Second Nature Part 17

Matthew was about to head for the gate when he felt Stephen grab him again. Thinking there was a patch of ice ahead, Matthew grinned, grateful for the help. It never occurred to him to defend himself. In the end he was quite certain that the birds that had been chirping, signaling the close of night, had quieted all at once, when in fact they continued to sing long after Stephen had reached Mansfield Terrace, long after he'd climbed over Robin's fence and used the hose to wash the blood from his hands.

All that night Robin had been dreaming about him, and when he appeared in her yard at the first light of day it seemed like a miracle. She brought him inside and kissed him for as long as she could. She'd made a mistake: she told him that immediately. She'd been wrong. That she'd ever thought to doubt him now felt like a crime, every kiss begged his forgiveness. She wanted him so badly it hurt, but he moved away from her and asked for a gla.s.s of water.

He was out of breath, Robin could see that. He'd run all the way, just to see her. How selfish she was, how crazy for him. She got them both gla.s.ses of cool tap water, and Stephen gratefully took the water and drank it in one long gulp. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He looked at her carefully, memorizing the angles of her face and the arch of her neck.

Robin laughed. "Don't look at me that way," she said. He was making her nervous. He'd looked at her a thousand times before, and yet she had the urge to hide her face in her hands.

"Stephen," she said. "Don't."

At last he turned and went to the window. He could see the rosebushes that were always the first to bloom on the island, he could see the redwood fence that circled the yard.

Robin came to stand behind him. Somehow, what they' d had was already over, and she hadn't even been aware of the end. This happened with roses: it was possible to take them for granted all summer as they wound along fences and gates, and then in September, when they faded, how beautiful they'd once been suddenly took hold. That was when people began to yearn for them, and all winter long they'd watch the bare branches for buds, vowing that this time they'd be grateful for all that they had.

"I did something," Stephen said.

"Whatever happened, it doesn't matter." Robin knew she sounded frantic.

"You don't have to tell me anything."

As soon as he started to explain, Robin put her hands over her ears.

But that didn't stop him from telling her that Matthew Dixon hadn't made a sound, he'd made certain of that by crushing his windpipe quickly."Stop it," Robin begged him.

It was an act of mercy. He couldn't have walked away before that moment when Matthew fell into the hedge of boxwood, where his parka caught on the branches and the low sticker brambles that grew wild all over the island.

"I had to do it," Stephen told Robin.

"You had to! You couldn't tell the police? Or me? Or Roy? Don't you understand? You don't just kill someone because you think he's guilty."

"He was guilty," Stephen said.

"Because you think it!" Robin said. She had begun to cry, and that just made her feel more helpless. "And even if he was, that is not the way we do it! You can't just kill someone. You can't just decide that."

This was not what Stephen had come here for. He reached for Robin, but she wrenched her arm away.

"Who are you that you could do this? Who are you?" she cried.

Stephen didn't flinch, even though Robin raised her hand as if to strike him. But she didn't hit him. She knew exactly who he was.

She had from the very start.

"All right," Robin said. "This is what we'll do." She wiped her eyes and tried to concentrate on every word, not on what she felt inside.

"We'll explain that you didn't understand. You didn't know the way things work, no one ever told you. We'll tell them that."

Stephen knew that he would change things. Later, when he remembered, her eyes would not be filled with tears, her face would not be so pale.

Robin had already gone to the phone and had begun to dial Roy's number.

Stephen took the phone away from her just the way she knew he would.

She didn't have to turn to him to know he was looking at her as though he'd never see her again. He had never once said he could believe what men believed in, he'd never pretended that. She'd known him all along, she'd been locking the doors in order to keep him, praying that he could get used to the easy chair, the dinner hour, the pillows on her bed.

"You'll leave," Robin said. He had both arms around her now.

"That's what you'll do, isn't it?" He rested his cheek against the base of her neck.

Robin locked the doors one last time and took him to her bedroom.

She led him up the stairs and along the hallway. She would never love anyone again, not like this, not ever again. She wanted him in her bed.

