Uncharted by Graeme Connell

Author:Graeme Connell [Connell, Graeme]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781512751420
Publisher: WestBow Press
Published: 2016-08-09T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-One

Claire Rhodes walks slowly up the front path. She hesitates when she feels Brewster’s eyes watching her from a window somewhere inside the house. She stops, closes her eyes for a second and whispers a soft prayer for courage.

The door opens just as she’s about to press the bell. “Hello, Brewster. I’m Claire Rhodes, Melanie’s friend.”

“I know you’re one of those church do-gooders,” Brewster says. “What do you want?”

“I have to speak with you. Will you let me in?”

He says nothing and stands to one side, holding the door open. He watches as Claire walks in and heads toward the kitchen. What’s this all about? he wonders, trying to recall if this is one of the women who visited just days after Melanie’s accident, when it was all news in the paper. He shuts the door hard to let her know he’s not in the mood for a social chit-chat, that she’s in the house under sufferance.

He finds her setting the kettle on the stove. “Best to talk over a cuppa, I say,” she says with a smile. She’s nervous; he notes the tiny beads of perspiration on her upper lip and around her eyes. “I’ve made tea here many times with Melanie,” she says. “We were together in a prayer group at church and often met here in the afternoon while you were at work. Melanie was my prayer partner, and I totally miss her, you know. So much wisdom.”

Brewster says nothing. He sits at the breakfast counter and watches, allowing this interloper to prattle on as she gets cups from the cupboard and rattles the empty tea canister. She opens a pantry door and picks out a box of herbal tea bags. “Lemon ginger,” she says. “That’s a nice one. Okay for you?”

As she pours the boiling water into his glass mugs, he challenges her presence in the house. “I’m not in a social, tea-sipping mood,” he says. “I’m sorry, but I think you should say what you came to say and leave.”

Claire does her best to ignore his remark. She puts a mug in front of him and stands on the opposite side of the counter. She looks toward the lounge as if she’d prefer to be sitting there rather than standing in front of him. She seems finally at a loss for words. Brewster softens.

“What is it, Claire? Why have you just walked into my house?”

“Melanie and I were close—like sisters, we always said. We could talk about all sorts of things, especially my relationship with my husband. She helped me a lot; she had that way.” Claire’s eyes moisten, and she looks beyond Brewster to the window. “She loved you, you know. My, how she loved you. I did not know it was possible to love someone like that, but she did. But of course you know that.”

Brewster rewinds 25—or is it 30?—years to when he sought Melanie’s help to restore their crumbling, separating marriage. He wanted to stay with her, to acknowledge and keep the commitment he’d made in that church where they married: to love and to cherish.

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