The Bishop’s Wife (Linda Wallheim Mystery, #1)(52)

She shrugged. “I didn’t do that, and the boys seemed to like it. I was more rough and tumble with them. But it made me wonder—did Tobias marry me for their sake? Because he thought I would be good for them, and not because he loved me?” She tapped her feet on the floor.

“Even if he did marry you for their sake at first, he certainly loved you later,” I assured her.

“Was it only gratitude, though? You know, I fell in love with the boys the first time I saw them. It was the strangest thing. Before that moment, I had never thought of myself as the motherly sort. At that age, I’d given up having children of my own and I thought I’d reconciled myself to that. But as soon as I saw them, I felt a lurch inside my chest, and I thought I could never let them go.”

Kelly Helm, I thought. Oh, yes. That was how I felt, as well.

Her eyes seemed distant, but not in the unfocused way that had worried me before. “I touched Tomas’s little hands, and I felt as if his blood was my blood. And Liam, he tried to kick me at first when I held him up, but I lost hold of him and he slid right underneath me and started to cry. His father was going to shout at him, but I picked him up—his big eight-year-old body—and gave him a kiss on the cheek.” She held her hands to her chest as if little Liam was still nestled there. “He looked like a startled bird, unsure where his nest was. I wondered if he was going to be one of those boys who pretended he didn’t want to be cuddled or touched at all. But no, he snuggled right into me, his tears absorbed into my skin. I wanted them. No, it was more than that. I was part of them, and I didn’t know why it was true.”

“As if God had meant you to be there for them,” I said, and I knew I was not talking only about her.

“Yes,” said Anna fiercely.

“What was her name?” I asked, just wanting one more bit of information for myself. “Do you know?”

Anna looked at me, a little startled. “Oh. It was Helena. I thought you knew that.”

I shook my head. “No one ever mentioned it. It was like she was an ideal. Not a real person.” That part was true.

Anna nodded. “It felt like that to me sometimes, too. An impossible ideal. On a pedestal, and she died before she fell off of it.” She stood up and held up a finger. “Just a moment.”

She hurried up the stairs, and when she came back down, she was holding a wedding photo, of Tobias as a very young man and a strikingly beautiful woman at his side, very petite, with long, dark curls and fine features. She was wearing a knee-length wedding dress that hugged her curves and made her look even more like a doll next to tall Tobias. He was holding her in his arms and carrying her as if she weighed nothing.

“That is how they looked on their wedding day.” Anna seemed wistful; it wasn’t quite full-blown jealousy, but there was a trace of it.

“Did he keep this photograph of her up in your bedroom?” I asked. I was standing now, and I thought again of Jared Helm, and his reminders to Carrie that she wasn’t the woman he wanted her to be. Did this photograph serve the same purpose for Anna?

But she shook her head. “It was in his drawer. He didn’t want me to know it was there, I think. He never showed it to me. And he always put away his own clothes. But I found it one day, and I put it back right where it had been.”

So, it wasn’t the same. “Did he have other photos of her?” I asked.

Anna shook her head again. “There was a family album, but he must have gone through it. I never saw another photo of Helena in the house.”

That seemed odd. “What did he do with them?”

“I don’t know. I only know they were gone. The boys asked him about the photos once, but he said he didn’t remember what had happened to them. I think he did it for them, because it was easier for them not to be reminded of what they had lost.”

Or easier for him? I handed the photograph back.

“Did you ever have the feeling that Tobias felt guilty about his wife’s death?” I asked. The question felt wrong as I asked it, but I couldn’t suppress my curiosity.

But if Anna felt the same, she didn’t mention it. “Guilty? No, not really. He always spoke of her death as a terrible tragedy, but he didn’t blame himself, if that’s what you think. At least, I never heard him say anything that would make me think so until this last week.”

“And what did he say then?”

“It was only a passing comment. He said that he wished she had been able to see all of this, everything he had. It was a proud moment for him. He felt his life was full.”

I let go of my questions about Helena Torstensen with a soft sigh. I had already pushed too far there. I checked my watch. It was getting close to the time we needed to leave. “Where is Tobias to be buried, then?” I asked.

“At the Draper City Cemetery. He bought a double plot some years ago. I think it’s a little morbid, knowing there’s a place waiting for me.”

“I don’t think it’s morbid at all,” I said. I had my own plot waiting for me in the same cemetery, right next to Kurt’s. The baby had hardly taken up any space at all, and they had put her in Kurt’s plot. Why his and not mine? I never knew the answer to that, and at the time, I hadn’t been in any state to ask.

“Tobias said it was comforting, knowing where he would end up, and that I wouldn’t have to worry about the money. He had it all paid for in advance. My funeral, too, when that happens. He used to imagine us having a double funeral together, but obviously, that’s not the way it turned out.”