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True love. Hallmark made a fortune off the concept, as did more self-help authors than should ever see publication.
Da
A moment of dramatic tension, and then the recipient of Marshall ’s lost heart stepped into the doorway: Polly Deschamps née Farmer, divorcée, mother of two. She wore a dress of pewter with daffodil piping, colors that set off her silver-blonde hair. The collar was mandarin and closed with a frog that matched the piping. The style was pure fifties, from the years when fashion worshipped Marilyn Monroe and Sophia Loren.
Ms. Deschamps was nobody’s fool.
Seldom had Da
Polly turned and there was a tantalizing susurration. Few fabrics moved the way silk did.
Da
Polly stepped from the apse. With an i
Da
Polly knew it, too. Da
A white-hot point lacerated the back of Da
“Da
Marsh’s voice brought him back to the world, the room. It was over, done. The ceremony concluded, the bride kissed, and all the while Da
“Brother, are you okay?” Marsh said. He laid his hand on Da
“Overcome is all,” he said. “I’ve missed having a sister.” He smiled and opened his arms to Polly.
MINNESOTA, 1975
Susan Smith. Killed two little kids. Drowning. See, this I can understand. People look at what she did and say, “Oh, my God, how could anyone be so cold and heartless?” I can see doing it. Who knows what she was thinking, but maybe it went like this. Here she is, this down-and-outer. Maybe not much money and no hope of getting any. She’s lonely all the time, and she’s got these two little kids. The kids are stressed out, crying all the time and fussing, and she’s worn out with taking care of them and herself. Then, here comes this boyfriend, and she sees maybe a way out. So she falls hard. He has only one problem with taking her out of her misery. He doesn’t want the kids. In my movie, she’s torn up by this, miserable, but she sees no life for her or the kids without this boyfriend. She doesn’t want them in a foster home with all that shit. So she thinks the only way to save herself and keep her boys from being passed around is to quietly end their little lives. Blaming a black man, I can’t go there. That’s pure cowardice. But the murders. Sure.
20
People changed. People, not Richard. Watching his reflection in the mirror as he knotted his tie perfectly, he knew that at twenty he was better looking than he had been at fourteen, or fifteen, or seventeen. His shoulders had broadened, and his chest filled out his suit coat nicely. The baby-fine, wavy, brown hair had grown darker, but not by much, and his jaw had firmed up. Richard paid only cursory attention to the physical changes. He could not remember a time he had not felt precisely like he did now, like himself.
Others were children, then adolescents, then adults. Their loves and hates traded places over the years, religion turned to cynicism, and cynicism to a desperate belief in God. Richard was as he had always been.
“Rich, honey, are you about ready? I’m so sorry to rush you… ” The words were accompanied by a head of tight gray curls sprayed stiffly in a coronet, peeking around the door frame.
“You’re not rushing me, Ellen,” Richard said, smiling for her. Ellen was Sara’s oldest friend. She’d cheerfully taken Sara’s shifts when his guardian had needed time off to work out the adoption and when she had come to watch him in debate tournaments. “I just want to look my best is all.”
“I know you do, honey. You take your time. We’ll tell the driver to wait.”
The head disappeared and he heard the clacking of her heels on the hardwood of the upstairs hallway. Sara had moved like a ghost in rubber-soled shoes. A lifetime of nursing left her with a bad back, a penchant for soft-soles, and a sense that she was constantly disturbing someone. Most of Sara’s friends were nurses. They would all be there today if they weren’t on shift at Mayo. A few doctors might come, but not many. Unless the nurses were young and beautiful or total screwups, the doctors didn’t much notice them.
Shrugging into his jacket, Richard looked around at what had once been his parents’ bedroom. Now it was his; he’d taken it against Sara’s wishes when they’d moved into the Raines house. That, too, had been against her wishes, and though it was twice the size of hers and immeasurably grander, she’d never been comfortable in it.
“Why don’t we sell it?” she’d say. “Buy something more modern?” He knew she wanted the move more for his sake than hers, at least in the first year they’d lived there.
When getting him to sell failed, she tried to change the house from within. “Why don’t we knock this wall out, make this room into one big space? It would be much lighter in winter.” Or, “Let’s get rid of all this dark old paneling and put up cheery wallpaper!”
Richard didn’t change anything. Dylan might need to come back here, might need to see it again, and he wanted the house to be as his brother had left it.
Richard turned back to the mirror. He looked like a million bucks, which, with the inheritance his parents had left, the little nest egg from Sara, and the gifts of cash from kind-hearted Mi
Dylan was looking like a good candidate for early parole. If it came through, Richard was determined to give the court no excuse not to release his brother into his custody. Money would do that for him. What made bellboys and chief justices alike was that they respected money, believed the rich were more deserving than the poor.