I HADN’T HAD THE nightmare for almost a year, but that night it descended again.
I am trying to rush to the hospital after the phone call, but I’m strapped into my family’s old tractor, a 1940 John Deere. The beast heaves along and I am desperate to make it go faster, but I can’t remember how to work the clutch, and I keep stalling. I see the hospital, but as I approach, the tractor lurches and sways, and there are headlamps bearing down and horns blaring. This is where I wake up, sweating, chest heaving.
I knew it was pointless to try to go back to sleep. I rose and wrapped Cal’s old bathrobe around me and sat staring out the window into the dark. Stop it, I told myself. It is time to move on.
The same words I had said to Iris, after which I almost lost her.
As dawn broke, I had my usual talk with the ghosts. Convincing them to leave me alone. I knew, of course, that they wouldn’t. I didn’t really want them to. It was one of the darkest threads woven into the fabric of my life, and that of my family, and as much as I wished it hadn’t happened, I had to accept the pain as part of my memories. In the four years since Bethany was killed, I had learned how to cope, but every so often it emerged, prickly and sharp, and I was forced to relive it in painful detail.
But I had to regain my balance. This morning I really didn’t want to be swamped with sadness, or anger. I wanted to cultivate the possibility floating around the periphery of my new life. I had met someone I enjoyed talking to. I had something to do that morning, and what’s more, I almost looked forward to it. I long ago learned that part of living through the pain was simply keeping on. One had to act as if one had forgotten, even if the memories were always crouched in the background, ready to ambush.
I made myself eat a piece of toast. Then I located my copy of Shroud for a Nightingale and sipped my coffee as I paged through it. I hadn’t lied to Katherine. I had indeed read the book. What I hadn’t said was that it had been a year ago, and I remembered very little. I skimmed through it as I sipped my dark roast, so that I would at least know the main character’s names, and considered how I might bluff my way through a discussion. I marveled at the fact that I actually cared.
I pulled out my nice red sweater that complemented the shade of my favorite lipstick. I was going to do as much as I could, even here. I would not sit and wait to die. I was going to view the library and the exercise room and the music room, not as reminders of my former self, cynically placed here to manipulate or fool us oldsters, but as harbingers of possibility. Life demands that we live.
The Ridgewood Library was a large room with wide French doors overlooking a garden. Tall bookshelves flanked the windows. A folding display easel was set up near the door. On it, a bulletin board proclaimed the “book of the week,” with pictures of the cover and “fun facts” related to books and writers. It announced the Shroud for a Nightingale book discussion, and asked, “Guess which Shakespeare plays also contain mentions of nightingales?” Not for the first time, I noticed certain similarities between Ridgewood and a middle school.
I saw a group of people sitting expectantly around an oblong table. A paper in the center of it was folded into a tented sign saying “Book Group.” Katherine was not there, but several other residents were seated.
I hesitated. Suddenly joining the small group seemed such a foreign notion. So not-me. But then the activities director, a woman named Marta, noticed me. Marta had the sunny no-nonsense demeanor of a sixth grade gym instructor. She said, “Ms. Greene, I’m so happy to see you. Please, take a seat.” She patted the back of a chair.
Well, then. I had told Charlie I would participate, and here I was. I nodded at the others sitting at the table. Marta kept checking her clipboard and looking hopefully at the door for more comers. The woman next to me, with spiky hair, gave a broad smile and extended her left hand in an awkward gesture. Something about the way she held her body told me she didn’t move her right side very easily.
“Hi. I’m Geri.” She nodded at the man to her left. “This is Evan. And that’s Lottie at the end.”
Evan had thick silver hair, luxuriant and wavy. It was conspicuous in a place where almost all the men and even some of the women were balding. He half stood, in an attempt to be courtly, and shook my hand as he repeated his name, “Evan Landrum. Nice to meet you. Welcome to our literary club.”
“Such as it is,” added Lottie tartly. To me she raised an eyebrow. “I’m not sure mysteries count as literature.”
“Lottie has higher standards than the rest of us,” Geri interjected, smiling. “She is a former English professor.” She said it with sarcasm, but also affection.
I wasn’t sure how to respond. “I always understood P. D. James was quite respected as a writer.”
Lottie tilted her head. “Being considered a decent mystery writer is not the same as writing literature.” She shrugged. “But I’ll concede her prose operates at a higher level than most.” Something about the spark in her eyes as she said this made me think she was playing a part. Lottie was from the tribe of older women who will not be ignored: her membership declared by oversized glasses with geometric frames, the slice of magenta streaking her curly hair, and a necklace that the magazines in my doctor’s office would describe as “chunky.”
At that moment Katherine pushed her walker into the room. In contrast with Lottie’s flamboyant panache, she was elegant and understated in an expensive-looking lavender sweater, with her white hair perfectly in place. She smiled at everyone, and Marta brightened. “I’m so glad you could make it.”
After Katherine took her seat, we got started. Marta began by asking a few general questions, and bit by bit my tablemates started dissecting the book. Lottie had a lot to say.
“I thought the style was a little dry. It all feels very ‘British,’ if you know what I mean.” She crooked her fingers in air quotes. “It’s all very well done of course, but I prefer more muscular, inventive prose. Give me some Elmore Leonard or Sara Paretsky any day.”
I looked at her, surprised. She met my gaze, raised her eyebrow with a glint of humor. “Just because I love my Shakespeare and Harding doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy an entertaining potboiler.” Then she smiled at me. I decided to like her. She was slippery and unpredictable and entertaining.
As the conversation unfolded, the plot began to glimmer into memory. Thank goodness. But because the mystery centered on a student nurse in a training hospital who had been ‘playing the patient,’ and ended up dead, I was afraid Marta or Katherine, both of whom knew my background, would ask me about the procedure in question and expose my faulty knowledge of the book. I was so distracted by trying to formulate a response to their imaginary questions that I didn’t realize at first that Evan was talking to me.
