Home Safe by Elizabeth Berg Page A

Dan didn't buy a boat. She'll brainstorm with Midge about various possibilities. Conversations about this problem are easier since the first “I'm sorry but let's just get this out of the way” one. The one where Midge asked about prostitutes and mistresses and gambling and hidden drug habits and second families. “What do you think he was?” Helen asked Midge. “A politician?” They'd gotten a little laugh out of that. A little one.
    It remains a painful mystery why Dan withdrew such a large sum of money, in cash, from their account. For Helen, the biggest problem is not how she will manage financially. She can always sell the house. She has proven that she can get a job. No, what bothers her most is her sudden inability to feel certain about who Dan was. It makes her sad; it makes her feel foolish; it makes her frustrated—to the point of tears one day, to pounding rage the next—to understand that she might never know for sure where that money went. Only Tessa is stalwart in her belief that nothing underhanded could possibly have happened. Tessa still sees Dan exactly the way she saw him before, and Helen does nothing to take away from that—let the girl have her father in the only way she can. But for Helen, it's different. She sits sometimes studying photos of Dan, looking for something she didn't see before. She imagines them making love, wondering if, when he closed his eyes, it was in pleasure or to hide something. She re-creates conversations, trying to retroactively find clues; she regrets that she was never the kind of wife to check receipts, mileage, to look for lipstick on collars, for heaven's sake. Mostly, she is bitter that in his death Dan has managed to present her with a problem on top of a problem: in addition to recovering from his loss, she now must also find an answer to this puzzle.
    One of the things she and Dan used to argue about, one of the things that drove him crazy, was the way she would sometimes refuse to work things through and pretend instead that everything was fine. And now that is precisely what she decides to do; she puts the money problem in the subbasement of her mind. She will not discuss it or any other problem with Midge. Instead she will celebrate with her the merits of naked burgers at Wendy's—yet another thing she and Midge agree on, that a good burger needs nothing but salt. And a vanilla shake. In the car, she turns up the radio, taps her fingers against the steering wheel in rhythm to the sound.
    Just before she gets to Wendy's, Helen sees a shoe in the middle of the street, a man's dress shoe. Could some sort of writing exercise be made of this? Something about all an article of clothing can suggest? A pair of dusty tap shoes? A blue negligee? A box of monogrammed men's handkerchiefs, never opened? Stop , she tells herself. Before the group meets, she will have a plan in place. She will. She hopes.

nine
    H ELEN LEAPS OUT OF THE SHOWER, PULLS HER NIGHTGOWN ON over her hastily dried body, and races to the ringing phone. Too late. Whoever it was hung up. It wouldn't be any of the boat dealerships she's most recently called; they would leave a message. She's got only one more call out; then she'll be back to square one: What did Dan do with that money?
    She makes a pot of coffee, pours herself a cup, and goes upstairs to her study. She'll try to write something. Both her agent and her editor have told her not to worry about when she gets the next book out, both have suggested that someone as prolific as she deserves a hiatus, but they don't know about her money problems—she was embarrassed to tell them, and until she learns more, she doesn't know what to tell them. They also don't know the extreme difficulty Helen is having writing; she doesn't want to admit it to them and make the problem that much more real. “Take your time,” each has said kindly, but with a breeziness that suggests they're confident something will soon emerge, a confidence Helen does not