Marla felt ice form in her soul. “He’s dying?”
Little worry lines formed between Joanna’s eyebrows. “Yes, Marla. I guess you’ve forgotten that, too.”
“I guess.”
Joanna finished her wine in one gulp and checked her watch. “Look, this has been way too short, but I’ve got to run. Kids to pick up from tae kwon do, you know.”
“Thanks for stopping by.”
“No problem. Thanks for the wine, but why don’t you, as soon as those wires come off, have lunch with us? Nancy and Robin would love to get together. We could hit some balls, or if you’re not up to that, we could play bridge or just sit and yak. Whatever you want.”
“I’d love to,” Marla said. “This elegant dental work is supposed to come off this week.” She thought about how horrid she still looked, but decided she’d brave going out in public. These were her friends, for crying out lou
d, and right now she needed all the friends she could get to help her through this.
“Good, I’ll set it up.”
“Thanks.”
“And Marla?” Joanna placed a hand on Marla’s arm. “I’m really sorry for all this . . . trouble. When it rains it pours, I guess. First all those problems down at Cahill House and now this . . . you’ve certainly had more than your fair share.”
“What problems?” Marla asked.
Joanna blushed to the roots of her hair, as if she was suddenly horribly embarrassed. “Well . . . It was probably nothing more than bad press . . . I’ll see you later. Now, don’t forget to check on that ring!”
With a wave, she was off, leaving Marla with an unsettled feeling in her stomach and a need to know more. So much more. Standing at the window, Marla watched through the rainspattered glass as Joanna climbed into a flashy red BMW. Within seconds the sports car roared through the gates and down the hill.
“That woman’s a viper,” Eugenia said from behind her.
Marla jumped. She hadn’t heard her mother-in-law enter.
“A viper?” Marla repeated, turning her head to see Eugenia glaring through the window. “How so?”
“A snoop, a gossip, ready to bite you when you least expect it. Poor white trash who had big ambitions. Set her sights on Ted Lindquist and broke up a twenty-five-year marriage without so much as a thought of Frances or the kids.” Sighing loudly, Eugenia stepped away from the window, removed her glasses and polished the lenses with an embroidered handkerchief she pulled from her jacket pocket. “Well, I shouldn’t gossip, I know, but Frances was a friend of mine.”
“Joanna said something about trouble at Cahill House.”
“Yes, I heard,” Eugenia said in a sigh and Marla wondered how much of the conversation her mother-in-law had been privy to. Had she eavesdropped intentionally? “Well, I suppose you may as well know the truth.”
“That would be nice,” Marla agreed, her words sounding brittle.
Eugenia dropped into her favorite chair and behind her glasses, she looked old and weary. “It’s nasty business. There were some charges leveled last year at the director of the house, a preacher who was charged with . . . being involved with one of the girls. Nothing came of it. All the charges were dropped, and the girl, who was under age at the time, remained anonymous. But you know how these things go. The press blew it all out of proportion. Alex handled everything, of course, but there were rumors that persisted, lingered like a bad smell, tainted Cahill House’s reputation.” She wiped the corner of her eye, though she didn’t seem to be crying. “Anyway, it happened over a year ago—maybe eighteen months.” Eugenia stuffed her hankie in her pocket and set her glasses onto her nose again. “People like Joanna feed on that kind of gossip, never let it die.” She lifted her gaze to Marla’s. “I believe it’s because they have guilty consciences of their own and they always feel relieved when someone else is taking the heat. But, let’s not dwell on it now,” Eugenia said, as if to close the subject. “Now, don’t you think you should rest for a while before dinner?” She checked the clock in the foyer. “And it’s about time for your medication, isn’t it? I think Carmen took it upstairs and left it in your room.”
Marla wanted to argue, but she couldn’t muster the energy. She was tired, her head beginning to pain her again.
“Carmen can help you upstairs.”
“I think I can make it on my own.”
“You shouldn’t overdo,” Eugenia advised, glancing at Marla’s empty wine glass. The older woman’s lips puckered in disapproval, but she didn’t admonish Marla any further. “Alex has hired a nurse, you know. He starts tonight.”
“I don’t need a nurse.”
Eugenia’s smile was patient as she straightened from her throne. “We’ll see,” she said, and clipped out of the room. Marla, though her head was beginning to throb, made her way up to the library on the second floor, picked up several photo albums and hauled them another flight to her room.
Dutifully she drank the juice sitting by her bed, hoping that the headache would lessen. She kicked off her shoes, then slid between the sheets and began paging through the leaves of the photograph albums. She’d seen the wedding and moved on to snapshots taken in the first years of her marriage with Alex. Pictures of her in a convertible with Alex by her side, holding a drink aloft while sunbathing at some tropical beach, hamming it up with her tennis racquet and then with Cissy . . . and the man she now recognized as her father. The baby on his lap, he staring into the lens without a smile. She didn’t like him. She knew that now. She’d never liked him. He was cold and distant and the woman who was her mother, she felt nothing for the wasp-waisted woman with the perpetual frown.
Think, Marla, think. There were pictures of the man standing on an expansive lawn and backdropped by a palatial brick house, Georgian style, complete with white columns, broad front porch, three square stories in the center, flanked by shorter wings of two stories. This was the home where she’d grown up?