Scared To Death (Live to Tell #2)(5)
That wasn’t the first time the press had drawn a Kennedy-Quinn comparison. But while the slain JFK had remained a hero and his wife was lauded as a heartbroken, dignified widow, the fallen Garvey Quinn was exposed as a coldhearted villain—and his wife drew nothing but scorn from his disillusioned constituents.
No one seemed to grasp—or care—that Marin herself had been blindsided; that the man she loved had betrayed her—and their children—with his unspeakable crime. That Elsa Cavalon wasn’t the only mother bereaved by Jeremy Cavalon’s kidnapping and murder. Marin, his birth mother, grieved as well. And, unbearably, her own husband—Jeremy’s own father—was responsible for his death.
What the hell is she supposed to do with that knowledge, and the accompanying guilt? How the hell is she supposed to move past it?
So far, she’s come up with only this: Force herself to get up every morning—if she manages to stay in bed that long—and face the wreckage of her life.
One foot in front of the other, one day after another. Just move on, blindly, preferably not looking back, not looking ahead.
With a sigh, Marin turns away from the railing. Still no hint of sunrise on the eastern horizon, but it will appear any moment now, and the day will be under way.
Time to get moving: Shower and dress, make some coffee, check her e-mail…Oh, and the cleaning service comes today.
Marin had felt only mild disappointment when Shirley, their longtime housekeeper, gave notice two months ago. She wasn’t one of those warm and fuzzy domestic employees who become part of the family. No, she kept her distance, even amid all the upheaval—not as much out of professional discretion, Marin suspects, as because she just didn’t give a damn.
It’s just as well. The last thing her daughters needed was another shakeup on the home front, however small. Marin was pretty sure no one was going to miss Shirley, and she was right. It took a few days for the girls to even realize she was gone—and even then, it was only the growing pile of laundry that tipped them off.
“Aren’t we going to hire a new maid?” Caroline had asked, dismayed.
“Nope,” Marin heard herself say, shocking Caroline—not to mention herself.
Until that moment, she’d been meaning to get around to calling the domestic agency her friend Heather Cottington recommended. But suddenly she couldn’t bear the thought of bringing a new person into the household—someone who’d undoubtedly be well aware that this is Garvey Quinn’s family. Someone who’d wonder—and maybe talk—about the “episodes” Marin suffers with more and more frequency.
She figured she was perfectly capable of running the house herself, at least until this fall, after the move. What else did she have to do?
On good days, she’s done a fairly decent job on the basics—laundry, emptying the dishwasher, running the vacuum. On bad days, the girls came home from school to drawn shades and toast crumbs still on the countertops, and their mother in bed.
On occasion, Marin even made her daughters help around the house, something they’d never had to do and weren’t particularly happy about—particularly Caroline, who tends to make a scene over the smallest imagined slight.
“Don’t you think you’re being too hard on them?” Heather asked when she heard. “They’ve lost their father. They’ve been through hell. You’re planning to move them out of the only home they’ve ever known. And now you have them cleaning toilets?”
Maybe she was right.
Maybe not.
All Marin can do is feel her way through one day at a time. And now, with Realtors about to descend, every room has to be scrubbed from floor to ceiling.
Marin just doesn’t have it in her. She spent all day yesterday boxing up every framed family photograph and most of the contents of Garvey’s home office—anything that might negate the seller anonymity clause in the real estate contract and thus betray their identity to prospective buyers.
In the master bedroom, she smooths the lavender coverlet on her side and arranges the floral print European throw pillows. She bought new bedding after Garvey left; would have bought a whole new bed if she could have disposed of the old one privately. But she could just imagine photographers snapping photos of the California king–sized mattress being moved out, and printing them above a caption like: The wishful widow Quinn purges her upscale digs of everything jailbird hubby touched.
Wishful widow…one of the tabloids gave her that nickname, assuming she thinks she’d be better off if Garvey were dead.
They’re right. Bastards.
Anyway, public contempt is nothing compared to the rest of it: mourning her firstborn; helping her surviving children cope with the realization that their father is a criminal; preparing to sell an apartment that’s too big, too expensive, and holds too many memories; looking Garvey in the eye through protective visitors’ room glass and telling him she’ll never forgive him, and that even if he manages to be found innocent when the case goes to trial, he won’t be coming home to her.
She strips out of her nightgown and hangs it on a hook in her walk-in closet.
Beside it, Garvey’s closet door remains closed, as it has been for months now. His expensive suits and shirts, shrouded in dry cleaner’s plastic, are presumably still inside, along with dozens of pairs of Italian leather shoes and French silk ties.
What is she supposed to do with any of it? Burn it? Give it away? Save it? For what? For whom?