Live to Tell Read online

  She’s no longer in the mood to do any of that. Why bother when they might end up selling the house? The only smart thing to do would be to pare down their possessions in anticipation of a move—and Trilby’s reminded her several times that she needs tag sale donations.

  Tomorrow, she decides. A rainy Saturday is perfect for cleaning out drawers and closets.

  Lauren sets the dripping water glass on a coaster and picks up a magazine. The pages feel damp—all the paper in the house feels damp at this time of year. She leafs past an article about weight loss, an interview with a country singer, a list of clever household hints, most of which seem to involve baking soda.

  Bored, she exchanges the magazine for the remote and turns on the television, wondering if there’s anything on worth watching.

  Then again, even if there is, she’s not sure she possesses the patience or stamina tonight to be enlightened, or educated, or even entertained. Maybe she should just turn off the TV and read a good—

  “Mommy!”

  Lauren sighs. Not again.

  There had been a time when she’d have leaped to her feet at the sound of Sadie shouting from upstairs long after she’d been tucked into bed. A time when Chauncey, too, would have come alert at the sound, no matter how hot it was.

  Those days are over. Now it’s routine for Lauren to be regularly summoned to Sadie’s bedside for everything from a knock-knock joke to a mosquito bite that needs maternal scratching.

  “Mommy!”

  Chauncey doesn’t even bother to open one eye.

  “I’m down here, sweetie,” she calls back and adds—for what feels like the hundredth time tonight—“Go to sleep!”

  Aiming the remote, she clicks through a couple of channels. There must be something…

  “Mommy!”

  Some nights are worse than others. On a good night, Lauren has to climb the stairs to Sadie’s room only a couple of times. On a bad one, it can be a dozen or more.

  This has been a bad one.

  She closes her eyes wearily and calls, “What’s the matter now, Sadie?”

  “I need you!”

  Yes. She does. She needs me.

  Sadie’s just a little tiny girl, afraid of the dark and the bogeyman and, tonight, of lions and tigers and bears and the Wicked Witch of the West.

  The Wizard of Oz scared the living daylights out of poor Sadie.

  She needs to watch more age-appropriate television.

  No, she needs to watch less television, period.

  She needs her mommy.

  Her daddy, too.

  This is so not fair.

  She tosses the remote aside, steps over Chauncey, opens the doggy gate, and heads up the stairs.

  The small pub off Vanderbilt Avenue is conveniently located within spitting distance of Grand Central Terminal’s west entrance. Earlier, the bar was jammed with commuters. But happy hour is long over, and the crowd has thinned considerably, leaving Byron Gregson with a clear view of the entrance from his barstool perch.

  He checks his watch, then looks again at the door. Still no sign of the man Byron knows only as JT, who said he’d be here twenty minutes ago, with or without the information.

  If he brings what Byron asked for, JT will be rewarded well for his efforts.

  Even if he doesn’t, Byron promised to give him a token tip—his way of ensuring that he won’t needlessly spend an entire night sitting here nursing ridiculously expensive draft beer, waiting for someone who can’t deliver and has no incentive to show up.

  But maybe the tip wasn’t incentive enough. Again, he looks at his watch.

  “Another Guinness?” the bartender asks, swirling his rag across the polished wooden surface of the bar, close to Byron’s nearly empty mug.

  Again, he checks the door.

  “Sure,” he tells the bartender with resignation. “Another Guinness.”

  “It’s hard to believe New York is out there somewhere,” Nick comments, sitting beside Beth on the sand and gazing out at the western sky, where the water remains tinged with faint pink traces of a spectacular sunset.

  “Maybe it’s not out there.”

  “What?”

  “Maybe something happened to the rest of the world since we’ve been here, and all that’s left is this island.”

  Nick looks at her. “What about our kids?”

  “You’re right. Bad fantasy.” Even in the twilight, her eyes remain masked behind oversize Chanel shades. “But you have to admit, it’s hard to think about the city right now—hot, steamy, smelly. Cabs honking and construction noise and all those people rushing around, sweating in their business clothes, when… I mean, look at us.”

