We'll Meet Again

32

I don’t know how I let this happen, Molly thought as she placed a tray of cheese and crackers on the table in the family room. Seeing Cal and Peter Black here, together, upset her in ways she had not anticipated. The serenity, the comfort she had found in being in her own house was suddenly gone. It was as though her privacy had been violated. Seeing these two men in here brought back the many times when they would meet with Gary in his study. The three of them would spend hours in conference there-the other Remington Health Management board members were only rubber stamps.

These past few days the house had felt different from the way she remembered it. It was as though the five and a half years she had been in prison had changed her perception of her life as she had known it.

Before Gary died, I believed I was happy, Molly thought. I believed that the gnawing restlessness I felt came from my frustration at not having a baby.

Now she could feel the old, familiar heaviness of spirit closing in around her. She could tell Jenna sensed her change of mood and was concerned. Jenna had trailed her out to the kitchen, had insisted on cutting the cheese into squares, had arranged the crackers neatly on the plate, had folded the napkins just so.

After being so curt on the phone, Peter Black seemed to be going out of his way tonight to be agreeable. When he came in, he had kissed her on the cheek and squeezed her hand. His message was clear: That terrible tragedy is behind us.

Is it? she wondered. Can we make something like that-the murder, the years in prison-just disappear, as though they had never happened? I don’t think so, she decided as she looked at these old friends-if indeed that’s what they were-gathered together in this room.

She looked at Peter Black-he seemed tremendously uncomfortable. Why had he insisted on coming here?

Philip Matthews seemed to be the only one at ease. He had been the first to arrive, getting there promptly at seven, an amaryllis plant held in the crook of his arm. “I know you’re looking forward to gardening,” he’d said. “Maybe you’ll find a corner for an amaryllis.”

The huge, pale red blossoms were exquisite. “Be careful,” she warned him. “The amaryllis is also called a belladonna lily, and belladonna is a poison.”

The lightness she had felt then was gone. Now Molly felt that even the air was poisoned. Cal Whitehall and Peter Black were not here as a welcome-home committee-that was clear from the outset. They had a different agenda. That would also explain Jenna’s nervousness, she decided. She was the one who had forced the meeting.

Molly wanted to tell Jenna that it was all right. She understood that Cal was a steamroller, that if he’d made up his mind to come, Jenna wouldn’t have been able to stop him.

The reason behind their visit soon became apparent. It was Cal who first broached the subject. “Molly, yesterday that TV news reporter, Fran Simmons, was in the hospital coffee shop asking questions. Was she there at your suggestion?”

“No, I didn’t know Fran was going there,” she responded with a shrug of her shoulders, “but it’s fine with me.”

“Oh Molly, please,” Jenna murmured. “Don’t you understand what you’re doing to yourself?”

“Yes, I do, Jen,” Molly said quietly but firmly.

Cal set his glass on the table with unnecessary force, causing a few drops to splash from it.

Molly resisted the urge to immediately mop up the spill, part of her impulse to do anything to escape this nightmare. Instead, she looked at the two men who had been her husband’s partners.

Cal was not ignoring the spill. He jumped up, muttering, “I’ll get a paper towel.” In the kitchen he looked around, found the towel rack. As he started back, his eyes diverted to the single notation on the wall calendar. Carefully he studied it.

Peter Black’s cheeks were flushed; clearly this wasn’t his first drink of the night. “Molly, you know that we’re in discussion about the acquisition of several other health maintenance organizations. If you persist in allowing, much less encouraging, this program to proceed, could you at least ask Fran Simmons to hold off until after the merger is completed?”

So that’s what this is all about, Molly thought. They’re afraid that if I open old wounds, the infection could spread to them.

“Of course, there’s nothing to hide,” he added emphatically. “But talk and gossip and rumors have ruined plenty of important negotiations.”

He was drinking scotch, and Molly watched as he drained his glass. She remembered that years ago he had been a heavy hitter when it came to booze. Obviously that hadn’t changed.

“And Molly, please give up the idea of trying to locate Annamarie Scalli,” Jen pleaded. “If she found out about a possible television program, she might sell her story to one of those scandal magazines.”

Molly still sat unspeaking, staring at the three people, feeling her old fears and doubts bubbling just below the calm surface she had displayed so far tonight.

“I think the case has been presented,” Philip Matthews said bluntly, breaking the awkward silence. “Why don’t we give it a rest?”

Peter Black, Jenna, and Cal left a short time later. Philip Matthews waited until the door closed behind them, then he asked, “Molly, would you prefer that we skip dinner and I get out of your way?”

On the verge of tears, she nodded, then managed to say, “You can have a rain check if you want one.”

“I do want one.”

Molly had prepared coq au vin and wild rice. After Philip left, she covered the dishes and put them in the refrigerator, then checked the door locks and went into the study. Tonight, maybe because Cal and Peter Black had been there, she had a strong sense of something lurking at the edges of her conscious mind, trying to break through.

What was it? she wondered. Old memories, old fears that would drag her deeper into the depression she felt? Or would it provide answers, maybe even help her escape the darkness that threatened to envelop her? She would just have to wait and see.

She did not turn on a light but curled up on the sofa, her legs tucked under her.

What would Cal and Peter and Philip Matthews think, she wondered, if they suspected that tomorrow evening at eight o’clock, at a roadside diner in Rowayton, she was actually going to meet Annamarie Scalli?