She wanted to always remember this one morning, when the shades were drawn against the morning light and he told her that there would never be anyone else. She didn't have to cry when she felt this way, that's what she had discovered. She just had to hold on tight, because before she knew it, it would be over and she'd have to watch him reach for his clothes that had been dropped on the floor. She'd have to make up thebed so that it might look as though he'd never been there at all.

All that day the thaw continued, and by midafternoon most of the ice had melted, bringing the level of the water beneath the old bridge dangerously high. Streets flooded, forsythia was nearly tricked into budding, children who'd been forced to stay inside for weeks pulled on their rubber boots and splashed through the mud. By afternoon, it was nearly sixty degrees, a record high, yet when they went out to the truck, Stephen continued to wear his old black coat. Robin had given him the five hundred dollars Roy's father had left on her table, she would drive him out of New York, to a bus station in New Jersey, and be home by midnight.

She had her hair tied back and she wore her boots and her old work jacket, stained with mud. Stephen didn't offer to show her the map Matthew had given him, and she didn't ask to see it. She might have torn it in half, she might have been tempted to follow him. She had to think of everyday things: how much gas they would need for the trip, whether the truck might stall out, as it often did on damp days such as this. The truck was idling roughly, and Robin had to concentrate so that she wouldn't flood the motor.

She didn't even realize they were being followed until the bridge was right in front of them. Stephen reached out and put a hand on her arm, then nodded to the rearview mirror. Roy's car was behind them.

"d.a.m.n him," Robin said.

She pulled over, and the wheels on the right side of the pickup sank into the mud.

"I'll talk to him," she told Stephen. "You'd better stay here. " Robin got out and slammed her door shut. If pushed, she just might explode, but then Roy was used to that, he wouldn't find it the least bit unusual.

"You're f.u.c.king doing it again," Robin said to Roy. He'd parked behind her and was now rolling down his window. "You have no right to follow me."

She leaned down, the better to curse him, and that was when she saw that it was Connor who was behind the wheel.

"I didn't know it was you," Robin said, fl.u.s.tered. "What are you doing with your dad's car?"

"I got my license last week," Connor said.

As Connor got out of the car and leaned up against it, Robin could have sworn he'd gotten taller and thinner since she'd seen him last. He was wearing his leather jacket and jeans, and he'd had his hair cut shorter than usual, so his neck was exposed.

"Your dad doesn't mind you driving with all the flooding that's going on?"

"Mom," Connor said.

"All right." Robin backed off. "Fine."

When Connor was a baby, Robin would count his fingers and toes, and each time she did she was counting her good fortune. He was all in one piece, he was hers. She'd never liked babies much, never begged for a closer look or asked to hold them in her arms, until she had Connor.Even Mich.e.l.le had laughed at her because his whole first year she didn't want to put him down for an instant. He'll never learn to walk, Roy teased her. You'll still be carrying him when he's a grown man with afamily of his own.

"Is that Stephen in there?" Connor nodded to Robin's truck. "I've been wanting to talk to him."

"He can't talk now. We're going to the mall," Robin said, just a little too quickly. Connor looked at her. "He needs some clothes.

Sweatshirts, things like that."

"I should have told him right away," Connor said. He looked much more angular, Robin saw that now, as if he'd grown up overnight.

"I know he didn't do anything to Jenny."

"No," Robin agreed. She kept pushing her hair away from her face, the way she always did when she was upset.

"You're not taking him to the mall," Connor said.

Stephen opened the door of the pickup, then stood beside it, there on the side of the road, where the mud was so thick a man could easily get stuck in it. He waved to Connor and Connor waved back.

"You're not taking him shopping," Connor said to his mother.

"No," Robin said.

Connor smiled and ran a hand through his hair." Yeah, " he said.

"That's what I thought." From where he stood Connor could see the bridge and the willow trees that had grown there for a hundred years, longer than anyone could remember.

"You'd better go," he said. "You don't want the mall to close before you get there."

Connor got into his father's car and watched his mother walk back to the pickup. Stephen was still by the side of the road, and even after Robin started the truck, and exhaust filtered into the air, he didn't move.

Connor grinned and flicked his headlights on and off.

"Go on, you jerk," Connor called.

