Rachel Goddard 01 - The Heat of the Moon

Minnesota. Rachel, don’t you know when your parents got married?”
    “Not really.” Here was my opening, and I tried to sound as if it were all occurring to me on the spot. “Now that I think about it, I don’t know much of anything about their marriage. Mother won’t talk about him, you know.”
    Theo shifted in his chair and seemed to be scanning the books on the shelves behind me. “Well, of course, it’s still painful for her. Losing him when they were both so young was a terrible blow. Terrible. She was very much in love with him.”
    Why was it hard for me to imagine my mother as a young woman deeply in love?
    “Did you know them while they were married?” I asked.
    “Oh, no. I completely lost touch with Judith after she earned her doctorate and went back to Minnesota. I had no contact with her until she called, out of the blue, to tell me her husband had been killed in an accident and she wanted to get away from home and all the reminders.”
    “So she came back here with Michelle and me. Just the three of us.”
    Theo nodded. “Yes. Well, you know about that. Renee and I helped her get set up in practice, but she didn’t require a great deal of help. She’s always been a superb therapist, and her reputation spread quickly.”
    “Did you ever meet my father?” I asked again.
    “Oh, yes. He came to visit her once when she was my student. Actually, I seem to recall he was here because he had business in Washington. In any case, she brought him to one of our little buffets, you know the kind of party Renee liked to give for students and faculty. He made quite a stir among the women, as I recall.”
    “Really? How do you mean?” 
    “Oh, his looks, of course, to begin with. You know how handsome he was. It was extraordinary the effect he had when he walked into a room. But that was only part of it.”
    “I don’t remember any of that.” How had Mother felt about other women being attracted to her husband on sight?
    “Well, look at his pictures and add to his handsome face a charming personality, very smooth, very self-confident, a talent for witticisms—”
    He went on, but I’d frozen on one phrase: look at his pictures. Theo should know the pictures were gone, that I had destroyed them. Had he simply forgotten?
    “I have to admit,” he said, “I was a bit worried about Judith marrying someone so different from herself. Not just the personalities, but the backgrounds.”
    “How were their backgrounds different?”
    He cocked his head, frowning. “Rachel, that’s a very strange question.”
    “Why? I don’t know the answer.”
    He studied me, his frown deepening. At last he sighed and said, a statement rather than a question, “Judith has never told you about the trouble in her family.”
    I went still and cold inside. “No.”
    He averted his head, staring into the empty grate of the fireplace. “I thought surely she would have told you by now.”
    I waited for him to go on, but he didn’t. Bursting with frustration, I demanded, “Tell me what you mean. What kind of trouble in her family?”
    “Rachel, if your mother wanted you to know—”
    I jumped up, dropping Sophia off my lap and startling both cats into resentful screeches. “Why is it up to Mother? This is my family we’re talking about too, my flesh and blood. What’s the big secret? You obviously know. Why shouldn’t I?”
    He was silent for so long I thought I’d scream. But I could see him thinking. I stood with my hands clenched at my sides and made myself wait for him to speak.
    “Rachel, dear girl,” he said, “please sit down.”
    When I was on the couch again, facing him, he said, “It’s not so much a secret as something your mother simply doesn’t like to revisit. I’ve certainly never felt it was my place to talk to you about it. And since you’ve never asked before—”
    “Theo!”
    He raised a hand, asking for patience. “Judith’s parents, their home life, it was a dreadful situation. Devastation and chaos. It’s a testament to her strength of character that she made such a success of herself. She’s an admirable woman. If you want to know more than that, you’ll have to ask your mother.”
    I rubbed at the tiny fierce pain between my eyes. Devastation and chaos. I couldn’t remember Mother ever talking about her family. It was one more subject that wasn’t discussed in our home. But what astounded me was the realization that I’d never given them more than a passing