Guilt Trip Read online

  Except for the suicide silence, my brother had been pretty good, too, what I’d call “accepting” about my extended stay. Two months was probably pushing it though.

  I expected to find out where I stood from Karen, but the kitchen was empty.

  Instead I heard crying. Forgetting about breakfast, I padded quietly toward Karen and Ron’s end of the house.

  My sister-in-law had braced her back against a dresser as if she meant to push it through the wall.

  When our eyes met, her lips began to tremble.

  “Toby?” I guessed. She was just back from his funeral, after all.

  A wave of her head as she erased tears with the back of her hand. “No,” she said, then, “Yes,” then, “No.”

  Then she abruptly lifted her chin. “Never mind. I’m okay.”

  Before I could think of a response, Karen shook her head hard. “Sorry. I am not okay,” she said. “Something’s wrong with Ron.”

  Oh that.

  “Yes.” I drew out the word and nodded. “The drinking, right?”

  Karen’s head jerked, and her back straightened. “You know about that?”

  I mustered a smile. “Bartender,” I said. “See it all the time.” Not to mention that I probably knew Ron as well as she did. “Any idea why?”

  Karen pressed her lips together and shrugged, which figured. When my brother’s privacy was threatened, he became part clam, part snapping turtle. If you valued your limbs, you circled wide.

  Back still resting against the dresser, my sister-in-law sank to the floor. I slid my butt down the door jamb to join her.

  “I think it’s me,” she remarked.

  “Impossible,” I argued, faking it this time because how would I know? I just knew that if those two had marital problems, the entire institution was doomed.

  More tear-swiping and a sniff. “Then why won’t he let me near him?”

  Whoo-boy. My financial guess was way off. It had just been speculation anyhow. I sighed and blew out my cheeks.

  Karen was watching me think, expectation in her eyes. She looked so miserable, so hopeful, that I would have invented reasons for Ron’s negligence all afternoon if I thought it would make her feel better.

  But hold on. Maybe I actually knew the answer.

  “It’s spring,” I reminded his wife. “Ron’s working his ass off.”

  Karen’s eyes narrowed and her lips pressed tight. Her head waved as she hoisted herself off the floor.

  “Not buying it, Lauren,” she said as she eased toward the bed. “He always had time for me before.” She selected a pink t-shirt out of her pile of clean clothes. Snapped it smooth. Began folding it.

  The out-of-hand dismissal of my reasoning prickled like static electricity, but it also made my situation clear. I was kindling awaiting a match.

  Karen placed the t-shirt down with a pat, then lifted her eyes to meet mine.

  I couldn’t hold her gaze, looked down at the folded shirt instead.

  It was nestled inside an open suitcase half hidden by Karen’s laundry.

  Chapter 4

  “Oh, look at the time,” I told Karen, tearing my eyes from the opened suitcase. “Gotta get ready for work.”

  Even dragging my heels through what little I had to do—tidy the kitchen, put away my own clothes, shower and dress—I arrived at the Pelican Perch half an hour before my shift started. I couldn’t escape the turmoil in my head, but at least Karen could deal with hers without me around.

  The Pelican’s Perch looked like what it was, a family friendly pub offering large drinks at modest prices, fried fish and potatoes, a couple of unpopular salad choices, two beef entrees favored by the biker crowd, and vanilla ice cream squirted heavily with Hersey’s syrup for the kid in us all. Luckily, the former boat-storage barn retained its forlorn, but serviceable, dock for the summer sailors and a broad gravel parking lot for everybody else. If the food was merely fair, the locals didn’t seem to mind; and who wants heart-smart mini-portions when they’re on vacation anyway?

  “You’re early,” my boss observed. A short man, Anthony was also stocky—probably from eating his establishment’s food. His most arresting features were a pair of dark, close-set eyes and the gold Pelican earring dangling from in his left earlobe. Considering his nose, it wasn’t a flattering comparison to invite; but if anybody cared, that person certainly wasn’t Anthony. As a businessman, I’d say he was sharp with a soupcon of gullible. As a boss, he was casual enough to be ideal. That he noticed I was early surprised me more than if he’d noticed I was late.

