by Susan Wiggs
She flexed her hands on the steering wheel. “All right. Where?”
“Follow me.” Mike kicked himself all the way back to his truck. He led the way to the drive-through donut stand, and she waited in her car while he ordered the coffee and two donuts. No big deal, he told himself. He’d give her a cup of coffee, then find the Winslows when church let out.
At the end of the road, he pulled over and got out. A dock jutted from the seawall where a little fleet of quohog skiffs bobbed. To the side of the wall, a sandy slope led down to the water. Zeke exploded from the truck as if shot from a cannon. The dog raced flat-out over the sand, kicking up a spray before disappearing over a tumble of wave-gouged rocks.
Carrying the coffee in a cardboard tray, Mike motioned for Sandra to join him. She followed him through the empty breezeway of the abandoned concession stand. In summer, the place swarmed with families and students on vacation, but now the wind howled through the shadowy passageway, spitting them out on the other side, where there was nothing but ocean, sand and sky.
He set the tray on a concrete picnic table. “There’s cream and sugar in the bag with the donuts.”
Sandra sent him a funny little look. “Thanks,” she said, prying the lid off the coffee. She added cream, then poured in at least three packets of sugar. She seemed a little steadier now, he observed. A decent guy would probably ask her what was wrong, why she’d been in such a hurry to leave the church . . . but Mike didn’t want to know. He’d spent his entire marriage trying to figure out a woman, and he’d failed. He wasn’t about to try to understand Sandra. Though he barely knew her, he suspected she was a hell of a lot more complex than his ex-wife could ever be. But his mind kept coming back to the idea. With Angela, no matter what he did, he hadn’t been able to fill the empty spaces inside her. Whereas with Sandra, that could be his key role—he’d known it instinctively the first time he’d met her, and the feeling only grew stronger with each passing moment. It was a strange and unwelcome notion, and he hoped it would go away.
Stooping, he picked up a length of driftwood and flung it for Zeke, who sped off in pursuit.
She blew gently on her coffee, then took a sip. “Is he any particular breed of dog?”
“Poodle, but don’t tell him that.”
“What’s his name?”
“Zeke.”
“Of course. What else would you name a poodle?” Her smile was genuine, reaching her eyes this time. Big brown eyes, long lashes. It was a hell of a smile, even better than he’d pictured it. “I bet your kids love him.”
“Yeah.” He was glad he had Zeke, though the dog was ridiculous even without the haircut. He missed his kids so bad that he almost said something to Sandra Winslow.
The separation and divorce had stripped him bare by layers. He’d looked around one day and realized he had nothing but his boat, his truck, tools and equipment he couldn’t stand to part with and a cell phone with an overdue bill. He was slowly crawling out of the hole, rebuilding his business, but some days he felt as though he were standing still.
Zeke had nosed his way into Mike’s life through a back door Mike hadn’t yet barricaded against sentiment. He’d been at the quarry up in Waverley, picking out flagstones for a patio he was building in Point Judith. In the office, he’d encountered a foreman glaring down into a dilapidated cardboard box. The guy explained that his wife’s French poodle had whelped, all the pups had been sold and for the life of him he couldn’t give away the runt of the litter. Conformation problems, coloration problems, a whole litany of complaints. This one was for the pound.
Mike had peered into the box at the little white ball of fluff, and that back door had cracked open just enough to let in the furball, worms and all. He was in denial about the breed, even though it was printed clearly on the AKC papers. He figured if he never clipped Zeke’s hair, he’d eventually forget he was a poodle.
“I’m glad I ran into you,” Sandra Winslow said. “There’s something I need to explain.”
Great, he thought. Here it comes. She’d changed her mind about the job. “Yeah?”
“It’s about my late husband, Victor Winslow. You’ve heard of him, haven’t you?”
“Sure. Everyone has.” Mike didn’t elaborate.
