CHAPTER 46
Julie
I waited for Ethan in the parking lot of his father’s independent-living residence in Lakewood. I’d arrived as the sun was setting and I lowered my windows, letting a light, hot breeze fill my car. I kept my eyes trained on the entrance to the lot as I watched for Ethan’s truck.
It had been a long and difficult day, starting with my discovery of the remnants of Shannon’s party in my house. While I was at my mother’s, Shannon and Tanner worked like dogs to clean everything up. Tanner had been contrite, but my opinion of him had taken a nosedive from which he would have a hard time recovering.
When I got home from Mom’s, the house was immaculate and Shannon and Tanner were out. I was glad of that, because I was still reeling from my mother’s revelation about her relationship with Ross Chapman. I wasn’t sure who had killed my sister, but I knew now that I’d had little, if anything, to do with it. Listening to my mother speak had lifted forty-one years’ worth of guilt from my shoulders. Isabel had not died because of me. I had been little more than a blind alley in a complex maze of a story. My guilt was replaced by a deep sympathy for my mother, who had lived with her own demons for most of her life.
I’d sat in my spotless living room, the phone in my lap, for many minutes before getting the courage to call Ethan. Once I did, I told him about our conversation with my mother, being careful how I couched it. I made her one-time, extramarital lovemaking with Ross Chapman sound consensual. Maybe it was. Who knew what sort of twist my mother had given the event in the past sixty years to ease her conscience? I didn’t want to hurt Ethan more than I had to.
He grew so quiet on the phone, I thought he’d hung up.
“My parents had such a good marriage, though,” he said finally.
“That’s probably true,” I reassured him. I hated that I was shaking his world. “So did my parents. What happened between your father and my mother was very early in both their marriages. They were young and…maybe they were still adjusting to being married.”
“So,” Ethan said slowly, “if the note was written to my father, that still doesn’t explain how it got in your bread box.”
“I know,” Julie said.
“Are you thinking he…that he was the one who…” He couldn’t seem to finish the sentence.
“I don’t know, Ethan,” I said. “I don’t know what to think.”
“I need to talk to him,” he said. “In person. How do you feel about going with me?”
I thought of how I had Lucy to share the burden of the past with me. Ethan had no one. I didn’t want him to go through this alone. “Of course I’ll go with you,” I said.
So here I sat, while my mixed-up daughter was out somewhere with her baby’s father and Lucy comforted our distraught mother.
I saw Ethan’s truck turn into the lot, and I got out of my car as he pulled up next to me.
Once out of his truck, he drew me into a hug. “Thanks for agreeing to meet me here,” he said into my ear. He held on to me for a minute and I pressed my palms flat against his back.
“You okay?” I whispered.
He let go of me. “Not really,” he said. I could see the frown lines between his eyebrows and the tight set of his jaw.
“Does he know we’re coming?” I asked.
He nodded, taking my hand as we walked toward the entrance to the large brick building. “I called him and ended up telling him nearly everything because he kept asking questions. I said that your mother told you about her relationship with him and the possibility that he had been Isabel’s father,” he said. “And I told him about the note in the giraffe.”
“What did he say?”
“Nothing for a minute. Then I could hear him crying.” Ethan shuddered, squeezing my hand tightly. “I’ve never seen my father cry,” he said. “I’ve never even seen him near tears, not when my mother or Ned died. He couldn’t speak, and I told him that I was coming over and not to worry. That we’d work everything out.” We were in the lobby now and Ethan pushed the button for the elevator. “He said ‘all right.’ I swear, Julie, he sounded like a scared little kid.”
A couple of the residents—two elderly women using walkers—got on the elevator with us, so we said nothing as we rode to the fifth floor. We got off the elevator, and Ethan led me down the hall at a quick pace. He knocked on a door bearing a small, faux-ivy wreath. We could hear noise inside. A thud. A squeak. But no one answered Ethan’s knock.
Ethan leaned close to the door. “Dad?” he called. Still no response.
He looked down at his key chain and sorted through the keys until he found the right one. Slipping it into the lock, he pushed open the door.
We were in a small, neat living/dining room combination, with heavy, dark cherry furniture and rich leather wingback chairs befitting a former chief justice.
“Dad?” Ethan called toward what must have been the bedroom. He took a step in that direction, but froze at the sound of a scream coming from somewhere outside the building. We looked toward the living-room windows. One of them was open, the screen missing.
“God, no!” Ethan rushed toward the window.
I followed him and rested my hand on his back as he leaned out the window to look at the ground below.
“No,” he wailed. “Oh, my God, Dad! No.”
Now there was a chorus of screams coming from the ground far below us and I started to tremble. I did not want to see what he was seeing. Ethan pulled away from the window and dropped to the floor, his hands covering his face. I sat down next to him and wrapped my arms around him, and I rocked him, as we waited for the sound of sirens.
Mr. Chapman had used the second bedroom in his apartment as an office, and it was there, on an otherwise empty desktop, that one of the police officers found the letter addressed to Ethan.
Dearest Son,
On August 5, 1962, Isabel Bauer approached me in our backyard and slipped a note to me. That was the note you found, in which she threatened to tell her father about my indiscretion with her mother. I suppose all these years later, it’s hard for you to understand how threatening that was to me. Charles Bauer could do irreparable damage to my career. He had power and plenty of friends in high places. He could easily have ruined me and my political aspirations.
I knew that Ned was in the habit of meeting Isabel on the beach at midnight. I forbade him to meet her that night, but I overheard him talking to her on the phone, telling her he might be able to sneak out after all. I saw that as my opportunity to talk to her alone. I lit into Ned, telling him he could not go out. Then I went to meet her myself. Please understand, I had no intention of killing Isabel. I merely wanted to talk to her in private so that I could dissuade her from speaking to her father about me. I found her on the platform. It was dark and I think as I swam out to her, she may have thought I was Ned. She was furious when she discovered I had come to speak with her. She tried to jump in the water to get away from me, but I grabbed her arm and we struggled. I guess that’s when her sister heard her scream and yell for help, although I don’t remember everything that happened. All I know is we argued and she fell into the water. I did not push her. I had no idea that she’d hit her head or that she’d drowned. I thought she was simply swimming underwater to get away from me. I didn’t know she’d died until the next morning. I told the police I’d spent the night stargazing with Ned in our yard, knowing that Ned would think my lie was meant to protect him, but it had really been to protect myself and my career.
I’ve struggled with my guilt all these years, not only over Isabel Bauer’s death but over Ned’s descent into depression and alcoholism as well. I am quite certain that Ned found the note from Isabel, as it disappeared from the cigarette box in which I’d placed it, though he never said a word to me about it. I’m sure that he put two and two together and realized my role in Isabel’s death. I feel as though I killed them both.
Don’t grieve for me, Ethan. I’ve had far more joy in my life than I’ve deserved and much of that has come from watching you become the skilled carpenter, wonderful father and honorable man you are today. I love you.
Dad