“Anyway,” Luanne said. “What about you? How was your evening?” She padded over to the bureau to change into her nightgown.
“Fairly uneventful.” Discomfited by the fib, Vivian aimed to busy herself. She flipped open her diary, as though resuming the activity that had taken up her night.
“Have you decided about enlisting yet?”
All things considered, Vivian wasn’t exactly an ideal candidate. “Not yet,” she said, attention on her book, unseeing.
“Might be worth it, you know–just to see your mother have a conniption.”
A valid benefit to consider, but later.
“Hey, Viv. Whose is this?”
Vivian raised her head and found Luanne with a hat.
A black fedora.
Isaak’s.
In an instant, Vivian’s thudding heartbeats returned.
“Oh, yes. That.” An explanation rushed to mind and quickly tumbled out. “I bought it today. For your brother.”
Luanne inspected the item. “Really?” she said, uncertain. “Of course. Why wouldn’t you think so?”
“It’s just that . . . well, it doesn’t look ... new.”
Vivian honed in on the dust marks, the bent brim. She replied as if the reason were obvious. “That’s because it isn’t, silly. It’s from a secondhand store.”
The lies were pouring out faster, like grains of quicksand, sure to drag her under. “I thought it was best to conserve, with the war on and all.”
Luanne contemplated a thought as she glanced to the side-was she looking at the window?
“What did you think?” Vivian pinned on a smile. “That I was hiding another man in here?” She felt herself sinking, past the ankles, up to the knees.
Luanne hesitated, then snipped off a laugh. “I don’t know what I was thinking. I know how deeply you care for Gene. After the mess with Helen, I just get a little protective sometimes.”
It took Vivian effort to connect the name, given the settling of her pulse. “The cheerleader,” she remembered. A discussion on the girl he dated through high school was a welcomed shift. “Why? What happened between them?”
“He didn’t tell you?”
Vivian shook her head.
After a pause, Luanne gave a shrug that said her brother wouldn’t mind the divulgence. She leaned her back against the bureau. “They stayed together even when Gene went off to college. I think Helen was hoping he’d propose before then, but he wanted to wait. Eventually, he found out Helen had stepped out on him-if you know what I mean.” Her inflection and lowered eyes alluded to much more than a kiss.
No wonder Gene, too, had bypassed any mention of former loves. It was for Vivian’s sake as much as his. “I take it they didn’t stay friends,” she guessed.
“Not for lack of trying-by Helen anyway. She truly wanted a second chance. She even came to me in tears, looking for advice. She was so desperate to fix things. But it was too late. She’d broken his heart, and for Gene, there was no going back.”
His value on loyalty and trust certainly fit within his character; still, testament to the fact caused Vivian a stirring of dread.
“Well, enough of all that,” Luanne said with abrupt lightness. She walked over and handed Vivian the fedora. “As I said, I know you’d never do anything like that.”
Although the assurance came with a smile, threaded in her tone was a message resembling a warning.
37
“And why, may I ask, has it taken you this long to tell me?” From Audra’s kitchen table Tess shot a light, accusatory glare.
“Umm, because I didn’t want you to think I was crazy?” Audra said. A statement of the obvious. At the counter, she spread peanut butter on another slice of wheat bread.
“Yeah, well. Too late for that.”
Audra smiled, though inside she longed to hear—from someone not being paid to say so—that she still appeared a sane, suited mother. For a second, she was tempted to tell her friend as much, but it was too much like requesting a hug. The response didn’t seem genuine if you had to ask.
She simply continued with the sandwiches by adding a layer of strawberry jam. Meanwhile, Tess steeped her tea, sweetening the air with orange spice. In the adjacent living room, afternoon sunlight wove through the vertical blinds. Perfect weather for a picnic. With Audra’s recent abundance of free time, a distraction was never more welcomed.
“So, have you tried talking to Jack?” Tess said. “At bedtime, like before?”
“I have. But he hasn’t said anything else.”
Last night, Audra had approached him during his “golden hour”—a term Dr. Shaw used in his reply e-mail, describing a child’s common openness while on the groggy ridge of sleep. This time, Jack didn’t so much as mumble.