Thorns of Truth (4 page)

Dear God, just how late
was
she? For a flustered moment, Rose couldn’t remember if the invitation had said seven-thirty or eight.

Then Avery Hammersmith, a florid-faced man in his fifties with thinning white hair as artfully arranged as the decor, was hurrying over to escort her to her seat—steering her past the marble griffins carved on either side of the fireplace, and through the thicket of tables ringed with animated faces glowing in the soft light—none of which she recognized. Seeing she was at Brian’s table, Rose went weak with gratitude.

As she sank into her chair, she found herself blessedly surrounded by friends and family. Across from her were Drew and Iris, flanked on either side by Rachel and Brian. Next to Brian, Avery Hammersmith was settling back with the sigh of a contented host. Only the man seated on Rose’s right was a stranger.

She’d barely glanced at him when Sylvie, on her left, greeted her with, “Rose! Thank heavens. I was beginning to worry you wouldn’t make it.” Her expression was warm and lively—not at all that of an elderly woman with a heart condition. Rose thought, remembering with a flicker of concern how pale and tired Sylvie had looked the last time she’d visited her.

Tonight, Sylvie was as elegant as ever, dressed in a pale-green dress with flowing sleeves that disguised how thin she’d gotten, her silver pageboy shining like polished sterling in the candlelight. Her only jewelry was a pair of discreet pearl earrings, and the emerald ring that matched her eyes—a ring given to her years ago by Nikos.

And just where
was
Nikos? Rose was so used to seeing him at Sylvie’s side, it was a moment before she thought to scan the room, where she caught a glimpse of him at one of the other tables. It struck her as a bit odd, until she realized
why
he’d been seated elsewhere. So there would be an extra place for—

The thought was cut off when Sylvie leaned forward to introduce Rose to the man on Rose’s right, where Nikos should have been sitting. “Dear, I’d like you to meet Eric … Sandstrom, isn’t it?” To Eric, she explained, “Rose lived upstairs from Brian when they were growing up. She’s now a dear friend of our family.”

Dear friend.
Rose felt a throb in her gut. But how else could Sylvie have introduced her? Not as a daughter, though she was that. Not when Sylvie refused to acknowledge Rose as her own, except in private. And surely not with Rachel listening. The only person in this entire room who knew the truth, besides Rose and Sylvie, was Nikos.

For an instant, Rose had trouble focusing on the man holding out his hand to her. He looked vaguely familiar. Had they met at some other party? Early forties, she thought. With that schoolboy’s thatch of sandy hair, she might have guessed him to be even younger, except for the hint of hard living in his stone-washed blue eyes, and the deep lines carved on either side of his mouth. He regarded her intently from under pale lashes that almost made him appear to be staring—and suddenly she wanted to look down, look away, look anywhere but at him. Damn, she thought, heat crawling up into her cheeks. Rose didn’t know whose idea it had been … but any fool could see it was no accident she’d been seated next to Eric Sandstrom.

But was that so terrible? He looked nice enough. What saved him, really, was those eyes—the eyes of someone who wouldn’t have been shocked were she to confess she’d once spent an entire hour searching her apartment for a light fixture sturdy enough to hang herself from.

“A pleasure,” she murmured, allowing her hand to be squeezed briefly before turning to address the table at large. “Sorry I didn’t get here sooner. The traffic was murder.”

“Mom’s almost never late,” Drew piped up, in her defense. “It’s really a thing with her. Dad used to say—” He stopped, and an awkward silence settled over the table. “Late for an appointment,” Rose supplied, the brave widow demonstrating that she hadn’t lost her sense of humor.

Everyone laughed a bit too heartily, and Drew flashed her a relieved grin. Oh, that smile of his, so like Max’s. It broke her heart a little each time. Drew’s rebellious dark hair and brown eyes were hers, but in every other way he was his father’s son. The angle at which his head was tilted just now, and the way he hunched his shoulders as he leaned forward onto his elbows. What struck her most, though, was his sweetness. In Drew’s open face she hoped she would never stop seeing the twelve-year-old boy who’d read aloud to his little brother that time Jason was so sick with mumps, and whose room had been a zoo of cages housing everything from gerbils to an albino gopher snake—pets his less tenderhearted friends had grown tired of caring for.

