Superstition

34

Her main preoccupation on the journey was what she was going to tell her parents. Like a teenager with some guilty secret, she knew that the whole truth would be a serious mistake. There would be worry and concern and the weekend would be ruined.

Already on the phone her mother had asked about Sam: were they still seeing each other, how was the project going that they'd been working on? Joanna had managed to avoid giving any straight answers, thereby creating the impression that the relationship had entered a troubled no-man's-land and was better not talked about for the time being. This had the secondary effect of putting the experiment itself, by association, mercifully off limits, something for which Joanna was profoundly grateful.

To Joanna, this weekend was something of a lifeline. It represented the essence of what she was trying desperately to cling to, that unquestioned and indefinable sense of belonging that came only from home and family, and which was so much taken for granted until it was no longer there. Now, with the shifting perspectives that had been happening around her, Joanna was beginning to lose that sense of normality, of belonging. More than anything in the world, she wanted it back. She wanted to wrap her old life around her like a warm blanket, and if she had to lie to prevent it from being snatched away, then she would do so.

Her father met her off the train, driving her mother's station wagon, and with Skip, their crossbreed terrier, in the back. The dog had stayed with neighbors while they were away, and was overjoyed at the prospect of a full family reunion. He sat on Joanna's knee and licked her face during the short drive home through the gathering darkness. She laughed and hugged and scolded him alternately, all the while keeping up a nonstop conversation with her father about places they'd been and people they'd met and meals they'd had.

As they pulled in through the gate the car's headlights swung over the shrubberies, herbaceous borders, and plant-covered pergolas that surrounded the rambling clapboard house. The garage door swung open automatically, and closed behind them with a comforting, familiar thunk. Skip was already out of the car, turning in circles and yelping to celebrate their arrival.

Joanna hurried down the short passage to the house proper. Her mother opened the connecting door before she reached it, and they threw their arms around each other. Joanna closed her eyes and let it all flow over her-the warmth, the rich smells from the kitchen, a Mozart flute concerto coming from the radio somewhere in the distance. It was all as it should be, as she remembered it, as she always wanted it to be.

Moments later she was watching her mother check the slowly roasting chicken while her father handed her a glass of wine. The three of them drank to each other, to being together, to being who they were.

Her parents talked some more of where they'd been and what they'd seen and done. “We took some wonderful videos,” her mother said. “We'll show you them after dinner.”

“Come back and watch our vacation movies-we'll pay you!”

Her father shot the words out of the side of his mouth. It was an old joke in the family, and Joanna whooped with laughter-perhaps too loudly in her anxiety to embrace all that was familiar and reassuring, because her mother stole a quick glance in her direction. She didn't break the rhythm of what she was doing or change the expression on her face, but Elizabeth Cross had sensed something, and Joanna knew it.

When they sat down to dinner, candlelight flickered on silverware and the polished tabletop, and the whole dining room was reflected in the long window that looked out upon impenetrable blackness, but where tomorrow would be visible the well-kept lawn, the flower beds, and the bank of trees that dipped toward the river below.

They ate and drank with nonstop companionable chatter, enjoying being together in a way that Joanna knew few families were lucky enough to share. Despite that look of her mother's in the kitchen, there was no obvious strain, no sense of certain subjects being carefully avoided while guesses were made and conclusions discreetly drawn under cover of a blameless conversation. She knew that there would be a moment tomorrow, probably in the morning when she went shopping with her mother as she usually did, when questions would be asked and she would have to deal with them. But she was ready for that. She'd worked out a strategy. Nothing was going to spoil these precious few days.

“I'm sorry…?”

The apology came from Joanna's mother. She hadn't noticed Joanna's purse lying flat at one end of the sideboard, and had knocked it to the floor as she pushed the cheese board to make room for an empty salad bowl.

Joanna was also on her feet, clearing away plates. “I'll get it,” her father said, sliding from his chair and down on one knee. Joanna thanked him, but didn't give the incident a second thought. There was nothing breakable in the purse, nothing of value to be lost or damaged.

Then she became aware of her father holding something that he was looking at with a troubled frown. She took a step closer, and recognized the folded white card with the unmistakable black border. Her heart missed a beat. Like a fool she'd left the printed funeral service from that morning in her purse.

“Somebody you know died?” he asked. “It's today's date.” He looked up at her, concerned. “You been to a funeral, Jo?”

“Oh, Daddy!” She felt a burst of anger, banged down the plates she was carrying and snatched first the card and then her purse from him.

He was taken by surprise, a little shocked. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean to pry. It just fell out.”

“I know, it's all right,” Joanna tried to sound contrite, but her manner was too brisk. She was trying to brush the incident aside, move on to other things.

It was not going to happen.

“Darling, who died?” Her mother's voice was full of sympathy, but the question was impossible to ignore.

Joanna gave her head a little shake, as though she didn't want to talk about this but was deferring to their interest.

“Drew and Barry Hearst,” she said, avoiding their eyes, “two of Sam's group that I was working with. They were killed in a car crash a few days ago.”

“How awful! And here we are chattering about our vacation…” Elizabeth Cross moved a few steps toward Joanna and took her daughter's hands in her own. “I'm so sorry, darling, I feel awful.”

