just shrugged his shoulders.
“Look, miss, I distinctly held up my hand and—”
She hated being called “miss.” She folded her arms across her chest. Linda guesses now she was showing, in that moment, a “proclivity for obduracy.” She wasn’t going to budge.
“I have a flight to catch,” she told him in no uncertain terms.
A broad smile spread across Geoff’s face, revealing dimples that made her melt. “Well, as it happens, so do I,” he said. “Since we’re both going to the airport, maybe we can share the ride?”
Funny how fate works. They learned, sitting in traffic outside Logan, that they were both going to Chicago, Linda to rent a car to drive to her hometown of Dowagiac, Michigan, to attend Karen’s wedding, Geoff to deliver a talk on ancient religious practices at some seminar. Though Geoff was in first class and Linda was in coach, they managed to find an empty row somewhere over central Connecticut and sat together, finishing their conversation. They agreed to meet for a drink in Chicago on their way back.
But when Linda showed up at his hotel, eager to get away from Karen’s reception and all her aunts asking her when she—Linda—was going to tie the knot, Geoff was no where to be found. What an idiot I’ve been, Linda told herself. To think a smart, successful college professor is going to be interested in me. What a fool.
“I’m sorry, but is this seat taken?”
She looked up. It was Geoff.
“Did you think I was standing you up?” he asked. “I apologize for being late. Some dreary academic types insisted on challenging my analysis of Zoroastrianism.”
“Well,” she said, laughing, “I hope you told them.”
He ordered a scotch and water. Linda was drinking white wine. She learned he was married—of course, she thought at first—but then found out his wife had left him over two years ago and he hadn’t heard from her since.
“I can’t say I was surprised,” Geoff admitted. “Gabrielle was ill. I think she has some kind of mental illness.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Linda said.
“Well, she began acting strangely….” He seemed unwilling to talk about that time. Linda suspected it had been very painful for him. Her heart melted for this handsome, gallant stranger.
“So of course, I’ve been concerned for her safety. I’ve hired private detectives to try to find her, and the police have combed dozens of states for some clue to her whereabouts. But no luck.”
“I’m so sorry,” she said again.
“Well, things hadn’t been good between us.” Geoff smiled wanly at her over his glass. “Of course, that made the police suspect foul play. When a wife disappears, there’s something like a 85 percent chance the husband knows something about it.”
Is this man a murderer? Linda suddenly thought. Is he playing with me?
“It’s true,” Geoff said. “So I was hauled down to the police station for a long interrogation and one detective kept giving me the evil eye. But eventually they came around to concluding that I was as clueless as they were.”
Linda studied him, just to make sure.
“I have a young son,” Geoff told her, and immediately Linda saw the anguish in his eyes. She saw he was no murderer. Even if he’d stopped loving his wife, his son meant the world to him. That was obvious from the look on his face when he spoke of him. “He misses his mother terribly. She wasn’t a particularly attentive mother, but since she’s been gone, he’s kind of romanticized her.”
“I suppose that’s only natural,” Linda said. “Every child wants a mother.”
Geoff shook his head and sighed. “You know, as sick as she was, I just can’t imagine how she could walk out on her own son.”
“What’s his name?” Linda asked.
“Joshua. He’s a good kid.” His eyes grew sad. “But he needs a mother.”
“So what’s Josh going to say about the wedding plans?”
Linda is startled back to the present. Lucy is grinning at her across the table, having asked a perfectly appropriate question, but one that rattles Linda every time she hears it.
“We’re going to tell him this weekend,” Geoff answers for her. “Out at the house in Sunderland.”
“Well, I’m sure he’ll handle it well,” Lucy says. “After all, I’m sure he adores Linda.”
Linda says nothing.
“Will you get married in Sunderland, too?” Lucy asks. “I remember so well your marriage to Gabrielle out there—”
“We haven’t decided yet,” Geoff says, looking over at Linda.
“Oh, but you must,” Lucy says, reaching across the table to tap Linda’s hand. “The chapel out there is so quaint. Get married in the spring, when the forsythia is in bloom. That’s what Geoff and Gabrielle did. Oh, my, it was so lovely. The church was decorated with daffodils and white lilacs…”
“Well,” Linda says, finally speaking up, “it might be nice to do something original to us.”
“And a date?” Lucy’s asking, not listening. “Have you set a date?”
“Well, the divorce won’t be final until the fall,” Geoff says.
Jim leans in to rest his chin in his palm. “Why’d you wait so long, buddy? Gabrielle’s been gone for a long time, and you can file for divorce one year after desertion.”
Linda looks over at Geoff to see how he’ll answer. She believes him when he says he fell out of love with Gabrielle long before she left. Still, she had been brilliant and beautiful, two things Linda finds difficult believing about herself.
“She’s the mother of my son,” Geoff says simply. “And he’s never stopped talking about her since the day she left.”
They all nod.
“Besides,” Geoff adds, smiling and reaching over to squeeze Linda’s hand. “There was no great motivator until this little lady came along.”
She smiles. She feels her cheeks start to burn. At first she assumes she’s blushing. She often blushes when Geoff pays her a compliment. It’s something that goes back to grammar school, when she’d turn beet red when the teacher called on in her in class. But then she realizes it’s more than mere blushing: her face actually begins to hurt. It feels the way it does when she occasionally holds the hair dryer too close to her skin. It feels the way—
—the way it did in her dream last night.
She looks up. The restaurant is suddenly in flames.
Her companions at the table are engulfed in a ferocious conflagration, their skin melting. She sees first Jim, then Lucy, wither and crumple under the flames, as