She watched him lean sideways as Iris whispered something in his ear. Drew looked uncomfortable, almost
pained.
Rose felt a pulse of worry. The other day, when Drew had come to her, nearly in tears, her first concern had been for Iris. Rose didn’t even want to
think
what she might do if Drew broke up with her.

It wasn’t just that she was fond of Iris; in a way, Rose felt somehow responsible for her, too. It had been
her
doing, all those years ago, begging her buddy, Lieutenant O’Neill, to hold off calling Social Services on that little girl found abandoned in a McDonald’s. Her string-pulling, too, that had made foster parents of Rachel and Brian practically overnight. And, months later, when Iris’ mother was picked up on a drug charge, who was it that had been called down to the station in the middle of the night? Upon hearing the woman’s nearly incoherent tale of woe—a fire, it seemed, had left the woman homeless—Rose had believed, with all her heart, that she was doing the right thing in convincing her that Iris would be better off where she was. With Rachel and Brian, too, hadn’t she glossed things over, keeping certain bits to herself—parts of the story that would only have alarmed them unnecessarily?

Never could Rose have imagined that one day it would be her own son who would pay the price.

For, in the end, it all boiled down to one thing: blood was thicker than water. A lesson Rose hadn’t learned from her own mother, but was determined to apply to her sons.

And, certainly, there was no denying Iris could be temperamental. Trouble seemed to follow her like mud tracked indoors on a rainy day. Who could forget the Christmas Eve she’d flown out the door in the middle of a snowstorm, wearing nothing more than a silk jacket? When she didn’t turn up, both families—Max and the boys, as well as Brian and Rachel—spent half the night searching for her out in the freezing cold. They were all relieved, of course, when she turned up, safe and sound, in a coffee shop on Lexington Avenue … but they were bewildered as well. What had happened? Iris had seemed fine one minute, happily wrapping presents, and then, all at once, something Rachel said had caused her to snap. Where had it come from, that sudden tempest? How could they prevent it from happening again? For as long as Rose could remember, Drew had been the only one capable of soothing Iris … and now even
he
was close to giving up on her.

If only she weren’t so heartbreakingly beautiful, Rose thought with dismay. Look at her now, leaning into Drew, one hand resting on the sleeve of his jacket as delicately as a fallen rose petal. In her purple charmeuse dress that made her glow like a pale sliver of moon against deepening twilight, Iris was an enchantress straight out of a Hans Christian Andersen tale. And if Drew didn’t watch out, the spell she cast would be on him—maybe forever.…

“May I pour you some wine?”

Rose was jarred from her thoughts by the easy voice of the man seated next to her, low and smoky, like an alto sax.

She turned toward him. “None for me. I don’t drink.” She added with a laugh, “I must be getting old. One glass, and I feel it the next morning. More than one, it’s like tunneling out from an avalanche.”

Eric’s mouth twitched in a small, knowing smile. “Been through that tunnel myself a few times.”

She noticed he wasn’t drinking, either. She almost remarked on the coincidence, but something stopped her. It wasn’t to avoid putting him on the spot but because she sensed it might involve a story of some kind—about how he’d battled alcoholism, or some other hardship. And she didn’t want to know, not any of it. She’d piled up too much misery of her own to risk upsetting the apple cart with someone else’s sad tale.

Instead, she asked, “Haven’t we met before, at one of Brian’s publication parties?” He could be Brian’s editor, for all she knew.

“I don’t think so. I would have remembered.” He flashed her an easy, we’re-in-this-together smile, leaving her certain that this was indeed what it appeared: a fix-up. Except Eric was nothing like the stodgy types who had been foisted on her at other functions. She noticed the silver bracelet peeking incongruously from under the cuff of his dinner jacket. It looked vaguely Southwestern, and very old. What
was
this guy’s story? Rose found herself leaning forward with interest when Eric said, “But you might have heard me on the radio. I host a talk show on WQNA. That’s how I got to know Brian— when he was promoting his last book.”

“I don’t listen to the radio much,” she apologized, “but I could have
sworn
I’ve seen you somewhere.”

“I used to be on TV. Years ago.” He shrugged, clearly not wishing to elaborate. Was he just being modest? “Actually, I prefer radio. For one thing, it gives me more freedom.”

