MR. DELANEY INSISTED UPON DRIVING. I couldn’t decide if he thought a woman in my delicate condition shouldn’t be allowed behind the wheel of a car, or if he was just one of those guys who had to be in control.
I had wanted to meet with Dr. Martin Hoffman, the department chair during my father’s tenure at Harvard. My mother had implied he’d know all my father’s associates, so I thought he’d be the best place to start. Unfortunately, he hadn’t answered his phone. I’d left a message but then decided I was too antsy to wait. I’d dialed Katarina Ivanova next, locating her office number on the department website. Interestingly enough, she’d answered and, after a moment’s hesitation, had agreed—rather coolly, I thought—to meet with me.
I had looked up her photo online. She was indeed beautiful, thick, wavy locks of hair, darkly lashed eyes, golden skin. Everything my platinum-blond mother wasn’t.
Personally, Katarina’s photo sparked few reactions for me. Vaguely familiar. I probably had met her at one of the Friday poker parties. But I couldn’t bring any specific memory to mind. Just the mildly shocked reaction that such a gorgeous woman was a Harvard math professor, an ironic generalization from a fellow female math geek who should know better. Just because I complain about the system doesn’t mean I’m immune to it.
Now Mr. Delaney and I drive through Cambridge in comfortable silence. The Harvard campus isn’t far at all, a matter of miles. Given the narrow, congested streets of Cambridge, it’s probably a faster walk than a drive. But this time of year, with the frigid temps and slushy sidewalks, driving it is.
We make it another creeping half a mile; then I just can’t help myself:
“Are you and my mom seeing each other?”
Mr. Delaney takes his eyes off the road long enough to give me an arched brow. The car in front of him stops short for a pedestrian darting across the street. Mr. Delaney slams on his brakes, then throws up an arm as if to keep me from flying through the windshield. I’m wearing my seat belt, not to mention we’re barely moving, but I appreciate the protective instinct.
“Why do you ask?” he finally says.
“Why don’t you answer?” I counter, having seen the lawyer at work before. “I’m not saying I care. I just want to know.”
“Your mother’s a beautiful woman,” he concedes at last.
I nod in encouragement. Mr. Delaney and my mother. The more I think about it, the more I don’t mind. It’s good for my mother to have someone in her life. I know better than anyone that my father had been her entire world. The years since have been rough for her. I’m glad she has someone like Mr. Delaney in her life.
“I would be honored to be in a relationship with her,” Mr. Delaney continues now, “if I was the kind of guy interested in a relationship with a beautiful woman.”
It takes a moment for me to register what he has just said. The car ahead of us begins to move again. We edge forward. I feel like my head is in spin cycle, my brain the image of the whirling symbol on a smartphone as it struggles to load content. Wait a minute. Does that mean?
Suddenly, with a little click, I get everything I never truly noticed before. The incredibly handsome man beside me who never married, never had children of his own. Flirted shamelessly with every female in the room but never arrived or left with any one woman on his arm. I had watched ladies’ interest in him and, given his charming smiles, assumed he was a player of the highest order. But again, for my entire childhood, then adulthood, no girlfriend, no serious relationship.
I feel ridiculously stupid.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
He smiles gently. “It’s not something I talk about. My parents weren’t exactly open-minded on the subject.”
“Haven’t they passed away?”
“Old habits die hard. Close friends and associates know my preferences, but it’s not something I advertise.”
“I’m sorry,” I say again.
“Whatever for?”
“Because . . . Because you shouldn’t have to say who you are. You shouldn’t have to feel self-conscious. And you shouldn’t have to explain yourself to an idiot like me. Not that I care,” I hasten to add, then realize that came out wrong. “I care about you,” I correct. “I don’t care about who you date.”
“As long as it’s not your mother?” he asks slyly.
“Ha. Please tell me I don’t have to ask about my father.” I roll my eyes, clearly joking.
The look he gives me has me going wide-eyed.
“What? Wait! No way.”