She looked straight out to sea, tiny wisps of hair blowing around her face. “Last February, he and I were involved in an accident.” Her hand trembled, and she set down her cup. “The medical examiner officially ruled it an accidental death. But there are still some people who think the worst of me.” She took a deep breath and stuffed her hands into her coat pockets. “Anyway, I thought you should know that before you do business with me.”
“Did you think I’d change my mind?”
“I don’t know, Malloy. I don’t know you.”
He helped himself to a donut and offered her one. “You’re the client, I’m the contractor. I’m interested in your house, not your reputation.”
She hesitated, then took the donut from him. “Thanks. I skipped breakfast this morning.” They ate in silence, watching the waves rush up to shore. Sandra chewed slowly, her nose and cheeks growing pink in the cold wind. She looked totally different from the wild-eyed woman he’d encountered at the woodpile. She had the strangest effect on him—he was emotionally broke, and had nothing to offer in that department. Yet something about her brought back all the things he missed about being connected, having a family. He resented her for that, and at the same time, he was drawn to that very aspect of her.
“How are your hands?” he asked.
“Healing,” she replied, showing him. “Thanks. And thanks for the mailbox. I assume you’re the one who replaced it.”
“Yep. No problem. I’ll get that proposal to you soon.”
“Good. Well.” She dusted the crumbs from her hands. “I’ll look forward to that. I’d better be going now.”
They walked together to their cars, and Mike thought maybe her step was a little lighter. He felt guilty, playing dumb when Gloria Carmichael had been filling him in on all the Winslow gossip. But he figured the less personal he got with this woman, the better.
Out of habit, he held open her car door for her, then stood back while she pulled away. He whistled for Zeke, and within seconds the dog streaked to the truck and sprang up in a single perfectly aimed leap.
Mike headed back to the church and sat with his pickup truck idling roughly in the cold morning air. After a while, the church bells rang and people streamed from the building. They walked in little family clusters, toddlers holding on to their parents’ hands and swinging their feet up in the air, old people leaning on each other as they made their way to their cars.
An electric-powered wheelchair emerged from the main entrance. Reverend Ronald Winslow shook hands with the departing parishioners, his gently smiling wife beside him.
Mike continued to wait, the chill slipping into the cab of the truck, until the last of the worshipers had left. Then he got out, cautioning Zeke to stay put.
The Winslows were headed for their van when he caught up with them. “Mr. and Mrs. Winslow?”
They stopped, eyeing him curiously. Up close, he could see how much they had changed. They both looked smaller, diminished by their loss. Ronald’s thick hair had turned snow-white; Winifred’s navy coat hung loosely on her thin frame.
“I’m Michael Malloy,” he said. “Mike. I used to be friends with your son Victor, years ago when we were kids.”
Ronald Winslow frowned, but his wife’s face immediately softened. “Michael. Of course,” she said, holding out both gloved hands. Mike took them awkwardly, held on for a brief squeeze. In his mind’s eye, he imagined he could still see the mom in Stuart plaid skirt and navy-blue cardigan who used to bake cookies after school, who showed up at every class play or swim meet or choir recital Victor was in.
“I remember you perfectly, Michael,” Winifred said. “The two of you met at swim team tryouts, didn’t you? Was it in the third grade?”
“You ha
ve a good memory,” Mike said. He could still picture the two of them, skinny and pasty in their Speedos, eyeing each other across the lane lines. He and Victor had been unlikely companions. Victor had worn the mantle of privilege, the son of a well-respected pastor and an self-assured debutante. Mike’s father was a commercial fisherman, his mother a dyer at Cranston Print Works. To a couple of small-town boys in school, class differences didn’t matter. But out in the real world, they had. A lot.
“Michael played quarterback on the high school football squad,” Winifred said, resting her slim hand on her husband’s shoulder. “I’m sure you remember that.”
The older man grinned as he made the connection. “You’re right. Been a while.”
“It sure has.”
Mike couldn’t think of a decent way to broach the topic, so he came right out with it. “Listen, I should have called or visited sooner, but I haven’t been back in the area long.” He didn’t elaborate; he wanted to get this over with. “I can’t tell you how sorry I am about Victor.”
