The Astral, or, Till the Day I Die. V. J. Banis

where no one could assault her.

      Only, they had, hadn’t they, had assaulted her, if only in her dreams? Staying in was no safer than going out, if her mind wasn’t free. Hadn’t she been haunted all these months by memories? By the time she was dressed to go out, her mood was decidedly cheerless.

      Walter at least seemed pleased. “It’ll do you good,” he said when she told him her plans. “Tell you what, I’ll try to make it home for dinner tonight and you can tell me all about your shopping. We’ll make a regular evening of it.” He gave her cheek a peck as he went out.

      Ready to leave, she paused to look at herself in the hall mirror. What a grim looking creature, she thought, and laughed bitterly at her own reflection. You simply could not play the role of tragic martyr, no matter how justifiably, without looking just a trifle ridiculous.

      * * * *

      The mall parking lot was crowded and she had to drive around for several minutes before she finally found a space. Even so, she was early. She sat for a brief while, listening to the sound of rain on the car roof and trying to screw up the courage to go inside.

      Don’t be an ass, she scolded herself. She shoved the door open, and walked with determined steps through the rain, forgetting to put up her umbrella.

      Dominique, the restaurant’s petite and pretty proprietress, was happy to see her. “Mrs. Desmond, how delightful,” she greeted her, “We’ve missed you.”

      Which meant, Catherine imagined, that she did not know the reason for the absence. Just as well, she thought, as she followed Dominique to their favorite table in a sheltered corner. That was one person, at least, who would not regard her with pity, liberally laced with curiosity. She ordered a glass of Chablis and told the waitress she would wait for her mother to join her.

      When the wine came, she took a sip without tasting it and turned the glass round and round in her fingers while she looked about at the other diners. They were a decidedly mixed lot: more women than men, lots of children, and a few teenagers, eschewing the fast food outlets favored by their contemporaries and looking their most sophisticated. In the background, Bing Crosby dreamed faintly of a white Christmas.

      At the table next to hers, a young boy, eight or perhaps nine, got up from the table and told his mother he was going to the restroom.

      “Give me a minute,” she sighed. She emptied her coffee cop and started to collect her packages.

      “No, I want to go alone,” he said firmly.

      It was a youngster’s predictable push for adolescent independence and after a moment’s consideration, the mother nodded. “Straight there and straight back,” she said, and motioned to the waitress for more coffee. She could use another cup, she was thinking, and besides, her feet hurt. When had Christmas shopping ceased to be fun and become work anyway?

      Catherine watched the boy stride away, shoulders proud and straight, and felt a sudden wave of fear, of horrible expectation. He looked so very young, so vulnerable with his thin wrists showing out the cuffs of a shirt he had nearly outgrown, probably all too quickly. She thought of everything that might happen in those few unsupervised minutes, thought of the brief time, no more than seconds, surely, in which Becky had been taken. What if someone were there, in the restroom, waiting...?

      Without thinking of what she was doing or how she might appear, she leaped up so suddenly that she startled the approaching waitress.

      “Please.” She stepped the few feet to the woman’s table, “Please, you mustn’t let him go alone. It isn’t safe.”

      The woman looked up at her in surprise and suspicion. She glanced at the waitress as if to say, who let this fruitcake in? Aloud, to Catherine, she asked, “What’s not safe? The mall? For Pete’s sake, there’s a million people here today, it’s not like I’m sending him into a den of lions.”

      “You can’t imagine,” Catherine started to say, but the woman interrupted her in an icy voice: “I think you should mind your own business.”

      “Ma’am.” The waitress tried to intervene, holding her coffee pot in front of her like a shield.

      “I’m sorry, I....” Catherine realized suddenly how she must look. Probably they thought she was mad. She backed away in confusion and knocked over a chair. Other diners were looking, some of them concerned, some amused.

      She snatched up her purse, the umbrella forgotten altogether, and dashed out of the restaurant. “Tell my mother something has come up,” she told a startled Dominique. “Tell her...she’ll understand.”

      She ran through the corridors of the mall, ignoring the puzzled looks of the shoppers she jostled and sidestepped, ran through the glass doors to the parking lot—and ran into Jack McKenzie.

      Ran into him literally. Head down, she plunged through the glass doors, already fumbling in her purse for the car keys—and collided with someone, nearly fell down from the impact.

      Hands caught her arms to steady her and an astonished voice said, “Catherine? My God, it’s you.”

      She stepped back, looked up—and felt her heart stop inside her. “Jack?” She made a question of it only because she could not believe this could possibly be happening.

      “Have I gone downhill that badly?” he asked, making a joke to hide his own confusion. She looked wild-eyed, frantic. God, what more could have happened to her? He wanted to take her in his arms at once, kiss and comfort her, and held himself in check by a sheer effort of will.

      “No.” She shook her head emphatically. “You look....” She was going to say “wonderful,” but amended it to “...good. I just...I wasn’t expecting to see you.”

      “Well, no, of course you wouldn’t be. Me neither.” He glanced around and up and seemed to realize for the first time that they were standing in the rain. “Look, maybe we should step inside.”

      She looked up at the sky too. “Oh.” She sounded as surprised as he was by the raindrops.

      He held tightly to her arm, as if she might try to break away from him, and pulled the door open with his other hand to lead her inside. They paused by the skating rink. On the ice below, a pert young woman in pink and white spun elegantly, showing off for a trio of male admirers.

      It seemed as if neither of them could think of anything to say. He realized belatedly that he was still holding on to her and let his hand drop. “How are you?” was the best he could manage. He tried to say the rest with his eyes.

      Eyes that, she thought, looked altogether too shocked at seeing her. What did he see, anyway: a woman he had once loved, a woman now thirteen years older? Not gray and doddering, that was silly, but faded nevertheless? The thirteen years stuck in her throat.

      “I’m all right,” she said hoarsely. “Thank you for the roses.”

      He shook his head. “Catherine, I felt so awful for you. I wanted...I wanted to come to you, but I didn’t think....”

      She managed a lopsided smile. “No, it’s best that you didn’t. Walter....” She left it at that. She lifted a hand unconsciously to tug a damp curl over the scar at her temple, and as she did, the sparkle of her wedding ring caught his eye.

      “Yes,” he said, the shards of light seeming to pierce his heart. He took the gesture for deliberate. “Walter.”

      The silence now was awkward. And painful. He took a step back from her. “Well,” he said again.

      “Are you...?” She wanted to ask, are you married, are you in love, is there someone to whom I should direct all my hate and enmity? Instead, she asked, “Back to stay?”

      “For a while, at least. Peter gave me a job at the station. Peter Weitman, you remember him?”

      “Yes.”

      “Channel Three at four. I reveal my ignorance on the state of the world.” Another try at a joke, as