party a couple of years ago. Ian was getting to his feet, as well. “Ian, this is Barbara Read,” I said. “She used to teach math at Hunter.”
“Sit down now, both of you.” Barbara smiled. She looked great, her coppery hair cut very short and her skin satin-smooth. Retirement definitely agreed with her. “Oh, honey,” she said to me once I took my seat again, “I’m glad to see you looking so well. I was just devastated to hear about Sam. And poor Grace. I know this must be a terrible time for both of you.”
“Thank you.” I nodded toward Ian. “Ian was Sam’s law partner,” I said. I felt the need to explain why I was sitting in a restaurant, sipping wine with another man a mere six months after Sam’s death. I saw a smile play on Ian’s lips. He was on to me and my guilt.
Barbara barely seemed to hear me, though. “And I just heard about Noelle Downie,” she said. “Oh, my Lord, what a tragedy.”
I nodded. “It’s very sad,” I said.
“I know you were close to her,” Barbara said. “She had a big heart. I saw her and Sam at the South Beach Grill a couple of times last year and it’s hard to believe they’re both gone. Did he mention seeing me? I told him to tell you hello.”
I thought I’d misunderstood her. “You saw Sam and Noelle at the South Beach Grill? In Wrightsville Beach?”
“I love that restaurant, don’t you? I often go over there for lunch. Off season, of course. I don’t go near the beach during the summer.”
“When was this?” I didn’t want to sound upset—or worse, jealous—but this was very strange. Noelle and Sam were friends, but certainly not the meet-for-lunch sort of friends.
“Oh, let me think.” Barbara tapped her chin as she looked out the window toward the river. “Well, it must have been the spring. April, maybe?”
“Sam died in early March.” I felt impatient with her. I glanced at Ian and saw the crease between his eyebrows.
“Hmm, then maybe late winter, or it might even have been last fall.” Barbara laughed. “Retirement messes with the calendar in your head, just you wait and see! It was twice, I remember that. I talked to Sam both times. I didn’t know Noelle personally, but everyone knows who she is. Was. I figured he was probably the lawyer for that baby program she ran.”
“Probably right,” Ian said. He was looking at me and his eyes told me to get rid of her.
“Barbara, it’s been so good seeing you,” I said, “but Ian and I’d better finish up here or we’re going to miss our movie.”
“Oh, same here.” She looked over her shoulder in the direction she’d come from. “My husband probably thinks I got lost in the ladies’ room.” She leaned over to pat my wrist. “Wonderful seeing you, honey. And nice meeting you, Ian. Y’all have a good evening.”
Ian and I stared at each other until we were sure she was out of earshot. “The babies program needs a lawyer?” I asked.
He shook his head. “I’m sure that’s not it,” he said, “but I just wanted her to leave. I could see she was upsetting you.”
“I’m not upset. I’m confused.”
“Look.” Ian licked his lips and studied his plate for a moment. “I think it was probably the will.” He raised his eyes to mine. “It was written in February, and I’m sure Sam and Noelle had to have a couple of meetings to talk about it. There were papers having to do with her mother’s care that Sam had to draw up, and … he probably helped her think through how she wanted to divide her assets.”
“Why at a restaurant and not his office?”
“Because they were friends, so they decided to be comfortable while they worked. I do it, and Sam took his clients out all the time.” He reached across the table and rested his hand on mine. “Hey,” he said, “you’re not thinking …?”
I shook my head. “Noelle and Sam? No way. Sam always liked her but he also thought she was wacky. It’s just weird to hear something like that out of the blue, when I had no idea.” My voice trailed off.
“You had no idea about it because Sam was ethical,” Ian said. “He didn’t tell you about her will for the same reason I didn’t tell you about it when I came across it in his files. Until she died, it was frankly none of your business.”
“Right.” I nodded. It wasn’t the first time I’d discovered that Sam had handled the legal affairs of someone I knew without telling me. I’d learned early in our married life not to ask questions.
Our waiter delivered our bill and Ian leaned back in his chair to pull out his wallet. “Well—” he laughed as he set his credit card on the table “—we didn’t have much success not talking about Noelle or Sam, did we?”
“Not much.” I set my napkin on the table. “Let’s go lose ourselves in a movie.”
“Deal,” he said, and it wasn’t until we were walking from his car into the theater that I realized I’d let him pay for my dinner.
I guessed it was a date, after all.
9
Emerson
The human race lost something when digital photography was invented. I sat cross-legged on the floor of Noelle’s small living room, my back against the sofa, as I paged through one of her old photo albums. Like my own albums, hers had few recent pictures. They were all on her computer. Generations to come—my grandkids, for example—would never get to look through my photo album and wonder, Who is this guy and why was he important to Grandma? Honestly, it made me sad. The handful of recent pictures in Noelle’s album were Jenny’s and Grace’s not-very-flattering school pictures and some photographs taken at fundraising events, like the big baby shower Noelle held each year on the grounds of our church.
I wasn’t sure what I was looking for in the album, anyway. A picture of her with a stranger, maybe? A grown son or daughter whom she’d hidden away from us? Someone who had the answers we needed? As I dug through the pages, it was the pictures of Noelle herself that I lingered over, each one giving me a bittersweet twist of pain in my chest. I was mad at her for leaving the way she did with no explanation and mad at her for the lies, but I hated being angry with her. The only way to get rid of the anger was to make sense of what she’d done.
“I love this picture of her,” I said to Ted, who was pulling books from the shelves on either side of the fireplace and stacking them in boxes. He was working like a dog while I played detective. I knew he thought I was merely brooding and he felt sorry for me. He hadn’t gotten on my case at all. Yet.
“Uh-huh,” he said as he dropped another couple of books into the box. I’d mentioned to him my need to find answers to Noelle’s mystery life, but he thought I should just let it go, so now I was keeping my sleuthing to myself. I’d never had the sort of close—quite honestly, passionate—relationship with Ted that Tara had with Sam, but he was a good provider, a faithful husband and a caring dad. They were my three main requirements and he met them handily, so I was keeping him.
In the photograph, Noelle stood in front of a decorative wall hanging. The picture was overexposed with far too much light on her face. It made her fair
