Lady in the Lake(71)

She wanted to prove him wrong. And strangely, illogically, the only way to do that was to go to bed with him. They defiled his marital bed, lying in sight of his wife’s work. (Which was, she saw now, exceptional and accomplished. She wished she could afford it.) The sex was fun, athletic, but Allan seemed pale and wispy after Milton’s comforting bulk. She had vanquished him.

The very next night, less than an hour after stepping off the bus, she made love to Milton with a passion and a confidence that so delighted him he suggested she treat herself to more theater trips.

Nine months and two weeks later, Seth was born, an enormous child, almost ten pounds. She never doubted he was Milton’s. He looked exactly like his father from the minute he emerged.

Sixteen years later, sitting on a bench in downtown Baltimore, she still had no reason to doubt Seth’s paternity. Making love with Allan Durst Sr. had not been a mistake that time. She had broken his spell, and that was why she could finally conceive with Milton. Given how easily she had gotten pregnant the summer she was seventeen, she had expected it to be easy at twenty, too. But Seth was to be the first and last pregnancy she carried to term.

It was only now, twenty years later, that she saw how close to disaster she had flown, how easily her life could have been upended, by their affair and even the one-time coupling in New York. Why had she taken such risks? At least Allan was wrong. Her sensuality was not a fleeting thing, a gift he bestowed on her for one brief season. It had always been hers, it was hers now. If she ever did marry again, when she had the luxury of choosing for herself, she would know that kind of passion in marriage. It had to be possible.

She tried never to think about the ghost of a child left behind in the basement office of the doctor that Allan Sr. had found for her the summer she was seventeen, how her heart felt as if it folded in half when anyone said it was a shame that Seth had to grow up an only child. Milton might have forgiven her for being with another man before marriage, but what happened in that doctor’s office when she was seventeen would be something he could never accept. Still, she had been punished for her sins, had she not? Only the one son when she had wanted a houseful of children, at least three, at least one daughter. She could have been such a good mother to a daughter.

Even good girls make mistakes when they’re in love. But they don’t deserve to die for them. Maddie had gotten out alive. Cleo Sherwood hadn’t.





August 1966





August 1966



She called in sick the next day. Her probationary period was over, she was entitled. She was not sure what would happen if it was discovered that she was not, in fact, sick, but she didn’t worry about getting caught. No one from the Star was going to be lingering on Auchentoroly Terrace, watching to see Mr. Sherwood leave for work. Waiting for the coast to clear, she thought, taking her post just before eight a.m. Her mind picked at the origin of the phrase, jumping to the Longfellow poem about Paul Revere she had memorized as a child. She then thought about Edward R. Murrow’s sonorous voice—“This is London”—those broadcasts that had led her to the radio club, her decision to join the school newspaper—so many seemingly insignificant moments, yet each one was building toward this life, her real life at last. Go look for Tessie Fine, her mother had said. She had and now she was here, sitting at a bus stop in a Negro neighborhood, conspicuous as—she still couldn’t find the right comparison. At any rate, she stood out.

She sat on the bus bench on the park side of Auchentoroly Terrace, the sun on her shoulders, marveling at the fact that her mother had gone to school on this very street sixty-some years ago, and Milton’s family had lived nearby until his father’s death in 1964. The only sure thing was time’s passing.

Shortly after eight thirty a.m., Mr. Sherwood left the apartment. She panicked for a moment. What if he were to walk to this very bus stop? She should have planned for that.

Luckily, he headed west. He wore some kind of uniform, a green one-piece. Gas station worker? Janitor? She realized she had no idea what he did.

Even with Mr. Sherwood out of the apartment, she still didn’t want to knock on the door. The children would be there, the boys, possibly Cleo’s sister and brothers. Eunetta, she reminded herself. Don’t call her Cleo.

Summer would be over soon. It was almost eight months since she had left Milton, and they had made little progress in the divorce. She had thought he would accept the inevitability of their marriage’s end when she found this job and it appeared she no longer needed his money. Only she did need his money. She couldn’t live like this forever, scraping by week after week. How long would this drag on? Would it drag on like this summer day, waiting to see if Mrs. Sherwood would leave her apartment?

A marriage can drag on forever, she thought, but it’s a rare day when a mother with small children doesn’t have to leave her home, if only to maintain her sanity. Little boys drink a lot of milk, eat a lot of food.

She was right. Slightly before lunchtime, Mrs. Sherwood emerged, headed south. Maddie gave her a head start of a block, then trailed behind her, hanging back when she entered the corner grocery. When she came out holding a single bulging bag, Maddie was waiting.

“Can I help you with that?” she asked. She knew she would be refused, but it seemed nice to ask.

“I’m fine,” Mrs. Sherwood said, shifting the bag in her arms, shifting her glance to the sidewalk.