He starts to laugh, and just like that, I know he’s played me. Good God, I have to start sleeping more, because every time I think I’m starting to understand my family, my worldview gets turned upside down again.
“Both my parents knew?” I ask, trying to regain my bearings.
“I understood who I was by the time I got to college. Your father figured it out first. As I said, it wasn’t something I advertised. His complete and total acceptance was very dear to me, at a time in my life when I was still struggling to be comfortable with myself.”
I almost say I’m sorry again, then catch myself.
“Your mother . . . She toyed with me for months. Had eyes only for your father, of course, but felt a need to keep me in the mix, most likely in an attempt to make him jealous. We didn’t bother to correct her. It was too much fun to watch her work. I believe when I finally broke the news, she slapped me—for lying—then hugged me in sheer relief that there was a good reason I hadn’t yet succumbed to her charms. Your mother is a complicated woman.”
“Tell me about it,” I mutter.
“She does love you.”
I shrug. “She is the sun. She will always be the sun. I can only orbit around her, and sometimes, that’s really draining.”
“She is who she is, just as I am who I am.”
“Is that what the three of you had in common? My mother, who needs what she needs, whether she wants to or not. My father, whose brain worked the way it worked whether he wanted it to or not. And you, who preferred who you preferred, whether you wanted to or not.”
“The three misfits,” Mr. Delaney concedes.
It’s hard for me to think of my parents that way. My father had always been the genius, while my mother has always been the gorgeous hostess, every frosted strand of hair. Add to that Mr. Delaney, the silver fox himself, one of the best criminal defense attorneys in Boston . . .
But before all of that, they were kids. Given my own awkward years, is it really so strange to think they had their own?
“Do you want to know another secret?” Mr. Delaney asks me.
“Yes!”
“Back in those days, I was a complete reprobate.”
“A wild child?”
“They say inside every criminal defense lawyer is an excellent criminal, hence our ability to be so good at our jobs. I met your father outside a bar, brawling with another student.”
“You were fighting? Like punching and hitting?” I take in his three-hundred-dollar cashmere sweater and can’t picture it.
“Please, I was winning.” His tone turns dry. “You don’t have to look so surprised.”
“Umm . . . Why were you fighting?”
“I don’t even remember. Back then, I didn’t need much of an excuse. Hot Irish temper. A great deal of misplaced rage. A need, I think, to prove myself a man in the more elemental ways, since there was one fundamental way I could not.”
I can’t help myself. “I’m sorry.”
“All before your time. And everyone has to spend their days young and stupid. Otherwise we’d never figure out how to grow up.”
“My father didn’t mind you beating up the other kid?”
“The other student had been heckling him in the bar. Your father was so awkwardly cute about trying to thank me for taking down his tormentor, how could I resist when he offered to buy me a beer?”
Now I’m not so certain about Mr. Delaney and my father anymore, and I’m not sure just how many new visions of my childhood I can take.
He smiles at me. We are at the campus, looping around it. From here we’ll have no choice but to park and walk our way to Dr. Ivanova’s office.
“I did have a crush on your father. In the very beginning. He may have known it, too. It was always hard to tell with him. Your father came across as socially awkward, disconnected. But later, if you asked him questions about an evening, a person, a situation . . . The things he saw. I used to catch my breath at the sheer stunning clarity of his insights. And I would wonder what a burden it had to be to see everyone, everything, so exactly.”
“He saw me,” I hear myself whisper. I look down at my lap. “He knew I was an awkward child, and no matter how many forced tea parties my mother arranged, I’d never belong with my own peers. He knew how much I needed the piano, something that was mine. He knew how much I needed him.”
“Earl loved you very much.”
“My father loved all of us very much.”
Mr. Delaney smiles sadly, turns into the parking garage. “I can honestly say, he was one of the great loves of my life. And there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t miss him.”
Looking at his face, I believe him.
DR. KATARINA IVANOVA glances up from her desk as I walk into her office. She looks older than in her website photo. Thicker around the face. She also doesn’t look happy to see me. Her expression sours further when Mr. Delaney appears behind me.