Ronald Winslow’s grin disappeared, as Mike had known it would. The older man’s hands trembled, and he pressed them together. Desperation and confusion haunted his eyes, and Mike realized he was no longer the self-assured war hero and leading citizen. Ronald had survived Vietnam, but losing Victor proved to be a disability he couldn’t surmount.
“Thank you.” Winifred took out a pair of dark glasses and quickly put them on. “He was the most precious thing in our lives. This is everyone’s loss.”
“Of course. When I heard he’d been elected to the General Assembly, it didn’t surprise me a bit.”
Winifred smiled with heartbreaking pride, still clinging to Ronald’s shoulder. “Why don’t you come back to the house for coffee, Michael? We’d love to hear what you’ve been up to.”
Great, he thought. First Sandra, now this. He should have gone fishing this morning. “Thanks. Nice of you to offer.”
He followed them, his truck coughing in the wake of their specially equipped van as it glided through town with the dignified pace of a parade float. The Winslows lived in a big colonial with a yard like a golf course. The long front porch, painted a dazzling white, looked as though it had undergone cosmetic dentistry. He recognized the hickory tree where he and Victor had once suspended a rope swing. The iron gate leading to the salt marsh behind the house had rusted to a mild greenish color. Beyond the marsh lay the long waterfront; Mike and Victor used to claim they could see all the way to Block Island, and vowed to swim there one day, just to show it could be done.
The van slid to a halt under a projecting side portico, and Mike stopped his truck behind it. The van door opened, and the wheelchair platform lowered with an electronic whir.
“Recognize any of this?” Winifred asked.
“All of it. I have a lot of great memories of this place.”
The genuine delight in her expression made him glad he’d come after all. Of course, he hadn’t brought up the topic of working for Sandra yet.
“Let’s go inside where it’s warm, then.”
As he walked away from the truck, Zeke let out a howl of outrage and pushed his fuzzy face against the windshield.
“Sorry about my dog. If he bothers you— “
“No bother at all,” Ronald said. “He’ll settle down once he knows we’re not going to kidnap you.”
When Mike stepped into the big, bright kitchen, more memories showered over him. With a clarity he hadn’t expected, he recalled the welcoming warmth of this place as he and Victor sipped hot chocolate after a day of sledding. In the summer, they used to track beach sand across the polished tile floor, and ransack the freezer for ice cream bars.
With controlled, precise movements, Winifred poured coffee, and the three of them sat in the big front room, decorated with furniture that had been in the family forever. Although the antiques were priceless, the Winslows didn’t keep them as status symbols but as reminders: This is who we are. Winifred’s needlepoint glasses case rested on a side table in the same spot it had decades before, alongside a leather-bound volume of Proust. Yet despite the elegant presence of signed paintings, Irish crystal and museum-quality colonial antiques, an emptiness haunted the beautiful room.
“You look absolutely wonderful,” Winifred said, her eyes shining with a fierce maternal hunger. In her gray flannel skirt, crisp white blouse and flat shoes, she appeared unchanged—except that her face reflected unbearable loss. “So . . . so grown-up.”
“Adulthood tends to do that to a guy.”
Ronald tipped cream into his coffee. “I wish you and Victor had kept up. You two were quite a pair, as I recall.”
“I wish we’d stayed in touch, too.” Mike stared at his big hands, resting on his knees. “I figured we’d run into each other one day. I shouldn’t have left it up to chance.”
Winifred gazed at a display of sterling silver framed photographs on the table beside her. Victor was the subject of each one—skiing, sailing, grinning into the camera as he won some award or other. She shut her eyes, visibly battling a grief Mike could only imagine. “I wish Victor could be here. He always thought so highly of you, Michael. The two of you were like brothers.”
“Look, Mrs. Winslow,” he said, “I didn’t mean to come here and make you feel bad— “
Ronald cleared his throat. “Your coming here is a blessing,” he said. “Tell us what you’ve done with your-self. Last we knew, you got a football scholarship to URI.”
“That’s right.”