  He showed me half a smile. “To whut do we owe sucha pleasure?” He drew out the word “pleasure” as if it were a tasty food. Goes without saying, Anthony’s New Jersey accent was thick.

  Since my trifecta of bad luck had come up during my job interview—no money, no home, no job—I expected he would intuit the truth no matter what I said. I performed a what’re-you-gonna-do head roll/shrug that made my curly blonde, work-appropriate ponytail wave like a red flag. Then I admitted I thought it was time to put a deposit on a place of my own.

  Anthony’s left eyebrow squeezed into an interesting S shape. He and Ron were friendly, so he knew where I lived.

  “If you can work it out,” I told him, “I could use some extra shifts.” Part-time really wasn’t cutting it.

  Good man that he was, Anthony didn’t blink. He consulted the resources in his head then made a clicking noise with his cheek.

  “Yeah. Yeah, I can prob’ly swing a little more your way. Summer’s comin’. Yeah. I’ll think of sumtin’.”

  He rested his small hands on the top edge of his belt. “You wanna loan?” short for “How bad is it?”

  I gave the reassuring no-thanks reply, and he waddled off to greet a batch of newcomers.

  My shift proceeded in the usual spurts for a week night—pre-dinner tapering to an off-and-on flow before the hard-core drinkers settled in about ten-thirty. The night’s tips were average, so my ability to move out on my own was pretty much the same as yesterday.

  My mood slid from low to lower when I got home. Covered by a rainbow-colored afghan, my brother was sacked out on the living room sofa. Mouth agape, his head was pillowed by the shirt he wore earlier, and his right hand dangled near the boots and jeans he had carelessly dropped to the floor.

  Leaning over his stubbled cheek to check his breath, I was transported back to a night when I was twelve. Feeling his way in the dark, Ron had stumbled into my room by mistake, tripped over my desk chair, and crashed face-first into my bedframe. My scream brought Dad running. A flip of the light switch revealed Ron’s bloody split lip and chipped tooth.

  Strictly speaking, we knew my brother’s drinking to excess was not due to alcoholism. Lousy impulse control, the tendency to overachieve, latent immaturity, an I’m-going-to-do-what-I-damn-well-please attitude provoked by a large dose of self-pity? Throw in a reckless disregard for personal safety while under the influence, and it was yes on all counts. Ordinarily I’d have been strongly tempted to douse him with ice water, but not tonight.

  Not after I’d seen his wife packing a suitcase.

  The double toot of a car horn woke me around nine, and I hurried to look out the bathroom window, the nearest one facing the gravel lane. My peek through the curtain revealed a low-slung Ford Mustang in an orange that would make a pumpkin green. Dust from its skidding stop still billowed across the front lawn while its owner casually leaned against the opened passenger door. My instant impression was of a smug bridegroom waiting to whisk his bride off to a secluded island, but it was just a trick of memory. When Karen emerged from the house and ran to hug the man, I realized he was her younger brother Mike, whom I’d also met at Ron and Karen’s wedding. Instead of a lover stealing her off to an island, it was Version Two of the old story: Disillusioned wife welcomed into the open arms of her family.

  I clambered into a V-neck sweater and my denim skirt and ran.

  “Hold on,” I shouted as I stumbled out t
he door. The aforementioned suitcase was loaded and zipped and waiting on its rollers. Ron was nowhere in sight, and the girls were already at school. After a late shift, I usually slept until around eleven, so Karen’s opportunity for slipping away undetected had been ripe.

  Reacting to my shout, she released her rescuer and spun around to face me. A strand of corn-silk hair blew across her mouth, and she removed it before asking, “What are you doing up?”

  “You can’t go,” I blurted.

  Karen glanced at Mike as if he might know what I was talking about.

  “Go where?”

  “Go anywhere. You belong here. With Ron. Please don’t go.”

  Another glance at Mike, whose lips twitched.

  Karen doubled over and laughed. “You thought…?”

  Thoroughly confused, I responded like an idiot. “Of course, I thought. What was I supposed to think when I found my brother sleeping on the sofa as if…as if…”

  “As if we had a fight?”

  “Yes.”

