Clare tried to squeeze in a how-do-you-do while Yvonne Story pumped her hand, but it was futile. She settled for smiling and nodding.
“Isn’t this terrible about poor Allan? I mean, I hate to assume the worst. But there’s not much of a way you can put a good face on this, is there? Poor Renee. I hope he left her well set up. She’s never had to work, like me. What will she do without him? That’s the downside of having a husband. That’s why I never got married.”
Clare felt her smile glazing over. Deliver me, O Lord, she prayed.
“Yvonne.” Renee Rouse appeared in the doorway between the front hall and the living room. “Would you be a dear and go make some more coffee? And a pot of tea. I’m sure everyone would like something warm on such a cold day.”
“Oop. Of course, Renee. And I’ll put this pie in the kitchen for you, Lacey. Did you get it from the IGA? They do nice pies. Not as good as homemade, mind you, but good.”
“Thank you so much, Yvonne,” Mrs. Rouse interrupted.
“Oh, you’re right. To the kitchen for me. Ta-ta. See you later. Nice meeting you, Reverend.” She continued to talk as the door to the kitchen shut behind her. Clare took off her coat and hung it in the hall closet. The librarian?
Renee Rouse closed her eyes. She was holding the edge of the archway, her knuckles white.
“How long has she been here?” Mrs. Marshall asked.
“Since nine.” Mrs. Rouse tried to smile.
Mrs. Marshall picked up her casserole. “I’ll pop into the kitchen and keep her occupied for a bit.”
“Bless you, Lacey.” Renee Rouse squeezed one of Mrs. Marshall’s slender arms. She was dressed much the same as the older woman in a simple sweater and warm slacks. Classics. Her grandmother Fergusson would have approved. But unlike Mrs. Marshall, who radiated warmth in her marigold sweater and lipstick, Renee Rouse looked cold. The wall that had held life’s problems at bay had crumbled in the space of an evening, and now she was drowning in reality.
“Reverend Fergusson.” She blinked, as if she had just noticed Clare. “Thank you for coming by.” Her smile was a bad copy of the smooth social face Clare had seen on her last visit.
She took Mrs. Rouse’s hands. “How are you doing?”
“Okay. It seems to vary from minute to minute. Last night, when the officer called to tell me about Allan’s car, that was very bad.” She bit her tongue, and for a moment, it looked as if she was going to cry. “But Chief Van Alstyne is here, and from the things he’s been asking me, I know he’s still holding out hope Allan is… all right.”
Clare squeezed her before letting go. “No one will do more to get your husband back than the chief.” Then, because even hopeful speculation about the future would likely be painful, she said, “Tell me about Allan. You two seem very close. How did you meet?”
This time, Mrs. Rouse smiled the genuine smile of happy recollection. “It was the oldest cliché in the book. I was his secretary.” She linked her arm in Clare’s and led her through the living-room archway. “He was fresh from his residency in New York and had just started working at the clinic. The old secretary couldn’t spell and refused to take dictation from a machine, so he fired her.”
Clare could see three women in the living room, grouped together on the sofa, and another pair at the gleaming dining-room table, visible from the doorway separating the two rooms. Someone had evidently brought a Bundt cake, and the tables were littered with porcelain dessert plates and straight-edged coffee cups in saucers, as if the gathering were a morning bridge game that had taken on an unexpectedly somber cast.
“I had been working for the Glens Falls Insurance Company, but I wasn’t terribly happy there, so when my mother told me about the handsome, young, single doctor who was looking for a secretary, I jumped ship.”
“And it was obviously a good career move.”
Renee Rouse laughed. The three women around the sofa glanced at her, as if checking to make sure it wasn’t the opening salvo of a hysteric fit, and then returned to their conversation. Mrs. Rouse led Clare to a love seat tucked between two bookcases and sat down. “It was the best thing I ever did. Allan had been in New York for several years, in medical school and afterward, and he was the most cosmopolitan and sophisticated man I had ever met. He had been dating a woman in New York but wasn’t seeing anyone here, and he was always complaining at the clinic about how his life was all work and he never had any fun. One day I screwed up my nerve and said to him, ‘Why don’t you come to Lake George Saturday night with me and some friends?’ I was sure he’d think the carny rides and boardwalk would be stupid, compared to what he was used to in New York. But we had a wonderful time, and we went the next weekend, and the next, and one thing led to another, and we were married the next summer.”
“That’s so romantic.” And it was true. Every story of “how we met” was romantic because every one had the magical element of blissful chance-if he had kept on the old secretary, if her mother hadn’t told her about the job-and the sense of divine providence. They were meant to meet. They were destined to fall in love.
Russ Van Alstyne walked through the living-room door.
He was jacketless, in jeans and a uniform shirt, which meant he was probably not officially on duty. He was carrying a cardboard box big enough to hold the contents of a file cabinet drawer, and as he turned, scanning the room for Mrs. Rouse, Clare had just enough time to register that he was overdue for a haircut, before his eyes settled on hers.
He covered the space between the door and the love seat in three steps and was lowering the box to the floor before he shifted his gaze from Clare to the woman sitting next to her. “Mrs. Rouse,” he said, “I want to take a minute to go over what I’m bringing with me, but first”-he smiled a little-“can you point me toward a bathroom?”
“Through the dining room, into the kitchen, on your right,” she said.
“Thanks.” His eyes returned to Clare. “Reverend.”
“Chief.” She twisted toward Mrs. Rouse, quite deliberately not watching him walk away, and picked up the first thread she could find leading back to their conversation. “So you’ve been married since…?”
“Nineteen sixty-four.”
“And have you lived in this house since then?” Clare glanced around the room, safe now that Russ had disappeared through the dining-room doorway. “It has a wonderful feel to it. Very welcoming, as if it’s been sheltering a family for a long time.”
Mrs. Rouse smiled. “Thank you! But no, we didn’t move here until we’d been married about ten years. When we started out, we were the proverbial church mice. We had Kerry right away, which was what everyone did in those days, start your family before the ink had dried on the wedding certificate.” She leaned forward and patted Clare’s knee. “Your generation is much more sensible. Wait until you’ve established yourselves before having children.” Clare had a flash of self-consciousness-is that what I’m doing?-before returning her attention to Mrs. Rouse. “Of course, Allan was working for the clinic, so it wasn’t as if he was earning what he could have in private practice.”
“Did he ever consider leaving the clinic?”
“All the time. At least during those early years. He had a plan all worked up for after he had fulfilled his obligation to Mrs. Ketchem. She had paid his way though medical school and his residency, you know, so that he could come back and serve in her clinic.”
“Like the military.”
“Yes. He was going to go back to New York once his seven years were up and join in a partnership with some of his friends from medical school. Then life would be grand, we wouldn’t have to eat beans, etcetera. I used to tease him about it, call him Jacob. Laboring seven years to win his bride.”