Stephen got into the truck then, and as soon as he did Robin headed for the bridge. Connor leaned his head back and closed his eyes. He listened to the beat of the truck's tires until it was replaced by the low rustling echo of the willows, which could sound exactly like crying to anyone who didn't understand that their branches formed a wind tunnel through which even the slightest breeze could spin itself into a moan.

Connor headed toward his father's place, since he'd promised to get the car there before dark. He drove slowly, because the roads were indeed flooded, and when he reached the end of Cemetery Road he thought maybe the sewers had backed up. Several police cars were parked at the gates and traffic was a mess. When he saw that it was George Tenney who was directing the detour, Connor parked up on the gra.s.s and went over to talk to him. By now, Connor knew, his mother had already pulled onto the Long Island Expressway, still, it couldn't hurt to tie up George Tenney with conversation."I'm legal," Connor said when George looked shocked to see him.

"I got my license last week."

"Then go on and drive yourself home," George said.

Connor saw that there were several officers beneath the hill where Old d.i.c.k's grave was, his own father among them. Roy was over near the boxwood, and Connor had a strange feeling inside his throat, as if Roy had been hurt.

"I'm just going to see my dad," Connor said.

George Tenney blocked his way.

"Hey, George," Connor said. "Come on."

"There's a corpse up there, and you're not going to take a look," George said.

"Who is it?" Connor asked. "I'm going to find out sooner or later," he added when George hesitated.

"Matthew Dixon," George said. "It looks like he fell down and broke his neck. Happy now?"

"Not exactly," Connor said. "I think I'll just wait for my dad."

Several people had gathered around the gates, and when Connor went over he heard that Patty Dixon had called the police when she realized Matthew wasn't home early that morning. He'd never gotten out of bed before ten, let alone dressed, fixed himselfbreakfast, and just disappeared. What was more, she had found one of Matthew's old shirts covered with blood in the garage, stuffed under some old newspapers.

Connor broke away from the group at the gates and went along the fence until George couldn't see him, then he climbed over and made his way up the back of the hill. From here he could look down and see his father, along with Woody Preston and several other men who were waiting for a forensics team from the state police to arrive.

Julie Wynn, from drug education, had brought them coffee in a thermos and some paper cups. Roy drank his coffee. Then he must have made a joke, because everyone laughed, and they were still laughing as Roy walked back to the hedges. He had a green tarp over his arm, which he was supposed to place over the body, but before he did he knelt down, placing his coffee cup on the ground.

Connor watched as his father quickly went through the pockets of Matthew's parka. He took out some candy wrappers, and then a photograph that seemed to jar him, because he slowed down and stared at it, before reaching into Matthew's other pocket. He pulled out a computer disk.

Connor moved closer to the edge of the hill, brushing against some quinces. Roy looked up, but he saw nothing, and he replaced the candy wrappers and the photograph of Lydia that the forensics team would find in the next half-hour. The computer disk he put in his own pocket.

Watching his father kneeling there, Connor had a peculiar feeling, and he almost called out, but he didn't. And later, when the sky was growing dark, Roy found Connor standing at the cemetery gates.

"What are you doing here?" Roy said. "You're supposed to have the car home by dark."Connor shrugged. "I felt like waiting for you."

"Oh, yeah?" Roy said, pleased.

"Yeah," Connor said. "Let's go home."

Roy thought about that moment for a long time, the way it felt to see his son, who was now taller than he was, waiting for him by the car.

He thought about it as they had pizza together in front of the TV, and later as he walked through the living room after Connor had fallen asleep on the couch. He went out at eleven and drove over to Mansfield Terrace and sat in his parked car. He hadn't been a particularly good father. Not that he'd done anything spectacularly wrong, but he felt, all at once, that he was about to be granted a second chance. He'd never say it aloud, but he was sorry, not for the things he'd done, but for all that he'd left undone. He could have managed a h.e.l.l of a lot better, he saw that now. He could have tried his best. It wasn't just Connor whom he'd failed. Out of jealousy, he'd refused to give Stephen his rightful alibi, and if Roy wasn't careful he'd wind up ruined by his own spite. It would lead him around by the nose and take over his life, until finally he wouldn't even remember who he'd been before that night when he sat in his parked car and did nothing at all.