  Yes. Look at them. Barefoot and tanned, wearing just bathing suits, lounging on a remote beach on the island’s easternmost tip. Look at them, a world away from the city and from judgmental small-town eyes.

  Beth sighs and leans back, elbows propped in the sand. “Oh well. You know what they say. Everything has its price.”

  “You got that right.” Nick lowers his sunglasses again and admires her flat stomach from behind the lenses.

  Lauren never wore a bikini, but if she had, she wouldn’t look like this.

  Okay, that’s not fair. Lauren looked—looks—pretty damned good. Even after Sadie. In fact, the last few times he’s seen her, he’s noticed how thin she’s become.

  But she doesn’t look glamorous-thin, the way Beth does. No, Lauren looks more like she’s wasting away.

  Nick himself is at least partially to blame for that, he supposes.

  But who wants to spend the last night of a glorious vacation on a guilt trip?

  Not me.

  “So what do you think? Should we go into the water?” he asks Beth.

  “In a couple of minutes. I kind of like sitting here watching the sun set.”

  “So do I, but we can see it from the water, too.”

  “You do know that dusk is prime feeding time for sharks.”

  “I do.” He grins. “But I’ll take my chances. I just don’t feel like I might die tonight.”

  For some reason, a conversation he once had with Lauren flashes into Nick’s head. He seems to recall that it, too, took place at the tail end of a vacation—it must have, because he remembers that they were in the car, stuck in traffic on the thruway.

  No…the Jersey Turnpike.

  Would you rather die a slow death and have the chance to say good-bye, or would you prefer to die in an accident and never know what hit you?

  Wait—they weren’t on their way back from vacation.

  They were coming from Baltimore. His father’s funeral. One of their last trips together, before he met Beth.

  Would you rather die a slow death…

  No. No way. Nick, who for six months had watched pancreatic cancer ravage the man he loved so dearly, was adamant that it would be better to never know what hit you.

  Not Lauren. She was all for long good-byes, she said.

  And that’s what happened to our marriage.

  He realizes it now.

  I let it die a slow death, even though it felt wrong.

  Even though I knew on the night I wanted to kiss Beth in the car that I would leave her.

  He’d been so tempted to tell Lauren, early on, that it was over. Even when she insisted on trying, insisted on therapy.

  He shouldn’t have gone.

  But I did it for her.

  I did it her way, not mine.

  He should explain that to Lauren, the next chance he gets. Maybe he will.

  Only he suspects she won’t choose to see the selflessness in his final act. His wife—ex-wife—who has always been so fair, is anything but fair to him these days.

  He supposes there’s a part of him that doesn’t blame her.

  But there’s a part of him that does. A part of him that wishes she could just wish him well and move on, the way he has. Not everything is meant to last forever.

  Hell, nothing is meant to last forever
, right?

  As if to punctuate the point, Beth asks, “So you’re assuming that if you were going to die tonight, you’d know it?”

  “I think maybe I’d sense it, on some level.”

  “Really?”

  He lifts the sunglasses again and looks at her. “Sure. I guess. Why?”

  “I don’t know…it’s kind of morbid, don’t you think?”

  “You’re the one who brought up dying. And sharks.”

  “Yeah.” She’s silent for a minute. “What would you do if you did feel like you might die tonight? Or…soon?”

  “For one thing, I wouldn’t go swimming at dusk. And for another…” He slides a hand over her bare thigh.

  “Oh Lord, you want to do that every night.”

  “True. Maybe that’s what’s going to kill me. You have to admit that there are worse ways to go than having a heart attack while you’re having sex. In fact—if I got to choose the way it had to end, that would be it.”

  “Good. I really hope that works out for you. Meanwhile…this is a public beach, so…” She brushes his hand off her thigh.

  “Party pooper.”

