In the living room, the old woman had been planted on the big puffy sofa with all the other flowers and was contentedly munching her way through a plate of fresh cookies. “I don’t mean to spoil your snack,” Desmond said to her. “I just have one more question.”

“The interview is over,” Lorna said. “I made that clear. Period.”

“Oh, let him ask,” the old woman said. “He’s harmless enough.” She winked at Desmond. “Did you put sugar in these cookies, Lorna Doone?”

“It’s a simple, factual point. I’ve never been certain of the year your husband died.”

The old woman stuffed half a cookie into her mouth. “Which husband?”

“You had more than one?” Jane asked.

“Obviously,” Lorna said softly, “she’s confused.”

“Who wouldn’t be confused?” the old woman said. “First I’ve got this life, then I’ve got the other one, then I’m stuck in the loony bin. I’ve got my husband, her husband. Who wouldn’t be confused? It’s easier being nuts.”

Jane nudged Desmond, as if she wanted to tell him something surreptitiously. She probably wanted to tell him what he already knew. “One more question,” he said. “That’s all. I know you don’t want to anymore, but if you had to, could you still sing?”

She shook with one of her silent laughs. “I already told you, I never could sing. Just hit the high C and get the hell out of there. Sometimes, to piss off those g.d. nurses in the loony bin, I get up in the middle of the night and belt out a few bars of ‘Cry Me a River.’ You want to hear?”

Twenty-four

The Key to Everything

“I moaned about my husband all the time, but I loved him to death. Then he died. I never much cared for the second guy I lived with. My brother-in-law. But he was crazy about me. So I figured, ‘If you can’t have the person you love, you might as well take the booby prize and have the person who’s in love with you.

From Cry Me a River:

The Lives of Pauline Anderton by Desmond Sullivan

1.

By the time they pulled into the parking lot of the Gulf City Hotel, the rain was coming down so hard, they seemed to be driving underwater. All Jane could see through the windshield were the vague shapes of buildings and trees. Fortunately, she wasn’t behind the wheel. The roads were deserted—that helped—and Desmond assured her that leaving the windshield wipers off made it easier to see. It was all too beautiful—the dark curtain of rain washing the afternoon sky, the green Gulf waters roiling beyond the seawall, the trees bent over in thirsty delight. Water, water, water.