know more than anybody except Michael or Aaron. Do you remember Aaron?”
That was a dumb question. Of course Rowan remembered Aaron, if she remembered anything at all.
“Well, what I meant to say was, there’s this man, Yuri. I told you about him. I don’t think you ever saw him. In fact, I’m sure you didn’t. Well, he’s gone, very gone, as it stands now, and I’m worried, and Aaron’s worried, too. It’s like things are at a standstill now, with you here in the garden like this, and the truth is, things never stand still—”
She broke off. This was worse than the other approach. There was no way to tell if this woman was suffering. Mona sighed, trying to be quiet about it. She put her elbows on the table. Slowly she looked up. She could have sworn that Rowan had been looking at her, and had only just looked away.
“Rowan, it’s not over,” she whispered again. Then she looked off, through the iron gates, and beyond the pool and down the middle of the front lawn. The crape myrtle was coming into bloom. It had been mere sticks when Yuri left.
She and he had stood out there whispering together, and he had said, “Look, whatever happens in Europe, Mona, I am coming back here to you.”
Rowan was looking at her. Rowan was staring into her eyes.
She was too amazed to speak or move. And she was frightened to do either, frightened that Rowan would look away. She wanted to believe this was good, this was ratification and redemption. She had caught Rowan’s attention, even if she had been a hopeless brat.
Gradually Rowan’s preoccupied expression seemed to fade as Mona stared at her. And Rowan’s face became eloquent and unmistakably sad.
“What’s the matter, Rowan?” Mona whispered.
Rowan made a little sound, as if she were clearing her throat.
“It’s not Yuri,” Rowan whispered. And then her frown tightened, and her eyes darkened, but she didn’t drift away.
“What is it, Rowan?” Mona asked her. “Rowan, what did you say about Yuri?”
It appeared for all the world as if Rowan thought she was still speaking to Mona, and didn’t know that nothing was coming out.
“Rowan,” Mona whispered. “Tell me. Rowan—” Mona’s words stopped. She’d lost the nerve, suddenly, to speak her heart.
Rowan’s eyes were still fixed on her. Rowan lifted her right hand and ran her fingers back through her pale ashen hair. Natural, normal, but the eyes were not normal. They were struggling….
A sound distracted Mona—men talking, Michael and someone else. And then the sudden, alarming sound of a woman crying or laughing. For one second, Mona couldn’t tell which.
She turned and stared through the gates, across the glaring pool. Her Aunt Beatrice was coming towards her, almost running along the flagstone edge of the water, one hand to her mouth and the other groping as if she were going to fall on her face. She was the one who was crying, and it was most certainly crying. Bea’s hair was falling loose from her invariably neat twist on the back of her head. Her silk dress was blotched and wet.
Michael and a man in ominous plain dark clothes followed quickly, talking together as they did.
Great choked sobs were coming from Beatrice. Her heels sank into the soft lawn, but on she came.
“Bea, what is it?” Mona rose to her feet. So did Rowan. Rowan stared at the approaching figure, and as Beatrice rushed across the grass, turning her ankle and righting herself immediately, it was to Rowan that she reached out.
“They did it, Rowan,” said Bea, gasping for breath. “They killed him. The car came up over the curb. They killed him. I saw it with my own eyes!”
Mona reached out to support Beatrice, and suddenly her aunt had put her left arm around Mona and was near crushing her with kisses while the other hand still groped for Rowan, and Rowan reached to take it and clasp it in both of hers.
“Bea, who did they kill, who?” Mona cried. “You don’t mean Aaron.”
“Yes,” Bea answered, nodding frantically, her voice now dry and barely audible. She continued to nod, as Mona and Rowan closed against her. “Aaron,” she said. “They killed him. I saw it. The car jumped the curb on St. Charles Avenue. I told him I’d drive him over here. He said no, he wanted to walk. The car deliberately hit him, I saw it. It ran over him three times!”
As Michael, too, put his arms around her, Bea slumped