“Laura, won’t you fol ow me, please?”
She waits until I’ve stepped inside before closing the front door, and then she leads the way across an enormous marble-floored hal .
The click of her high heels echo across the room. I’m wearing hiking boots, jeans, a jacket over a heavy sweater. I feel like a peasant. I fol ow her into the most beautiful library I’ve ever seen. It’s a ful two stories, with a first-floor mezzanine so that you can reach the books.
The bookcases are made out of a dark, polished wood. I think about the library in the island house. I’d loved it so much but compared to this place it would be a shack. There’s a fire burning in the grate and two armchairs are set up for conversation, facing the fire. There’s a glass of wine sitting on a table beside one chair. She takes that chair, points me to the other. She sips her wine and doesn’t offer me anything to drink.
“I am Antonia Spencer,” she says. “How may I help you, Laura?”
Her face is expressionless, her voice very cool. But I know the story that Michael has told her and I don’t blame her for hating me.
I’m surprised that I haven’t had to beg to be al owed into her home.
“I knew Tom. We met this summer. We were together for five weeks. I know that sounds like very little time, but we fel in love. We were very happy. Michael Dandridge told you a bunch of lies about me. None of what he told you was true. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry to tel you this, but the truth is that Michael murdered Tom. He admitted that to me. You have no reason to trust me, but if you give me ten minutes of your time, I’l tel you everything.”
She looks at me. Her lips are tight. She was pale to begin with— she has the kind of skin that never sees the sun—but she’s paler now. It’s easier for me, probably, that Tom’s dad isn’t here, but I wish for her sake that he was. I can’t imagine what it must be like to hear from a stranger that your only son has been murdered by someone you know and trust. She gets up and refil s her wineglass from a bottle that is tucked away behind the bar. She returns to her chair, sips, and places her glass on the table. She folds her hands on her lap.
“Tel me,” she says.
And I do. I tel her everything. I tel her about the little things and the big things. About how and why I fel in love, why I think Tom fel for me. The things we had in common—our love of books, our loneliness. I am too honest, maybe, but I am sure that only absolute truth wil help me here. I cry. I haven’t cried for so long but now it’s hard to stop. I tel her about Tom and Michael fighting, and about the terrible night when he catches me on the boat. I tel her about his confession and his threats. I don’t say anything about the baby. I’m not ready.
By the time I have finished she has fil ed and emptied her glass three times. Stil she has offered me nothing. No water, no wine, no words of comfort. The expression on her face has barely changed while I have been speaking. There is silence. I fish a tissue from my pocket and wipe my face, try to pul myself together. Stil there is silence. Eventual y, in desperation, I say—“Is Tom’s father here?”
“Stand up,” she says to me.
The words feel like a slap and I flinch.
“Sorry?”
“I said, stand up.”
I stand and she crosses over to me and I want to run away, but I hold my ground. She unzips my jacket, opens it wide and looks down at my round bel y. After a minute she lets my jacket drop. She walks toward the desk at the far end of the room and I zip my jacket back up, wrap my arms around myself protectively. I start to shiver, despite the heat from the fire. She takes a checkbook from the desk, uncaps a pen, and looks at me.
“How much?” she says.
“What?”
“How much to be rid of you?”
She can’t have understood me. I haven’t explained properly. I’m too emotional, too messy. I try again. “Michael—” She cuts across me.
“I don’t wish to discuss it further. I am, in fact, wil ing to pay you to ensure that this story is not told again, anywhere, at any time, to any person. Do you understand what I am saying to you, Laura? I wil pay you, and you wil be required to sign a nondisclosure agreement.
If you breach that agreement, the consequences wil be terrible.”
I stand there for what must be minutes. I think that she doesn’t believe me, that I need to try again. I try, for the thousandth time, to think of any proof I can lay before her to show her that Michael has lied. Surely if I can show proof of even a smal lie, she wil start to believe me? But then, as I look at the cool, remote expression on her face, I think of everything Tom ever told me about her （which was so, so little—she’d barely been in his life） and I begin to understand. She doesn’t care. Not if Tom kil ed himself, not if he was murdered. She doesn’t want a public scandal. Maybe she doesn’t want conflict with the Dandridge family. I don’t know what their business or social dealings might be. What I know for sure is that she doesn’t want me and she doesn’t want anything to do with Tom’s baby.