They were all looking at me, in fact. “Um, sorry. Could you repeat that?”
Evan said, “So, who did you think did it? Did you figure it out before Dalgliesh?” Thank goodness, he reminded me of the detective’s name.
Then I saw my profession could also be a good excuse. I cleared my throat. “You know, as a former nurse, I was so interested in the picture she painted of the training system, I’m afraid I wasn’t as focused on trying to figure out ‘whodunit.’ Besides, I’m not usually very good at that anyway.”
Katherine asked, “Evan, did you know who the killer was?”
He tapped his copy of the book. “I wasn’t sure. But as I crossed people off my list, she became one of my top choices.”
“Really?” Lottie interjected. “Do you usually do that? Try to read between the lines for clues, that sort of thing?”
Evan opened his hands. “I guess it’s silly, since the author isn’t about to give the game away. But I can’t help it.” He shrugged in an almost charming gesture. “I’ve been part of a lot of investigations in my time. I guess I have a suspicious mind.”
What an odd way to put it: part of a lot of investigations? I wondered what and how he investigated. I was certain he wasn’t a former cop. A journalist maybe? A lawyer? I was about to ask when Geri spoke: “I don’t even try. They always throw in red herrings or withhold key information anyway, so it ends up making me angry. I enjoy it more if I just go along for the ride.”
This topic drew a lot of comments, and our discussion turned from the story at hand to descriptions of the way each of us approached different kinds of books. Eventually the conversation wound down, and even Marta ran out of questions and prompts. She snapped the book shut, and said, “Well now. That was excellent, I thought.” She stood. “Remember, our next book is by another English writer, Dick Francis.”
We slowly filed out of the library. I had to admit, I’d enjoyed it.
Katherine joined me at the door. “If we head to the dining room now, we can be sure to get the pie before it runs out. What do you think?”
I pulled myself up short. “Did you say ‘pie’?”
She laughed. “I forgot, you don’t usually have lunch in the dining room, do you? Wednesday is pie day. You know the Oak Street Bakery? The owner’s mom lives here. He always delivers some cherry pie on Wednesdays, but they usually run out.” She smiled conspiratorially. “Nathaniel has to watch his blood sugar, so I try not to eat too many sweets around him. But I do love pie.”
It sounded delicious, and I was hungry. “But will Nathaniel mind?” My guess was that he relied on her utterly for many things, and also that she completely conceded to his whims.
“He isn’t here. He’s visiting his brother in Springfield this week.”
“Springfield! He’s well enough to travel?”
She rolled her eyes in disapproval. “Nathaniel and his brother have this yearly thing they do. It used to be swimming and running a 5K, then it was golf tournaments, now it’s chess. Honestly, it’s like they’re ten year-old boys. Everything is a competition. I tried to talk him out of it. But he wouldn’t hear of it. I swear if he were on his deathbed he’d rouse himself to go. Especially since to him not going would mean his brother had won. Ugh! I think it’s so silly, at this age. I keep trying to get them to call it off, but to no avail.”
“You didn’t want to go along?”
“It’s all about them. I never go. Even when we host, I just stay in the background.”
Her husband was apparently even more stubborn and imperious than I’d thought. I was almost impressed. “So he’s traveling alone?”
“His daughter, Lisa, is with him. His brother has a daughter Lisa’s age, and they’ve always been close, so she gets a chance to visit her cousin.”
We had reached the elevator. Katherine said, “So. Will you join me?”
“Sure. To think all these weeks I’ve been missing pie. I have some catching up to do.”
When we entered the dining room, Katherine beelined for the center table. It had the nicest view of the pond outside and was best positioned to flag down the staff. She claimed a spot without hesitation and stood behind the chair smiling at the server, a gawky teenager, who, after a second or two, understood what she wanted and hurried over to pull it out for her. Feeling very self-conscious, I rushed to sit before he got to my chair. After we’d ordered and the server turned toward the kitchen, Katherine called him back. “Oh, and please put aside two of the biggest slices of pie for us? And whipped cream as well. Thank you, Michael.”
The young man nodded and hurried away.
I’d had Katherine pegged as a shrinking violet, but in this circumstance she embraced a sense of authority. She did it graciously, but she was definitely comfortable giving orders. I, on the other hand, was not used to these sorts of hierarchies. One of the biggest challenges I’d had in Ridgewood was talking with the staff. I didn’t know what was appropriate. The aides didn’t work directly for the residents, but still, they took care of us: personally, intimately. And I knew I would sometime need to make demands, but the lines felt blurry to me.
I ventured, “You do that so easily.”
“What? Oh, you mean …” She lifted her chin at the server, now on the other side of the room. “I learned the best way is to be clear and direct. Nathaniel had high-profile cases, even when he was a young lawyer, so we could afford help. He insisted on it, actually. Not that I minded. I preferred to focus on other things—Lisa and volunteer commitments. For years I was the biggest fundraiser for the Junior League. It was a lot of work.”
So her husband was a lawyer. No wonder I hadn’t liked him. “What were some of his high-profile cases?”
Faint pink washed her cheeks. “You’re going to think I’m terrible. But the truth is we never talked about his work.”
“Really? Never?”
“He always said he wanted his home to be a respite from the world. And that’s always been fine with me.”
“But weren’t you curious?”
“He dealt with people at terrible moments. Acrimonious divorces, contested wills, and then, later, criminals. You can’t imagine how nasty it all got. So we decided there was enough ugliness in the world without inviting it into our home.” She fiddled with her ring. It appeared to be set with a diamond and several emeralds. It glittered and caught the light.