Clare O’Donohue - The Lover’s Knot

I nodded. "Just what I was thinking."

Eleanor stared out the passenger window most of the ride home, making it clear she didn't feel like chatting. Neither did I exactly, but I did want to know what it was about Marc that made his death seem so inevitable, even to nice women like Bernie. But my curiosity was fighting it out with something else. Maybe it was better not to know, I thought. Marc had been there for me, made me feel less thrown away, less expendable. This afternoon he had even made me feel desirable. Whatever everyone else thought about him, he had been nice to me. Maybe that was all I really wanted to know.

My grandmother's house was dark in the distance as we pulled into the driveway. I would have left on a porch light or something, but Eleanor saw such indulgences as a waste of electricity.

"Nothing in the dark that isn't there in the light," she would tell me when I would leave lamps on. She said it with absolute certainty, but I never quite believed her. The dark, at least to me, was filled with things that dissipate at the flick of a switch.

If a porch light had been on, I would have seen the car parked near the house, but until my headlights hit it, I saw nothing. I parked behind the car and left my grandmother sitting in the passenger seat while I got out to investigate.

"Let me see who it is," I said, but I knew. I knew by the make of the car, by the dark silver paint color, by the scratch near the license plate. That car, or rather its owner, was the last thing either my grandmother or I needed to deal with after the evening we'd had. I looked around, but no one was there.

Eleanor rolled her window down. "What are you doing? Help me out," she demanded.

I walked over to the passenger side, got her crutches out of the backseat and leaned over so she could support herself on me as she got out of the car.

"We really should leave a porch light on," I said more to myself than to Eleanor.

"It's probably a neighbor." She nodded toward the car, but she didn't sound sure and I knew she was wrong.

We walked up the steps to the front door and I struggled with the lock. I wanted to get inside, but for some reason the key wasn't cooperating. I looked down and saw that my hand was shaking. Eleanor saw too. She took the key. In seconds the door was open and she hobbled inside. I was almost in myself when I heard steps behind me.

"Nell," said a soft but familiar voice.

I turned around. Ryan was standing inches away. Suddenly the porch light went on. In the light, I saw the blood on his hands.

"What are you doing here?" I said loudly, surprised by how frightened I felt.

Ryan's voice was shaking. "Is he dead?" he asked.

I almost couldn't answer. "Yes." I finally got the words out. "Yes, he's dead." I stood frozen, not wanting to ask how Ryan knew Marc was dead.

"God," he said. "Oh my God."

Lights were going on all over the downstairs area of the house, flooding the porch. The front door creaked open. Barney came out fast, barking and growling at Ryan. Eleanor stood at the doorway.

"You should come inside. Both of you," she said.

So we did.

Eleanor and I sat at the kitchen table, silent and waiting until Ryan came down from the upstairs bathroom. He had washed the blood off and looked relieved that it was gone. He sat on one side of the table and my grandmother and I sat on the other. Barney stood guard between us. I felt like we were Ryan's jury, waiting for the evidence to convict or exonerate. But in this case, beyond a reasonable doubt wouldn't be enough. I wanted to know beyond all doubt that Ryan had nothing to do with the scene at Someday Quilts.

"I saw you," he said to me. He glanced over at my grandmother as if he were embarrassed to have her in the room. But I wanted her there, and it was clear she wasn't going anywhere no matter what. "I was walking back toward the shop to talk to you, and I saw you and that guy kissing."

Eleanor turned toward me, but since I couldn't bring myself to look her way I had no idea what kind of a look she was giving me.

"I know it's stupid of me to be so jealous," he said.

"You've never been before," I said.

He shrugged. "You've never given me a reason." He sounded tired-more than tired. "I don't know. Lots of things have been going on lately. I came up here to tell you. Then I guess I saw that guy-and you-and I felt like the biggest fool on the planet."

"I didn't even know him two weeks ago," I muttered, finding it hard to believe that so much had happened in such a short span of time.

"That's true," Eleanor broke in. "She met him after you called off the engagement."

"Postponed," Ryan corrected her, then shook his head. "Whatever, it doesn't matter."

"What did you do?" I finally asked the question that had been hanging in the air since his arrival.

"Nothing. I swear I didn't think I hit him that hard."

"You hit him," Eleanor said as if she were a detective trying to take his statement.

Ryan got up and walked over to the sink.

"Would you like some tea?" Eleanor asked.

"No, he wouldn't," I said. I didn't want to waste any time with hospitality. I wanted to know what had happened.

"Yeah," Ryan said at the same time, and filled the kettle with water.

We all stopped talking, waiting for the kettle to whistle. When it did, Eleanor, Barney and I watched Ryan put three tea bags into a teapot and fill it with hot water. He opened the refrigerator as if he had lived there all his life and poured milk into a jug. He brought the milk, tea and three mugs over to the table.

"Do you take sugar?" he said to my grandmother, who shook her head.

It was all very surreally civilized. When Ryan sat down again and tea was poured, the break was over. My grandmother said again, "You hit him."

"Yeah. I walked back to the shop to find Nell." He looked down. "I saw the two of you." I felt guilty for a moment, then stupid, then just scared. Could Ryan really have killed Marc because of a few kisses?

"What did you do?" I asked again, with an impatience in my voice that surprised even me.

"I walked around. I went to some Irish bar on the next block and had a beer."

"Moran's," my grandmother clarified.

"I guess. I decided that I had to talk to you, Nell, to find out what was going on. So I walked back over to the shop. He was by himself."

"Marc," I interrupted. "His name was Marc."

"Okay. Marc was outside." I could hear anger rising in his voice, but just as quickly it was gone, replaced by tiredness and fear. "We started talking. He said something. I pushed him. I hit him. He hit back. I guess he fell against the building. He got a cut on his cheek. It looked bad. I just left him there." Tears welled up in his eyes. "I walked around for a while, trying to think. Then I decided I needed to know, so I went back to the shop to ask him." He paused and looked at me. "To ask him about his intentions with you."

I saw Ryan was waiting for a reaction, and I thought about commenting,but I decided it would only delay his story. "Then what happened?" was all I could get out.

"Well," he continued, "when I got back to the shop I saw an ambulance and police. I asked one of the cops what had happened, and he told me there was a guy inside who was hurt. He wouldn't tell me any more." Ryan sat back. "He was woozy. I should have called someone, but it didn't look bad enough to kill him."

"It didn't," said Eleanor. "He was stabbed."

Confusion, and then what looked like relief, moved across Ryan's face.

"Are you sure?" he asked her.

"Very," she said. "He must have gotten up and gone into the shop and someone came in and stabbed him."

"Come on," I said. "I get that Marc wasn't the town favorite, but are you honestly telling me that on the very day that a jealous boyfriend knocks him around someone else stabs him?"