overdose or he won’t. What worries me is the toll he’s taking on his parents.”
“No, I mean … Walter and Imogene are such nice people. They love him. They raised him well, did all the right things. Yet he became what he is. You never know.”
“Zach, Naomi, Minnie—they’re going to turn out fine. They’re good kids.”
“They’re good kids,” Nicolette agreed. “And Preston was a good kid once. You never know. You can only hope.”
John thought of Billy Lucas, the clean-cut honor student and booklover. The rancid puddle of milk and blood. The blood-glazed collage of unpaid bills. The throttled grandmother, the sister’s crimson bed.
“They’ll be fine. They’re great.” He changed the subject. “By the way, something happened today that made me wonder about those snapshots we took at Minnie’s birthday party. Did you email them to your folks?”
“Sure. I told you.”
“I guess I forgot. To anyone else?”
“Just Stephanie. Sometimes Minnie reminds me of her when she was a little girl.”
Stephanie was Nicky’s younger sister, now thirty-two and the sous-chef at an acclaimed restaurant in Boston.
“Would Stephanie or your folks have forwarded the pictures to anyone else?”
Nicky shrugged, then looked puzzled. “Why? Suddenly this seems like a gentle grilling.”
He didn’t want to alarm her. Not yet. Not until and if he could logically explain the reason he was worried.
“At work, I ran into someone who mentioned Minnie in the bunny ears at her birthday party. Someone emailed him the photo. He didn’t remember who.”
“Well, she’s supercute in those ears, and you know how people swap things that tickle them. The photo’s probably up on any number of websites. Cute Kids dot com, Bunny Ears dot com—”
“Predatory Pedophiles dot com.”
Getting to her feet, she said, “Sometimes you’re all cop when half cop would be tough enough.”
“You’re right. The problem is you never know when it’s going to turn out to be a half-cop or an all-cop day.”
She rang her glass against his, a single clear note. “You can’t go through life always in high gear.”
“You know what I’m like. I don’t downshift well.”
“Let’s go have dinner. Later I’ll shift your gears for you.”
She carried her wineglass on high, as if it were a torch with which she revealed the way.
Carrying his glass and the bottle, he followed, inexpressibly grateful for his life with her—and more aware than usual that what is woven will inevitably unweave, the wound will unwind, the raveled will unravel. The thing most worth praying for was that the moment of the un would come only when you were old and tired and filled to the brim with this life. Too often, that was not the timetable that Destiny had in mind.
10
BEFORE DINNER, JOHN VISITED WALTER AND IMOGENE NASH in the kitchen, though not to commiserate with them about Preston’s latest fall. They were too self-reliant and possessed too much self-respect to want to be seen as victims, and they were too considerate to want others to shoulder any smallest part of their burden.
Walter toiled as a navy cook for twenty-four years, most of it at a harbor base rather than aboard ship, and Imogene worked as a dental hygienist. When he grew tired of measuring ingredients in hundred-pound and five-gallon increments, when she wearied of staring into gaping mouths, they retired from their professions and, at fifty, went to a school to learn estate management.
In ultrawealthy Montecito, California, they ran a twelve-acre property on which stood a forty-thousand-square-foot main house, a five-thousand-square-foot guest house, horse stables, two swimming pools, and vast rose gardens. Walter and Imogene thrived, managing a staff of twenty, until drunken Preston, then thirty and intending to reunite with his parents for the purpose of negotiating a guilt stipend, had slammed back into their lives by crashing his rental car into thegatehouse,
“No, I mean … Walter and Imogene are such nice people. They love him. They raised him well, did all the right things. Yet he became what he is. You never know.”
“Zach, Naomi, Minnie—they’re going to turn out fine. They’re good kids.”
“They’re good kids,” Nicolette agreed. “And Preston was a good kid once. You never know. You can only hope.”
John thought of Billy Lucas, the clean-cut honor student and booklover. The rancid puddle of milk and blood. The blood-glazed collage of unpaid bills. The throttled grandmother, the sister’s crimson bed.
“They’ll be fine. They’re great.” He changed the subject. “By the way, something happened today that made me wonder about those snapshots we took at Minnie’s birthday party. Did you email them to your folks?”
“Sure. I told you.”
“I guess I forgot. To anyone else?”
“Just Stephanie. Sometimes Minnie reminds me of her when she was a little girl.”
Stephanie was Nicky’s younger sister, now thirty-two and the sous-chef at an acclaimed restaurant in Boston.
“Would Stephanie or your folks have forwarded the pictures to anyone else?”
Nicky shrugged, then looked puzzled. “Why? Suddenly this seems like a gentle grilling.”
He didn’t want to alarm her. Not yet. Not until and if he could logically explain the reason he was worried.
“At work, I ran into someone who mentioned Minnie in the bunny ears at her birthday party. Someone emailed him the photo. He didn’t remember who.”
“Well, she’s supercute in those ears, and you know how people swap things that tickle them. The photo’s probably up on any number of websites. Cute Kids dot com, Bunny Ears dot com—”
“Predatory Pedophiles dot com.”
Getting to her feet, she said, “Sometimes you’re all cop when half cop would be tough enough.”
“You’re right. The problem is you never know when it’s going to turn out to be a half-cop or an all-cop day.”
She rang her glass against his, a single clear note. “You can’t go through life always in high gear.”
“You know what I’m like. I don’t downshift well.”
“Let’s go have dinner. Later I’ll shift your gears for you.”
She carried her wineglass on high, as if it were a torch with which she revealed the way.
Carrying his glass and the bottle, he followed, inexpressibly grateful for his life with her—and more aware than usual that what is woven will inevitably unweave, the wound will unwind, the raveled will unravel. The thing most worth praying for was that the moment of the un would come only when you were old and tired and filled to the brim with this life. Too often, that was not the timetable that Destiny had in mind.
10
BEFORE DINNER, JOHN VISITED WALTER AND IMOGENE NASH in the kitchen, though not to commiserate with them about Preston’s latest fall. They were too self-reliant and possessed too much self-respect to want to be seen as victims, and they were too considerate to want others to shoulder any smallest part of their burden.
Walter toiled as a navy cook for twenty-four years, most of it at a harbor base rather than aboard ship, and Imogene worked as a dental hygienist. When he grew tired of measuring ingredients in hundred-pound and five-gallon increments, when she wearied of staring into gaping mouths, they retired from their professions and, at fifty, went to a school to learn estate management.
In ultrawealthy Montecito, California, they ran a twelve-acre property on which stood a forty-thousand-square-foot main house, a five-thousand-square-foot guest house, horse stables, two swimming pools, and vast rose gardens. Walter and Imogene thrived, managing a staff of twenty, until drunken Preston, then thirty and intending to reunite with his parents for the purpose of negotiating a guilt stipend, had slammed back into their lives by crashing his rental car into thegatehouse,
Similar Books
