The Pilot's Wife_ A Novel - Anita Shreve [46]
“It was different each day. Which one do you want?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Thursdays.”
“Thursdays.” She thought a minute. “On Thursdays, Mattie had field hockey or lacrosse games. I did Band at noon. It was pizza day in the cafeteria. We had roast chicken for supper. We watched Seinfeld and ER.”
“And Jack?”
“When Jack was there, he was there. He did it all. The games.
The roast chickens. Seinfeld. What about you? What do you do when you’re not working for the union?”
“I’m an instructor,” he said. “I give flying lessons in my spare time at an airport in Virginia. It’s just a pasture, really, with a couple of old Cessnas. It’s a lot of fun, except when they won’t come down.”
“What won’t come down?”
“The students on their first solo flights.”
She laughed.
They sat in an easy silence, leaning against the rocks. The lulling noise of the sea was momentarily peaceful.
“Maybe I should start to think about the details of the funeral,” she said after a time.
“Have you had any thoughts about where you want to do it?” “I suppose it’ll have to be Saint Joseph’s in Ely Falls,” she said. “That’s the closest Catholic church.”
She paused.
“They’ll certainly be surprised to see me,” she said.
“Christ,” Robert said.
Confused by this response, she felt Robert tugging at her sleeve, making her stand up. She turned to see what Robert had seen. A young man with a ponytail was aiming a camera as big as a television at them. Kathryn could see herself and Robert reflected in the enormous lens.
She heard the soft, professional click, click, click of a man at work.
They were in the kitchen when she returned, Somers rolling a fax in his hand, Rita with the telephone cradled under her chin. Without taking off her jacket, Kathryn announced that she had a short statement to make. Somers looked up from the fax.
“My husband, Jack, never gave me or anyone else any indication of instability, drug use, abuse of alcohol, depression, or physical illness,” she said.
She watched Somers fold the fax into squares.
“As far as I know,” she continued, “he was healthy, both physically and mentally. We were happily married. We were a happy, normal family living within a small community. I will not answer any other questions without a lawyer present, and nothing is to be removed from this house without proper legal documents. As you all know, my daughter is staying with my grandmother here in town. Neither of them is to be interviewed or contacted in any way. That’s all.”
“Mrs. Lyons,” said Somers. “Have you been in touch with Jack’s mother?”
“His mother is dead,” Kathryn said quickly.
And, then, in the silence that ensued, she knew that something was wrong. Perhaps there was the most minute lifting of an eyebrow, the barest suggestion of a smile on Somers’s face. Or possibly it was only later that she imagined these signals. The silence was so complete that even with nine people in the room, all she could hear was the hum of the refrigerator.
“I don’t think that’s the case,” said Somers softly, placing the shiny, folded square into a breast pocket.
The floor seemed to dip and waver like a ride at an amusement park.
Somers pulled a torn piece of notebook paper from another pocket.
“Matigan Rice,” he read. “Forest Park Nursing Home, 47 Adams Street, Wesley, Minnesota.”
The ride picked up speed and dropped fifty feet. Kathryn felt light-headed, dizzy.
“Seventy-two years old, born October 22, 1924,” he read. “Married three times. Divorced three times. First marriage to John Francis Lyons. One child, a son, John Fitzwilliam Lyons, born April 18, 1947, Faulkner Hospital, Boston.”
Kathryn’s mouth went dry, and she licked her top lip. Perhaps there was something she hadn’t understood correctly.
“Jack’s mother is alive?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Jack always said...”
She stopped herself. She thought about what Jack had always said. His mother had died when he was nine. Of cancer. Kathryn glanced quickly at Robert, and she could see from the expression on his face that he, too, was taken aback. She thought about the arrogance,