"I don't know." The phrase reverberated in her mind. "Perhaps he was trying to spare you the ugliness."
"That makes no sense. You say he took you to this insititution to convince you to turn down the position at Metro and concentrate on having babies?"
"That's what he said."
Jared shook his head. "Let me be sure I have this straight. My father, who has never communicated all that well with my wife to begin with, sends me out of town so that he can take her to an institution in the middle of nowhere and introduce her to the sister he had led me to believe died thirty-odd years ago. Does that make sense to you9"
"Jared, " she said, her voice beginning to quaver, "nothing has made sense to me for days. All I can do is tell the truth."
"Well, if that's the case, " he said finally, "I think I'd like to find out first hand why my father has been holding out on me."
"Couldn't we at least wait until-"
"No! I can't think of a damn thing to do about Bobby Geary or the Omnicenter or the Ashburton Foundation or the runaway technician or the goddamn breast biopsies, but I sure as hell can do something about my father."
Without waiting for a reply, he had swung off and under the highway and had screeched back onto the southbound lane, headed for Boston. Now, in the uncomfortably warm study, Kate sat by a hundred-and thirty-year-old leaded glass window, watching the fairyland Christmas tights of Louisburg Square and listening to her husband and her fatherm-law argue over whether she was a liar, a woman in desperate need of professional help, or some combination of the two. Jared, in all fairness, was doing his best to give her the benefit of the doubt, but it had, purely and simply, come down to her word against his father's. When taken with the other issues, the other confusions she had regaled him with since his landing at Logan, it was not hard to understand why he was having difficulty taking her side. "Once again, Jared, " Win Samuels said with authoritative calm, "we dined together-Jocelyn's special duck. After dinner we talked. Then we went for a long drive in the country. I hadn't been out of the house all day and was getting a severe case of cabin fever. We did stop at the Stonefield School, I'm on the board of trustees there. But I assure you, Son, our visit was quite spur of the moment. We were only a few miles from the school when I remembered a set of papers in the back seat that I was planning on mailing off tomorrow to Gus Leggatt, the school administrator. While we were there, we did look in on some of the children. Largely because of our visit, on the way home I was able to share my fears with Kate about what happens to the rate of birth defects in children of older mothers. Kate explained the advances in amniocentesis to me, facts, I might add, that I found quite reassuring. I mentioned your sister, certainly, but I never implied she was alive. I'm sorry, Jared. And I am sorry for you, too, Kate." He looked at her levelly. "You've been under a great deal of pressure. Perhaps… a rest, some time off."
Time of, Kate sighed. Winfield had no way of knowing Stan Willoughby had already seen to that. She rose slowly, and crossed to Jared. "Stonefield School is listed in information, " she said wearily. "Broderick, Massachusetts. If the snow doesn't get any worse, I can drive us there in forty-five minutes to an hour. That should settle this once and for all."
"Do you want to come with us, Dad? " Jared asked. "There is no reason to go anyplace, " Win Samuels said simply. "Kate, Jared's sister had severe birth defects and died exactly when he thinks she did, thirty years ago.
Perhaps you had a dream of some sort. Strands of fantasy woven into reality. It happens, especially when one has been under an inordinate amount of stress such as you-"
"It is not stress! It is not stress, it is not a dream, it is not the desperate lie of a desperate woman, it is not… insanity." She confronted him, her eyes locked on his. Samuels held his ground, his face an expressionless mask. "It is the truth. The truth! I don't know why you are doing this, I don't know what you hope to accomplish. But I do know one thing. I'm not going to break. You manipulate the people in your life like they were pieces on some some enormous game board.
Jocelyn to king's knight four, Jared to queen three. Not your turn?
Well you'll just throw in a few thousand dollars and make it your turn.
" Samuels moved to speak, but Kate stopped him with raised hands. "I'm not through. I want to tell you something, Win. You've underestimated me. Badly. I've made it through a childhood of total loneliness, an education of total aimlessness, and a marriage to an alcoholic madman who insisted on picking out my pantyhose for me. I've survived and grown in a profession where I am patronized, and discriminated against i've dealt with men who couldn't bring their eyes, let along their minds, above my breasts. I've dealt with them and I've succeeded. "It's been hard. At times, it's been downright horrible. But for the last five years, I've had a secret weapon. He's right there, Win. Right over there." She nodded toward Jared. "When I forget that I'm okay, he reminds me. When I have to face the Norton Reeses and the Arlen Paquettes and, yes, the Winfield Samuelses of this world, he gives me strength. I love him and I have faith in him. Sooner or later, he's going to see the way you toy with the lives of those around you. Sooner or later, you'll go to move him, and he won't be there."
"Are you done? " Samuels said. "Yes, I'm done. And I don't want to hear any more from you unless it's an apology and the truth about the other night. How could you think I wouldn't tell Jared? How could you think I wouldn't remember where we went, what we did? Please, Jared, let's get going. It's late, and we have quite a drive ahead of us."
At that moment, there was a noise, the clearing of a throat, from the doorway. The three of them turned to the sound. Jocelyn Trent stood holding a silver tray with coffee and tea. "How long have you been there? " Samuels demanded. The woman did not answer. "Well?"
She hesitated, then she set the tray on the nearest table and ran from the room. "Stonefield School, " Kate said. "See, I told you I could find it. Only two wrong turns." She swung into the driveway, past the small sign, and up to the front door. "This is almost the exact hour we were here the other night. With any luck, the nurse who was on duty then will be on again. Her name was Bicknell, Sally Bicknell, something like that.
I'll recognize her. She wore about eighty gold bracelets and had rings on three or four fingers of each hand. What a character!"
Her chatter was, she knew, somewhat nervous. Jared had said little during their drive. His pensiveness was certainly understandable, but she found herself wishing he could recapture at least some of the emotion he had shown at the airport. No matter, she consoled herself.
Two nlinutes at Stonehill, and he would know that, in this arena, at least, she was telling the truth. How foolish of Win to think things would not develop the way they had. How unlike the man to miss predicting a person's actions as badly as he had missed hers. The nurse, Bicknell, was working at her desk in a small office just Off the lobby.
Her hair was pulled back in a tight bun, and she was wearing only a single gold chain on one wrist. Hardly the flamboyant eccentric Kate had depicted. It was an observation, Kate noted uneasily, that was not overlooked by her husband. "Are you sure it's the same woman? " he whispered, as they crossed the lobby. "It's her. Hi, Miss Bicknell.