“Regina?” She sounded surprised. She’d forgotten that part, evidently.
“I don’t think she could manage without me. And you know, if I left her, I’d be broke. You should have a man who can take care of you.”
“I don’t care about money. I just want you.”
“And I want you too, baby,” he said. “But I need to think about my wife. Regina and I have a lot of history between us.”
“We can make our own history.” Brenda again.
Crouched in the bushes, I mouthed the words,Blah, blah, blah.The dialogue was as bad as what Jilly came up with for her American Girl dolls.
After that, Forrest and Brenda didn’t talk anymore. I heard a lot of sighing and panting, followed by rustling of leaves, the sound both of them made, as if they’d just climbed the stairs of the Empire State Building and now were near the top. She cried out. So did he. Every now and then one of them said, “Oh, baby.” That was about it.
All this time I’d been trying to catch the two of them together this way, but now that I had, I just wanted to get away. Only, if I got up to go, they’d hear me. And there was my racquet, leaned against the backboard. I couldn’t leave it there. So I sat in the bushes instead, writing it all down.
Then Forrest spoke again, but he sounded different this time. His voice was serious now.
“You need to understand that my wife is a mentally fragile person,” he said. “She tried to kill herself once.”
Then came Brenda’s response. Her voice took on a different tone as she spoke the words. No more soft, whispery endearments. She was all business now.
“When you think about it, maybe it wouldn’t be such a terrible thing if she did it.”
“Did it?” he said. “Did what?”
“If Regina did kill herself.”
55
Like Bringing Home a Good Report Card
Regina had instructed me to report back to her whenever I came up with relevant findings, and though at first I’d been hesitant to share with her what I’d learned about Forrest and Brenda, it was different now. As sickening as Brenda’s words had been, I felt excited to tell Regina what I’d learned at the tennis court that night.
The next morning—not a tennis day for the children, for once—I headed up to her bedroom again. She was leaned up against her pillow with a tray Prudence had made for her—half an English muffin, no butter, a glass of grapefruit juice—and her knitting. No evidence of progress on that front.
I handed Regina the notebook with my observations of Forrest and Brenda’s most recent rendezvous. I studied Regina’s face as she turned the pages. At one point, as she was reading, she actually let out something approximating laughter.
“I want to have your baby,” Regina read out loud, delivering a surprisingly accurate Brenda imitation. She let out a kind of snort. When she got to the place where Brenda raised the possibility of Regina committing suicide, though, the bitter smile disappeared. Her mouth formed a hard, straight line.
When she was finished going over my notes, she set them on her little bed tray next to the uneaten muffin. “Great job,” she told me. She could have been the coach of a girls’ basketball team that just won their game in overtime.
I couldn’t help myself. For all the discomfort I had felt about the assignment Regina had given me, a warm feeling passed through my body. It was almost as if Regina was my mother, and I’d brought home a good report card. Which I always did, actually. My real mother just never said anything about those.
“We’re finally getting someplace,” Regina said. “But we need more concrete evidence. You need to catch them in the act. And we need pictures. Recordings. The two of them, in the act.”
“What do you recommend?” I asked.
Regina drew in her breath, as if the very thought brought her physical pain.
“They’ll meet up on the island,” she said. “I should have realized this sooner, but the island’s a sacred place for me. For the two of us. I guess I didn’t want to picture Forrest there with anyone but me. But if I know my husband, that’s where he’d bring a lover.
“I’m guessing he’ll pick her up first so they can motor over together to their little love nest,” she said. Her voice, which more often than not came across as sneering and bitter, had a different tone this time, and her eyes had taken on a crazed look.
Now came the sadness. That moss was hers. So was the island. For generations it had belonged to her family. “Private property” signs lined the shore.
“We need to get you onto the island,” she said. “I have a feeling that’s where they go.”
It had been a long time since Regina had set foot on the island. Still, she knew every inch of it.
