Chapter One
Ray came down the stairs pulling the knot closed on his
tie. Nancy was sitting at the table with a still-sleepy
Missy on her lap. Michael was eating his breakfast in his
poised, reflective way.
Ray tousled Mike's head and leaned over to kiss Missy.
Nancy smiled up at him. She was so darn pretty. There were
fine lines around those blue eyes, but you'd still never
take her for thirty-two. Ray was only a few years older
himself, but always felt infinitely her senior. Maybe it
was that awful vulnerability. He noticed the traces of red
at the roots of her dark hair. A dozen times in the last
year he'd wanted to ask her to let it grow out, but hadn't
dared.
"Happy birthday, honey," he said quietly.
He watched as the color drained from her face.
Michael looked surprised. "Is it Mommy's birthday? You
didn't tell me that."
Missy sat upright. "Mommy's birthday?" She sounded
pleased.
"Yes," Ray told them. Nancy was staring down at the
table. "And tonight we're going to celebrate. Tonight I'm
going to bring home a big birthday cake and a present, and
we'll have Aunt Dorothy come to dinner. Right, Mommy?"
"Ray...no." Nancy's voice was low and pleading.
"Yes. Remember, last year you promised that this year
we'd..."
Celebrate was the wrong word. He couldn't say it. But for
a long time he'd known that they would someday have to
start changing the pattern of her birthdays. At first
she'd withdrawn completely from him and gone around the
house or walked the beach like a silent ghost in a world
of her own.
But last year she'd finally begun to talk about them...the
two other children. She'd said, "They'd be so bignow...ten
and eleven. I try to think how they would look now, but
can't seem to even imagine....Everything about that time
is so blurred. Like a nightmare that I only dreamed."
"It's supposed to be like that," Ray told her. "Put it all
behind you, honey. Don't even wonder what happened
anymore."
The memory strengthened his decision. He bent over Nancy
and patted her hair with a gesture that was at once
protective and gentle.
Nancy looked up at him. The appeal on her face changed to
uncertainty. "I don't think -- "
Michael interrupted her. "How old are you, Mommy?" he
asked practically.
Nancy smiled -- a real smile that miraculously eased the
tension. "None of your business," she told him.
Ray took a quick gulp of her coffee. "Good girl," he
said. "Tell you what, Mike. I'll pick you up after school
this afternoon and we'll go get a present for Mommy. Now
I'd better get out of here. Some guy is coming up to see
the Hunt place. I want to get the file together."
"Isn't it rented?" Nancy asked.
"Yes. That Parrish fellow who's taken the apartment on and
off has it again. But he knows we have the right to show
it anytime. It's a great spot for a restaurant and
wouldn't take much to convert. It'll make a nice
commission if I sell it."
Nancy put Missy down and walked with him to the door. He
kissed her lightly and felt her lips tremble under his.
How much had he upset her by starting this birthday talk?
Some instinct made him want to say, Let's not wait for
tonight. I'll stay home and we'll take the kids and go to
Boston for the day.
Instead he got into his car, waved, backed up and drove
onto the narrow dirt lane that wound through an acre of
woods until it terminated on the cross-Cape road that led
to the center of Adams Port and his office.
Ray was right, Nancy thought as she walked slowly back to
the table. There was a time to stop following the patterns
of yesterday -- a time to stop remembering and look only
to the future. She knew that a part of her was still
frozen. She knew that the mind dropped a protective
curtain over painful memories -- but it was more than
that.
It was as though her life with Carl were a blur...the
entire time. It was hard to remember the faculty house on
the campus, Carl's modulated voice...Peter and Lisa. What
had they looked like? Dark hair, both of them, like
Carl's, and too quiet...too subdued...affected by her
uncertainty...and then lost -- both of them.
"Mommy, why do you look so sad?" Michael gazed at her with
Ray's candid expression, spoke with Ray's directness.
Seven years, Nancy thought. Life was a series of seven-
year cycles. Carl used to say that your whole body changed
in that time. Every cell renewed itself. It was time for
her to really look ahead...to forget.
She glanced around the large, cheerful kitchen with the
old brick fireplace, the wide oak floors, the red curtains
and valances that didn't obstruct the view over the
harbor. And then she looked at Michael and Missy....
"I'm not sad, darling," she said. "I'm really not."
She scooped Missy up in her arms, feeling the warmth and
sweet stickiness of her. "I've been thinking about your
present," Missy said. Her long strawberry-blond hair
curled around her ears and forehead. People sometimes
asked where she got that beautiful hair -- who had been
the redhead in the family?
"Great," Nancy told her. "But think about it outside.
You'd better get some fresh air soon. It's supposed to
rain later and get very cold."
After the children were dressed, she helped them on with
their windbreakers and hats. "There's my dollar," Michael
said with satisfaction as he reached into the breast
pocket of his jacket. "I was sure I left it here. Now I
can buy you a present."
"Me has money too." Missy proudly held up a handful of
pennies. "Oh, now, you two shouldn't be carrying your
money out," Nancy told them. "You'll only lose it. Let me
hold it for you."
Michael shook his head. "If I give it to you, I might
forget it when I go shopping with Daddy."
"I promise I won't let you forget it."
"My pocket has a zipper. See? I'll keep it in that, and
I'll hold Missy's for her."
"Well..." Nancy shrugged and gave up the discussion. She
knew perfectly well that Michael wouldn't lose the dollar.
He was like Ray, well organized. "Now, Mike, I'm going to
straighten up. You be sure to stay with Missy."
"Okay," Michael said cheerfully. "Come on, Missy. I'll
push you on the swing first."
Ray had built a swing for the children. It was suspended
from a branch of the massive oak tree at the edge of the
woods behind their house.
