William Krueger - The Devil's bed

Only a moment before, there had been the suggestion of a smile on her lips, but it vanished in an instant.

“I don’t understand,” she said.

“Forgive us our trespasses. It’s on his grave.”

She opened her mouth, a dark hollow in all that hard, artificial light, but she didn’t speak.

“I talked with Father Cannon,” Bo said. “He took me to the grave of David Moses. He showed me the note from the anonymous donor. The handwriting on the note matches the handwriting of the inscription in the book you gave me. You paid for the plot and the stone and the burial of the man who tried to kill you. Why?”

She folded her hands and put them to her lips.

Bo said, “I’ll tell you what I think, then. I think you lied all those years ago about what happened on the bluff that night. I remember something I read in your father’s autobiography, The Testament of Time. He wrote that he went through a dark period after Myrna died, after he came back to Wildwood, and he turned to drinking as a way of forgetting. Was he drunk that night? Did he attack you while he was drunk? Did David Moses tell the truth? Did you frame an innocent man?”

Her fingers spread now, like the pickets of a fence across her mouth, preventing any words from escaping. But something crept out at last, a whisper. “Yes…and no.”

Bo stepped back and waited.

“Yes, I lied,” she said slowly. “David didn’t attack me. He was trying to help. It was just that he saw everything wrong.” She turned from him and walked away a bit, wading into the light that spilled off the sculpture. “It wasn’t my father with me.”

“Who was it?” Bo asked.

“I’m not sure there’s any way to explain it. I can tell you how things were. Maybe that will help you understand.

“When we came back to Wildwood, my father was devastated. He was lost to us in a lot of ways. He’d begun drinking, yes. We were all a little lost, Ruth and Earl and me. I was afraid. It felt like our whole world had collapsed. Annie did her best to hold us together, but she had her own judicial career, and we needed something more than she could give, the kind of strength my father used to have. We found it. Or for a while thought we did. It came from Roland.

“He was ten years younger than my father, different in so many ways. Not reserved or cautious. He was bold, exciting. He and Dad had never been close. We seldom saw him before we came back to live at Wildwood. But we all fell in love with him. He was like this wonderful, blazing sun. Wildwood was his studio, so he was here for us all the time. We loved his energy, his enthusiasm, his attention to us. He seemed so strong, in so many ways. Those great hands of his. His laugh. He could be very gentle. You should have seen how he was with Earl.”

She stared at the glowing metal sculpture.

“You and your uncle?” Bo said. “An affair?”

She still wouldn’t look at him, but she nodded. “I knew it was wrong, but I didn’t care. I was so in love, so…in need, really. After a while I began to see the flaws, the faults. He could be selfish, manipulative, possessive. Then I began to consider the consequences, the dangers, and I knew it had to end. That’s what I was trying to do on the bluff that night, the night David discovered us. I’d told Roland it was over. He was furious. We argued. David blundered in. They struggled. It was terrible. I was so scared. David was lying there unconscious. I begged Roland to go. If the truth were ever known, I mean, incest, my God. On top of what Dad was already dealing with. Roland went back to the house, I tore my clothes and, God forgive me, I accused David. And he accused my father. It was a nightmare. I’ve told myself over the years that if they’d prosecuted David, I would have told the truth. But I don’t know. He just…went away, and it was fixed. Roland and I were over. It all became the past. The terrible past.”

“Your father never knew the truth?”

“He figured it out later and confronted Roland. It’s the only physical fight I know of that my father was ever in. He was no match for Roland, with all those muscles from his metal work. But Roland wouldn’t fight back. He just let my father hit him. Then he got himself drunk and he drove his car into a tree.

“It sounds so sordid, I know.” She finally looked at him, turning her back to the sculpture, her face fully shadowed. “What do you think of me now? Hardly heroine material, huh?”

“I think it was a mistake,” Bo said. “And I think it was a long time ago, and far behind you.”

“I thought so, too. Until David…” Even in the shadow, her tears somehow managed to glisten as they rolled down her cheeks. “All those people, Bo. He killed them because of me.”

“No, he killed them because of who he was, not you.”

“It feels like it’s my fault.” She bent her head, and her shoulders shook as she wept.

Bo went to her, took her in his arms, and held her. He laid his cheek against her hair and closed his eyes. He felt an ache himself, as if her pain were his own. He wished he could make her hurt go away, that somehow he had the power to absolve her. And he knew that he loved her. He knew it beyond all doubt.

She drew away. Her nose was running, and she wiped at it with the back of her hand. “What do you do with a confession like this, Bo?”

“I’m trained to keep secrets.”

She reached up and touched his cheek. “Whenever you’re with me, I feel safe.” She stood on her toes and gently kissed his lips.

“Thank you.”

The door of the guesthouse opened again, and this time the dark form of the agent there came forward.

“It’s late,” Bo said.

“I’ll see you tomorrow. Dinner.”

“I’ll be here.”

She left him. Bo watched her disappear into the shade of the porch. He saw her once more briefly in the light as she opened the door and stepped inside.

“Thorsen.” It was Stan Calloway who, in the absence of Chris Manning, now headed the FLOTUS detail. “What the hell do you think you’re doing? My God, that’s the president’s wife. We’ve got that kiss on tape.”

Bo knew Calloway from his days in D.C. A good agent. A little humorless, but solid in the right ways.

“The kiss wasn’t my idea, Stan.”

Calloway put a hand to his forehead. “Jesus, what am I supposed to do with this?”

Bo reached into his pocket and pulled out his car keys. “Do whatever you feel you have to do with it. I’m going home.”

Calloway took his arm and held him back a moment. “A lot of people are looking up to you right now, Thorsen. Don’t blow it.”

Bo glared at Calloway’s hand until the grip was released. He said, “Good night, Stan.”

He got in his car, drove home to Tangletown, and readied himself for bed. Then he sat at the window in the dark, trying to find a place inside himself to lock away what he felt. It was too big, this affection. It was way out of hand. What not long before had been only a pleasant conceit was suddenly something with substance, real enough to cause him trouble. What was the point? He had Kate’s confidence, but he could never have her love. And even if by some miracle she were to feel the same way, what could she do? She was not just a married woman. She was the First Lady.

“Christ, Bo, you’ve done it this time,” he whispered.

It was well after dark by the time Clay Dixon returned to the White House. In the last forty-eight hours, he’d been to Atlanta, Miami, New Orleans, Houston, Dallas, and Oklahoma City, trying to drum up votes and campaign contributions for himself and the party candidates in those constituencies. He was tired, but he felt energized, as he usually did after working crowds. He loved that part of his job. He went directly to the Residence on the second floor of the White House. Although it was late, he decided to call Wildwood. He missed his daughter. And he missed his wife. He longed to have Kate back, to be able to talk with her about the campaign swing and how good he felt. Love was more about quiet things than about bedroom noise. It was something he’d always known, but he was feeling it deep down now where the real truths resided.