Abe spent more time at the office than ever. When there wasn’t work to be done, he made work, and if there wasn’t work to be made, he made phone calls, friendly check-ins to preferred clients, and when there were no phone calls to be made, he stayed late in the office anyway, balancing his checkbook, organizing his Rolodex, watering the plants, or just kicking his legs up on the desk and reading the Bainbridge Review, or the Sun, or the P-I, sometimes twice in the same day for distraction, anything to avoid going home.
The sum of all the blame and remonstration that attended the unutterable nature of Karen’s death had exploded the Winter family, scattering them in every direction. Anne rarely made the drive down from Bellingham anymore, or even called. Kyle, like Abe, managed to keep himself busy, lettering in three sports sophomore year, always attending practices or games, rarely returning home before sundown during the week, eating his warmed-up dinner alone in the kitchen. On weekends, he had more practices, or open gym, or friends to meet at the Kel-Lin Drive-in, or in Scott Nickell’s garage, where they tinkered endlessly with car engines, though still a year removed from their driver’s licenses. Saturday and Sunday nights, Kyle bused tables at Aida’s in the new mall, taking his staff dinner at the restaurant. All told, Abe probably saw the boy forty-five minutes a week.
Even Duke, the once irrepressible six-year-old border collie, was apparently depressed, spending whole afternoons under the front porch, chin on his forepaws, gazing dolefully out at the farm.
For Ruth’s part, as far as Abe could ascertain, she mostly languished around the farm, much like Duke, while Maddie and Kyle were at school, letting the flower beds go to seed, neglecting the vegetable garden and the orchard, permitting the hens to range freely and the dishes to stack up in the sink. Some afternoons, she ate lunch with Bess Delory, and on Sundays she had church, but other than that, she didn’t appear to get out much. God knows, Abe didn’t take her anywhere.
Abe and Ruth had always made an oddly paired couple, ever since that first double date at the Dog House in 1953, and all along they’d had their differences of opinion, and taste, and even principle. The fact was, they hardly agreed on anything. But the distance between Abe and Ruth had never been greater than it was in the wake of Karen’s death. Now that Anne was all but estranged, and Karen was gone, and Kyle was never home, it seemed Maddie was the only glue holding the family together. Though Anne was beyond his sphere of influence, and Karen was dead, and Kyle was well on his way to being a man, there was still time to protect Maddie, to guide her, to ensure that she never strayed down the same path as Karen, if it was even possible to influence such outcomes. Abe would not fail again for lack of trying. Even as he was repelled by the possibility of his home life, he yearned for a return to the fullness and clear purpose of the old ways. So, why wasn’t he at the farm, putting his life back together?
Instead, most nights, Abe was at the office hours after closing, avoiding the home front, as he was the evening that he ran across Jim Mathison’s obituary in the Review. Swinging his feet off the desk, Abe hunched over the paper and read the remembrance in disbelief. Jim Mathison was only thirty-eight years old. Survived by his wife, Kelly, his twelve-year-old son, Michael, and his eight-year-old daughter, Mary Beth. Jim had chartered the Kiwanis financial assistance fund and headed up the scholarship program. He was a seven-year veteran of the chamber of commerce. He coached the BI park district Little League Shamrocks. Jim Mathison was a good man by any measure. The obit failed to elucidate the particulars of Jim’s death but to say that his demise was unforeseen, and like Karen’s, accidental. As a man who measured lives as an occupation, a man who weighed and considered a life’s hazards and limitations, its risks and rewards, who deemed a life insurable or not, Abe found this lack of information maddening.
It couldn’t have been eighteen months since Abe had sold Jim Mathison a forty-thousand-dollar life policy, which was a blessing for his family. Despite this terrible turn of events, at least Kelly and the kids would be granted a modicum of financial security to buffer them from the loss. As Abe recalled, his former protégé Ted DeWitt had adjusted Jim’s Safeco policy, thus Abe ought to call Ted and make sure the payout was in process. In the meantime, he would call Kelly in the morning and pay his respects, send some flowers, and make a hundred-dollar donation in memoriam to Jim’s Kiwanis fund.
The following day, Abe called Kelly according to plan.
“Kelly, I’m just devastated,” he said. “I can’t begin to tell you how sorry I am for your loss. Jim was a good man. If there’s anything I can do, anything at all, really, let me know. I’m going to chase down that claim for you, make sure your check’s running on schedule.”
“Thank you, Abe, that’s very kind,” she said, her voice faltering. “We’re gonna need every penny we can get.”
Unable to continue, Kelly broke down, as Abe indulged her silence.
“Forgive me,” she said finally.
“No, no. I’m so sorry, Kelly,” Abe said. “Really, I mean it, if there’s anything I can do to help. Anything.”