  “We did. He lied about having something to drink and, well, we made up this morning.” Karen’s expression allowed no room for doubt—the rest was none of my damn business.

  “Oh, yeah? Then what’s with the suitcase?”

  Karen took three steps toward me, rested her palms on her thighs, and said, “The Roitmans, Chantal’s parents, have invited Mike and me to fly to the Dominican Republic. They’re going to scatter Toby’s ashes in the Caribbean.”

  When I didn’t respond, couldn’t respond really, she added, “Chantal and Toby met at a resort down there, and it was her idea to, to…”

  Karen shot her brother a needy glance then closed her eyes.

  Mike drew her to his chest and stroked her back with his free hand. “Nobody from our family wants to go,” he explained over Karen’s head, “but Toby’s wife—Chantal—she felt strongly that…anyway, we all thought she should get what she wants. Mom and Dad can’t go because of Dad’s health, but Karen and I, we couldn’t think of an excuse.”

  “Karen?”

  Her eyes met mine, and for a moment Mike wasn’t there.

  “You really don’t want to go?” I asked.

  She waved her head. “One funeral was one too many for me.”

  I relieved her of the suitcase and turned back toward the house.

  Karen ran after me. “Lauren! What are you doing?”

  “You shouldn’t go if you don’t want to.”

  “That’s crazy! What will the Roitmans think?”

  “Let them think whatever they want. You’re never going to see them again. Why should you care?”

  “I care about Chantal. She’s, she’s a mess right now. It would be awful to hurt her feelings. And Mike,” she gestured back at her brother. “Mike shouldn’t have to go alone.”

  “Okay,” I said. “I’ll go for you.” I said it without thinking, but I liked what I said. Going in Karen’s place would give her and Ron some desperately needed private time.

  Best of all, I could see that the idea appealed to Karen.

  “What will you tell the Roitmans?” she wondered.

  “Don’t know yet. I’ll think of something on the way to the airport.”

  Mike and Karen exchanged a quick brother/sister glance, then Karen asked me how fast I could pack.

  Chapter 5

  “Remember you’ve got a plane to catch,” Karen called after me as I tugged her suitcase over the doorstep and into the house. “A private one, but you shouldn’t keep the Roitmans waiting.”

  “No problem,” I shouted back out the door. “I’m taking your clothes.”

  The stuff Karen packed for herself would be short and tight on me, but I wouldn’t be seeing Toby’s in-laws ever again either, so I didn’t care a flying fig how I looked. That said, I opened her heavy bag on my bedroom floor and set about making a few quick adjustments. Certain things you just plain don’t borrow.

  A bathing suit, for instance. I tossed aside her red one-piece and replaced it with the pink bikini with yellow polka dots I’d rescued from a bargain basket. I switched out all the underwear, and traded Karen’s strappy summer footwear for my white Keds and the only pair of girly, high-heeled

  sandals I owned. A couple of toiletries, and I was ready for multiple days in the tropics inside of eight minutes.

  Or was I?

  Sitting on the edge of my great-great-grandma’s quilt, I ran through the relevant facts, first and foremost Toby Stoddard’s questionable suicide. Highly questionable according to Karen’s emotional outburst.

  Hope for the best. Plan for the worst. I didn’t know whether passengers on privately owned jets got subjected to the usual security checks, but I suspected the odds favored no.

  I took my Glock out of its lockbox, wrapped it in a clean rag, and tucked it in the bottom of the suitcase. I added a few bullets to the earrings in Karen’s padded jewelry pouch, sighed to seal my decision, zipped the bag, and rolled. If the gun got flagged, I would simply stay home.

  Waiting by the car, Mike and Karen were engaged in what seemed to be an affectionate private good-bye, so I stood aside and phoned Anthony to explain that I needed to go to an out-of-town funeral.

  “Sure. Sure,” my boss replied. “Do whatcha gotta do.”

  I promised to call him the minute I got back. Two absences in a month. Anthony couldn’t be happy with me.

  “Right. Right,” he remarked. Then he covered the phone to greet a deliveryman, and just that quick I became old news. Exactly how old I would learn soon enough.

