by Fire
"No, Liam," she said, a little sadly. "It's the trusting."
He craned his head to look down at her. "What? What do you mean?"
She looked up to meet his eyes, and repeated, "It's the trusting." She blushed slightly. "Like the other night with the scarf. You trusted me not to hurt you. I trusted you not to be shocked, or offended."
After she was asleep he lay wakeful, turning her words over in his mind. He had put their attraction down to chemistry, plain and simple. He'd felt it before--not this strongly, true, but there had been times in his life when he had come together with a woman with whom he had absolutely nothing in common but sexual attraction. Why should this be any different?
But it was, and he knew it.
Later, he roused to find himself alone in the bed, and sat up to see Wy in one of the chairs in the bay window that overlooked Knik Arm. Moonglow silvered her hair, cupped her breast, gilded a smooth hip. He heard a soft, muffled sound and realized she was crying. "Wy?" he said, getting out of bed and dropping to his knees next to her. "What's wrong, sweetheart?"
She wouldn't look at him. "I'm going home tomorrow."
"What? But--Wy, we've got a week. Is something wrong, did somebody call?"
She shook her head.
"Then why? We planned this for three months. I want my week."
She looked up. "Liam, I have to go. And you have to let me."
He made as if to touch her, stopped himself when she warded him off, one hand upraised. "I always knew we had to go back. I always knew I had to let you go. But we agreed on a week." He was beginning to be angry. "I want my seven days."
She swiped at her tears with the back of a hand. "I can't do this. I don't do this," she said, angry in her turn. "I don't know how I got here. You are married," she said, and repeated it a second time as if to remind them both, as if both of them needed reminding. "You are married. You're a father."
What could he say? It was true. "Don't leave. Please don't leave. You promised me seven days. I want those seven days. Then we know if it's real. Then I can make some decisions."
"No you can't," she whispered.
"Wy--"
She shook her head fiercely, and he stopped. When she spoke again, her voice was so low and so filled with pain that he could barely hear it. "I can't do this. I can't live like this, live with it. I can't live with what we're doing, what we might do. And I hate all this sneaking around. It makes me feel cheap." After a moment, she added, "It makes us cheap."
"But--"
"No! Liam, don't." She held out her hands, and he put his own into them, the despair welling up like a black tide. "You have responsibilities. You can't turn your back on them. You shouldn't try."
"But--"
"No, Liam. You know I'm right." She paused, and he was silent. Her attempt at a smile was shaky. "You see? You know I'm right. I'm flying home tomorrow. Alone. You can take an air taxi."
He traced the back of her hand with his thumb. "All right," he said at last. "Call me in a couple of days. Or I'll call you."
She shook her head. "You know you can't." She took a deep breath, let it out, and continued in a steady voice, "And I won't be there long. I've found another job."
"What?" The panic was sharp and immediate. "Where?"
She shook her head. "I'm leaving on Wednesday."
"Wy," he said, drawing her name out. "No. Don't do this."
She put gentle fingers over his mouth. "We'll both be better off if we don't see each other after tomorrow." Again, she tried to smile. "It's not our time, Liam. Maybe in the next life."
She took him back to bed then, and they made love in a fury of pain and loss and despair, and when he woke the next morning she was curled in a ball against his chest, her shoulders shaking, her face wet against his skin.
She refused to let him drive her to Lake Hood, saying her good-byes at the car. She looked down at their clasped hands. "I've gotten used to this hand," she whispered. "This hand in mine. Your skin against mine. Warm. Strong. Holding me."
He couldn't speak. It took him three tries to get in the car, until finally she gave him a gentle push. "Go on. Go on, now. Your son is waiting."
Chin up, shoulders back, eyes blinded by tears, she walked steadily down to the intersection of Fifth and L. She did not look back. He knew, because he watched her in the rearview mirror, her hair a dark blond tumble against the blue silk scarf wrapped round her neck, until the light turned green and the car behind him gave an impatient honk. He stepped on the gas and started through the intersection.
When he looked up again, she was gone.
"Harry, dammit, I know it's not in the job description but try for a little friggin' compassion, would you!"
