The Stars Are Fire(74)

I’ve arranged for Sarah’s and Peggy’s salaries and the bills to be paid by my bank, so you needn’t worry about anything.

I think that if the fire hadn’t happened, we’d have continued as the little family that we were. In time, I believe, we would have come to care about each other in a way that was companionable. But the fire did happen, and that changed everything.

I hope you’ll be happier and that your injuries will heal.

Grace.

Dear Mother,

By the time you get this, I’ll be on a journey with the children. I could call this a little vacation, but I won’t. Truth is, I’m leaving Gene and taking the children with me. He’s become intolerable, frightening all of us. I have reason to believe that we all might be in danger. I know you’ll think this melodramatic on my part, but you’ll just have to trust me. I’ve hired an experienced live-in nurse to take care of him. I’m hopeful that without me in the house, and the poisonous relationship that has developed between us, he’ll make more progress and be happier. I’ve hired a housekeeper, too.

As soon as I’ve reached a destination—I don’t know exactly where I’m going right now—I’ll call or write you with a phone number and an address so that we can be in touch. I can never thank you enough for taking such good care of the children while I was trying to find my way. And for taking such good care of me, I might add.

Don’t worry about me, Mother. I’ve discovered, ever since the fire, or maybe more recently, that I have inner resources I can count on.

The check is for you to make a down payment on a house. I can pay for all of it. In my next letter, I’ll explain everything.

With all my love,

Grace


It takes her three tries to get the letter into the envelope.


Grace lies on the nursery cot. In the morning, she’ll change all the linen. She’s already rid Merle’s room of her personal items and photographs.

Ought she drive south to try to find Aidan? If she didn’t have children, she would. She would hunt him down and surprise him and hope that he reciprocated her feelings. A soloist performing with an orchestra, however, might take her weeks to find. And when she did, she and the children would be a burden no matter how fond he was of them. But the urge to drive south is a powerful one.

To drive west is shortly to encounter John Lighthart at the clinic. She would like to work and keep his friendship. But she can’t work and care for her children at the same time, and she doesn’t want to relinquish Claire and Tom to a nanny. She herself must raise them and keep them safe. Of less importance, but still critical, is the fact that the clinic isn’t far enough away from Merle’s house that word of Grace’s whereabouts might not somehow get back to Gene. Might Grace be arrested for kidnapping? It seems absurd to her, but she believes Gene capable of anything.

To drive east is to drive into the ocean.

She will have to leave with no destination then. She won’t focus on a place to settle, but rather on the mechanics of freeing herself.


Sarah arrives at seven in the morning in her uniform. The woman has dark blond hair, blue eyes, and an air of confidence. Grace has made a large breakfast for her and the children. When the kids aren’t listening, she asks Sarah to give Gene the envelope with Grace’s letter inside sometime after lunch. Grace tells Claire that they are all going on a little vacation, and that Sarah, a nurse, will take good care of Daddy. Claire warms to the idea of a vacation and asks, “Will there be new toys?”

“Yes,” says Grace.


While her children chat with Sarah in the kitchen, Grace moves to the library and stares at the paneled walnut door. In this room, she and Aidan once made love. She has never adjusted to the fact that it has become her husband’s room, its resonance no longer that of passion, but rather that of sadness and emotional turmoil. Reaching for the brass doorknob, she hesitates before turning it. Only her fingertips touch the metal. Inside, Gene is lying painless and asleep, or he is waiting for his own day to begin. Does he feel remorse of any kind? Grace thought, in a moment of empathy and generosity, that she would go into his room, sit in a chair, and try to talk to him about the terror he was creating in the night for the children. She wasn’t going to mention herself, because that was the point, wasn’t it? To punish her, to have power over her.

She removes her fingers from the knob in case she inadvertently turns it.

As if by mere touch she had instructed the door to swing open, Gene stands at the threshold, startling Grace so much that she grabs on to the back of a chair. His jaw is set, he has on clean navy silk pajamas, and he’s wearing his eye patch. “Where are you going?” he asks.

Grace shakes her head, stunned by her terrible luck.

“You were about to come into my room, weren’t you?”

She puts a hand to her chest and remembers that she has on a good dress. Not a special one, but a good one. She has fake pearls at her ears.

She’s struck dumb.

“You’re going somewhere?” An entirely different question from his first one.

Her vision narrows to a black dot, but then returns.

“What’s going on?” he asks, beginning to suspect something.

“I was coming to wake you,” she says, her voice thin. “There’s someone I want you to meet. Wait here.”