  “So, Lauren Beck,” Mike addressed me as we churned more dust speeding out the lane. “You’ve won yourself a fun-filled week with the Roitmans and me. I guess the question is, ‘Why?’”

  I gave that a careless shrug. “Never been to the Caribbean, have you?”

  Mike steered with his right hand up high, which revealed the cuff button missing from his tan sport coat. Just visible underneath were the wide lapels and loud print of a Hawaiian shirt, and it occurred to me that a free trip to the tropics might be as much of a luxury for him as it was for me.

  “Don’t look a gift horse…?” he joked.

  I returned his smile. “Nothing ventured…”

  Out of the blue, a serious look. Maybe the years had added complexity to Michael Stoddard, or maybe the dancing doofus I remembered with the sweaty ginger-brown curls, florid face, and god-awful necktie had merely been stupid-drunk at his sister’s wedding. Helluva first impression he’d made, not that he’d been trying. It would probably be a kindness to grant him a do-over.

  I held out my hand. “Lauren Beck,” I said. “Pleased to meet you.”

  “Likewise.”

  A minute later Karen’s younger brother glanced away from the field-lined road and caught me staring at his gaudy shirt.

  Brushing the collar twice with his fingers, he said, “Like it?” as if the answer were a given.

  I told him it looked very tropical.

  “Always good to blend.”

  “The way your car blends, right?”

  Mike’s impish smile stretched wider. “Exactly.”

  A cow pasture lay to our left, and he inhaled deeply through the slightly opened window. “Gotta love the smell of manure in the morning. Makes you feel connected to the earth, doesn’t it?”

  His eyes dared me to laugh, so of course, I did.

  “Again like your car?” I teased. “Didn’t they have shock absorbers back when they built this thing?”

  “Careful, she’ll hear you,” Mike scolded. “Dolly’s very sensitive about her parts.”

  I watched him drive for a minute but got nothing from his face.

  “What else do you know about this trip?” I finally asked.

  Mike spared me another glance. “We’ll land in Punta Cana, although you won’t be on land very long. Father Frank has secured a four-cabin yacht for the final farewell to his daughter’s poor, disgraced husband.”

  “Disgraced?”

  �
��You don’t know?”

  “Ex-cop. Nobody tells me anything.”

  “I see.”

  “So. You going to be like everybody else, or are you going to tell me what’s going on?”

  “Answer my question first.”

  “What question?”

  “Why are you really here?”

  I glanced out at our surroundings while I debated which of my motivations to share. The farm scenery had briefly given way to a cluster of buildings. A gas station. An International House of Pancakes. A bank.

  I admitted that I felt like a stowaway on my brother’s farm, “like I’m one meal short of being tossed overboard.”

  Mike’s brow lowered as he waved his head. “Nope. Doesn’t sound like Karen. Try again.”

  He had a point. He grew up with her, after all. Of course, I grew up with Ron.

  I mulled that over until we stopped at a red light, when Mike challenged me with an expectant stare.

  I met Mike’s gaze. Then I told him I wasn’t completely satisfied that his brother committed suicide.

  He inhaled deeply then sighed out the word, “Why?” again.

  “The method, you know? The houseful of people.”

  Mike’s focus began to hop around, so I diverted my attention, too. To give him some time to process—if he needed it.

  He didn’t. He hit the steering wheel with the flat of his hand and exclaimed, “Sonovabitch.” Then he deflated inside his clothes. Just plain deflated.

  I gave him another moment. Didn’t speak until we were cruising again.

  “I take it you’re not sure about the suicide either,” I said. “May I ask why not?”

  One quick head shake and a lengthy stare at the road. “Toby played baseball in high school, third base, but mostly he was a pretty good hitter.”

  He glanced my way, and I nodded for him to go on.

  “Championship game senior year,” he continued. “Score’s five to four, bottom of the ninth, they’re losing. Runners on first and third, two outs. Toby pops up. Game over.”

  “Toby lost his chance to be a hero.”

  “Correct.”

  “So?”

  “So Toby went home, grabbed his wallet and Mom’s car keys and ran out the door. I just made it into the Chevy before he squealed out of the driveway. He drove straight to the batting machines in the park near our house. Hot Friday night. Only a few other guys using the cages.”