Ralston…I mean Kelly Carpenter.”
“Yes,” he said. “I’m here. What’s wrong?”
Now that his mind was working again, he understood that something must have happened. Something bad. She hadn’t called him in ten years, though at first he had deluded himself that she might. No one from the wedding party had ever called him, except Mr. Mellon, who had actually come out to Atlanta ready to beat Tom, he’d said, until he no longer knew his own name and had to be fed with a straw.
“I—I don’t know if you heard,” she said, her voice still somber and husky. He wondered if she’d been crying again. Who made her cry these days?
“Heard what?”
“About Lillith. Lillith Griggs. I mean, she became Lillith Griggs, you knew she and Jacob got married, didn’t you?”
“Yes, I knew that.” He and Jacob had been good friends back in law school. Jacob still kept in touch, still wrote now and then, though of course he didn’t admit that to Lillith, who had, like Kelly, been one of Sophie’s bridesmaids and therefore subscribed to the official position that Tom Beckham was scum. “What about Lillith?”
“She was in a car accident. Three days ago.”
“Is she all right?”
“No.” A wretched pause. “She was killed.”
The waiter came over then and held a check for Tom to sign. He scrawled something, almost glad of the distraction. He needed time to absorb the news.
He hadn’t known Lillith well, but she’d always seemed much more…alive than most people. She was always the one laughing, playing practical jokes like wearing stiletto heels to the rehearsal so that the lineup by height suddenly seemed all wrong. She was a beauty and a brain and a class clown all in one. What kind of automobile accident had been savage enough to extinguish all that?
“I’m sorry to hear it,” he said carefully, glancing over at O’Toole, who was tonguing around in his empty drink, trying to hook a piece of ice and suck any lingering vodka from its surface. O’Toole met Tom’s gaze over the glass and frowned, pointing at the telephone.
Tom covered the mouthpiece with his palm.
“We’re done here, O’Toole,” he said, though he knew that those four words might well undo all the goodwill he’d spent the past hour building.
O’Toole put his glass down slowly, giving Tom an incredulous look. “Damn right we are,” he said. He tossed his napkin on the table, scraped his chair back loudly and walked away.
“Tom, are you still there?”
Tom took his hand off the telephone. “Yes. Sorry. How is Jacob?”
“He’s a mess,” Kelly said. “That’s why I’m calling. The funeral is tomorrow, and he asked me to let you know. He hopes you can come. I do, too. He needs a friend…and you seem to be the one he wants.”
It was subtle, but he could hear how inexplicable she found that fact to be.
“Okay,” he said.
There was another pause. “You’ll come?” She must have been expecting an argument.
“Yes,” he said. “Tell him I’ll be there. What time is the funeral?”
“One. We’re all meeting at the house and riding together. His house.” She took an audible breath. “But Tom…if I tell him you’re coming, if I get his hopes up, and then you—”
“I’ll be there.” He heard the doubt quivering in her silence. He couldn’t blame her. She couldn’t know that, since he’d left Cathedral Cove, he had never made a promise he didn’t keep. Of course, he made damn few promises.
“Kelly, I’m telling you I will be there. Have I ever lied to you?”
“No,” she said slowly. “Not to me.”
“Then trust me,” he said, and in spite of himself a wry note crept in. He could feel his tilted smile nudging at his lips. But come on. Had anyone on this earth ever spoken a more ironic sentence? “I’ll be there.”
KELLY KNEW BETTER than to trust Tom Beckham, so she couldn’t understand why she was so upset when he didn’t show up at the funeral home, or at the graveside service.
She was just mad at herself, that was all. She should never have told Jacob that Tom was coming. He had kept glancing over his shoulder at the service, and now that they were back at home, every time the door opened he looked up expectantly.
She stood in the kitchen, carefully pulling the plastic wrap off plates of deviled eggs and pans of meat loaf, and trying not to feel a little angry with Jacob, too.
But darn it. He had friends, lots of them. People who really cared about him, people who filled his house and his refrigerator, people who called and stopped by, who prayed at his side and cried at his side and loved Lily almost as much as he did.
Why weren’t they enough? Why did he need Tom Beckham, too?
Why did anyone need Tom Beckham?
The door opened, and to Kelly’s surprise a lovely blonde walked in, dressed in the most elegant little black funeral dress she’d ever seen. It was Samantha Mellon, Sophie’s little sister.
“Hi, Kelly,” Samantha said softly, brushing her long, silky hair back behind her shoulder and smiling. “They told me you were in here. I thought maybe I could help?”
Kelly stuffed the plastic into the trash can, wiped her hands on a towel, and reached out to give Samantha a hello hug. It was very sweet of her to come—and probably somewhat risky. Over the years, her mother and brother had developed an intractably hostile attitude toward every one of the young men and women who had been in Sophie’s wedding party.
As best Kelly could understand, Mrs. Mellon and Sebastian felt that the bridesmaids and groomsmen had all abandoned Sophie after she’d been jilted. True friends would have stuck by her, defended her. If they had, Sophie might never have ended up in an institution.
Was that true? Kelly’s memory of that time was clouded with misery and guilt. It was true that the friendships had ended when the wedding fell apart, but whose choice had that been? Had Sophie avoided them because they reminded her of a day so horrible she couldn’t bear to relive it? Or had they avoided her, the way you might instinctively avoid someone whose luck seemed to have turned spectacularly bad?
Some of them had tried to make contact in the weeks after Tom disappeared, Kelly was sure of that. But Sophie hadn’t been willing. Or maybe she just hadn’t been ready.
Maybe they should have tried harder.
Kelly hadn’t been able to try at all. A huge wall stood between them. She always wondered if Sophie knew about the night that Kelly and Tom had…
Just as she’d always wondered whether that night had played a part in the tragedy that came next.
But there was no one to ask. Tom was gone, and, soon after, Sophie was lost to them, too.
Kelly