“I remember how proud your folks were. You boys had that big clam bake to celebrate.”
Mike could conjure up every moment of that summer night. He and some of the guys had helped themselves to a case of beer from his parents’ basement and built a bonfire on Scarborough Beach. Sweating brown bottles of Narragansett in hand, they’d sat against the driftwood logs and stared up at the stars. Thanks to the beer, the night sky had spun gently as though they were watching it from the deck of a ship.
He could still picture the bonfire, the laughing faces of his friends, the crazy promises that they’d never lose touch, the feeling that the whole world was waiting for him. Everything had seemed bright and new, the future golden, the world opening up like a giant sunflower. Mike, whose parents could barely afford to keep him in Wheaties, was getting a shot at college. Victor was headed for Brown, the crown jewel of Rhode Island’s universities, and eventually he’d do post-graduate work at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. Big dreams, big plans. Neither of them could have anticipated the outcome.
“I was injured my second season,” he said before more questions could come. “I had to leave school.” It was all so long ago that Mike couldn’t get pissed about it anymore. But that didn’t mean he wanted to talk about it. “So what brings you back to town?”
“Divorce.”
“Oh, Michael.” Winifred patted his hand. “I’m sorry.”
“Thanks.” He fished in his pocket, slid a business card across the table. “I’m starting back in the construction business, but locally.”
“Well,” Winifred said, “it’s a pleasure to welcome you back.”
Okay, Mike thought. Out with it. Looking at a window displaying one of Victor’s colored glass ornaments, he said, “I’m bidding on my first big job. A historical restoration in the area.”
Winifred clasped her hands. “That’s wonderful, Michael.”
“I wanted to tell you because the house belongs to Victor’s widow, Sandra.”
A shadow swept over Winifred’s thin, pretty face. “That run-down old place on Blue Moon Beach.”
“I believe her plan is to restore the house, and then sell it. I just thought I should let you know. It’s business, “ Mike said. “I need the work.”
Ronald Winslow’s eyes blazed. “If you choose to deal with that woman, we won’t stop you, but you owe it to yourself to look at the facts — “
“Pardon me, sir. The fact is, she’s in need of a contractor and I�
��m in need of work. I don’t intend to get personally involved with her. Only her house.”
Winifred covered her husband’s hand. “I suppose we’d rather see Victor’s money spent on you than on . . . the good Lord only knows what else that woman has in mind.”
“We’ve never understood her,” Ronald said, the fire in his eyes dimming.
“She was the one poor choice Victor made,” Winifred said.
Mike tensed, trying to think of a polite way to leave. He’d said his piece, expressing condolences and explaining his situation. But before he could excuse himself, Winifred refilled his cup.
“He lost his very first election,” Ronald said, his face softening with old memories. “So he decided to work on his image, and that meant getting married. Winky and I were delighted, of course, but we always assumed he’d choose someone he’d dated before, someone we knew.”
“When he brought that woman home, she was already his fiancée,” Winifred explained, drawing her mouth into a tight line of distaste. “We’d never heard of her, didn’t know the family, didn’t know a thing about her. But Victor seemed content. God knows she looked pretty enough on his arm. And he did win that next election.”
Mike nodded, pretending not to pick up on their dislike of their daughter-in-law. “I always figured Vic would end up with a beautiful woman.” He wasn’t sure what made him say that. The fact was, he hadn’t really thought about how Victor would end up, but it seemed the right thing to say to his folks.
“She was quiet, but had good manners. With a little coaching, she learned to dress and present herself at official functions. She and Victor seemed compatible—at first. But she always had a strange, secretive way about her.” Winifred rubbed her thumb over one of the photographs on the table, a shot of Victor in a mortarboard, holding up a rolled diploma. “I know my son. He wasn’t happy, and I suspect he stayed with her out of his natural sense of loyalty. Shortly before the accident, he admitted to me that she’d been pressuring him to have children.” She held Mike’s gaze with her own. “Believe me, I wanted grand-children desperately, but not at the expense of my son’s happiness.”