Her office is small, nothing special. Linoleum floors, no windows, fluorescent lights.
She rises from behind her desk. She’s wearing a dark cranberry-colored wool wrap dress that flatters her lush figure and rich hair. Clearly, Dr. Ivanova feels no need to apologize for being one of the only female professors in the math department. I want to like her for that, but her wariness has set me on edge. I’m already not sure I want to learn more about her—her and my father.
“Evelyn Hopkins?” she says, calling me by my maiden name.
I don’t correct her. I’m here about my father, so when I’d called, using the name Hopkins had made more sense.
“Dick,” she says, nodding toward Mr. Delaney. If I hadn’t just had such a revealing conversation with my father’s closest friend, I’d be forming assumptions about how well Dr. Ivanova and Mr. Delaney are acquainted. Now I have no idea.
I take a seat. After a moment, Mr. Delaney joins me. Then the three of us stare at one another. Now that I’m here, I don’t know what I’m trying to ask. What I need to learn.
“I have some questions about my father,” I say at last.
“You said as much by phone.” Dr. Ivanova has resumed her place behind the desk. She leans forward and plants both elbows on the clear surface. It thrusts her chest forward and, given the line of her dress, reveals quite a bit of cleavage. I wonder if this is to distract Mr. Delaney, or if Dr. Ivanova is one of those women who’s used her looks as a weapon for so long, she’s not even aware she’s doing it.
I open my mouth to tell her the police have reopened his death investigation, then, at the last moment, change my mind. I’m not an expert in police work, but I know from watching countless cop shows that I shouldn’t give too much away. If this woman did have something to do with my father’s death, the fresh investigation into his murder would put her on guard. No need to go there just yet.
Then again, the real killer knows I didn’t shoot my father. The real killer knows I’ve been lying for sixteen years. Is there something I can do with that?
Suddenly, I have a plan.
“You’ve seen me on the news?” I ask now, keeping my voice deliberately calm.
“You were arrested for shooting your husband.”
“I didn’t do it. Mr. Delaney, my lawyer.” I nod in his direction.
Dr. Ivanova sneers slightly. Definitely no love lost there.
“He will have this cleared up soon enough,” I continue. “In the meantime, I’m pregnant. Homeless.”
She arches a brow.
“Oh, didn’t you hear? My house burned down the other night.”
Slowly, she shakes her head. Her expression remains shuttered. I’m not surprising her, and yet she’s clearly feeling defensive.
“I’m suffering a reversal of financial fortune,” I say, leaving out this morning’s abrupt news about the trust fund. “I would like to remedy that situation.”
She stares at me long and hard. She really is stunning. I could see my father finding her attractive. Her choice of dress alone hinted at an adventurousness no one would ever accuse my mother of. But would he stray? I always thought of my mother and him as being so much in love. Yet, like all couples, they had their differences. Then I have another, stranger thought.
If Conrad had met this woman, would he have strayed? Did he stray? Fake IDs, bricks of cash. How would infidelity even rate after that level of betrayal? But just the thought of it leaves me feeling slightly breathless.
Something must have shown in my eyes because Dr. Ivanova frowns at me. “I do not know what you are implying.”
“He loved you.” I keep it simple.
I score a hit. There, in her eyes. The words she wanted to hear. What all women want to hear.
“He never would’ve left my mother for you, but he loved you.”
She glances away, but not before I see the sheen of emotion in her eyes. Beside me, Mr. Delaney says nothing. He’s letting me run the show, unspooling secrets no doubt he already knows.
Sure enough: “Did you tell her?” She turns on him abruptly.
“She was a child. Of course not.”
“Then how—”
“I’m not a child anymore. I’m a grown woman. Married. Widowed. I don’t need to be told how the world works.”
“What do you want?” she repeats.
“I know what you did. I covered for you all these years. The least you could do is repay the favor.”
She scowls at me. “I don’t know—”
“The police are reopening the investigation into my father’s death.”
Her eyes grow wide.
“In light of my husband’s death, they have new suspicions they want to pursue.”