“You shouldn't. That's why I didn't mention it. I didn't want to spread a cloud over the evening.”

“But were you close to them? Had they become good friends?”

“Not really. I was fond of them, of course, but I didn't really know them. I'd only been to their house one time.”

Her father stood by awkwardly. “I'm sorry, Jo. It was thoughtful of you to keep it to yourself, but you don't have to hide things from us, you know-not anything.”

Joanna felt suddenly ashamed. She should tell them the truth. She owed them that much. “I know,” she said. “I'd have mentioned it later.”

Another lie, and her mother sensed it. Behind the genuine concern in her voice Joanna detected a note of suspicion. Something didn't sound right to Elizabeth Cross and she wasn't ready to let the matter drop.

“But why didn't you say anything on the phone yesterday…?”

“You were so excited and full of your vacation, it just seemed somehow not the time.”

Her mother moved her head to one side without shifting her gaze. It was a gesture that said, “All right, what's really going on?”

Joanna felt a flutter of irrational panic, like a child caught in a lie. Then she thought angrily, I'm too old for this. I can do whatever I want. I don't have to answer to anybody.

“It was such a shock, especially after losing Maggie McBride, I just didn't want to talk about it.”

Why had she done that? She heard the words as though she hadn't spoken them. What strange combination of emotions had made her say that?

“Maggie McBride?” her mother echoed.

Too late now. She must go with what was happening, defy her own fears, drag them out into the open, expose them to the cold light of common sense. Her parents had made the dragons in her closets and the monsters under her bed disappear when she was a child, why shouldn't they do the same now?

“You remember-that lovely Scottish woman I told you about, I'm sure I did.”

“She's dead?”

“While you were away. Apparently she'd had a heart condition for some time.”

“When did she die?” This from her father, putting things together in his masculine, engineer's way, and looking at the bottom line.

Joanna glanced at him briefly, then tried to pretend she hadn't. She was caught. There was no way out now.

Her father repeated the question. “When did Maggie die?”

“Last week. Friday.”

There, it was said. It was out of her hands now.

The frown of concern deepened on her father's brow. “My God, Jo, that's three out of a group of…how many?”

“Eight.”

“Three…in one week?”

She suddenly realized it was still up to her. They weren't going to make it go away. She'd been right in the first place-she was the one who would have to protect them. The thought renewed her confidence, the way knowing that the worst has happened can give you strength because there's nothing else to be afraid of. What she had to do now was clear, simple even.

“Obviously we're not continuing it. I mean we could, but out of respect-and we're all too upset.” She spoke boldly, in charge, putting everything into a sensible perspective. “Of course, we weren't getting very far. We were about to call it quits anyway.”

The lie was growing easier and more fluent as she developed it. She hated the feeling of driving a wedge between herself and the two people in the world whose closeness and support she most wanted at this moment, but she knew she had no choice. There just wasn't any other way to handle this.

“You say you weren't getting very far…?” Her father asked, wanting more detail.

Joanna made a gesture-open, dismissive, suggesting that the whole thing had turned out to be no more than a frivolous enterprise.

“Nothing aside from a few bumps and table knockings-which are actually far more common than you'd imagine. I've got enough for an article-at least, enough to work up into something readable. But I'm afraid it won't amount to anything very spectacular.”

That was a lie that would be brutally exposed when her article was eventually published, whether it was under her own byline or somebody else's. But she would worry about that later. For now all she cared about was protecting the brief sanctuary of these few days from the madness that surrounded her.

They stood facing each other across the room, she on one side of the table, her parents opposite.

“All the same,” her mother said in a voice filled with unspoken disquiet, “three people dead…in just a few days…”

“Oh, come on, Mom…!” Joanna managed to force a kind of shocked, dismissive laugh that didn't sound too artificial. “You're not trying to make something sinister out of that, are you? I mean, a heart attack and a road accident. It's a coincidence, and tragic-but nothing more.”

Stop now, she told herself, leave it there, you've said enough, any more will simply fan suspicion.

“Why don't I go make the coffee?” she said. It was something she often did at the end of a family dinner, her inestimable contribution, as she jokingly put it, to the evening. “Then we can watch those videos. I really want to see them-and I swear you won't have to pay me!”

They sat in near silence as the bridges of the Seine, the Thames, and the Tower of London drifted before them, and the intricately woven streets of Rome opened into their sudden, unexpected vistas. Joanna gave a whoop of recognition every time one parent or the other appeared on screen, applauded every well-framed shot, recalled some anecdote or character whenever a place she had visited with her parents in the past came into view.

It was a good performance, but a performance nonetheless. And she knew that her parents, from their own subdued response to her enthusiasm, recognized it as such.

But there were no more questions, and no awkwardness. Just a moment, alone with her mother, as they kissed good night, when Elizabeth Cross looked into her daughter's eyes with the intense and loving tenderness that only a parent can feel for a grown-up child out in the world alone, independent and beyond protection.

“You are all right, darling, aren't you?”

“Of course I am, Mom. I'm fine, truly.”

“Because if anything happened to you, I don't think I could bear it.”