  He stands up and brushes the sand off the backs of his legs, then stretches a hand out to her. “Come on. Let’s go for that swim. Next best thing to a cold shower.”

  Beth shakes her head. “No, thanks.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know…maybe I’m not feeling as lucky as you are.” Her mouth grins, but Nick still can’t see her eyes—and something tells him they’re not smiling.

  Down at the opposite end of the hall, Lauren can see that Sadie’s bedroom door is ajar and the bedside lamp is on. That’s how her youngest child gets herself through the long nights since Nick moved out. At least Sadie has managed to sleep in her own bed again now that Ryan and Lucy are back—when she manages to sleep at all.

  Lauren passes both Lucy’s and Ryan’s rooms. All is silent behind their closed doors, but she’s sure they’re both awake—plugged into headphones, no doubt.

  Back when they were an intact family, it bothered Lauren when the two older kids would retreat into their own little electronic worlds, unable to hear her and unwilling to interact.

  But as she and Nick battled to the bitter end of their marriage, she found herself relieved the kids could insulate themselves from the blistering words hurtled back and forth by their parents. Behind closed doors, plugged into their iPods, Lucy and Ryan could escape.

  Little Sadie, however, could not.

  Poor baby.

  Lauren finds her sitting up in bed, hair tousled, knees huddled against her chest, face flushed.

  “What’s the matter, Sadie? Are you too hot?” Lauren is already crossing to the box fan in the window, making sure it’s on the highest setting.

  “No. Not really.”

  “Do you need some more water?” she asks Sadie. There’s a half-full glass on the nightstand beside Sadie’s lineup of Barbies, though, and it’s still floating with ice cubes.

  “No.”

  “Want me to take you to the bathroom?”

  Sadie shakes her head, looking distressed.

  “Did you have a nightmare?”

  “No.”

  “Are you still afraid of lions and tigers and bears? Because I told you—”

  “No!”

  “What is it, then?” Lauren asks gently, crossing the pink carpet to her daughter’s bed.

  “Fred.”

  “Fred?” That catches her off guard. The first few Fred-less nights were brutal, but it’s been a while since Sadie’s brought up her missing toy.

  “Daddy said he’s going to look for Fred when he gets back from his vacation, and he’s coming back tomorrow.”

  “That’s good, but, sweetie… Daddy might not find him.”

  “He promised he’d try.”

  To his credit, Nick didn’t promise that he would.

  Still—he’d damned well better get himself over to the Grand Central lost and found again on Monday.

  Meanwhile…

  “You know, that guy looks pretty lonely over there,” Lauren comments, pointing at Sadie’s dresser across the room.

  On top sits the wrong stuffed animal—the pink dog Nick claimed from the lost and found. Lauren had carried it up to Sadie’s room the morning after she tossed it across the kitchen, hoping it might grow on her in Fred’s probably permanent absence. Here it’s sat, apparently untouched and unnoticed.

  “I don’t like him.”

  “Maybe you would,” Lauren suggests, starting toward the dresser, “if you got to know him.”

  “No.” Sadie shakes her head vehemently. “I don’t want him! I want Daddy!”

  Lauren stops in her tracks.

  “I mean, Fred,” Sadie hastily amends. “I want Fred.”

  “I know what you mean, baby.”

  Swept by a familiar, heart-sinking sensation, Lauren returns to the bed. She moves Sadie’s oversize Dora the Explorer pillow out of the way and sits down, and begins stroking her daughter’s hair. “It’s not easy to lose someone you love, is it?”

  “Daddy says he’ll find Fred.”

  “Daddy will try. But he might not be able to.”

  “He said he would.”

  Lauren nods. “I know. He’ll try.”

  I hope.

  After all, Nick doesn’t have that great a track record when it comes to keeping promises.

  Vows.

  Lauren probably shouldn’t expect so little of him as a father. He does love the kids—of that, she’s certain.

  Still…

  He loved her, too, and look what he did to their storybook marriage.

  Nothing Nick could possibly do would surprise me anymore.

