Melancholy Baby

Robert B. Parker Melancholy Baby

FOR JEAN:

Like the kicker in a julep for two

1

My ex-husband was getting married to a woman I wanted to kill. I didn’t actually know her, and killing her would only make matters worse. But I got as much pleasure out of the idea as I could before I had to let go of it.

He didn’t take the coward’s way out and simply send me an invitation. He came to see me.

“She better be nice to Rosie,” I said.

“I wouldn’t let anyone not be nice to Rosie,” Richie said. “Do you think I love Rosie less than you do?”

I didn’t say anything for a bit, then, finally, I said, “No.”

“Thank you,” Richie said.

“And, obviously, stupid question, you love this woman.”

“Yes,” Richie said.

It got out before I could shut it off.

“More than you love me?” I said.

He didn’t say anything for a bit, then, finally, he said, “No.”

“This raises a question,” I said.

“It is, I’ve found, possible to love more than one person,” Richie said. “I love you, and I love her. She’s willing to marry me.”

“And you want to be married,” I said.

“Yes.”

“And I don’t.”

“I know.”

“It has nothing to do with not loving you,” I said.

“I know.”

“I just can’t be married, Richie.”

“I know.”

I had been looking at Richie for so long. He got a dark shadow on his face if he didn’t shave every day. He had the strongest-looking hands I’d ever seen. He had thick black hair and wore it short. He seemed never to need a haircut. I knew what he looked like naked. I knew what he looked like asleep. I knew what he smelled like and sounded like and felt like. I knew how he thought and what he thought.

Richie stood.

“I wish there was something else to say, Sunny.”

I stood, too. He opened his arms. We hugged each other. It was eviscerating. Richie stepped away; neither of us spoke. He bent over and picked up Rosie and kissed her on the nose. And hugged her. Then he put her back down and turned and left.

I sat on my bed for a time. My eyes filled but I didn’t cry. Rosie jumped up beside me and lay down and wagged her tail.

“Don’t you ever, ever love her,” I said to Rosie.

Rosie looked at me as only bull terriers can look. She offered no objection. I wiped my eyes and walked down the length of my loft to the kitchen and got a bottle of Irish whiskey and poured some in a highball glass. I took it with me to the kitchen table and sat in my chair and looked out the window. Rosie came and got up in her chair and looked hopeful. I took a cracker out of the canister on the table and gave it to her. My sister, Elizabeth, would love this. My father would ask if there was anything he could do to help. My mother would assume it was my fault.

I drank a little more whiskey. I could feel a real cry beginning to form in my throat. I tried to swallow it. But then I was taking little short breaths, and making little short sounds, and it was too late. I gave up and let it come. Rosie looked at me uncertainly. She wasn’t used to this. I cried hard for a while, leaning my forehead against my left hand. With my right I tried to comfort Rosie, who was nervous.

We’d been divorced for five years. What the hell did I expect? It wasn’t like he’d been celibate all that time, or I had. It wasn’t just the finality of my former husband remarrying. It wasn’t even that I loved him still, though I did. It was the unyielding reality that, as far as I could tell, I couldn’t marry anybody, live with anybody, share my life fully with anybody.

I drank some more whiskey.

I listened to the paroxysmal quality of my own crying.

I bent over and picked up Rosie and held her in my lap.

“Only you,” I said to her. “You’re the only one I can live with.”

I rocked back and forth in my chair with her for a time.

“Only you.” I gasped. “Only you. Only you.”

Why can’t I live with anyone but a dog?

What the fuck is wrong with me?

2

In the morning I was still red-eyed, even after I showered and put on makeup. By muscle memory, I fed Rosie and took her out. When I came in with her, I wasn’t hungry. I drank some orange juice and made some coffee. The phone rang. When I answered it, my voice sounded thick.

“Sunny?”

“Yes.”

“It’s Barbara Stein. Do you have a cold?”

I said, “Yes.” It seemed more dignified than “No, I’ve been crying a lot.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. Are you well enough to do a little detective work?”

“Yes.”

“You’re still in the detective business?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, good. I have a young woman who came into my office late yesterday. I’d done legal work for her family from time to time. You know, closings, wills, that kind of thing. She wants to find her biological parents.”

“Can’t you help her with that?”

“We’re a small firm,” Barbara said. “Just me and Jake and a paralegal... and this is going to be a little tricky, I think. The parents claim she’s theirs, that she’s not adopted.”

“DNA?”

“The parents won’t submit. Say it’s an insulting invasion of their privacy.”

“Oh, my,” I said. “Birth records?”