Nancy pulled Missy's mittens over her hands. They were
bright red; fuzzy angora stitching formed a smile face on
their backs. "Leave these on," she told her; "otherwise
your hands will get cold. It's really getting raw. I'm not
even sure you should go out at all."
"Oh, please!" Missy's lip began to quiver.
"All right, all right, don't go into the act," Nancy said
hastily. "But not more than half an hour."
She opened the back door and let them out, then shivered
as the chilling breeze enveloped her. She closed the door
quickly and started up the staircase. The house was an
authentic old Cape, and the stairway was almost totally
vertical. Ray said that the old settlers must have had a
bit of mountain goat in them the way they built their
staircases. But Nancy loved everything about this place.
She could still remember the feeling of peace and welcome
it had given her when she'd first seen it, over six years
ago. She'd come to the Cape after the conviction had been
set aside. The District Attorney hadn't pressed for a new
trial because Rob Legler, his vital prosecution witness,
had disappeared.
She'd fled here, completely across the continent -- as far
away from California as she could get; as far away from
the people she'd known and the place she'd lived and the
college and the whole academic community there. She never
wanted to see them again -- the friends who had turned out
not to be friends but hostile strangers who spoke of "poor
Carl" because they blamed his suicide on her too.
She'd come to Cape Cod because she'd always heard that New
Englanders and Cape people were reticent and reserved and
wanted nothing to do with strangers, and that was good.
She needed a place to hide, to find herself, to sort it
all out, to try to think through what had happened, to try
to come back to life.
She'd cut her hair and dyed it sable brown, and that was
enough to make her look completely different from the
pictures that had front-paged newspapers all over the
country during the trial.
She guessed that only fate could have prompted her to
select Ray's real estate office when she went looking for
a house to rent. She'd actually made an appointment with
another realtor, but on impulse she'd gone in to see him
first because she liked his hand-lettered sign and the
window boxes that were filled with yellow and champagne
mums.
She had waited until he finished with another client -- a
leathery-faced old man with thick, curling hair -- and
admired the way Ray advised him to hang on to his
property, that he'd find a tenant for the apartment in the
house to help carry expenses.
After the old man left she said, "Maybe I'm here at the
right time. I want to rent a house."
But he wouldn't even show her the old Hunt place. "The
Lookout is too big, too lonesome and too drafty for you,"
he said. "But I just got in a rental on an authentic Cape
in excellent condition that's fully furnished. It can even
be bought eventually, if you like it. How much room do you
need, Miss...Mrs....?"
"Miss Kiernan," she told him. "Nancy Kiernan."
Instinctively she used her mother's maiden name. "Not
much, really. I won't be having company or visitors."
She liked the fact that he didn't pry or even look
curious. "The Cape is a good place to come when you want
to be by yourself," he said. "You can't be lonesome
walking on the beach or watching the sunset or just
looking out the window in the morning."
Then Ray had brought her up here, and immediately she knew
that she would stay. The combination family and dining
room had been fashioned from the old keeping room that had
once been the heart of the house. She loved the rocking
chair in front of the fireplace and the way the table was
in front of the windows so that it was possible to eat and
look down over the harbor and the bay.
She was able to move in right away, and if Ray wondered
why she had absolutely nothing except the two suitcases
she'd taken off the bus, he didn't show it. She said that
her mother had died and she had sold their home in Ohio
and decided to come East. She simply omitted talking about
the six years that had lapsed in between.
That night, for the first time in months, she slept
through the night -- a deep, dreamless sleep in which she
didn't hear Peter and Lisa calling her; wasn't in the
courtroom listening to Carl condemn her.
That first morning here, she'd made coffee and sat by the
window. It had been a clear, brilliant day -- the
cloudless sky purple-blue; the bay tranquil and still; the
only movement the arc of sea gulls hovering near the
fishing boats.
With her fingers wrapped around the coffee cup, she'd
sipped and watched. The warmth of the coffee had flowed
through her body. The sunbeams had warmed her face. The
tranquillity of the scene enhanced the calming sense of
peace that the long, dreamless sleep had begun.
Peace...give me peace. That had been her prayer during the
trial; in prison. Let me learn to accept. Seven years
ago...
Nancy sighed, realizing that she was still standing by the
bottom step of the staircase. It was so easy to get lost
in remembering. That was why she tried so hard to live
each day...not look back or into the future.
She began to go upstairs slowly. How could there ever be
peace for her, knowing that if Rob Legler ever showed up
they'd try her again for murder; take her away from Ray
and Missy and Michael? For an instant, she dropped her
face into her hands. Don't think about it, she told
herself. It's no use.
At the head of the stairs she shook her head determinedly
and walked quickly into the master bedroom. She threw open
the windows and shivered as the wind blew the curtains
back against her. Clouds were starting to form, and the
water in the bay had begun to churn with whitecaps. The
temperature was dropping rapidly. Nancy was enough of a
Cape person now to know that a cold wind like this usually
blew in a storm.
But it really was still clear enough to have the children
out. She liked them to have as much fresh air as possible
in the morning. After lunch, Missy napped and Michael went
to kindergarten.
She started to pull the sheets from the big double bed and
hesitated. Missy had been sniffling yesterday. Should she
go down and warn her not to unzip the neck of her jacket?
It was one of her favorite tricks. Missy always complained
that all her clothes felt too tight at the neck.
Nancy deliberated an instant, then pulled the sheets
completely back and off the bed. Missy had on a turtleneck
shirt. Her throat would be covered even if she undid the
button. Besides, it would take only ten or fifteen minutes
to strip and change the beds and turn on a wash.
Ten minutes at the most, Nancy promised herself, to quiet
the nagging feeling of worry that was insistently telling
her to go out to the children now.
Copyright Β© 1975 by Mary Higgins Clark
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