Sure, he had left some clothes behind, along with various objects that he would want eventually-CDs, art supplies, a Swiffer. But he wasn't going to come through the door at 2:00 a.m. anymore and slide into bed next to Tess, pirating her warmth. He wasn't around to take over the kitchen, impulsively swept up in his need to make a souffle or risotto. Crow being Crow, he wasn't the type of boyfriend to wreck a kitchen and leave the mess to his girlfriend. He cleaned up as he went, so there was relatively little to do at the end of one of his meals. When Tess once asked why he was so considerate, he said, "After I've made someone dinner, I don't want her expending all her energy on the kitchen. I want her to focus her goodwill on me." He was, as her friend Whitney had once observed, the perfect postmodern boyfriend.
So why had Tess balked when he suggested that she promote him to perfect postmodern husband?
The proposal, such as it was, had come on a perfect summer night late in August, as they walked the dogs through the deepening dusk. There had been a sudden change in the air, and although the nights were still warm, it was clear the sultry summer was losing its grip. Tess had been meandering along with Miata, so docile and easy to walk, while Crow had been holding on to Esskay, who had a major chip on her bony shoulder when it came to all other living creatures. Squirrels, rabbits, cats, other dogs, fast-moving pieces of paper-Esskay lunged at anything that moved.
"She's like that cartoon character-the little cat-who's always saying, 'Let me at 'em, let me at 'em,' " Tess observed, then felt stupid for having such lowbrow cultural references. Why couldn't she allude to Dickens with the same alacrity with which she cited cartoons?
"She's like you," Crow said.
"That's nice."
"Just an affectionate observation. Actually, you're not quite as thin-skinned as you were when we met. But you used to go at the world that way, always expecting dissent and antagonism."
"And I was right, most of the time."
"Do you think I've been good for you?"
Esskay had dragged Crow from the path, intent on sniffing the base of a tree, so Tess could not see his face just then.
"Probably."
"Do you think we should get married?"
Perhaps it was the fact that Tess could not see his face, or perhaps it was the near dark, which seemed to make everything portentous, so that the consequences of a lie seemed more grave than usual. At any rate, she said what she was thinking, swiftly and regretfully: "No."
Three days of arguing followed, disputes notable only by the universality of the cliches thrown back and forth: You're afraid to commit. Marriage is just a meaningless legal construct, in which two people agree to pool all their stuff, so they can pay lawyers to split it up seven years later. If it's so meaningless, why not just humor me and do it?
It would be wrong to say they were relieved when the call came from Charlottesville with the news that Crow's mother had a cancerous lump in her breast. But the family emergency did grant them a reprieve from their own problems. Within a week Crow had called with the glad news that his mother had received the best possible prognosis, but he wanted to stay with his parents for a while, perhaps audit a few courses at UVA. Tess had accepted the decision for the gracious, passive cease-fire she assumed it was.
Was she happy, was she free? The question was not so absurd. She was free, but miserable. She didn't want to live without Crow, but she didn't want to live with him if that meant being a wife. She wasn't sure she wanted to be anyone's wife. She tried to graft the details of marriage and family onto her life, and they just didn't fit. She imagined herself on surveillance, a fractious baby in a car seat. She saw herself trying to tiptoe out of the house in the morning, en route to her 7:00 a.m. row, only to have a child demanding its due. Unlike a dog, a child would not be content with a quick walk and a biscuit.
But in the end Tess said no because she suspected that Crow had asked for all the wrong reasons. Frightened by her brush with death this past spring, he wanted to protect her, care for her, keep her safe. Which was admirable, lovable even. It was not, however, a good reason to get married. That's what she had been trying to figure out all along, but Crow had run away before she could find the words. Now she was too proud to pick up the phone and ask him to come back, and he was… well, who knew what he was? Crow's enthusiasms had always come and gone so quickly. Why should she trust his love for her, when he had a mandolin and a bread machine gathering dust in various cupboards?
So on the night of the day she watched Mark Rubin kill a man, Tess walked her dogs down that same dark path and wondered if she was ever going to get her life right. It was beginning to seem like a Rubik's Cube, in which the colors-love, work, family, self-never lined up.
And unlike the toy she had owned as a child, her life couldn't be pounded into the floor until it was a satisfying pile of multicolored plastic.
THURSDAY
Chapter Twenty-eight
ZEKE WAS DISTRACTED WHEN THEY ENTERED THE CITY limits of New Troy, Ohio, not that the fact would have registered with him even under normal circumstances. The only thing that announced the town was a small sign, the paint faded and battered, with the usual Lions Club and Knights of Columbus insignias fastened to the post. The old state highway continued as rutted and cracked as it had been outside the town's limits, and the scenery was the now-familiar mix of broken-up farms and fast-food places, interspersed with the occasional nondescript warehouse. Even if he had been focusing on the world around him, he wouldn't have noticed New Troy, and it wouldn't have mattered if he had. Later he would remind himself of this fact over and over again. It wasn't his fault. There was nothing he could have done.
As it was, he was barely aware that he was driving, that he was in Ohio or even on planet Earth. Natalie was haranguing him about the early start, asking what the rush was when they didn't have to work that day, but he just tuned her out.
The twins were gibbering in that weird-ass secret language, which usually drove him up a wall, but their noise could have been birdsong this morning. He had been in a fog since eight-thirty last night, after stopping at a library right before closing and checking the e-mail account Lana had set up for him on Hotmail. Under a blank subject heading, Lana had written these words: Amos is dead.
It was a punch to the gut, another fucking contingency to roll with, when he'd been doing nothing but rolling since Natalie showed up in Terre Haute with three kids in tow. He wished he could talk it out, share his troubles with someone. Amos dead, everything ruined. But how could he explain to Natalie that the plan to kill Mark was now hopelessly fucked, when Natalie didn't even know there was a plan to kill Mark? Not even Lana knew that part. All she had been promised was that she would eventually be repaid for all the favors she had done Zeke over the years.
He had a thousand questions for Lana, but he made it a rule to never send e-mail from the account. He was no Luddite, but the Internet was one of those things that had sprung up while he was inside, and he didn't know how much of a trail it left. He didn't want to call Lana collect either, given that a private detective was already nosing around asking questions about Natalie. If he really needed to talk to her, he could always buy a phone card, use it, and throw it away. But with money tight, he hated to part with even ten miserable dollars.
Amos dead. Unthinkable. It was like some huge tree coming down in a storm, or a mountain collapsing. Amos shot to death on his own farm, which seemed even more unlikely. The Garrett County authorities were carrying it as a homicide, Lana had written in her dry, just-the-facts style, but it was expected to be ruled self-defense. A man and a woman had been questioned, and they were quite persuasive in their insistence that Amos had tried to kill them. The sheriff's office wouldn't release the names to Lana-her status as an ex-wife didn't give her that much clout-and the online version of the Cumberland newspaper hadn't posted anything as of last night. So Zeke was left to figure it out on his own. Had Amos panicked, believing that the pair were undercover cops onto his illegal enterprises? But Amos, much as he had hated prison, would have gambled on short time rather than risk big time for killing someone in law enforcement. Plus, he knew his rights. He wouldn't have feared anyone who didn't show him a warrant.