East of Niece by Randye Lordon

Author:Randye Lordon
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-03-03T16:00:00+00:00

FOUR

It felt as if the next three hours took several days to pass, but, in fact, it was only three hours. During that time, Vickie made a few unsuccessful calls, looking for Gavin. No one had seen or heard from him that day. Finally, Winston, the friend with whom he had supposedly spent the day in Cannes, returned Vickie’s call.

As it turned out, Winston had just returned from Corsica, not Cannes, where he had been doing research for the past ten days. Vickie was stunned to learn that he hadn’t even spoken to Gavin in several weeks.

As I listened to Vickie’s conversation with Winston, I couldn’t help but hear Nora’s parting words loud and clear. “Sis, I’m worried about Vickie. This Gavin is just too smooth—you know what I mean? Byron and I met him when we were out there in January, and he’s charming all right, like a snake-oil salesman. I just don’t trust him. Meet him, Sydney, and tell me what you think.”

At the rate we were going, I was beginning to wonder if I would ever meet Gavin, my invisible thirty-one-year-old nephew by marriage.

It was very odd: Though Gavin and I had never met, I felt strongly connected to his parents. Perhaps because Leslie and I had passed the site of their accident or because no one who knew the Masons knew they were gone, but all three of us seemed to share the responsibility for being the first to mourn their loss. It is a strange sensation to grieve the passing of someone you never knew.

Right around midnight, when we were all so exhausted that we could barely speak, Vickie suggested that we go back to our hotel and get some sleep. Sleep was definitely the next thing on the agenda, but Leslie and I insisted that we stay with Vickie. Neither of us wanted her to be alone, especially when she still didn’t know where Gavin was.

Being that Vickie is almost as stubborn as I am, she was adamant that we leave her alone. “Hey, what would I do if you weren’t here? Besides, when Gavin does get home, I don’t want to be inhibited because you’re here. I want to be able to scream at him without an audience, you know?”

Of course we knew, but it didn’t make it any easier to leave her alone in the apartment with her rage and her loss.

Then again, as she said, what would she have done if we hadn’t been there? I taped our hotel number up by every phone and finally left her to face her husband on her own terms.

* * *

“I can’t believe she’s married,” I said, sighing, as Leslie and I strolled back to our hotel. The town was perfectly still. Our footsteps were the only sounds in the night. I felt as if I had been run over by a train.

“Where do you think he is?” She slipped her arm through mine.

I shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe he tied one on with some friends.

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