The Night Mark(16)

She lowered her head to the steering wheel and squeezed the leather as hard as she could. In her twenties her panic attacks had been triggered by her student loan debt combined with her erratic income from freelancing. One bill could send her spiraling into the cold sweats, nausea and a sense of being choked to death by an invisible hand. Pills helped a little, but nothing helped more than Will putting her on his lap and holding her as he rubbed her back.

“Breathe, babe. In and out,” he’d say, his voice strong and calm as she gasped and swallowed air. “It’s not the end of the world. It only feels that way. We’ll just be poor,” he would say to make her smile. “We’ll live in a cabin in the middle of nowhere with no electricity or running water. We’ll smell horrible. We’ll grow our own food. We’ll have cows and chickens and no TVs. We’ll have so much free time, babe. I don’t even know what we’ll do with all that free time... Wait. I got it. Blow jobs three times a day.”

And Faye would laugh through her tears, which only Will could make her do.

“What about baseball?” she’d asked him.

“Just a game, babe. It’s just a game. You and me, we’re the real thing. Right?”

“Right.” She’d put her head back on his big broad chest and ride out the wave of her panic in his arms.

“Breathe, sweetheart,” Will would say, rocking her like a child. “I’m here, and I love you.”

But he wasn’t here anymore.

And he didn’t love her anymore.

If the dead could love, they had a terrible way of showing it.

But breathe she did—in and out—and sure enough, when she raised her head she saw people walking into the gas station, a little boy racing to beat his sister to the door so he could be the one to hold it open for their mother. A robin pecked at a rotting pretzel on the asphalt. A shiny blue Corvette with Georgia plates pulled in for a fill-up. Life. It was still happening. The world hadn’t ended. Not even her little corner of it.

Once she was back in control of her emotions, Faye started her Prius. As always she was taken aback by how quietly the car ran. She really never knew if it was running until it moved. Same with her—she didn’t know she was alive unless she was moving—so she kept moving.

The phone rang again. Hagen calling back, either to keep fighting or to apologize. She ignored the call, and she also ignored the urge to toss the phone out of the car window into Port Royal Sound.

Faye found Federal Street easily, thanks to her tourist’s map. Father Pat Cahill had said he’d be painting the marshlands, but that didn’t narrow things down much. The entire place was surrounded by marshlands. She drove to the very end of the road; if she’d kept driving she’d drive straight into the water. Although tempting—today especially—Faye imagined with her luck the car would land on a dense patch of swamp, and she’d have a few hours to wait before sinking enough to even get her feet wet. Although she couldn’t think of many good reasons to go on living, she also couldn’t think of any good reasons for dying. So she went on as most people did for want of a viable alternative.

Two beautiful old white houses stood proud and dignified on either side of Federal Street, but only one of them had a man sitting on the lawn in front of an easel. The house he painted was a grand antebellum mansion, three stories, white, red roof, green shutters and a porch one could get lost on without a map and a compass. Before leaving the car, Faye checked her face in the mirror looking for any telltale signs of her recent breakdown. The makeup was an easy fix, but she couldn’t do a thing about the redness in her eyes except hope Father Cahill didn’t notice it. She grabbed her camera bag from the backseat. Might as well get some work done while she was here.

She strode across the lawn toward him, and he turned her way and gave her a broad smile.

“Are you my new patron?” he called out. “If so, I thank you and owe you an apology.”

Faye smiled back. “No apologies necessary. The kid let me have it for twenty-five bucks.”

“Twenty-five? Highway robbery.” He rubbed his palms on his paint-smeared khaki slacks, and then held out his hand to her. She was struck by how much he looked like Gregory Peck in the late actor’s last years. Minus the mustache but still with the glasses. His black T-shirt was as paint riddled as his pants. Did he wipe his paintbrushes on his clothes?

“Thanks for meeting with me, Father Cahill.” He had a nice handshake, firm and friendly.

“Pat, please. And I’m retired, so it’s not like I have a full dance card. Pull up the stool and tell me about yourself.” He didn’t say card, he’d said cahd. She knew she was dealing with an old Boston boy. If Kennedy had lived, this was probably how he would have sounded in his seventies.

He passed her his wooden stool and he sat on the stone bench where he’d set up his paints and brushes.

“Not much to tell. I’m in town for a couple months taking pictures for a fund-raising calendar.”

“I know that calendar well. They preservation society ladies are nice enough to buy my paintings every now and then. Their mission in life is to take pity on old relics.”

Faye laughed. “You’re not an old relic.”

“What makes you think I was talking about me?” He winked at her to show he was kidding. “How’d you swing this gig? You’re not a local. Sound like a damn Yankee to me.”