The little I ate, I ate because I didn't want to draw any attention to my state. Our longest
conversation came when I suggested Tony consider taking a short vacation.
"A change of scenery might do you a world of good," I insisted.
"Would you come, too?" he asked quickly.
"Oh, I couldn't," I said. "Not with Logan so involved with the new factory in Winnerow. I'll have to spend more time with him Just like any man, he doesn't know when he's working too hard or too long."
Tony smiled and nodded.
"Jillian used to constantly complain about that. She was always after me to take her on a special honeymoon and if I protested about the work I had, she would tell me to leave it to Troy. Troy was creative; he was a creative genius, but he was no administrator, no manager.
"Still, if it hadn't have been for Jillian, I probably wouldn't have taken the holiday trips I did take, or gone to the parties, or held the dinners here. She could be such a bright spot, such a jewel, so full of energy, moving through this house with a trail of laughter behind her, her jasmine scent left lingering in the air.
"Oh, I know she doted on herself far too much, but it was nice to have something soft and beautiful, and even if only illusionary, someone forever young. Funny," he said, sitting back and smiling to himself, "but even when she was shut away in her suite, caking herself with makeup and dousing herself with perfume, I felt good knowing she was there. I could walk past her doors and inhale her scent, and remember." Then his voice became mournful, and his faraway eyes focused on me, the pain returning to them, bright and piercing.
"Now the doors are shut, the hallway smells like any other hallway in this big house, and there is only the silence." He shook his head and looked down.
"Tony, this is why I think you need a change of scenery, if only for a short while. Tell me some of the things that have to be done over that time, and I'll look after them for you. I can do it," I assured him.
He looked up, smiling. "I know you can. I don't worry about that anymore." He took a deep breath and sighed. "I'll see," he said. "Maybe."
After dinner he retired to his office to work. I tried to distract myself by reading, but Fanny's laughter kept echoing in my memory and pulling my eyes from the pages and lines. Finally I went upstairs to wait for Logan in our suite.
It was very late when he finally arrived. I had fallen asleep in my clothes, but my eyes snapped open instantly the moment he walked into the suite.
He stood there looking at me. He looked like he had run all the way-His eyes were bloodshot, his shoulders sagged, and his hair was disheveled. It looked as if he had been put through an electric mixer. He hadn't shaved and his full-faced beard looked scraggly. His suit was wrinkled and his tie loosened, the collar unbuttoned. It was as if Fanny's hold on him was still visible.
For a moment we just looked at each other. Then I sat up, brushed back my hair with the palms of my hands, and took a deep breath.
"I want you to tell me the truth, Logan," I said, my voice seemingly devoid of emotion. "Did you make love with my sister?"
"Make love," he repeated, sneering. He took off his suit jacket and draped it over a chair by his closet. "I'd hardly call what happened between us love."
"I don't want to play word games with you, Logan. Fanny called to tell me she was pregnant and to tell me the child was yours. Is the child yours?"
"How would I know? How could any man be sure when it comes to Fanny?"
"Tell me what happened, Logan," I said, turning away. I looked down at the floor. I felt stunned. My whole body became as numb as if I had slipped and fallen into one of the forest ponds in the Willies when they had only a paper-thin sheet of ice on the surface. How deeply were Logan and I about to sink now? I wondered.
"It happened when we first started work on the factory," he began. "I was just so wrapped up in everything, I didn't think clearly. She came there a few times and just hung around, watching me work, talking to the laborers. I didn't think much of it. I certainly wasn't going to chase her away, although once or twice I did ask her not to distract the men when they were busy."
"Go on," I said. He walked across the room and stood by the mirror, his back to me.
"One day she said she was going to come over to the cabin with a hot home-cooked meal. She said she only wanted to make up for some of the trouble she had caused us; she only wanted to be thought of as a sister again, to be part of the family." He spun around.
"I believed her, Heaven. She was very convincing and seemed very pathetic."
"Fanny is a wonderful actress," I said.
"She cried to me about her lost child, talked about how hard it was to live in the same community with her, seeing her from time to time, but unable to be a mother to her. Then she talked about Jane and Keith and how they won't have anything to do with her. She told me about her marriage of convenience to old Mallory, how she got a nice house and some money out of it, but how she was all alone, how she was without any family. She seemed so sincere that I thought maybe she was changing. Maybe time and maturity had made her see things."
"So you made love to her?" I asked, turning on him. He shook his head.
"Not because of that. That's not what happened. She did show up with the hot meal and we were having a good dinner together. She had me laughing at stories about the old days, about some of the naughty things she had done in school." He stared at me a moment, as if deciding whether or not to go on. I would be spared no ugly details, I thought.
"And?"