So with Eddie in the picture he belonged, weird though it sometimes felt here. He was accepted because Eddie dug him. Anyway, that’s what it all felt like now, after he’d figured it out a little. So when Eddie had died, he’d been left with a vacuum, and he hadn’t felt like he could continue to survive in that-not here at home. Not anymore.
Now, since he’d been hurt, he honestly thought something had changed. Of course, it didn’t really count with everybody feeling sorry for him and trying to be nice. Most of all Mom. Mom, trying like hell.
It probably wasn’t even conscious, but he knew he had become just a duty to her, like a paper drive or a cake sale, and Mom had always been somebody you could count on for that stuff.
Here she was now, Steven keeping his eyes closed, breathing regular, pretending to be asleep. Hand on the forehead to check for a fever, then tuck the blankets around. He opened his eyes a crack, groggy.
“How you feeling, honey?”
“Fine.”
“Really? Anything I can get you?”
Slow shake of the head. She sits on the bed. He can feel her trying to say something else, but settles for reaching out a hand, rubbing it across his cheek. It feels oddly cold. He opens his eyes again.
“It’s okay, Mom.”
Her brave smile-still thinking of Eddie. It’s so obvious. But he can’t really worry about that. A little fake smile. “You just get better,” she says. “Take it easy and get better.”
She looks at her watch. Time for another dose? No, he doesn’t hurt that bad. Close the eyes again. He feels her get up from the bed.
Alone again.
How about talking, Mom? How about suggesting I sit up and do something with you? Not just how I’m feeling. Well, it wasn’t going to happen for a while. She wasn’t ready for it. And it wasn’t as though he thought he could take Eddie’s place. Nobody could do that. But maybe if she’d just recognize him as something other than a duty they could start to get somewhere.
He didn’t want much, he thought. If only he could do something to make Mom see him, maybe value him a little bit. That’s all he needed, really. And it might fill in some of the hole left by Eddie. Probably not much, but maybe enough.
But Mom seemed below zero herself, and that made him real nervous, maybe more nervous than anything else.
Erin wore a green jogging suit and tennis shoes. The low white socks had a little pom-pom on the back just over each heel, and Hardy found himself staring at them as he followed her back into the house.
He tried to keep staring at the pom-pom, because seeing Erin Cochran in a jogging suit-even when she was still so obviously distraught-made him realize that another result of the sense of new life he was experiencing was a general increase in his libido.
“What’s funny?” she said.
They had come out onto the deck into the bright sunlight and he’d been admiring something other than the pom-poms when she’d turned and caught him. He didn’t think he ought to discuss it with her.
“The way my mind works,” he said, striving to be suitably enigmatic. He pulled one of the multicolored canvas chairs out for her, catching a slight whiff of Ivory soap.
There was a wide red-and-green umbrella stuck through the center of the table. The sun was high, and he pulled his own chair in close to hers so they could share the shade.
“And how does your mind work?” She touched his arm lightly, reminding him of the way both she and Big Ed had used a hand on his arm to guide him on the day of the funeral. She looked directly into his eyes.
But no way was she flirting. She was one of those people to whom the world was a straightforward place. Obviously, she was happily married to Big Ed and, at the moment, grief-stricken. She couldn’t be bothered with whether or not eye contact could be misinterpreted. The hand on the arm, though, the wide serious brown eyes-it was disconcerting.
“How does my mind work?” Hardy repeated. “Very slowly, I’m afraid.”
“No, I don’t think so.” She poured coffee into two plain brown mugs and shifted the sugar-and-cream tray closer. “I don’t think so.”
“Rusty clock, guaranteed. Tick…” He paused, looked around, came back to her eyes. “Tick. Like that.”
It was the first time Hardy had seen anything like humor in her eyes. She took her mug in both hands and leaned back in her chair.
“Jim-Father Cavanaugh-came by last night. Evidently there’s a suspect?”
“You didn’t see the paper?”
She shook her head. “With Steven, now…” she began, then stopped.
“How is he?”
She lifted her shoulders, noncommittal. “Anyway, the suspect is the reason I called.”
“Well, I think we have two, actually.”
He explained a little about Cruz, then went back and covered Alphonse. She listened, but her eyes were out of focus somewhere over the middle of her backyard. When Hardy finished she didn’t react in any way.
“Mrs. Cochran?” he said.
She might have been talking to herself, trying to find reason in something absurd. “Two people,” she said. “Two people might have killed Eddie, wanted to kill Eddie. How could two different people want to kill my Eddie.” It wasn’t a question. Hardy looked down into his mug. “I mean, it doesn’t make sense.”
“No, I guess it doesn’t.”
“But you think it happened?”
He shrugged. “It seems to be the only other option. You were certain he didn’t kill himself.”
“I don’t know what’s worse.” She closed her eyes. “Now I don’t know why I called you,” she said, apologizing, trying and failing to smile. “I mean, I keep thinking something, like some…”-she paused-“some information is going to make a difference. I keep thinking we’ll find out something and I won’t feel this way anymore. It’s stupid, really.”
“No, it’s not stupid. It’s pretty natural.”
She fixed him with a dark glare. “It’s stupid! Nothing’s going to bring Eddie back.” Shocked at herself, she leaned forward in her chair, quickly, putting her hand on Hardy’s arm again. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to yell at you.”
Hardy fought the urge to cover her hand with his own. She didn’t need any kind of comfort right now. Or maybe she needed it, but it wouldn’t take. Waste of time to try. Hardy was matter-of-fact. “It’s natural to be curious about the truth. Once you know what happened, you can put it somewhere. It’s not stupid.”
She took a couple of deep breaths. “Jim said more or less the same thing.”
“Jim’s right.”
She found a little nugget in that. “Of course,” she said, her face softening. “Jim’s always right.” She continued the deep breathing. “So what does it mean, the suspects?”
“It means you might have a better idea of what really happened. With luck, you’ll get some kind of a motive. Frannie stands to collect some insurance.”
“That’s good. I hadn’t thought of that.”
“It’s the reason I took this job in the first place. But, as you say, none of it is going to bring Eddie back. Nobody’s pretending it will. It’s just a place to move on from, that’s all.”
“Where to?” she said all but to herself.
The coffee had gotten cold. The shade had moved enough so that Hardy’s head was now in the sun. He shaded his eyes briefly with his left hand. “That’s everybody’s question.”
She lowered her head. “I’m sorry,” she said, “I’m still all inside myself.”
As they took in the coffee stuff, she started talking about Steven. Though he remained on the pain drugs and was sleeping a lot, he’d sat up for the first time the previous night, talking to Jim and Big Ed. He acted sulky to her, or toward her, she couldn’t tell which. “It’s like the more I try to do for him, the more he withdraws,” she said.