The Sourdough Wars

showed in his face. “You couldn’t have done anything, son.”
    “I wish I hadn’t been on that bus.”
    “Bus?”
    “Somebody killed her while I was on the bus. I figured it out.”
    “You couldn’t have known that would happen.”
    “I could have stopped it.”
    “Bobby, lots of people who were close to your mother wish they could have stopped it. It’s not your fault.”
    Tears started to run down his face, and Bob reached for him, to hug him, but he pulled away. “I’m the only one. Nobody else was around. And I wasn’t around when I should have been.”
    “Her boyfriend couldn’t stop it,” I said, hating myself. Bobby looked up at me now, hope struggling through the tears. “Boyfriend?”
    “If anyone could have, he could have. And he would have wanted to as much as you do.”
    “And so would I,” said Bob fervently.
    But Bobby ignored him; perhaps he didn’t believe him. “Did my mom have a boyfriend?”
    “Of course she did. You know him, don’t you?”
    He shook his head, apparently puzzled. “She had a boyfriend once. Right after we left here, Dad. But that was a long time ago.” The tears came more freely. “And now he’s dead, too. Will we all die, Daddy?”
    Bob reached for him again and this time, sobbing, the boy melted into his dad’s embrace. “Of course not, Bobby. Of course not. We’re going to be all right. It’s all going to be okay.”
    “You sure?”
    “Of course I’m sure.”
    While this was going on, I felt like a nematode. A drunken, derelict, tramp of a nematode, shunned, and rightly so, by all decent nematodes. Bob, apparently, was too much in shock to notice what I was doing. If he’d figured it out, he’d probably have booted me out by then. I hated myself, but I was in too deep to stop. “Your mom’s boyfriend is still alive,” I said. “Don’t you know who I mean? The guy who was backing her in the sourdough auction. You must know him.”
    Unaccountably, Bobby started laughing. “She didn’t have any boyfriend. Did Mom say that?”
    I didn’t answer, not sure at all what was going on. “Mom was like that. She liked people to think things sometimes that weren’t true. She didn’t have any boyfriend, Rebecca. No one could have helped her but me.”
    I saw the truth of what he was saying. Sally had been a great one for appearances, and appearing desirable was important to her. There hadn’t been any backer at all. She hadn’t a prayer of winning the auction. Or maybe she thought she could bid high and then find a backer to make good on the bid if she won. Her fantasies had just gotten away with her. I felt like a very stupid nematode.
    “Bobby,” I said, “I’m sure your mom would have been proud of you for being so brave about wanting to save her.” I stood up. “You’re a good boy.”
    Bob said, “I’ll walk you to the elevator.”
    When we were in the corridor, he thanked me for trying to make Bobby feel better, and I thanked the God of Moses and Abraham for somehow keeping my real motives from him.
    “I know this is terribly hard on you,” I said. “I just can’t think—”
    I stopped myself, but Bob urged me on: “You can’t think what?”
    “I can’t imagine who’d want to kill her.”
    “Me for one.”
    “But you seem to be taking this nearly as hard as Bobby.”
    He shrugged. “Part of that is on Bobby’s account. I feel like what happens to that kid happens to me. You know what I mean?”
    I nodded.
    “But I used to think I wanted to kill her. If I’d known it would hurt this bad when she died—on my own account, I mean, not just Bobby’s—I’d have, I don’t know, gone to confession or something.”
    “Is it too late?”
    He laughed at my ignorance. “No. Maybe I’ll do it.”
    I left, feeling dirty and debased and defeated. I hoped I would think twice the next time I decided to try to pump a child who’d just lost his mother. But I couldn’t help thinking how odd it was, what Bob had said—it was almost exactly what Anita had said about Peter. Here were two families, it seemed, in which everyone thought he wanted to kill everyone else, but in some perverse way they all loved each other.
    Except the one who’d done a couple of them in.

Chapter Seventeen
    Back in the Volvo, I found my thoughts returning to Clayton Thompson. After all, he wasn’t a member of the family. And he apparently had something to hide. A person with a secret is dangerous, particularly when there’s a lot at