Wy's voice, angry, impatient, and just a little frightened, brought him back into the present with a jerk. He looked down to discover that he'd wound the scarf around his wrists, straining the delicate fabric between them. With an effort, he freed himself and replaced everything as it had been. He closed the drawer again and, still moving softly, went back out into the living room.
There was a framed poster on one wall with the title INTERNATIONAL SPACE YEAR 1992 running across the bottom. It had a couple of galleons sailing rough seas out of the bottomleft-hand corner of the frame and into space in the upper-right-hand corner of the frame, with ringed planets and gas giants and moons and comets interspersed with blueprint drawings of spacecraft.
Wy was a big follower of the space program. She wanted someday to go to Florida to watch the shuttle take off, and stay to watch it land, and in between to live at Spaceport. "Did you ever think of becoming an astronaut?" he'd asked her, and she had replied, with a twisted smile, "My parents wanted me to become a teacher. So I became a teacher."
He'd wanted to ask her how she had made the jump from teacher to pilot, but the memory was so obviously painful that he left it for another time.
In those days they were easily distracted. That other time never came, and soon afterward she left.
This time, he thought, staring at the poster, this time he would know it all.
Wy's voice became edgy and defensive. "I said you'll get it, and you will. I keep my word, Harry. And I pay my debts."
Footsteps came down the hall. Liam looked around to see Tim Gosuk standing in the doorway.
"Hey," Liam said.
Tim's expression was aloof, giving nothing away. "Hey."
They regarded each other in silence for a moment. Everything Liam knew about kids could have been written on the head of a pin. On the other hand, he'd been a trooper for over ten years and knew more about human nature than most shrinks. He was also older and tougher and probably smarter than the boy, which would help. "Finish studying for your civics exam?"
Tim looked toward the kitchen and back at Liam. He was still dressed in urban punk: bagged-out jeans, oversized plaid shirt, and backward baseball cap. At least he didn't have a do rag. "Yeah," Tim said finally. "What's it to you?"
His voice was curt but not necessarily challenging. Liam shrugged. "Just making conversation." He wasn't going to force himself on the boy, but he was equally determined not to be shut out. "What other subjects you studying this year? What grade are you in, anyway?"
"Eighth."
"Really?" Liam said, adding mendaciously, "I thought you were older. So?"
"So what?"
"So what else are you studying? English, history, what else?"
It was the boy's turn to shrug. "English, history, what else."
"Math?"
Tim made a face, the first natural expression Liam had seen there. Aha, a breakthrough. "Algebra."
"Yuck."
The boy made a noise somewhere between a snort and a grunt. "It's not so bad. Mrs. Davenport is a good teacher. It's hard, but she makes it fun."
"I was lousy at math," Liam observed. "Never got all that business about x's and y's straight in my head. Geometry was better; I liked fooling with the volume of all the figures." He grinned. "And I liked Mary
Kallenberg, who sat next to me in geometry class and helped me find the area of the three different kinds of triangles. Can't for the life of me remember what they're called now."
"There aren't three, there are six," Tim said promptly. "Right, isosceles, equilateral, obtuse, acute, and scalene," and he actually smiled.
"Yikes. You're scaring me." Liam smiled back. "Not much call in the trooper business to figure out the area of a right triangle."
"You don't use it, you lose it," Tim said, his words an uncanny echo of Moses'. "Mrs. Davenport says that a lot. She loads us up on the homework like you wouldn't believe."
Inwardly Liam marveled at the way the boy's face had metamorphosed from sullen, wary, potential juvenile delinquent to animated, intelligent teenager. In this persona, it was easy to see why Wy had taken him on.
The smell of something wonderful wafted in from the kitchen, and their stomachs growled in unison. Both males were surprised into laughter. Mutual laughter, once enjoyed, is a hard thing to step back from. "Maybe if we go into the kitchen and squawk like seagulls she'll feed us," Liam said.
"Works for me."
They walked into the kitchen in time to hear Wy say into the phone, "Oh, like this phone call didn't cost me a hundred and fifty bucks! Look, Harry, I'll get you the goddamn money just as soon as I get paid myself! Okay?"
