Sacred Trust. Meg O'Brien

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СКАЧАТЬ and tucks it into his pocket. “I thought you might. We do share a few good things, don’t we?”

      “A few.” Halfway down the block I pause, adding, “We’re gonna share a whole lot more if you don’t stop doing what you’re doing to my fingers.”

      “It’s my new interviewing technique,” Ben says.

      “Well, guess what? It’s working.”

      For the first time in the five months we’ve been together, Ben comes home with me. And, of course, it’s the one time Jeffrey decides to return early from a trip.

      We are under a nice warm comforter in my bedroom—the one only I sleep in now, though Jeffrey still shares the closets. A fire is crackling, and the French doors to the bedroom deck are open a few inches so we can hear the waves beating on the shore. There is soft music playing.

      Even so, I hear my husband’s footsteps on the stairs. No way to miss them, after all these years.

      Ben and I are both naked, and our clothes are strewn all over the floor, so there’s no time to grab something, throw it on and pretend we’re having a council meeting. Though I hear there are Carmel council members who have done just that, over the years.

      As Jeffrey walks in, I sit up, pulling the sheets to my neck and playing for time. “You’re home early,” I complain loudly, hoping to put the blame on him for catching us.

      He takes in the scene with one glance.

      “Well, if I’d known you were entertaining, I’d have called ahead,” he says mildly. Despite his attempt at indifference, I could swear his graying George Clooney hair is bristling—like a lion’s when he finds a strange male in his lair.

      Ben, for his part, struggles to maintain his dignity—a losing battle, given that he’s lying naked next to another man’s wife. I can hear the wheels rolling: Do I get out of bed and run into the bathroom while they duke it out, or do I grab my clothes and make a fast departure out the door?

      Ben hates confrontation of the personal kind. Give him a gun and a perp, and he’s a whole other guy.

      “Stay where you are, Ben,” I say firmly. “It’s not as if this is something new for Jeffrey, after all.”

      I feel him sliding down under the sheets inch by inch.

      “Hello, Ben,” Jeffrey says. “How’s the bid for promotion going? I hear you’re up for chief.”

      The threat to expose us is obvious. Whether Jeffrey will carry it out while I’ve got him and the bimbo as collateral is doubtful. Still, he must swagger a bit.

      “It’s going fine,” Ben says in a conversational voice that makes me proud. He has apparently decided to pretend he’s standing in our living room, dressed in a tux. “How are things with you, Jeffrey?”

      “Fine, fine.” Jeffrey heads for his walk-in closet. “Well, you two go on with what you were doing. I just came back for clean shirts.”

      Ben and I look at each other. Jeffrey gets his shirts. He stops at the bureau for cuff links and takes his time finding them. Ben and I are motionless in the bed, sheets to our necks, barely breathing.

      “I’ll be off now,” Jeffrey says a hundred years later, making his way to the door. He stops only momentarily on the landing as Murphy growls again. We hear his footsteps going down the stairs, then his car leaving.

      Ben groans and throws the comforter over his face. His voice comes muffled from under the pillowy down. “If he tells anyone, I’m a goner.”

      I crawl under the covers and reach for him. “Well, then, young fella, I say we make hay while the sun shines. Let’s see, what have we here…”

      5

      Marti is buried in a small Catholic cemetery south of Carmel, along the road to Big Sur. The burial site is on an old Spanish estate, and I have learned through Ben that the owner, Lydia Greyson, came forward to offer it. She would be honored, she said, to have Marti laid to rest along with her own ancestors. In addition, she pledged that Marti’s grave would be well protected from curiosity seekers, behind the high adobe walls of the estate.

      Who this woman is, or why she has offered a family burial plot to Marti, I don’t know. I can only suppose she must know Marti’s brother, Ned, or at least have talked to him, as he would have had to agree to the arrangements.

      A long line of black cars and limos winds southward along the twisting road. There are places where one can drive only fifteen miles per hour in the best of weather, and the best of weather has not graced us today. Fog creeps in on great big elephant feet, clomping up from the sea and over the road, where it smothers the hills.

      Jeffrey drives our black Mercedes, and we sit quietly beside each other, steeped in our individual thoughts. Ahead of us, in a limo, is Ned, whom I’ve never really met, despite the few times I saw him years ago with Marti. When we were in high school, Ned was away in college, and when we went to Joseph and Mary, the most he ever did was show up on visiting Sunday once or twice.

      With Ned are two women veiled in black. One seemed slightly familiar at the church, in the way she carried herself, but there was no way of knowing who she might be. Family, surely, to be veiled that way. This surprises me, as I had thought all of Marti’s other relatives had passed away.

      Behind us are limos filled with local residents, some of whom want only to be part of history. A great many, however, genuinely came to offer their respects to Marti. This show of affection stuns me. Even though I have always known how much my friend was loved, she has reached many more people with her photographs and stories than I’d realized. In the church, the words Shining Bright were whispered often among the pews.

      Bringing up the rear of the cortege are local and international reporters. Everyone who could possibly commandeer a limo or car has become part of this today, including famous anchors like Jane Pauley, Tom Brokaw, Katie Couric. Our local congressman was at the church, as well as more than one senator, and I wonder briefly what Marti would say about this fuss. Would she be gratified? Or embarrassed? My guess is a little of both.

      “Hmm? What?” Jeffrey says.

      “I didn’t say anything.”

      “You made a noise.”

      “I was smiling.”

      “No, you made a noise.” His voice is cool, though his hands tighten on the steering wheel. “A snort, unless I miss my guess.”

      “Well, if anyone knows my snort, it would be you, Jeffrey.”

      “Not only am I far too familiar with it, but I’m rather certain I know what you’re snorting at now, as well.”

      “No doubt you are.”

      “You think this is all too much, all this attention paid to Marti.”

      I look at him. “And you? What do you think, Jeffrey?”

      “That you are far too cynical. It’s your worst failing.”

      After a moment СКАЧАТЬ