The Lost Years

6

All day Greg Pearson was burning to tell Mariah how he could understand her pain and wanted to share it with her. He wanted to be able to say how much he would miss her father. He wanted to tell her how grateful he was to Jonathan, who had taught him so much, not only about archaeology, but about life.

When Jon’s colleagues and friends were telling stories about him, about how helpful he had been in personal ways, he wanted to share his own story that he had confided to Jon, about what an insecure kid he had been. I told Jon that I was the guy in high school who stopped growing at five feet six when the other guys soared up to six feet two and six feet three, he wanted to say. I was a skinny weakling, the poster boy for nerd of the year. There wasn’t a team I tried out for that I made. I finally got to be five feet ten inches when I was in college, but it was too late.

I guess I was looking for sympathy but I didn’t get any. Jonathan had just laughed.

“So you spent your time studying instead of throwing basketballs in the net,” he said. “You’ve built a successful company. Get out your high school yearbook and look up the guys who were the hotshots in school. I’ll bet you find that most of them are scraping along.”

I told Jon that I’d looked up a few of them, especially the ones who gave me a hard time, and he was right. Of course some of the guys are doing fine, but the ones who were the bullies haven’t amounted to a hill of beans so far.

He made me feel good about myself, Greg wanted to say. Besides sharing his incredible knowledge about ancient times and archaeology, he made me feel good.

Greg would have stopped there. It wouldn’t have been necessary to add that he’d told Jonathan that despite his success, he was still painfully shy, an outsider at parties, lacking the most basic skill at small talk, or that Jonathan’s suggestion had been to find a vivacious, talkative woman. “She’ll never notice that you’re quiet, and she’ll do all the talking at parties. I know at least three guys with wives like that, and it’s a great match.”

All this Greg was thinking as he followed Mariah out of the country club. He held back until a valet brought Father Aiden’s car and the caregiver was helping Mariah’s mother into the black limousine that the funeral director had provided.

Then he went up to her. “Mariah, it’s been a terrible day for you. I hope you understand how much we’ll all miss him.”

Mariah nodded. “I do know, Greg. Thanks.”

He wanted to add, “Let’s have dinner soon,” but the words froze on his lips. They had started dating a few years ago, but then when he persisted in calling her, she had hinted that she was seeing someone else. He had realized she was only trying to warn him away.

Now, looking at the pain in her deep blue eyes and the way the afternoon sun was picking up the highlights in her shoulder-length hair, Greg wanted to tell her that he was still in love with her and would go to hell and back for her. Instead he said, “I’ll give you a call next week to see how your mother is doing.”

“That would be nice.”

He held the door for her as she stepped into the limo, then reluctantly closed it behind her. He watched, not knowing that he was also being observed, as the car slowly made its way around the circular driveway.

Richard Callahan was in the group of departing guests who had formed a line to retrieve their cars. He had seen the expression on Greg’s face brighten whenever Mariah came home for one of Jonathan’s dinners, but he also sensed that she had no interest in Greg. Of course things could change now with her father gone, he thought. She might be more receptive to a guy who could, and would, do anything for her.

Especially, Richard thought as the valet brought his eight-year-old Volkswagen to the curb, if any of that gossip I heard at the table is true. From what I gathered, that caregiver has had too much to say to the neighbors about how angry Kathleen becomes when she gets on the subject of Jon’s relationship with Lily. There was no need for Rory to tell them about Lily. It was none of their—or Rory’s—business.

Kathleen was alone with Jonathan the night he was shot. Mariah has to know that her mother may be a suspect in his death, he thought. Those detectives are going to call Lily and Greg and Albert and Charles and me and arrange private meetings with all of us. What are we supposed to tell them? They certainly must know by now that Lily and Jonathan were involved with each other, and that Kathleen was terribly upset about it.

Richard tipped the valet and got into his car. For a moment he was tempted to stop and see how Kathleen and Mariah were doing, but then he reasoned that they both might be better off left alone for a while. As he started to drive home, his thoughts were of the shocked expression he had seen on Mariah’s face when Father Aiden was talking to her just before the luncheon ended.

What did Father Aiden tell her? he wondered. And now that the funeral’s over, will those detectives be zeroing in on the fact that there is no explanation for Jonathan’s death other than that Kathleen pulled that trigger Monday night?