Robin didn't come home until twelve-thirty. She had cried all the way back through New Jersey, then taken the wrong exit off the expressway, and wound up on the old road that was once the only direct route to the end of Long Island. She drove for miles, past doughnut shops and gas stations, calmed by the blue-black puddles on the asphalt and the wavering neon signs. At midnight, she had found a road that cut across to the North Sh.o.r.e, and by the time she reached the bridge she felt better.

Twice she'd almost told him. Once when she'd had to stop to fill the truck with gas and then again when they turned off the New Jersey Turnpike. But she knew enough not to. A baby could turn into a trap, its fingers holding fast, the sound of its milky cry bringing him back to someplace he'd never intended to go. Maybe that's what she'd planned once, without even knowing it, since she'd been especially careful not to get pregnant all those years after Connor. It was possible, after all, that this was no accident, because as it turned out, this baby was exactly what she wanted.

She got out of the truck, carrying the black coat over her arm.

She was actually hungry, always a good sign in the first three months.

Her plan was to go inside and make herself a pot of oatmeal, flavored with cinnamon and raisins, and perhaps some b.u.t.tered toast if she still wanted more, but Roy had met her in the driveway and he insisted on coming in to fix them both scrambled eggs, which were far more nutritious.

"We're not going to fight?" Robin said as he broke four eggs into a bowl. "You're not going to say, I told you so?"

Roy rolled up his sleeves, then searched through the drawers for a whisk.

"Tabasco sauce?" he asked, considering some bottles on the spice rack.

"I think you've gone crazy," Robin decided. "I truly believe you have."

But that wasn't it at all, it was only that he was so sure of what hehad to do. After they'd eaten, he stayed long enough to wash the dishes, since Robin was clearly exhausted. Roy should have been tired as well, but he wasn't. He had the oddest feeling deep inside, and he had the urge to stay up all night. This time he wasn't about to make a mistake, and he knew it. When he gave Robin the disk, which she would later put up in the attic, along with the black coat and all of Stephen's books, he had simply set them all free.

On the morning of his twenty-sixth birthday, Connor Moore left his apartment in Boston, kissed the woman he loved good-bye, and got onto the Ma.s.s Pike, heading west. He had a lump in his throat for the first three hundred miles, and he pulled off the road for coffee so often he began to wonder if he was stopping in order to give himself a chance to turn back. He drove for two days, getting off the highways each time dusk fell, searching out inexpensive motels, still wondering if he should reconsider and head back east. But on the third day of his journey, he suddenly felt lightheaded and clear. He pulled over at a truck stop and telephoned the woman he would marry in only a few months just to tell her that the trees here in northern Michigan were huge enough to put the pines in the White Mountains to shame. The sky was so blue it hurt just to look at it.

He'd become, of all things, a doctor, something he'd never planned or imagined he'd be. As it turned out, he was good at it, he inspired confidence and actually listened when his patients spoke. His father liked to joke that most traits skipped a generation in families, and now they had two doctors, one for trees, the other for people. The tree doctor would have liked the upper peninsula of Michigan, Connor thought as he drove, off the highway now, over winding, rutted roads, because there was nothing but trees here, he had to get out of his car and stare upward through the branches when he wanted to know what the sky was like, otherwise he would have sworn it was dusk around the clock.

His mother and sister had moved at the beginning of the month, and he'd gone down to help with the packing. Robin had finally gotten the carriage house into shape. The renovation had taken much longer than it should have, since she did everything with such care. There was a new kitchen, and a shower had been installed beside the claw-footed tub, the roof no longer leaked and the chimney had been rebuilt. But there were also details no one else would have troubled with: she had spent an entire summer laying out the bluestone patio, and had interviewed several furniture-makers before choosing the right one to restore the dining room table. As the work on the carriage house had progressed, deer had ventured closer and closer, by the time the painters had arrived, the deer had grown so brave they trotted right up to the windows to have a look inside. Finally, twelve rosebushes were planted beside the arbor where the wisteria had once grown.

During the move, Connor had found Stephen's black coat in the attic.