedroom she and Stephen had shared. She desperately needed a shower, but the effort required to strip off her clothes was more than she could muster. Instead, she settled for brushing her teeth and washing her face. She was foraging in the medicine chest for the bottle of ibuprofen when the phone rang again.
The number wasn’t one she recognized. She let the call go to voice mail, cringing as a reporter for the Boston Globe rambled through polite but curt condolences before finally getting around to business and asking for an interview. The message no sooner ended than the phone rang again. The Portland Press Herald this time, followed by the Times, the Mirror, and the Dallas Morning News.
She let them all go to voice mail. The messages were largely the same, a pretense at sympathy followed by a request for an interview with the widow. When the phone rang a fifth time, she turned off the ringer, did the same with the phone in the kitchen, then shut down her cell for good measure. Gary was right. Her grief—and anything else she might be feeling—was no one’s business but her own.
Out of habit, she wandered back down to the kitchen and made coffee, then roamed the house with her mug, forgetting to sip as she lingered over things she and Stephen had collected over the years; a handblown glass bowl they had discovered in a tiny shop in Rockport; a lamp made of driftwood designed by an artist from Portsmouth; the Thomas Arvid oil painting that hung in the dining room, purchased on their honeymoon. How long ago it seemed now.
Eight years.
How had they slipped by so quickly? And how had she not noticed that things were changing—that Stephen was changing? Or maybe she’d just pretended not to notice.
Determined to shake the thought, she reached for the remote. The screen flared to life; a pair of talking heads behind the WGME news desk, with a bright-red breaking news banner crawling across the bottom. AUTHOR STEPHEN LUDLOW DIES IN CAR CRASH. It was bad enough seeing the words, but when Stephen’s face flashed up on the screen—the headshot from the back cover of his last book—she sagged onto the sofa and turned up the sound.
“Police say Ludlow’s car skidded off the Echo Bay Bridge and submerged in the chilly waters below. The cause of the accident is still under investigation, but it’s believed that ice on the bridge was to blame for the crash. Divers recovered the body just after midnight. Ludlow is best known for his Craig Childress detective novels, several of which have been made into successful action films. Ludlow resided in Clear Harbor, Maine, and is survived by his wife, Christine. The couple had been married for eight years and had no children.”
“No,” Christine said, clicking off the set when coverage shifted to an apartment fire in Portland. “No children.”
As if it was anyone’s business. There had been questions, of course. Awkward, intrusive questions she never quite knew how to answer. No children yet? How long have you been trying? Are you considering in vitro? Because if you are, there is a wonderful doctor at the new women’s center in Portland who is having fabulous results.
She never understood why people, women especially, assumed that every woman on the planet felt a bone-deep need to clone themselves for posterity. If they knew what she knew, had seen what she’d seen, they’d know there were worse things than being childless—like having a child you weren’t equipped to care for and scarring it for life.
She rose, carrying her coffee mug to the kitchen, then stood staring out the window over the sink. It had begun to snow, lazy flakes drifting down like small white wings. It was the third week of November, a little early for serious snow even in Maine, which meant it wasn’t likely to hang around. Still, the sight of it accumulating on the deck was depressing.
Stephen had loved the New England winters. Or rather, he had loved the idea of them, of being holed up over the long, frigid months, pecking away in a study with tall windows that overlooked the sea. It was the image he liked, the way he wanted the world to see him. But then, for Stephen everything had been about image. His career, the house, even their marriage had been carefully crafted to resemble something from the pages of a glossy magazine, as if real life had never quite been enough for him.
Perhaps that explained the blonde in the morgue. And yet, there was no proof that he’d actually been having an affair. Maybe Connelly was right. Maybe it wasn’t what it looked like. Either way, the detective had kept his word. There’d been no mention of the Jane Doe on the news.
The sound of a car door slamming suddenly caught her attention. Traffic on Pulpit Rock Road was rare enough in season—locals mostly in their Volvos and Subarus—but after Labor Day, when Clear Harbor emptied for the season, cars were virtually nonexistent, though it wouldn’t be the first time a tourist had ignored the PRIVATE ROAD sign and ventured out onto the point.
Curious, she padded to the living room and peered through the curtains, troubled to see that a handful of TV news trucks had gathered outside the front gates, looking like something from a bad sci-fi movie with their giant satellite dish antennas.
When in God’s name had that happened?
THREE
Clear Harbor, Maine
November 26, 2016
It had taken only a handful of days for Stephen’s death to go from local tragedy to national obsession, and now, a week later, Christine couldn’t turn on the TV without seeing some rehashed version of how the literary community had been tragically deprived of its brightest star. And if that wasn’t enough, the number of media trucks outside the gate had been growing exponentially and were now accompanied by a throng of reporters peering through the fence.
She had yet to brave the mob. In fact, with the exception of a phone call to Dorsey and Sons to make arrangements for Stephen’s memorial, she hadn’t braved anything at all, choosing to remain cloistered, licking her wounds without the intrusion of phones, newspapers, or the Internet. But today she would have to leave her sanctuary. Today was Stephen’s memorial.
She had expected to feel something like closure when she woke this morning, or at least the promise of closure, but all she felt was dread. She had managed to get through the morning, skipping breakfast to rake through her closet for something to wear to the service. Now, as she descended the stairs, she caught her reflection in the mirror at the end of the gallery, a dry-eyed ghost wearing the suit she had purchased two years ago for her mother-in-law’s funeral.
She dreaded the day ahead, queasy at the thought of facing Stephen’s friends, playing the grieving widow when the truth was she was quietly fuming. She hadn’t let herself be angry at first, passing those early few days in a kind of haze. It seemed wrong somehow, to be angry with someone who had just died. But then out of nowhere she had been struck with a mix of fury and curiosity, propelling her to Stephen’s study in search of the usual red flags—suspicious hotel bills, clandestine e-mails, lingerie receipts.