Even as Ted Cartwright was being introduced to me I was sure that seeing me was triggering something inside him. He could not take his eyes off my face, and I am certain that in looking at it, he was seeing my mother. I knew that for some reason tonight I looked very much like her.
“It’s very nice to meet you, Mrs. Nolan,” he said.
His voice was jarring—hearty, resonant, commanding, confident, the same voice that rose to an ugly jeer as he shoved my mother at me.
Over the twenty-four years since then, I have heard his voice in my mind at times when I would have done anything to forget it, and at other times when I wanted desperately to reconstruct those last words he and my mother shouted at each other before I reached them.
And all these years my last words to him have echoed in my soul: “Let go of my mother!”
I looked up at him. I did not touch his extended hand, but neither did I want to raise questions by being overtly rude. I murmured, “How are you?” and turned back to Alex. Alex, unaware of what was going on, did what most people do when there is an awkward silence. He covered it with polite conversation, telling me that Ted is also a member of the Peapack Club, and that they’d run into each other occasionally.
Of course, Marcella Williams could not leave without trying to find out why I had been dabbing at my eyes. “Celia, is there anything at all I can do to help you?” she asked.
“Perhaps minding your own business would be a start,” I said.
Marcella’s sympathetic smile froze on her face. Before she could say anything, Ted took her arm and pulled her away.
I looked at Alex and saw the distress in his face.
“Ceil, what was that all about? There was absolutely no reason to be so rude.”
“I think there was,” I said. “We were having a private conversation. That woman saw that I’m upset, yet couldn’t wait to find out what is upsetting me. As for Mr. Cartwright, you saw as well as I did that long interview he so happily gave the newspapers, raking up that lurid story about the house you want us to live in.”
“Ceil, I read what he said,” Alex protested. “He answered a few questions a reporter asked him, that’s all. I barely know Cartwright, but he’s very well thought of at the club. I think Marcella was genuinely trying to be helpful. My God, she drove you home yesterday when she learned I had a time problem.”
“You told me Zach saw you!”
My mother’s voice was shouting in my mind. I was sure that was part of what she had said that night. Hearing Ted’s voice again had verified the flash of memory I had this past week. Mother had spoken Zach’s name, and now I had a few words more: “You told me Zach saw you!”
What did Zach see Ted do?
And then I said aloud, “Oh, no.”
“Ceil, what is it? You look pale as a ghost.”
A possible answer to the meaning of my mother’s words occurred to me. The day my father died, he had ridden ahead of Zach, and then taken the wrong trail. At least that was the story Zach had told me and everyone else. But Zach had also bragged to me that he was a longtime friend of Ted Cartwright. Had Ted Cartwright also been riding those trails that day? Did he have anything to do with my father’s accident? Had Zach seen it?
“Ceil, what is it?” Alex insisted.
I had literally felt the blood drain from my face, and quickly searched my mind for a plausible explanation. At least I could tell Alex a half-truth. “Before Marcella barged over, I was about to tell you that I had been talking to my mother. She tells me that my dad is in bad shape.”
“Is the Alzheimer’s getting worse?”
I nodded.
“Oh, Ceil, I’m so sorry. Is there anything we can do?”
The “we” was so comforting to hear. “I’ve told Kathleen to hire a full-time aide immediately. I told her I’d take care of it.”
“Let me do that.”
I shook my head as I thanked him. “That’s not necessary, but I love you for wanting to help.”
“Ceil, you have to know that I’d give you the world on a platter if you’d take it.” He reached over, took my hands, and entwined our fingers.
“I just want a tiny piece of the world,” I said, “a nice, normal piece of it, with you and Jack.”
“And Jill and Junior,” Alex said, smiling.
Our check came. As we got up, Alex suggested that we stop by Marcella and Ted’s table and say goodnight. “It wouldn’t hurt to smooth things over,” he urged. “Marcella is our neighbor and she meant well. When we start going to affairs at the Peapack Club, you’ll be bumping into Ted, like it or not.”
I was on the verge of an angry reply, but then something occurred to me. If Ted had recognized me, he might be worried that I would remember what my mother had shouted at him. If he had not recognized me, but I had stirred something in his subconscious, there might be a way I could force a reaction from him.
“I think that’s a good idea,” I said.
I was pretty sure Marcella and Ted had been looking over at us, but when we turned in their direction, they looked at each other and acted as if they were deep in conversation. I walked over to their table. Ted was holding an espresso cup that looked lost in his powerful right hand. His left hand was on the table, the long, thick fingers splayed out over the white surface. I had felt the strength of those hands when he had flung my mother against me like a weightless toy.
I smiled at Marcella even as I realized how thoroughly I despised her. I had a clear memory of how she had always flirted with Ted after he married my mother, then rushed to support his version of my mother’s death with her own recollections of me. “Marcella, I’m so sorry,” I said. “I got very bad news about my father today. He’s quite ill.” I looked at Ted. “I’ve been taking riding lessons from a man who claims he’s a great friend of yours. His name is Zach. He’s a wonderful teacher. I’m so glad to have lucked onto him.”
Later, when we were home and getting ready for bed, Alex said, “Ceil, you looked so beautiful tonight, but I’ll be perfectly honest. The way you went so pale, I thought you were going to faint. I know you haven’t been sleeping well lately. Is it this Detective Walsh guy who’s upsetting you, as well as your dad being sick?”
“Detective Walsh hasn’t helped,” I said.
“I’ll be on the prosecutor’s doorstep at nine o’clock. I’ll go straight to the airport from there, but I’ll call and tell you how it went.”
“Okay.”
“As you well know, I’m not much for sleeping pills, but I do think you’d do yourself a favor to take one now. A decent night’s sleep makes the whole world look different.”
“I think that’s a good idea,” I agreed. Then I added, “I’m not being much of a wife to you these days.”
Alex kissed me. “There are thousands of days ahead of us.” He kissed me again. “And nights.”
The sleeping pill worked. It was nearly eight o’clock when I woke up. My first awareness was that sometime during my dreams I had heard the first part of what my mother screamed at Ted that night.
“You admitted it when you were drunk.”