Genuine Lies

you, it would be easy.”
    It wasn’t his drinking that disturbed her, but the desperate tone in his voice she knew had nothing to do with Irish genes or Irish whiskey. “What it is, Victor? What’s happened?”
    “Muriel’s been hospitalized again.” The thought of his wife sent him back for the glass of whiskey, and the bottle.
    “I’m sorry.” Eve laid a hand over his, not to stop him but to offer as she always had—always would—all the comfort she could. “I know what hell it is for you, but you can’t continually blame yourself.”
    “Can’t I?” He poured and drank deliberately, with desperation and without enjoyment. Eve knew he wanted to get drunk. Needed to. And the hell with tomorrow’s payment. “She still blames me, Eve, and why shouldn’t she? If I had been there, if I had been with her when she went into labor instead of off in London shooting a fucking movie, we might all be free today.”
    “That was almost forty years ago,” Eve said impatiently. “Isn’t that enough penance for any God, for any church? And your being there wouldn’t have saved the baby.”
    “I’ll never be sure.” And because of that, he’d never found absolution. “She laid there for hours before she managed to call for help. Goddamm it, Eve, she should never have gotten pregnant in the first place, not with her physical problems.”
    “It was her choice,” Eve snapped. “And it’s an old story.”
    “The beginning of everything—or the end of it. Losing the baby broke her until she was as delicate mentally as shewas physically. Muriel’s never gotten over the loss of the child.”
    “Or let you. I’m sorry, Victor, but it hurts me, it infuriates me to watch her make you suffer for something that was beyond your control. I know she’s not well, but I find her illness a poor excuse for ruining your life. And mine,” she added bitterly. “By God, and mine.”
    He looked at her, troubled gray eyes seeing the pain in hers and the wasted years between them. “It’s hard for a strong woman to sympathize with a weak one.”
    “I love you. I hate what she’s done to you. And to me.” She shook her head before he could speak. Again her hands reached out to cover his. This ground had been well trod. It was fruitless to drag their heels over it again. “I’ll survive. I have and will. But I’d like to believe that before I die I’d see you happy. Truly happy.”
    Unable to answer, he squeezed her fingers, drawing what he needed from the contact. After forcing himself to take several long breaths, he was able to tell her the worst of his fears. “I’m not sure she’ll pull out of this one. She took Seconal.”
    “Oh, God.” Thinking only of him, she wrapped her arms around him. “Oh, Victor, I’m so sorry.”
    He wanted to burrow against her, against that soft sympathy—and the want sliced at him because he could still see his wife’s colorless face. “They pumped her out, but she’s in a coma.” He scrubbed at his face, but couldn’t wipe away the weariness. “I’ve had her transferred, discreetly, to Oak Terrace.”
    Eve saw Nina come to the door, and shook her head. Dinner would wait. “When did all this happen, Victor?”
    “I found her this morning.” He didn’t resist when Eve took his arm and led him to a chair. He settled there, before the fire, with his lover’s scent and his own guilt hammering at his senses. “In her bedroom. She’d put on the lace peignoir I’d bought her for our twenty-fifth anniversary, when we’d tried, again, to put things back together. She’d made up her face. It’s the first time I’d seen her in lipstick for over a year.” He leanedforward, burying his head in his hands while Eve massaged his shoulders. “She was clutching the little white booties she’d knitted for the baby. I thought I’d gotten rid of all those things, but she must have hidden them somewhere. The bottle of pills was beside the bed, with a note.”
    Behind them the fire crackled, full of life and heat.
    “It said that she was tired, that she wanted to be with her little girl.” He sat back, groping for Eve’s hand. “The worst of it was, we’d argued the night before. She’d gone out to meet someone, she wouldn’t tell me who. But whoever it was had gotten her stirred up about your book. When she got home she was wild, in a dangerous rage. I was to stop you, I had to stop you. She would not have her humiliations and tragedies put into print. The only