She slammed down the receiver and turned to see Liam and Tim standing in the doorway watching her. "Oh hello," she said, bright smile newly polished and back in place. "Ready for some dinner?"
When Liam looked at Tim, he saw the sullen look had descended again like a cloud.
The Constance Demby CD ended. Bon Jovi's Keeping the Faith blared out in its place. In spite of himself Liam winced, and they both saw it. Even Tim laughed, and it eased the tension.
"Feed me," Liam said, and they both recognized the line from Little Shop of Horrors and laughed some more. It got them to the table in something approaching amity, and Wy served up a kind of pork sparerib stew with pea pods in a delicious sauce. When Liam asked what went into the sauce, all Wy would say is, "Secret Filipino ingredient," and it wasn't till he helped clear the table and saw the empty can of Campbell's cream of mushroom soup in the garbage that he realized what it was.
"When did you learn to cook?" he asked her as she ran the sink full of hot water and soap.
"My college roommate's dad was Filipino, and a chef. I went home with her a couple of times, and Freddy would cook for us." She closed her eyes in remembered ecstasy. "Adobo, sweet and sour spareribs, long rice, bagoong. Anybody who likes to eat should have a Freddy Quijance in their life, just once."
Tim had vanished back into his room, and the sound of a thumping bass could be heard in the distance. It made Liam cringe, but it wasn't as bad as some of the car stereos he had heard driving by his house in Glenallen, so he held his peace. Wasn't his house, anyway.
Yet.
Which reminded him. "That couch of yours fold out, Wy?" he said, stirring half-and-half into his coffee. She'd even remembered that, he thought with a secret smile.
She looked up. "Why?"
"I haven't had time to look for a place."
"Where did you sleep last night?"
"In the desk chair in the troopers' office."
"Oh. Ugh." She hesitated. He waited, enjoying the play of emotion across her face. "No," she said finally.
"No, it doesn't fold out, or no, I can't sleep on it?"
"Both."
"Why not?"
"Tim," she said.
"I'm not asking to share your bed," he pointed out.
Yet.
She shook her head. "No, Liam," she said firmly. "I'm sorry, but you'll have to find another place to sleep. There's a hotel across from city hall. I know the night clerk; I could give her a call."
He wasn't going to push it, not until he was more sure of his ground. "That's okay, I'll figure something out." But that didn't mean he wasn't going to do his level best to change the situation. He reached for her hand. Her fingers curled naturally around his. Encouraged, he raised them to his lips. Her skin was warm, and he felt her pulse skip a beat. He looked up and smiled at her as he turned his mouth into her palm and nuzzled it.
"Liam." Her voice was unsteady.
He touched his tongue to the center of her palm, tracing the lines he found there. The mound at the base of her thumb was plump and tantalizing. He bit it, gently, and heard her breath catch.
"Liam!" Her free hand flashed up around his neck and pulled his face to hers. She nipped at his lower lip, ran her tongue over his teeth. He found himself on his feet, reaching out to drag her across the counter.
"Don't mind me," a voice said, and they looked up to find Tim standing in the doorway, the line of his mouth set and vulnerable.
"Tim!" Wy said, and then didn't seem to be able to think of anything else to say. She pulled free of Liam and slid to her feet. There was nothing she could do to hide the brightness of her eyes or the flush in her cheeks.
Liam didn't say anything, meeting the challenge in Tim's eyes with calm recognition and, he hoped, no answering challenge. He needed badly to rearrange the fit of his jeans, but considered it diplomatic to refrain for the moment.
"I just wanted a Coke," Tim said, and walked around Wy to the refrigerator.
By the time he was back in his room, Liam's heartbeat had slowed down to something approaching normality. Wy smoothed back her hair with a trembling hand. Liam's was a little steadier when he reached for his mug, but not much. "This is a nice house. I looked in the paper; I didn't see much for sale or for rent. How did you luck into here?"
Watching him warily, as if she was determined to thwart any effort he made to pick up where they had left off, she said, "It came with the business."
"The air taxi?"