  Stepping out of the pub, Byron is caught off guard as much by the darkness as by the moist wave of heat that greets him. He’d completely lost touch with the world outside while he was in there nursing beer after beer and waiting for some loser who didn’t even bother to show up.

  It’s getting late—and he has a feeling this is going to be one of those nights. Relentlessly hot and steamy all the way through.

  He thinks longingly of his air-conditioned apartment across the river in Jersey. But a good night’s sleep isn’t worth the risk. He doesn’t dare go back there now. The place has to be under surveillance.

  He’ll return to the Lower East Side dive his friend Mina rents. No AC, to be sure, but there’s a creaky old window fan.

  Mina gave him the key once, a long time ago, so that he could water her pot plants while she was away for a week.

  “You have potted plants?” he’d asked her, thinking it odd that a woman like Mina had a green thumb.

  She shook her head slyly. “Pot plants.”

  Right.

  Mina’s not away now, but—to put it delicately—she works nights. She’ll have no idea he’s crashed at her place in her absence, and if she does happen to come home before dawn, well…he’ll just have to tell her what’s going on.

  Not in detail, of course. He’ll just say he needs a place to crash for a night or two, until…

  Until who knows when?

  Byron hesitates on the street, trying to decide whether to head over to Times Square to take the A or E train downtown, or to Grand Central to take the Lexington Avenue line.

  Grand Central.

  Maybe he’ll run into JT and shake him up a little. He’d been so sure the kid was going to come through for him. The least he could have done was put in an appearance to collect his kill fee and tell Byron he couldn’t get what he needed.

  That’s hard to believe.

  Freakin’ kid has keys to the whole damned station, the way he described it.

  Rounding the corner onto Madison, Byron sees that the next cross street is blocked off. Cops on walkietalkies, and big blue police barricades.

  A movie shoot?

  Nope. Glancing down the block, over by the plywood construction tunnel, he sees an ambulance, yellow crime
scene tape, and a crowd of onlookers.

  Early in his career, Byron was a beat reporter. He recognizes the signs.

  Somebody’s dead.

  There was a mugging, or a cab jumped the curb and hit a pedestrian, or maybe a crane dropped from the construction site overhead.

  All in a day’s work for the press, and the cops, and the jaded New Yorkers who stand by, watching.

  No skin off Byron’s nose, either. He can just as easily access Grand Central from the next block.

  Again, his thoughts turn to JT and the failed attempt to get his hands on the name of whoever has that stupid toy in his possession.

  Now what?

  Now…who knows?

  Maybe he had one too many beers to care right now.

  I’ll just get a good night’s sleep and worry about it tomorrow.

  Byron Gregson walks on toward Grand Central, never thinking to look over his shoulder.

  Not here.

  Not on the subway.

  And not on the deserted block of Ludlow Street where his luck runs out at last.

  Left alone again in her room, Sadie listens to her mother’s footsteps retreating down the hall and tries hard to keep the hot tears in her eyes from spilling over.

  Big girls don’t cry.

  That’s what Lucy told her today at the playground, when she fell. Lucy had been pushing her on the swing, but then she started talking to some boy, and she stopped pushing, and Sadie tried to make the swing go again by pumping her dangling legs, and she slipped off and fell into the wood chips.

  “You’ll be okay,” Lucy told her, and she hugged her.

  Lately, people are always telling Sadie that she’ll be okay. Her sister, her brother, her parents…

  But she doesn’t believe any of them.

  Why should she? They all leave her. Everyone but Mommy.

  Mommy promised her all summer that Lucy and Ryan would come home soon, and they finally did.

  But she didn’t say that about Daddy. Sadie knows that he’s never coming home again. Not to this house. Not to her.

  And Fred—Fred is gone, too.

  Sadie’s gaze falls on the stupid pink dog on the dresser across the room, sitting there between her My Little Pony lamp and her Tinker Bell music box. His black eyes are looking right back at her, like he’s trying to tell her something.