The Pilot's Wife_ A Novel - Anita Shreve [11]
All day, down the long gravel drive and behind the wooden gate, there had been people looking in and other people keeping them away. But now, Kathryn imagined, the reporters and cameramen and producers and makeup artists were probably all headed over to the Tides Inn to have a drink, tell stories, discuss the rumors, have dinner, and sleep. Wasn’t this just the end of a normal workday for them?
Kathryn heard on the stairs a heavy tread, a man’s tread, and for a moment she thought it was Jack coming down to the kitchen. But then she remembered almost immediately that it couldn’t be Jack, it wasn’t Jack at all.
“Kathryn.”
The tie was gone, the cuffs of his shirt rolled, the top button of his shirt open. Already she had noticed that Robert Hart had a nervous habit of holding his pen between the knuckles of his fingers and flipping it back and forth like a baton.
“I thought you should know,” Robert said. “They’re saying mechanical failure.”
“Who’s saying mechanical failure?”
“London.”
“They know?”
“No. It’s just bullshit at this point. They’re guessing. They’ve found a piece of the fuselage and an engine.”
“Oh,” she said. She combed her hair with her fingers. It was her own nervous habit. A piece of the fuselage, she thought. She repeated the phrase in her mind. She tried to see the piece of the fuselage, to imagine what it might be.
“What piece of the fuselage?” she asked. “The cabin. About twenty feet.”
“Any...?”
“No. You haven’t eaten all day, have you?” he asked.
“It’s all right.”
“No, it’s not all right.”
She looked over at the table, which was covered with dishes of food — casseroles, pies, entire dinners in separately marked plastic containers, brownies, cakes, cookies, salads. It would take a large family days to eat all of that.
“It’s what people do,” she said. “They don’t know what else to do, so they bring food.”
Throughout the day, individual policemen had periodically walked the length of the driveway carrying yet another offering. Kathryn understood this custom, had seen it happen over and over again when there was a death in a family. But it amazed her the way the body kept moving forward, past the shock and the grief, past the retching and the hollowness inside, and kept wanting sustenance, kept wanting to be fed. It seemed unsuitable, like wanting sex.
“We should have sent it back out to the end of the drive,” Kathryn said. “To the police and the press. It’ll just go to waste in here.”
“Never feed the press,” Robert said quickly. “They’re like dogs looking for affection. They’re hungry to be let inside the house.”
Kathryn smiled, and it shocked her, that she could smile. Her face hurt, the dryness and the salt of the crying.
“Well, I’ll be heading out now,” he said, unrolling his shirt-sleeves and buttoning his cuffs. “You probably want to be alone with your family.”
Kathryn wasn’t at all sure she wanted to be alone. “You’re going back to Washington?”
“No, I’m staying at the inn. I’ll stop by tomorrow before I go.” He reached for his jacket on the back of a chair and put it on. He took his tie out of the pocket.
“Oh,” she said vaguely. “Good.”
He slid his tie through his collar. “So,” he said, when he had knotted the tie. He gave it a small tug.
The phone rang. It seemed too loud in the kitchen, too abrasive, too intrusive. She looked at it helplessly.
“Robert, I can’t,” she said.
He walked over to the telephone and answered it. “Robert Hart,” he said.
“No comment,” he said.
“Not as yet,” he said.
“No comment.”
When he hung up, Kathryn started to speak.
“You go up and take a shower,” he said, cutting her off. He began to remove his jacket. “I’ll heat something up.”
“Fine,” she said. And felt relieved.
Upstairs in the hallway, she was momentarily confused.