She laughed with him, then thought (as these days she often did): HE DID NOT “SUFFER!”
“Isn’t it great, honey?”
“Yes,” she said. “I’m happy for you.” And, odd or not (perverse or not), she really was. He had brokered sales of several over the years and could have bought one for himself any old time, but that wasn’t the same as just coming across one. He had even forbidden her to give him one for Christmas or his birthday. The great accidental find was a collector’s most joyous moment, he had said so during their first real conversation, and now he had what he had been checking handfuls of change for all his life. His heart’s desire had come spilling out of a white sandwich—shop paper bag along with a turkey—bacon wrap.
He enveloped her in a hug. She hugged him back, then pushed him gently away. “What are you going to do with it, Bobby? Put it in a Lucite cube?”
This was a tease, and he knew it. He cocked a finger-gun and shot her in the head. Which was all right, because when you were shot with a finger-gun, you did not “suffer.”
She continued to smile at him, but now saw him again (after that brief, loving lapse) for what he was: the Darker Husband. Gollum, with his precious.
“You know better. I’m going to photo it, hang the photo on the wall, then tuck the penny away in our safe deposit box. What would you say it is, F or VF?”
She examined it again, then looked at him with a rueful smile. “I’d love to say VF, but—”
“Yeah, I know, I know—and I shouldn’t care. You’re not supposed to count the teeth when someone gives you a horse, but it’s hard to resist. Better than VG, though, right? Honest opinion, Darce.”
My honest opinion is that you’ll do it again.
“Better than VG, definitely.”
His smile faded. For a moment she was sure he had guessed what she was thinking, but she should have known better; on this side of the mirror, she could keep secrets, too.
“It’s not about the quality, anyway. It’s about the finding. Not getting it from a dealer or picking it out of a catalogue, but actually finding one when you least expect it.”
“I know.” She smiled. “If my dad was here right now, he’d be cracking a bottle of champagne.”
“I’ll take care of that little detail at dinner tonight,” he said. “Not in Yarmouth, either. We’re going to Portland. Pearl of the Shore. What do you say?”
“Oh, honey, I don’t know—”
He took her lightly by the shoulders as he always did when he wanted her to understand that he was really serious about a thing. “Come on—it’s going to be mild enough tonight for your prettiest summer dress. I heard it on the weather when I was driving back. And I’ll buy you all the champagne you can drink. How can you say no to a deal like that?”
“Well…” She considered. Then smiled. “I guess I can’t.”
– 15 –
They had not just one bottle of very pricey Moët et Chandon but two, and Bob drank most of it. Consequently it was Darcy who drove home in his quietly humming little Prius while Bob sat in the passenger seat, singing “Pennies from Heaven” in his on-key but not particularly melodious voice. He was drunk, she realized. Not just high, but actually drunk. It was the first time she had seen him that way in ten years. Ordinarily he watched his booze intake like a hawk, and sometimes, when someone at a party asked him why he wasn’t drinking, he’d quote a line from True Grit: “I would not put a thief in my mouth to steal my mind.” Tonight, high on his discovery of the double-date, he had allowed his mind to be stolen, and she knew what she intended to do as soon as he ordered that second bottle of bubbly. In the restaurant, she wasn’t sure she could carry it through, but listening to him sing on the way home, she knew. Of course she could do it. She was the Darker Wife now, and the Darker Wife knew that what he thought of as his good luck had really been her own.
– 16 –
Inside the house he whirled his sport coat onto the tree by the door and pulled her into his arms for a long kiss. She could taste champagne and sweet crème brûlée on his breath. It was not a bad combination, although she knew if things happened as they might, she would never want either again. His hand went to her breast. She let it linger there, feeling him against her, and then pushed him away. He looked disappointed, but brightened when she smiled.
“I’m going upstairs and getting out of this dress,” she said. “There’s Perrier in the refrigerator. If you bring me a glass—with a wedge of lime—you might get lucky, mister.”
He broke into a grin at that—his old, well-loved grin. Because there was one long-established habit of marriage they had not resumed since the night he had smelled her discovery (yes, smelled it, just as a wise old wolf may smell a poisoned bait) and come rushing home from Montpelier. Day by day they had walled up what he was—yes, as surely as Montresor had walled up his old pal Fortunato—and sex in the connubial bed would be the last brick.
He clicked his heels and threw her a British-style salute, fingers to forehead, palm out. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Don’t be long,” she said pleasantly. “Mama wants what Mama wants.”
Going up the stairs, she thought: This will never work. The only thing you’ll succeed in doing is getting yourself killed. He may not think he’s capable of it, but I think he is.
Maybe that would be all right, though. Assuming he didn’t hurt her first, as he’d hurt those women. Maybe any sort of resolution would be all right. She couldn’t spend the rest of her life looking in mirrors. She wasn’t a kid anymore, and couldn’t get away with a kid’s craziness.
She went into the bedroom, but only long enough to toss her purse onto the table beside the hand mirror. Then she went out again and called, “Are you coming, Bobby? I could really use those bubbles!”
“On my way, ma’am, just pouring it over ice!”
And here he came out of the living room and into the hall, holding one of their good crystal glasses up before him at eye level like a comic-opera waiter, weaving slightly as he crossed to the foot of the stairs. He continued to hold the glass up as he mounted them, the wedge of lime bobbing around on top. His free hand trailed lightly along the banister; his face shone with happiness and good cheer. For a moment she almost weakened, and then the image of Helen and Robert Shaverstone filled her mind, hellishly clear: the son and his molested, mutilated mother floating together in a Massachusetts creek that had begun to grow lacings of ice at its sides.
“One glass of Perrier for the lady, coming right uh—”
She saw the knowledge leap into his eyes at the very last second, something old and yellow and ancient. It was more than surprise; it was shocked fury. In that moment her understanding of him was complete. He loved nothing, least of all her. Every kindness, caress, boyish grin, and thoughtful gesture—all were nothing but camouflage. He was a shell. There was nothing inside but howling emptiness.
She pushed him.
It was a hard push and he made a three-quarters somersault above the stairs before coming down on them, first on his knees, then on his arm, then full on his face. She heard his arm break. The heavy Waterford glass shattered on one of the uncarpeted risers. He rolled over again and she heard something else inside him snap. He screamed in pain and somersaulted one final time before landing on the hardwood hall floor in a heap, the broken arm (not broken in just one place but in several) cocked back over his head at an angle nature had never intended. His head was twisted, one cheek on the floor.
Darcy hurried down the stairs. At one point she stepped on an ice cube, slipped, and had to grab the banister to save herself. At the bottom she saw a huge knob now poking out of the skin on the nape of his neck, turning it white, and said: “Don’t move, Bob, I think your neck is broken.”
His eye rolled up to look at her. Blood was trickling from his nose—that looked broken, too—and a lot more was coming out of his mouth. Almost gushing out. “You pushed me,” he said. “Oh Darcy, why did you push me?”
“I don’t know,” she said, thinking we both know. She began to cry. Crying came naturally; he was her husband, and he was badly hurt. “Oh God, I don’t know. Something came over me. I’m sorry. Don’t move, I’ll call 911 and tell them to send an ambulance.”