“Are you one of those talk-show hosts who go out of their way to embarrass guests?” she asked jokingly.

Eric shook his head, smiling. “I don’t go for the cheap shots. But I
do
love controversy. If I don’t get at least one irate caller, I don’t feel I’m fulfilling my vocation as worthy opponent of the politically corrupt, morally bankrupt, and terminally complacent.”

Rose found herself smiling, too. “I guess that puts you somewhat to the left of Rush Limbaugh.”

He laughed. “Yeah … but he makes a lot more money.”

“I’ve handled my share of
pro bono
cases,” she told him. “But I know what you mean—it doesn’t pay the rent.”

Eric cocked his head, eyeing her with interest as he smoothed a callused thumb down the stem of his empty wineglass. “A lawyer, huh? I wouldn’t have guessed it.”

Rose felt herself bristling. She’d been getting this reaction since law school—people making assumptions about her wild hair and exotic coloring, the way she dressed, the little bit of Brooklyn in her voice … even the fact that she liked rock music, the louder the better.

But so what? Better simply to roll with it, she thought.

“Trees aren’t the only thing that grow in Brooklyn,” she replied archly. “My grandmother figured I’d wind up pregnant and barefoot at eighteen, like my older sister. Mainly, I just wanted to prove her wrong. Law school made as much sense as anything at the time.”

She thought of the years of juggling night classes with her day job as a secretary, working for Max. Then, when they were married, and partners in their own firm, how hard she’d had to fight just to be taken seriously by their mostly corporate clientele. And now here she was, fighting just as hard to hang on to her very sanity, to fashion some sort of existence from the rubble that was all that remained of the life she’d shared with her husband.

Rose found herself wishing she could be like the Italian widows in her old neighborhood—women from the old country who wore black right up to the day of their own funerals, and who felt no need to pretend that their lives would ever be the same after their husbands died.

Suddenly Eric surprised her by saying, “Brooklyn? I lived in Park Slope until I was eight, when my dad got transferred.”

“That explains it,” she said.

“Explains what?”

“What happened to your Brooklyn accent.”

He shot her a wicked grin. “Minnesota is what happened. In Maplewood, they’d run you out of town for wearing a green shirt when everyone else is wearing blue. In the end, though, it was what kept me from ever wandering off to the right—all those flag-waving solid citizens who believed the war in Vietnam was rescuing the free world from Communism, and that the people protesting it must be Commies themselves. It wasn’t long before I was out there waving a sign, and yelling at the top of my lungs. I’d have burned my draft card, too, if I’d had one.” His grin widened. “I was fourteen.”

“I don’t have many good memories of those days.” Rose was mildly taken aback to realize she still felt a tiny grain of resentment for what the war had taken from her. Specifically, Brian, with whom she’d been desperately in love at the time, and for many months after his return … as a married man. But, even more, Vietnam had robbed her of her innocence, too; her belief that good people, in the end, got what they deserved. Wearily, she recalled, “What I remember most was that while everyone my age had time to march in the streets and smoke pot 1 was knocking myself out to pay the rent.”

Eric shot her a keen, measuring look as he sampled the salad that had been set in front of them—something with Belgian endive, and bits of shredded radicchio. “You don’t mince words, do you?”

“Not much.” She gave a short laugh. “My husband and I lived in L. A. for a couple of years when we were first married, and you know what I missed most? The chance to mouth off on a regular basis. That, and Avenue J bagels.” She tore a chunk off her sourdough roll.

“Is that why you came back?”

“Partly. Our oldest boy”—she nodded in Drew’s direction— “was walking already. And we wanted to start our own firm. As far as my husband was concerned there’s only one place on earth to sink roots. Max is—
was
”—she corrected herself—“a born and bred New Yorker.” Seeing the question in Eric’s face, she added softly, “He passed away last year.”

She braced herself for the usual sympathetic murmurs, but Eric just looked her in the eye and said, “That must have been hard.”

“It still is.” She swallowed against the lump forming in her throat.

“Any other kids?”

“I have a sixteen-year-old still living at home, but Jay would rather sit through two hours of
Masterpiece Theatre
than come to something like this.”