CHAPTER 4

After a dinner of a baked potato (easy to cook in the microwave), frozen broccoli (ditto), and a muffin (a day-old she had picked up at the diner for half price), Thea poured a glass of red wine and placed it on the small table next to the chintz-covered chair. She would attempt to begin the Georgette Heyer book she had intended to read last evening, before that call had made her such a nervous wreck. Well, the call hadn’t made her a nervous wreck; Thea had done that to herself. It wasn’t what happened to you, her therapist had told her repeatedly as she struggled through the worst of the divorce and its immediate aftermath. It was how you decided to react to what happened that mattered. It was good advice, but difficult to put into action.

Before Thea could settle into the comfortable chair with her wine and book, an impulse sent her into the bedroom. She hadn’t brought much with her to Ogunquit—an adequate supply of clothing; a bathing suit, though she had no real plan to use it as she didn’t like the idea of spending time on the beach by herself; a selection of favorite books, of course; and one precious piece of her long-distant past.

Thea opened the second drawer of the painted wood dresser and removed a square, purple velvet box. Inside was a painted miniature of Napoleon, with the emperor’s authenticated signature on the back. Hugh Landry, her first and greatest love, had given it to her for her sixteenth birthday. He had found it at an antique shop on Beacon Hill in Boston. Thea’s parents had urged her to return the gift; they thought it was “too much.” But Thea had refused. It was the most special, thoughtful thing anyone had ever given her. Once she had begun to suspect Mark of double-dealing, she had put the miniature in a private safety deposit box in a bank different from the one where they had their joint accounts. To imagine Hugh Landry’s gift being callously sold for someone else’s profit was a horror.

In light of what had happened later in her brief marriage, Thea was glad that she had hidden the miniature away. Now, it was with her again, nestled in its velvet box and tucked into a pile of underwear and T-shirts when it wasn’t in her hand, being gazed upon. Though selling it would help her immediate financial situation, Thea knew she could never bring herself to part with it. The engagement and wedding rings Mark had given her had gone long ago, as had her car and her condo. The miniature was here to stay.

Thea carefully closed the lid of the purple velvet box and returned it to its hiding place. She went back to the living room and its comfortable chintz-covered chair. She opened the Georgette Heyer novel but only a few pages in she realized she was still too distracted to read. Her mind seemed determined to reminisce about the giver of that special gift.

Hugh Landry was everything a young girl could have wanted in a boyfriend—handsome, friendly, popular, and smart. More importantly, he had been everything Thea herself could have wanted in a soul mate. He understood and appreciated her for who she was, not for who he wanted her to be. That, alone, in a teenage boy, was a remarkable thing. Though he was a star on the football team, he never pressured her to go to his games like the other players expected their girlfriends to. He knew she wasn’t interested in sports; he liked the fact that she was her own person and chose to stay at home and read books about European history or “cozy” mysteries set in English manor houses rather than cheer in the stands.

Thea was suddenly aware of Alice’s footfalls upstairs, moving from her living room to her kitchen. She wondered about her own future; she wondered if she would be living alone in her fifties, like Alice was. The prospect didn’t seem so awful, certainly a lot better than living with an abuser, a liar, and a cheat. And if she could be like Alice, self-sufficient and, as Alice had said, reasonably happy, a solitary life might be just fine. Even though Alice had admitted she would like to be in a relationship, her life still had great value and she seemed to know that.

Alice must have settled down somewhere because her footsteps ceased. Thea looked at the book in her lap. That was the problem, she thought. Learning how to become self-sufficient and relatively happy, both of which she had been back when she had been dating Hugh Landry, and both of which she had been for all of the years before her marriage.

Which didn’t mean that several times during those self-sufficient and relatively happy years she hadn’t considered contacting Hugh, but for a variety of reasons—the fear of rejection being one of them; another being the promise she had made to him in her final letter—she had dismissed the idea. Besides, it was unlikely a new reality could ever equal the perfection of an old memory. Distortions were normal; maybe the Hugh of her memory didn’t really exist; maybe he never really had. Besides, there was every chance that a man like Hugh Landry was either married or engaged or soon to be. And there was every chance that he was a father, responsible to his family, and not interested in being bothered by a long-ago girlfriend. Thea wasn’t sure she could handle seeing a happy family picture posted on Facebook or wherever she would find Hugh Landry. Especially not now, in her vulnerable state. She didn’t begrudge Hugh whatever happiness he had found, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to be confronted with that happiness.

Thea took an appreciative sip of the wine that had been sitting untouched. She suspected the only reason she was thinking so much about Hugh these days was because she was in this unique situation—divorced, virtually friendless, somewhat estranged from her parents, who were her entire family, and on hiatus from what had become a fraught career, through no fault of her own. Well, that could be debated. She had quit her job as a high school French teacher, if not happily, at Mark’s request. He hadn’t put a gun to her head; not literally, at least.

Thea took another sip of wine and then another and firmly put all thoughts of Hugh Landry and of Mark Marais to the side. With only a few false starts, she finally managed to engage in No Wind of Blame. Former chorus girl and wealthy widow Ermyntrude Carter was a vastly amusing character, with her flamboyant but good-natured behavior, as was her daughter, Vicky, a pretty and determinedly theatrical young woman who changed costumes and personas as the mood struck her, which could be several times a day. Knowing in advance “who done it” was no obstacle to the fun of following the investigation through to the remarkable conclusion. Halfway through the novel and all thoughts not associated with the murder of the charming loser Wally Carter had flown far, far away.