LaVyrle Spencer - The hellion

But children, like boxwood hedges, were never mentioned; both were taboo subjects in this house.

Downstairs Marshall True was waiting, gallant and accommodating as always. "Rachel dear, I was worried about you." He came forward quickly, reaching for her hands. She gripped his fingers, relying upon him once again for emotional

support, while Marshall's kind gray 31 eyes rested upon hers reassuringly. "Whenever you're ready I'll take you home."

An hour later, as the two of them rode toward Rachel's house in Marshall's car, she slumped back against the seat with a sigh. His understanding eyes moved to her, then back to the street. "I know the feeling well. I remember when Joan died, how difficult it was to dream up responses to all the well-meaning phrases friends came up with."

Rachel closed her eyes. "Am I ungrateful, Marshall? I don't mean to be."

"No, dear, I don't think so. Just tired. Tired of it all, and glad it's over."

She rolled her head to look at him and asked quietly, "Am I really allowed to be glad it's over?"

"You shouldn't have to ask that question of me, of all people."

She smiled wanly, remembering how Marshall had seen them through the worst of it, cheering Owen through the depressions, bolstering Rachel's courage when bleakness threatened to beat her down, remaining steadfast until the end, just as they had done for him

when his wife had died four years ago.

"But I feel so guilty because I… I'm relieved he's gone."

"That's natural, when the death has been lingering."

Was there another person in the world who always knew the precise thing to say, at the precise time it was needed, the way he did?

"Thank you, Marshall. I simply don't know what I'd have done without you."

He pulled up in Rachel's driveway and reached for her hand. "Well, perhaps we're even, then. You and Owen were the only ones who saved me from breaking down after Joan died. And I intend to hang around and do the same for you." As if to illustrate, he turned off the engine and solicitously came around to open her door. "Now, what's this I hear about you taking a trip?"

"Oh, so Daddy told you."

"Yes. St. Thomas, he said. I think it's a wise idea." They went in the front door of a house that could only have been described as gracious. Rachel led the way through a slate-floored entry, which came alight beneath a

brass and crystal chandelier. Then she 33 switched on a lamp in a living room decorated in ice blue and touches of apricot. A quilted floral sofa was fronted by a pair of bun-footed Victorian chairs, the grouping centered around a marble-topped table holding five blue candles on five gold candlesticks of staggered heights, a pair of brass giraffes, and a brandy snifter filled with potpourri. Every piece of furniture in the room looked as if it had just been purchased that day. The regal tiebacks on the windows were hung so perfectly they might have been advertisements for an interior decorator. The carpeting was so lush their footsteps left imprints in its ice-blue nap.

And the house smelled delicious. Rachel not only scented it with crystal snifters of potpourri, but left tiny open cedar boxes of crushed rose petals on end tables, hung pomander balls in her closets, tucked stems of herbs into gold cricket boxes in the bathrooms, and hid delicate organdy sachet pillows of Flora Danica fragrance amid her personal garments in the bureau drawers.

That lavish touch was repeated in the careful selection of each item in each room. It was the home of a woman accustomed to luxury.

Marshall studied Rachel as she stood in the middle of the painfully neat living room, rubbing her arms.

"You know, Rachel, you don't have to worry about money. The check from Owen's life insurance policy should be here by the time you get back."

Marshall was an insurance broker, and he had seen to protecting both Rachel and Owen with adequate coverage years ago. Also, he was that kind of man-careful, a long-range planner, one who did things at their appointed time and kept life's business affairs in impeccable order. He would, he had assured both her and Owen before Owen died, keep an eye on Rachel's affairs and be there to advise whenever she felt she needed him. Having made the promise, he was certain to keep it.

"I'll drop by now and then to make sure things are working okay-the pool cleaner and the air conditioner. You know how things have a way of breaking down when you're gone," he offered. That was Marshall, all right. He kept everything of his own

in sterling condition, from his clothing to his 35 grass, and it was often joked about in their social circle that when and if he sold his property, he'd come back to reprimand anyone who dared let it fall into disrepair.

Rachel fondly placed her hands on his forearms. "You don't have to worry about me, Marshall. I can take care of myself."

"I know you can. But I promised Owen."

"But the furnace won't break down, and the pool will keep filtering, and… and…" Suddenly Rachel was immensely glad to have Marshall there, a living, breathing entity who knew how dreadful it would have been for her to face the empty house alone at this moment.

She bit her lower lip to keep it from trembling, but tears spilled, nonetheless. "Oh, Marshall… oh, God…" Her chest felt crushed as he took her into his arms, gently, consolingly. "Oh, thank you for coming home with me. I didn't know how I was going to face it alone."

"You don't have to thank me. You know that." His voice was gruff against her hair. "I loved him, too."

"I'll… I'll be all right in a minute."

"Take it from me, dear, you won't be. Not in a minute, or a week, or even a month. But whenever you need somebody, all you have to do is call, and I'll be right here."

Before he left, Marshall walked through the house to make sure everything was safe and sound. Watching his tall form walk away, she thought, Whatever would I do without him? He was as steady as Gibraltar, as dependable as taxes, and as sensible as rain. Owen said before he died, "You know, Rachel, you can rely upon Marshall for anything."

She had wondered at the time if Owen was hinting that he himself might choose Marshall for her… if and when. But Marshall wasn't that sort. Not steady-z-you-go, polite, socially adept Marshall. He was simply the kindest man she knew, and one with whom she'd shared the most devastating of human experiences not once, but twice.

But when he was gone, she still faced the desolation of going to bed alone. The house seemed eerie, especially the bedroom she and Owen had shared. When she'd donned her nightgown, she crept instead

to one of the guest bedrooms across the hall, 37 lying stiffly upon the strange-feeling mattress in the dark-unmoving, for a long time. Rachel had been propelled from one necessity to the next for so long, putting off the awesome need to cry. But there was little else she could have done, with no children to take over the burdens. It was the thought of children that did it at last. The dam cracked, then buckled, and when her tears came, they struck with the force of a tidal wave. She gripped the sheets, twisting in despair, sobbing pitifully into the dark. The racking sound of those sobs, coming back to her own ears, only made her cry the harder.

She cried for all the pain Owen had suffered, and for her own powerlessness to help him. She cried for the dream-filled girl she'd once been, and the disillusioned woman she now was. She cried because for almost two decades she'd been married to a man with whom she'd had a comfortably staid marriage when what she'd wanted was occasional tumult. She cried because in one split second she had looked up at a man's face across a quiet graveyard, and that tumult had sprung within her when it was her husband who should have caused it to surface all these years. She cried because it