And then I do launch in, telling him about Mulroney’s death and my decision to come to Roger’s.
“This is scary stuff,” Damien says. “Can the cops do anything to help you right now?”
“Ha, you mean the ones from White Plains? I don’t think they have jurisdiction here.”
“Can I do anything, then?”
“I think the best thing you can do, Damien, is stop calling me. I appreciate your concern, but we shouldn’t be in touch.”
“Why?”
“You know why.”
“You don’t envision us being friends?”
I don’t. I sort of tried it once before, in my last months at Greenbacks, and there was nothing rewarding about it. Besides, at the moment I can’t envision anything except the next couple hours of my life.
“No, it’s not possible. Sorry, I need to go. Thanks again for calling.”
I tap the red button and hurry downstairs, trying not to dwell on the conversation. The living room is in total darkness, and the only illumination in the den comes from a small table lamp and the dying embers in the fireplace. What earlier seemed so comforting now feels gloomy, almost foreboding. It’s as if the house has shape-shifted, like a woodland fairy morphing into a she-wolf.
“Rog?” I call. No answer.
I ease open the door to the dining room to discover that it’s dark as well, but I see light seeping from beneath the kitchen door at the far end.
I cross the room and swing it open. And Roger’s there, lifting a roasting pan from the oven.
“Were you calling me?” he asks. “Sorry, the exhaust fan makes such a racket.”
“Want me to set the table?”
“Sure, I thought we’d eat in here since it’s cheerier.”
The meal turns out to be simple but delicious—chicken breasts that Roger’s roasted with fennel and herbes de Provence, green beans, a Bibb lettuce salad, and fresh bread. We leave any talk of Hugh, Marion, murder, fugue states, and financial setbacks behind and speak about local politics, my upcoming book, and anecdotes from our dad’s stay in San Diego that Quinn has been better at sharing with Roger than with me. Whether it’s from the switch in topics or the crisp white wine, or both, my stomach unknots.
As we’re loading the dishwasher, I start to tense up again and decide I have no choice but to spoil the mood. There’s something I need to know.
“Rog, the other day Hugh asked me a question I couldn’t answer, and I realized you might be the only person who could, besides Dad. Are you aware of any time in my childhood or past when I might have ended up in a dissociative state? Perhaps not as long as the one I experienced recently but some period when I lost track of myself?”
“What? No, certainly not. At least not that I witnessed or heard about.”
“And not—back then . . . around the time I found Jaycee?”
“Um . . . no. No one ever mentioned anything like that to me.”
“You hesitated.”
“Only because the question caught me off guard. Why would Hugh suggest that?”
I smile ruefully. “Maybe he’s trying to determine how much of a nutjob he married.”
Later, I make an attempt to read in the den while Roger disappears upstairs to his office for a while. Hugh calls at about nine to say good night and I keep it brief, too exhausted to play at sounding normal. Shortly afterward, my brother returns and joins me on the couch with an art book, but he seems distracted now, flipping pages without lighting on them. When I glance up, I see that he’s staring off into space, his head slightly cocked, and I half expect him to ask, Did you hear that? But he doesn’t. A minute later he announces he’s turning in, but I’m welcome to hold down the fort in the den.
“No, I should call it a night, too,” I say. “Thanks for a lovely evening, Roger.”
“My pleasure, Button.”
I follow him upstairs and soon crawl into bed. Somehow, I manage to drift off to sleep pretty quickly. But when I awake with a start, I see that it’s ten past eleven, and I’ve been asleep for only a few minutes. I lie on my back beneath the covers as my mind churns with now-familiar thoughts of Hugh in his towel, Hugh lying, Hugh and Ashley. And then Mulroney, dead perhaps because of me. The large dimensions of the guest room, with its soaring ceilings, don’t help to put me at ease.