Public Secrets Part 137

"The kitchen is up-to-the-minute. I had it remodeled just two years

ago." She pushed open the swinging doors and gestured. "All builtins.

Microwave, Jenn-Air range, a convection oven, naturally. Acres of

counter s.p.a.ce. A pantry, of course."

Emma stared at the streamlined, soulless kitchen. It was all white and

stainless steel. Gone were the copper pots Bev had kept shiny and hung

from hooks. There were no more little pots of herbs on the windowsill.

No high chair for Darren, no clutter of cookbooks or colorful apothecary

jars.

The woman droned on, obviously considering the kitchen her pidce de

rdsistance, while Emma stood, grieving.

When the phone rang, she closed a slick white cabinet door. "Excuse me,

just a moment."

"Are you all right?" Michael murmured.

"Yes." She wanted to be. "I'd like to go upstairs."

"Listen, Jack." Ms. Steinbrenner's voice had lost its cooing flow. "I'm

not interested in your complaints or your lawyer's threats. Got it?"

Michael cleared his throat. "Fxcuse me." He offered the woman an easy

smile. "Would it be all right if we wandered through?"

She waved them away and snarled into the phone. "Listen, a.s.shole."

"Sounds like she'll be tied up awhile," he said lightly. "You sure you

want to go up?"

No, she wasn't sure. She was anything but sure. "I can't come this far

and not finish."

"Right." Whatever her claims against fragility, he put an arm around her

shoulders as they started up.

The doors were open-the bedroom door where her father and Bev had once

slept. Where Emma had sometimes heard them laughing late at night.

Alice's room, which had always been so bland and neat, had become a

sitting room with walls of books and a console television. Her room.

She stopped, gazing in.

The dolls were gone, the Mickey Mouse night-light, the frilly pinks and

whites that Bev had indulged her in. No little girl had slept there,

dreamt there, in a very long time. It was obviously a guest room now.

Silk flowers, a Hollywood bed plumped with vivid cushions, reading

material carefully arranged. Roman shades had replaced the priscillas

she remembered, and wall-to-wall carpeting the pretty, frivolous s.h.a.g

rug.

"This was my room," she said dully. "There was wallpaper with little

roses and violets, frilly pink curtains at the windows and a big white

quilt for the bed. I had dolls on the shelves, and music boxes. I

guess it was the kind of room all little girls want, at least for a

while. Bev understood that. I don't know why I thought it would be the

same."

He remembered a quote he'd read in college, one that had stuck. "'All

things change; nothing perishes."' He shrugged self-consciously. He

wasn't the type of man who quoted. "It is the same, in your head.

That's what counts."

She said nothing, but turned and looked down the hall to Darren's room.

The door was open too, as it should have been that night.