The last secret_ a novel - Mary McGarry Morris [31]
“Seventy-eight people, and that's just the first of …”
She stops listening. Her brain fizzes with connections. Everything is personal. There are no coincidences. The man at the door asking for Clayborne Lane. Her world has been weakened. She feels vulnerable, naïve, as it occurs to her that Bob Gendron works for CraneCopley When he couldn't find a job anywhere, given his many terminations, Ken asked Lyndie to “take the poor bugger on.” Now she's remembering Ken's weary explanation for another late-night arrival, a year or so ago. He'd been at some banquet or board meeting with Lyndie and as much as he wanted to come straight home when it was over, he had to get Lyndie alone so he could ask him if he'd help Bob. The poor guy was desperate. He and Robin were living just about at poverty level. Bob hadn't worked in four months and his drinking was worse than ever. Why didn't Robin work, she asked. Wouldn't that help? Put food on the table, anyway.
“Lyra's only two,” he said incredulously.
“So? A lot of women with two-year-olds work. Especially when they have to. When they have no other choice,” she added.
“You didn't,” he said with that defensiveness she learned long ago to overlook. After all, he and Robin were as close as brother and sister, everyone knew that.
“I had a choice, didn't I? Thanks to you, Kenny,” she added with such genuine tenderness that his quick retort confused her.
“Well, Robin doesn't have a Kenny, now, does she?” he said.
So another piece fits into place: Robin did have a Kenny, just not enough of him.
Ken is complaining that their story is far more sensational than it needs to be and Oliver refuses to tone it down.
“So did Bob Gendron get laid off, too?” she interrupts.
Ken looks confused. There is the slightest flush at his throat, in the soft flesh she used to love to kiss, right under his jaw.
“He works there, right? CraneCopley? You got him the job?”
“Oh. That's right. No, I think he's still there. One of the lucky ones. So far, anyway.” So smooth, so natural, his commingling of deceit and truth, insignificant tributaries trickling into one vast river.
“Because of you, Ken.” Because of the paper, she wants to add.
“This has nothing to do with”—here, the slightest hesitation— “them.”
Of course it does. One way or another, like all the lies so convoluted, yet densely linked, the original motive is lost, indiscernible. Does he think he can get from one side to the other without getting wet, without disturbing, not just surface water, but the muck and stones, the slimy swaying reeds? She has hit a nerve. Again. But in his mind, the fault is hers; another setback. Last night, for the first time in weeks, they slept in the same bed until morning. And now his glance tells her that once again she is endangering everything he's trying to make right between them. Tonight, he will be curt, shrouded in the wounded air that is so hard on the children. They want to know what's going on, but can't bear asking.
She has told him that she is willing to try, but on her terms, however slowly, warily, that may go. Honesty has to underlie every word and deed, every waking moment. If only she could demand an honest accounting of his thoughts. Now, for instance, his eyes are cold, unreadable, only the slightest twitch of his lower lip betraying him. Torment. Pain. Grief, she thinks, startled, for a moment, almost pitying him for the irony of his criticism of Lyndell Crane. For what had Ken been thinking? Hadn't he also had everything a man could want? What more had he needed? she wonders on her way down to Oliver's office.
Oliver's smile breaks into a yawn as she comes through the door.
“Why do you do that?” she teases. “You always yawn when you see me.”
“No I don't.”
“Yes, you do. I'm always afraid you're bored before I've even opened my mouth.”
His laughter ensures the pretense that their last conversation never took place. That he enjoys her company was apparent early in their relationship. There are still times, though, when she considers him the most disagreeable person she has ever known.