He doesn’t look up at her. “It’s very old. It was a real find.”
“But why do you want it in here?”
“I just thought—I don’t know. Julia showed it to me and I said okay. Put it in the room.”
“She’s very loyal, Julia.” Linda pauses. “To Gabrielle.”
“They were very close.”
“Well, I don’t want it in here. I don’t like it.”
Geoff finally lifts his eyes to look at her. “The symbols—they translate into a prayer for eternal life. It’s a piece used in veneration of the ancient Egyptian sun god, Ra. I’ve always viewed it as good luck.”
“I think it’s ugly,” Linda says stubbornly. “I don’t want it in here.”
She turns back to the mantel, her hand outstretched to pick it up again.
“No!” Geoff is on her in a flash, grabbing her arm. “Don’t put out its flame!”
“Dear God, Geoff! What’s gotten into you?”
He snatches the urn into his own grip. “I—I just don’t want you to damage it. The oil…I don’t want the flame to go out. It could—damage the inside casing—”
“How could it do that?”
He holds the urn tightly to his chest. “If you don’t like it, I’ll put it in the study.”
Linda makes a face. “You’re behaving very strangely.”
Geoff sighs. “Maybe. Maybe so. The dream…I’m still freaked out by the dream.”
Linda gives him a small smile. “I guess I can understand that. My own dream kept me on edge for a couple of days.”
He turns to leave, taking the urn with him.
“Geoff,” Linda calls, “I didn’t know you didn’t like to fish. Josh really wants to try it. I’m going to bring it up with him again tomorrow if the weather clears up—”
But she finds she’s talking to air. Geoff has hurried out of the room.
The rain finally starts letting up late in the afternoon. The mall idea fell on deaf ears. Geoff has become engrossed in grading his student papers, hunched over a pile in the study, that damn urn beside him, still burning. Julia has begun preparing dinner in the kitchen, and although Linda had wanted to make it herself, she makes no effort to confront the old woman again.
And Josh remains coloring in his pad at the dining room table.
“The rain’s stopped,” Linda tells the boy. “Maybe you might want to go outside and play.”
He doesn’t respond.
“What are you drawing, Josh? You’ve been so intent all afternoon.”
For the first time Linda takes notice of the boy’s work. There are dozens of sheets torn out from his pad scattered at the foot of his chair and under the table. What Linda notices first are the colors: only yellows, oranges, and reds. As she lifts one of the sheets to look at it, she glances at Josh’s crayon box. All of the so-called cool colors—the blues, greens, and purples—remain untouched, their points still sharp. But tiny stubs of red and yellow crayons litter the floor.
“What are these, Josh?”
They’re all the same: some kind of a figure—a bird, from the looks of it—surrounded by red, orange, and yellow scribbles. Linda picks up another sheet and then another. Some of the scribbles are rush jobs, but others are carefully rendered, colored in solidly. The look like—
Flames.
“What are these, Josh?” Linda repeats again, quieter now.
The boy doesn’t answer. He’s drawing on a new sheet now: the same birdlike figure, its head raised, two wings at its side, pointing upward on the page.
Linda’s suddenly aware of Julia standing behind her.
“The boy has talent, don’t you think?”
“Yes,” Linda says. “I think Josh probably has many talents.”
“Dinner will be ready soon. I’m making lamb chops. I hope that meets with your approval.”
Linda turns to look at her. “Lamb chops will be fine.”
Julia smiles.
“Tell me,” she says to the nanny. “Do you know what these drawings are?”
“Not exactly. But the bird—it was a symbol his mother always used. She had a pendant in that shape, didn’t she, Josh?”
“My mother’s coming home,” Josh says in response, not looking up from his drawing.
“And these lines,” Linda says, indicating the yellow and red scribbles. “What are they supposed to be?”
“I’m not sure I know, Miss. Maybe you should ask Master Joshua.”
Linda turns to the boy. “Well,” she tries. “What are they, Josh?”
“My mother’s almost here,” he says.
Julia just smiles and returns to the kitchen.
The night is quiet. Earlier the crickets had been busy, but as the night went on they stilled their chatter, and now only the soft steady tick of the grandfather clock in the hall is all that Linda can hear.
Geoff sleeps soundlessly beside her. She’s wide awake, feeling cold and uneasy.
Gabrielle Deschamps had been a fascinating woman. Geoff has only told her a little, but Linda’s pieced in the rest through conversations with Jim and Lucy Oleson and others from the campus. In the beginning, Geoff and Gabrielle were madly, deeply, dazzlingly in love—or at least, Geoff was with her. Gabrielle, everyone agreed, kept her most private thoughts to herself. But there was no disguising the passion she had for certain things: academic debate, ancient history, travel, beautiful clothes, stunning jewelry, men. She was an impetuous flirt; no man was safe from her charms. Sit down at a table with her and she’d home right in, finding a man’s eyes, touching his hand, taking hold of his spirit. She’d find his weakness, his vanity, and then she’d prick it, ever so skillfully, making the man hers in mind if not in body. It drove Geoff crazy with jealousy. It only made Gabrielle laugh.
“Borderline personality,” Megan had diagnosed at hearing the description. Her husband, Randy, is a psychologist, so Megan thinks she has all the answers. “Gabrielle was a disaster waiting to happen. Geoff should be glad she’s gone.”
But is he? Linda looks over at him, sleeping peacefully. She’s glad his nightmare seems to have passed. A good night’s rest, some sunny weather, and they’d make up tomorrow for what they missed out on today.
Linda knows she’s no great beauty like Gabrielle was. She’s seen the