She nodded. "The owner wanted to retire, and he put the business up for sale. One plane, a Cessna 180, the two tie-downs, a lease on a hangar, this house, and the goodwill. That, plus the Cub, is what there is of the Nushagak Air Taxi Service."
"How did you hear that it was up for sale?"
"Bob DeCreft told me."
"You knew him before?"
She nodded again. "You know how it is with Bush pilots. If you don't know them, you've heard of them."
"Which was it with the two of you?" He saw her look and sighed. "Come on, Wy. You've been close enough to the business to know how it works. I have to ask."
She held his gaze for a moment, and then looked away. "Yeah, I know how it works." She sipped at her coffee, put down the mug, and looked at him squarely. "I've known Bob DeCreft since I was a kid."
Liam did not greet this news with overt joy. He didn't want her to be so well acquainted with the victim of what might have been murder.
"You know I come from Newenham originally, more or less," she said, raising her eyebrows. He nodded. "Well, Bob was a Bush pilot, and he flew in and out of Bristol Bay on a lot of different charters, some government-related, some ANCSA'-RELATED, some both. He knew my parents, and he'd spend the night." She paused. "One day he was supposed to fly the local Native association board into Togiak or somewhere, only the weather was socked in there. So he took me up instead." She smiled, her eyes looking over his shoulder at a fond memory. "He had a Skywagon in those days, with dual controls. He let me fly her. I was hooked. From that day on, I didn't want to do anything but fly."
"How old were you?"
"Sixteen."
"But you went to college."
She shrugged, the glow fading. "It was what my parents wanted. I figured I'd do what they wanted, and then I'd do what I wanted."
"How did they take it?"
Her smile was wry. "They didn't like it much, but they got over it. They helped me buy the air taxi."
"Must have cost a bundle."
She nodded. "Pretty much. I'm in hock up to my eyebrows. It was worth it, though."
To get away from me? The question hung between them, unsaid, but she flushed a rich red in spite of
it. "I didn't mean that."
He didn't say anything, and in an obvious attempt to shift the focus, she said, "And you? What have you been up to?"
Her interest was as false as her question. "Come on, Wy, you knew I was coming. Didn't you? That's why you weren't surprised when I got off the plane."
Her eyes slid away. She didn't reply. He sighed. "Yeah, well, after the mess up at Denali, Barton transferred me here."
"I didn't hear much about that, I ..." "I on purpose didn't listen," he thought she was going to say. Instead she said, "I would have thought you would want to stay in Glenallen, no matter what, and then ..." Her voice trailed off.
"And then I could see Jenny every weekend," he agreed evenly. "It wasn't up to me. John transferred me after my demotion came through, and that was that." He could have added that Barton had transferred him to Newenham because Wy was there, because their relationship had not been the secret romance they had always been confident of, but he didn't.
Her voice was low, and she wasn't looking at him. "How is she?"
"The same."
"How often are you going to get back to see her?"
"At least once a month." He studied the coffee in his mug. "We took her off the respirator."
He heard the sharp intake of her breath. "I didn't know that."
"She's fed through a tube, Wy," he said. He stated it as a fact, not a horror or a tragedy. He'd had too much time to become accustomed to his wife's physical and mental state; it no longer held any terror or disgust for him. "She wears diapers. She's home with her parents, and they've got money, so she's got twenty-four-hour care." He closed his eyes. "Do you know how long Karen Ann Quinlan lasted after they disconnected her life support?"
Her voice was infinitely gentle, infinitely sorrowful. "No."
"Nine years." He opened his eyes and tried for a smile. From her wince, he knew that he hadn't quite made it. "Nine years and change."
"Liam, I am so sorry. So very sorry."
"Yeah. Me too." He rose to his feet and took his mug over to stand in front of the window, staring unseeingly out at the vast expanse of river, roiling and tumbling and gray with glacial silt, driving forcefully for the Bay and points south. Soon it would be filled with salmon, king and silver and sockeye and humpy and dog, all driving just as purposefully upstream, fighting the current to return home to the stream in which they were spawned, there to spawn in their turn and die.
