Rose Connors - Temporary Sanity

“No.” I don’t particularly like talking to Geraldine’s back, but I seem to do it a lot. “As in until-we-figure-out-who-the-hell-killed- Howard Davis temporary.”

She leans against the kitchen sink, her cigarette poised in midair, and shakes her blond bangs at me. Long ago, Geraldine diagnosed me as chronically naive. Now I’ve convinced her the case is critical.

“Your client killed Howard Davis, Martha. We both know that.”

“I don’t think so, Geraldine.”

“He had it coming. I won’t fight you there.” She flicks her ashes into the sink. “You’ll probably score with the psychiatric workup. If any woman’s been battered, she has. And if old Prudence comes through for you, we’ll plead it out. But your client’s doing time, Martha. Real time.”

Suddenly I’m exhausted. I rest the shopping bags on the floor, pull a chair out from the kitchen table, and drop into it. I can’t help wondering why it is that Geraldine is always certain of her position and I-no matter which side of the aisle I find myself on-am not.

She can read my mind, of course; she always could. She blows a stream of smoke into the center of the kitchen before explaining it all to me. “Martha, you feel sorry for her. Your emotions are clouding your judgment. And who doesn’t feel sorry for her? We all see she’s been to hell and back. But stabbing him eleven times wasn’t the answer.”

I raise my eyebrows. No need to waste my breath; she knows what I’m thinking.

“Yes, they do work,” she says. “Restraining orders work in most cases.”

Actually, they work in all cases-one way or another. Sometimes the bully is afraid enough of the Big House to stay away from his favorite whipping post for a while. Other times he doesn’t give a damn and needs to be sure she knows that. So he shows up and beats her again-often within hours of being served.

In a select few cases, the restraining order is a trigger. The document itself induces a new level of rage. The abuse reaches new heights-or depths-and the woman who sought protection from the system ends up in the county morgue.

Geraldine knows all of this at least as well as I do. No need to argue about it now. I force myself to my feet and lift the two shopping bags. “Thanks for these,” I tell her.

I’m almost out of the kitchen when I remember. I stop in the doorway and put the bags down again.

“What?” Geraldine’s cigarette freezes and she eyes me guardedly. “What now?”

“I just want to check something.”

I go back to the kitchen table and walk around it, my eyes on the wide-pine floor. There they are. Two glass lighthouses, one cracked. They’re side by side against the trim on the floorboard, small black and white grains spilled out from their silver caps.

The salt and pepper shakers.

Geraldine crosses the room and stands beside me, cigarette at her cheek, her green eyes following my gaze. “So what?” she says.

“It’s just something Sonia Baker told me, a small detail. One that turns out to be true.”

She inhales and shakes her head again. I’m apparently a lost cause.

I retrieve the shopping bags, head for the front door, and call back over my shoulder. “I know, Geraldine. I know. It doesn’t mean a thing.”

If Luke ever discovers the taste of a home-cooked meal, I’m doomed. How he grew to be six feet two is anyone’s guess. Good mothers prepare meals for their children, I’ve heard, but I’m not one of them. I do, of course, arrange for takeout. I’m a mediocre mother, anyhow.

It’s almost nine by the time I get to our Windmill Lane cottage. I stopped at the office after I left Geraldine, to ask the Kydd to do some background work for Sonia while Harry and I are in trial. The Kydd was way ahead of me. He filed a written request this morning, he said, for copies of Howard Davis’s active files. We should receive the first batch by midday tomorrow. Round one of eligible suspects.

Luke always has the woodstove blazing by the time I get home on winter nights, and tonight is no exception. The sweet smell of burning bark envelops me in the driveway, a warm welcome home. I trudge through the packed snow toward the back of our cottage. The pounding surf of the Atlantic is just beyond the dunes, a few yards away, and I have to brace myself against salty gusts of wet winter wind.

I climb the wooden stairs to the back deck and the kitchen door. During the winter months, our front door is permanently sealed. I’m happy to be home at last. And I’m fully prepared to spring for Chinese food. Any mediocre mother would be.

The windows look odd from outside. They’re opaque with steam, even the small panes in the door. The ocean wind normally keeps our kitchen chilly in the winter, but tonight a noticeable warmth washes over me as soon as I go inside. And the rich scent of burning wood is mixed with another aroma, something familiar.

Ragú. Maggie Baker is on tiptoes at the stove, giggling and struggling to control a large pot of furiously boiling pasta. Luke is laughing too, standing next to her, absentmindedly stirring a smaller pot while he watches Maggie struggle. He’s in charge of the red sauce, it seems, and he’s not doing a very good job. He is, after all, his mother’s son.

The front of Luke’s gray sweatshirt is peppered with small red dots. So are Maggie’s sleeves. Actually, they’re my sleeves. She’s wearing my knit fisherman’s sweater.

“Marty, you’re just in time,” she shouts, then bends in two, shrieking, and points her wooden spoon at a red circle newly arrived on Luke’s cheek.

“Ow, that’s hot. It’s not funny.” Luke launches into a laughing fit of his own, though, holding his arms in front of his face as if shielding himself from enemy gunfire.

Just in time or not, I decide to get out of my suit before going anywhere near either one of them. Maggie and Luke continue shouting in the kitchen, each of them giving the other instructions on what to do next, while I change into old jeans and a warm sweater. The clanging of pots is followed by a sound that might be Niagara Falls. I hope some of it went into the sink.

By the time I get back to the kitchen, things have calmed down and the food is actually on the table. The kerosene lamp is lit and two Christmas candles left over from last year are glowing amid the bowls. Maggie is already seated, beaming at her handiwork. Luke holds a chair for me, kitchen towel draped over his arm, as if he’s the maître d’. Never mind the red polka dots.

It’s quite a spread. A steaming bowl of linguine, a fresh garden salad, even garlic bread. I realize I must be ravenous. The Ragú smells divine.

The self-appointed maître d’ pours a glass of Chianti for me, then awaits my approval, as if I might send it back for another vintage. “Sit,” I tell him.

“I’d have made meatballs,” Maggie says, “but there wasn’t any meat.”

A good mother would have meat in the house.

“And I’d have made cookies,” she adds, “but there weren’t any eggs.”

Even a mediocre mother would have eggs on hand.

“This is wonderful,” I tell her. “We don’t need another thing.”

Luke clears his throat and arches his eyebrows at me. Meatballs and cookies sound good to him. I pass him the pasta.

“Maggie, you’re quite a cook. How did you learn?”

She shrugs, a pleased smile on her face. “I cook on Sundays,” she says. “Howard always eats with his poker buddies on Sundays, so it’s just Mom and me home for dinner. Mom says I shouldn’t cook when Howard’s home. He gets mad if anything goes wrong.”

Howard Davis was quite an addition to that household.

Luke reaches for the bread basket, shaking his head. His expression tells me he knows all about Howard Davis. He and Maggie have been talking. Good. Maggie’s going to need a friend in the months ahead. And when it comes to being a friend, Luke is the best.