Remember Me Read Free Page B

covers. The night had turned sharply cooler, but he knew the drop in temperature was temporary. By noon it would be a fine Cape day, sunny with the midsummer heat tempered by salt-filled ocean breezes. But it was still cool now, and if Vivian were here he’d have closed the windows before she got out of bed.
    Today Vivian was being buried.
    As he got up, Scott glanced down at the bed and thought of how often in the three months they’d been married he’d brought coffee to her when she woke up. Then they would snuggle in bed and drink it together.
    He could see her still, her scrunched up knees supporting the saucer, her back against a pile of pillows, remember her joking about the brass headboard.
    â€œMother redecorated my room when I was sixteen,” she’d told him in that breathy voice she had. “I wanted one of these so much, but Mother said I didn’thave any flair for interior decoration and brass beds were getting too common. The first thing I did when I got my hands on my own money was to buy the most ornate one I could find.” Then she’d laughed. “I have to admit that an upholstered headboard is a lot more comfortable to lean against.”
    He’d taken the cup and saucer from her hand that morning and placed it on the floor. “Lean against me,” he’d suggested.
    Funny that particular memory hitting him now. Scott went into the kitchen, made coffee and toast, and sat at the counter. The front of the house faced the street, the back overlooked Oyster Pond. From the side window through the foliage he could see the corner of the Spragues’ place.
    Vivian had told him that Mrs. Sprague would be put in a nursing home soon. “Henry doesn’t like me to visit her anymore, but we’ll have to invite him over to dinner when he’s alone,” she had said.
    â€œIt’s fun to have company when we do it together,” she’d added. Then she had wrapped her arms around his neck and hugged him fiercely. “You do really love me, don’t you, Scott?”
    How many times had he reassured her, held her, stroked her hair, comforted her until, once again cheerful, she’d switched to listing reasons why she loved him. “I always hoped my husband would be over six feet tall, and you are. I always hoped he’d be blond and handsome so that everyone would envy me. Well, you are, and they do. But most important of all, I wanted him to be crazy about me.”
    â€œAnd I am.” Over and over again he had told her that.
    Scott stared out the window, thinking over the last two weeks, reminding himself that some of the Carpenter family cousins, and many of Viv’s friends, had rushed to console him from the minute she was reportedmissing. But a significant number of people had not. Her parents had been especially aloof. He knew that in the eyes of many he was nothing more than a fortune hunter, an opportunist. Some of the news accounts in the Boston and Cape papers had printed interviews with people who were openly skeptical of the circumstances of the accident.
    The Carpenter family had been prominent in Massachusetts for generations. Along the way they had produced senators and governors. Anything that happened to them was news.
    He got up and crossed to the stove for more coffee. Suddenly the thought of the hours ahead, of the memorial service and the burial, of the inevitable presence of the media was overwhelming. Everyone would be watching him.
    â€œDamn you all, we were in love!” he said fiercely, slamming the percolator down on the stove.
    He took a quick gulp of coffee. It was boiling hot. His mouth burning, he rushed to the sink and spat it out.

6
    T hey stopped in Buzzards Bay long enough to pick up coffee, rolls and a copy of the Boston Globe. As they drove over the Sagamore Bridge in the packedstation wagon, Menley sighed, “Do you think there’s coffee in heaven?”
    â€œThere’d better be.