“You didn’t shoot your father accidentally.”
“I didn’t shoot him at all. And we both know it.”
“What?” She sits backs from her desk abruptly. She appears genuinely shocked, which gives me pause. So far, I’ve been reenacting my own episode of Law & Order. Except in my script, now was the moment she confessed. Not stared at me in confusion.
“I know what really happened in the kitchen that day,” I double down. “My mother was distraught. The truth would’ve further destroyed her. So I lied to protect her. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t keep some evidence of my own.”
“You are ridiculous.”
“Hair often gets left behind at crime scenes. Especially long dark strands. Embedded in so much blood.”
She pales. Beside me, Mr. Delaney flinches slightly.
“The police can still run them.”
“They won’t believe you. You shot your husband. They know you for who you are.”
“I didn’t shoot my husband. I shot the computer. And the police believe me.”
Now she’s just plain confused. I don’t blame her. I’m trying to keep her off balance. Turns out, I’m pretty good at this.
“Who shot your husband?” she asks bluntly.
“Who burned down my house?” I ask back.
She shakes her head, clearly starting to think I’m losing it. I need to wrap this up before she finds all the holes in the tale I’m haphazardly weaving.
“I know what you did,” I state again. “I have evidence. But I’m also a woman down on her luck. Meaning, for the right price, I can make it all go away.”
Now Mr. Delaney does turn and stare at me. Is he impressed or appalled? I don’t have the courage to glance at him to find out.
“I do not know what you think you know.” Dr. Ivanova scowls at me. “But I did not shoot your father. Yes, I slept with the man. He was handsome and brilliant. But I did not expect him to leave your mother. Nor did I want him to. He was much too old for me, and I have no need for marriage. I much prefer my life this way.”
“But you two fought.”
“We did not. We were two grown adults. We had appetites. We were greedy and then it was done. Well, except, of course, your mother found out. She was not happy with him. Though clearly it was not the first time she had learned such things. Your father worried for a bit. She was angrier than usual. What did he call it? ‘The straw that broke the donkey’s back.’”
“The straw that broke the camel’s back.”
“Yes, that. When I heard Earl had been shot, I assumed his wife had done it.”
“My mother was with me.”
For the first time, Dr. Ivanova smiles. It is a feline expression. “Please, your mother would never dirty her hands like that. And I’ve always thought she is much smarter than your father gave her credit for.” Ivanova waves a hand at me, gesturing that she is done with me. “You do not have anything. If the police come, I will tell them the truth. Your father and I were lovers, a very long time ago. Then we were not, also a very long time ago. I do not shoot my exes. Frankly, I couldn’t afford that many bullets.”
She gives me a blatant stare. And just like that, my crime solving is done. She’s won. I’ve lost. Game over.
I rise to standing, surprised to find that my legs are shaky. To be honest, I believe Katarina’s claim that she had no reason to kill my father. Now I have doubts about my mother instead, which is worse.
I want to get as far away from here as possible. This morning has been disorienting. Maybe children aren’t meant to know their parents this well. Maybe no one should look too hard at their childhood memories.
Mr. Delaney also rises to his feet. As I head for the door, he hesitates. I hear him murmur something to Dr. Ivanova. Maybe a final, parting barb. Whatever it is, she hisses in response, clearly unhappy with him.
I don’t care anymore. I just want to get back to the car. And then what? Return to my mother’s house? Watch her mix more martinis in the kitchen? Or ask her, finally, point-blank after all these years: Did you arrange for Dad to die?
I’m doubting things I don’t want to doubt. And seeing things I don’t want to see.
As we step outside the building, into the harsh chill of mid-December, Mr. Delaney’s cell phone rings. He answers it crisply. “Delaney. Yes. Excuse me? What did you say?”
His footsteps immediately pick up. I’m rushing to keep up with him when he ends the call, pockets his phone.
“There’s a fire,” he says, his voice hard.
“Where?” Then, before I can help myself, “Mom?”
“She’s fine. It’s not your mother’s house, Evie. It’s mine.”