Sweet Liar Read online

  A smile came over Maxie’s face. “A young man sat beside me and said, ‘You look like I feel. You want to get something to eat and talk about it?’ I looked into his kind brown eyes and said, ‘Yes,’ and that was how I met Calvin Elliot. He took me to a cafe, we drank coffee and ate, and I told him everything, while he listened completely, listened without judging me. When I’d finished he told me about himself. He’d just been discharged from the army and two years before both his parents had died of heart failure, and four months ago the girl he’d loved since elementary school had eloped with a man she’d known for six days. And three days ago the army had told him that a bout of mumps two years before had left him sterile.”

  For a moment Maxie had to fight for breath, while Samantha resisted the urge to tell her to rest, to be quiet, but both of them knew that now no amount of rest was going to save Maxie.

  When she continued, Maxie’s voice was just a whisper. “Cal and I sat there and looked at each other, neither of us knowing what to say next, when Cal said we ought to get married. He said it made sense, that he was never going to have kids of his own and it would be a shame if I had a child who had to grow up without a father. He said we didn’t love each other now and we might never love each other, but we’d love the child and that would be enough.”

  “And you said yes,” Samantha said, holding Maxie’s rapidly weakening body.

  “Not right away. I told him how dangerous it would be if Doc’s men found me. But Cal said we’d create a new identity for me, and they’d never find me. I tried to talk him out of it. I told him there was nothing in it for him, but Cal laughed and said I hadn’t looked in a mirror lately.”

  “So you married him.”

  “Three days later,” Maxie said, closing her eyes for a moment. “And Doc didn’t find me until he saw the photo in the paper, so I left, but even that didn’t save your mother.”

  “And you did come to love him.” Samantha’s words were too loud as she changed the subject, as though her grandmother’s closed eyes frightened her. She wanted to pray for God not to take her, but Samantha wasn’t that selfish. Maxie had never said a word, but Sam knew that she was in constant pain that intensified daily; the doctor said that since Samantha had come into her life Maxie wouldn’t take her pain pills because she didn’t want to be groggy and miss a moment with her dear granddaughter.

  “Yes,” Maxie continued, her eyes fluttering open. “Loving Cal was very easy. He wasn’t exciting like Michael, and he was never one for surprises, but he was always there when I needed him.”

  She looked up at her granddaughter with love in her eyes. “Cal always loved me, just as I loved him.”

  And that’s how Maxie died, with a look of love on her face.

  37

  “I’m worried about her,” Blair said to Kane. They were in Mike’s town house, sitting beside each other on stools at the little counter in the kitchen, listening to the sounds coming from behind Samantha’s apartment door. From inside they could hear Samantha crying—crying as Blair had never heard anyone cry before—and, what’s more, it had been going on for hours. Maxie had died at about two in the morning. Afterward Mike had carried Sam from the room and taken her back to the town house, Blair and Kane following them. Mike’s parents had taken Kane’s boys and were spending the night at Blair’s apartment.

  As soon as the four of them had entered the house, Mike had taken Samantha upstairs. Through the door, Blair and Kane had heard Mike shouting, “Cry! Goddamn you, cry! Your grandmother is at least worth giving away some of those precious tears of yours!”

  “Of all the—” Blair began and started for the stairs, horrified by what she’d heard Mike say. How dare he treat someone like that after what Samantha had been through?

  Stopping her, Kane looked hard into her eyes. As children Mike and Kane had been more than brothers, they were like clones of each other, and she doubted if either of them had ever considered keeping a secret from the other. She could tell from the look in Kane’s eyes that there were things going on that she didn’t know about but Kane did, and he was asking her to trust Mike.

  There were more shouted words from Mike. Then suddenly, abruptly, they could hear Samantha crying, great, wrenching sobs of misery that seemed to echo through the house like a ghost that had died in agony.

  Sitting downstairs, Blair and Kane listened in silence, neither of them speaking. What could they say while hearing the despondency and despair that was coming from Samantha?

  After two hours, Blair said she couldn’t stand it anymore, then opening her bag, she got out a hypodermic. “I’m going to give her something to make her sleep.”

  Kane put his hand on hers. “Samantha has years of tears inside her,” was his cryptic answer.

  Reluctantly, Blair put the hypodermic away and, instead, filled a pitcher with water. “She’s going to be dehydrated,” she said and went up the stairs. When she returned, Kane looked at her in question.

  “Mike is holding her, and she’s still crying as though she never intends to stop.” Pouring herself another cup of coffee, Blair sat down with Kane to continue their silent vigil.

  When they first heard Samantha’s voice raised in anger, both Blair and Kane jumped and looked at each other. Samantha’s voice became louder, then they heard her start to curse, curse so creatively that Kane raised his eyebrows in admiration.

  When the first dish smashed overhead, Blair got up, as though to go upstairs and put a stop to this nonsense, but Kane put his hand over hers and halted her.

  The shouting, the cursing, the sound of dishes crashing and shattering, and what had to be furniture being tossed about went on for over an hour. During that time they heard the words father, Richard, sex was mentioned often, Doc, and Half Hand.

  Just when Blair was beginning to think that Samantha was never going to stop, there was a sudden silence, and she and Kane looked upward, wondering what was happening now.

  After a while Mike came down the stairs, and Blair had never seen him look so awful, but there was happiness behind the black circles underneath his eyes. “She’s going to be all right now,” he said, taking the stool vacated by his brother, who had his hand on Mike’s shoulder. “She’s sleeping.”

  Seeing the skepticism on Blair’s face, Mike took her hand and squeezed it. “Really, she’s okay. Pour me a brandy and a big glass of milk for Sam, will you? I’m going to wake her up and tell her something.”

  At those words, he exchanged looks with his twin, neither of them needing words to know what Mike was going to tell Sam.

  With the brandy and the milk on a tray, Mike went upstairs to Sam where she lay exhausted on her bed. The living room was a mess, and in the rest of the apartment she’d broken a great many things that had been chosen for her father, for at last she had been able to scream her rage at him for deserting her after her mother died and for practically forcing her to marry a man like her ex-husband.

  Setting the tray on the bedside table, Mike woke her, took her in his arms, and told her that people die and people are born and that’s what life is all about.

  “Mike,” Samantha said tiredly, “what are you talking about?”

  “Babies,” he said. “New life replacing the old.” When she still looked puzzled, he placed his hands on her stomach. “You’re carrying a new life, a life that will replace Maxie and your mother and your father and your granddad Cal.”

  Samantha was so tired that she could hardly understand him, but when she did, she put her hands over his on her stomach. “Do you think so?” she said, trying to sound calm.

  “I’m sure of it.” He wasn’t fooled by her apparent tranquility, for her heart was pounding against his arm. “In my family I’ve had enough experience with morning sickness that I know when a woman’s going to have a baby. I’ve held the heads of my pregnant sisters, cousins, aunts, even my mother when she was carrying Jilly. Samantha, my love, you’ve been having morning sickness for nearly a week now.”

  She w