The Bird House A Novel - By Kelly Simmons Page 0,72
to the Potting Shed alone this time, but I did take something with me in the car: a map. It couldn’t be that hard to drive home from Gladwyne in the dark; other people did it all the time. I didn’t recall what time it was when Ellie and I had seen Peter there; all I remembered was the darkness and the deer. Still, he’d said he ate dinner there every night, so my thought was to wait in the bar until he showed up. I was looking forward to that fancy red wine and a little adult companionship. Oh, hell, who was I kidding? Companionship? There was still something between us, even after all these years, and it certainly wasn’t companionship.
The door to the bar was heavy, fashioned of oak and leaded glass, and it took me a few hearty tugs to wrest it open. I was off balance when I walked in, and thought I must have gone dizzy from exertion. How else to explain why Peter sat two seats away from Tinsley?
I wasn’t having a senior moment, and I certainly wasn’t mistaken. I may have been wrong about the deck—the next day I saw a rampaging passel of squirrels—but this time things were crystal clear. I recognized Tinsley’s singular crop of hair immediately, and had her back not been toward me she would have been close enough to see the shock on my face. I backed out the door slowly and went to my car to think. It had to be a coincidence, I told myself. She was probably meeting a friend there, maybe even Zach. I decided I had two choices: confront her, or wait until one of them left. I chose to wait, and I didn’t have to wait too long; after a half hour of cleaning out my glove compartment Tinsley left the bar alone. No friend—no Zach. I went back in.
“Peter,” I said from a few feet away, “is that drink offer still available?”
“Annie,” he said, beaming. He stood up and took both of my hands in his. “Don’t you look radiant tonight.”
I pulled my hands back and waved the comment away. As if I hadn’t carefully applied blush so I’d look that way.
“It was pinot noir you had last time, right?”
I nodded and sat down.
“It’s funny that you’d take me up on the drink tonight, of all nights.”
“Why?”
“A woman was just in here asking me about you.”
I felt blood pooling in my knees; suddenly there was none left in my head, my neck, anywhere in my body.
“Really?”
“A reporter.”
“Was she doing a story on high school reunions?” I smiled, but the twinkle, I noticed, was gone from his eyes.
“No. She’s doing a story on bathtub drownings,” he said quietly, and the whole intent of the evening, the shape and the form, started to slip away.
I swallowed hard. “And I suppose she said there’d been another one?”
“Yes. A little boy. And as she was researching the frequency of these types of accidents in the county, she came across the old newspaper article about Emma, the one where I was quoted about ringing the doorbell.”
The bartender brought the pinot noir and I took a huge sip, so huge I needed to wipe my chin.
“Peter, I don’t think that was a reporter you spoke to.”
He looked at me curiously. I was practically shaking, gulping wine.
“Who was it then?”
“My daughter-in-law. She’s trying to dig up things to use against me, to try to keep me away from my granddaughter.”
“Why would she do that?”
“I found out she was cheating on my son.”
He whistled. “That’s a fine mess.”
“Yes. She knew I’d lost a child, but we’ve been a bit closed off about the details. She probably suspected something and… followed up on her hunch.”
“So she’s trying to get some leverage, make you seem unfit to grandparent, in case you tell Tom about her affair?”
“Yes.”
“Jesus, your own daughter-in-law?”
“Well, you have girls, so you wouldn’t know, but daughters-in-law are a different species altogether.” I took a deep breath, rubbed my eyes.
He nodded and, finally, for the first time since I’d entered, glanced away, toward a bubble of laughter that emanated from the dining room. His profile in the low light was still handsome; his nose and ears still as small as a boy’s, unlike so many older men.
“Tinsley,” I sighed, “well, she must have been jumping with joy when she found that article. But how do you suppose she found you so quickly? How did she know you’d be here?”