Indeed, the offer was more than a sentimental token or a professional courtesy, it was a lifeline extended in earnest, though Abe didn’t quite understand the impetus himself. Perhaps it was their small kindness at Karen’s funeral after Abe had gone berserk on Royce Holiday. For all his familiarity with Jim and Kelly Mathison, they hadn’t really been friends. And yet, Abe was genuinely willing to do anything to help Kelly Mathison and her kids through this ordeal, whatever that looked like: financial, administrative, personal. He would have made the funeral arrangements had she asked, driven out to Rolling Bay and taken the garbage to the curb, whatever it took to help ease the burden of their loss. The irony of this was not lost on Abe. All but useless to his own disintegrating family, persistently absent, yet ready to serve another man’s family, perhaps as a nostrum for the guilt and shame of his failures.
“I just don’t understand how he could do this to us,” Kelly sputtered.
“It was an accident,” said Abe.
“Is that what you think?” said Kelly. “Eighteen years and he never left the gas on, not once, nobody’s ever left the gas on. Besides, he never sits in the kitchen unless he’s eating, and only late at night. Then suddenly, when the kids and I just happen to be at my sister’s house for the weekend, he shuts himself in the kitchen and neglects to turn the gas off?”
Kelly needed to stop talking immediately if she didn’t want to kiss her settlement goodbye, but she couldn’t seem to help herself now that she’d found a trusted confidant in Abe. It had yet to dawn on Abe why she might have chosen him of all people.
“Why do they do it, Abe? I never thought he was capable of this. I really didn’t. How could I not see it?”
It was clear Kelly was oblivious to the implications attending such candor, or she wouldn’t have been telling Abe any of this. But what did Kelly Mathison know about clauses of incontestability? The truth was, most folks who weren’t Abe didn’t have a clue as to the limitations of their coverage; nobody read the small print. What could the manner of her husband’s death possibly matter to Kelly Mathison in her grief? But because of his familiarity with the policy, Abe was visited suddenly by the profound discomfort of knowing that Kelly Mathison was unwittingly playing his hand for him. He was legally, if not morally, obligated to share this information with Safeco, but how could he? How could he tell a bereaved wife and mother of two that not only had she lost her husband, but the policy wouldn’t pay out?
“Kelly,” said Abe. “There’s something here I’m not sure you’re understanding regarding the policy.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “My God, why am I dumping this on you? What is it? Do I need to sign something?”
“Kelly, there’s something called an incontestability clause in Jim’s policy. Well, in every life insurance policy, actually.”
Abe was about to drop the bomb, but considering poor Kelly Mathison on the other end of the line, ravaged by grief, he couldn’t do it, not yet.
To withhold this knowledge went against every principle Abe had ever adhered to, not only as an insurance agent but as a man. Transparency had always been the ideal; to obfuscate the truth only complicated the world needlessly. The truth itself was incontestable. If agreements were not binding, what was to serve as the bedrock of order or justice, what was to prevent the landslide of moral collapse? Add to what would be a grave ethical failure on Abe’s part the inherent risk of his participation in perpetrating such a fraud, and the plan was downright foolish. Abe could lose his license; his reputation would be destroyed. He could go to jail. But the alternative was to destroy what remained of the Mathison family, to single-handedly render their future irredeemable. What chance did they have without the settlement? Bad enough their lives should be blown to smithereens, that those poor children would be forced to live with the knowledge of their father’s willful abandonment, his final resounding act of cowardice; that they should suffer further privation, lose their home, their livelihood, lose their opportunity to go to college, was unthinkable.
Abe couldn’t stop picturing Jim, slumped at the kitchen table, pants soiled in front, gray faced, sightless eyes peering at the tabletop into the abyss. Did Kelly find him there like that? One of the children? How could he be so goddamn selfish? How could he leave them to wonder the rest of their days whether they might have saved him? Could he not see that in doing so he was punishing them?
“What am I gonna do, Abe?” Kelly Mathison pleaded. “How am I supposed to go on—no husband, no father for my children? What’s left?”
“It’s okay, Kelly,” Abe assured her. “You’re gonna get through this.”
Never had doing the right thing been such a fraught decision, never had the world seemed less black-and-white to Abe.
Ted DeWitt came to work for Abe shortly after Abe bought the agency from Todd Hall. Ted was just a kid of twenty-two, a recent CWU grad who looked the part, well-groomed, clean-cut, but it was soon evident that he was a terrible salesman. He had no gift of gab, and his manner tended toward the brisk. Exchanges were best executed efficiently in Ted DeWitt’s mind. What Ted did possess was excellent clerical and organizational skills. His files were perfect, his work was tidy, he was scrupulous, detail oriented, a great rule follower.
Abe liked the kid, he really did, but he didn’t need Ted at Bainbridge Island Insurance, he needed salesmen. After a year, it fell on Abe to tell him as much. He broke the news to him on a Friday evening after work in the back bar at Aida’s.
“Look, son, I’m not gonna lie to you, you’re not cut out for the sales side. I don’t need your numbers to see that. But here’s the thing: You’re talented, you’re meticulous, you’re a perfect fit for the company side. And you said yourself you’d like to move to the city. This island is no place to meet your future wife. Let me make some calls for you.”
Indeed, it was Abe who lined Ted up with a job at Safeco, where he’d been thriving for six years, met his wife, and now had a toddler.
Twenty minutes after Abe concluded his conversation with Kelly Mathison, he phoned Ted DeWitt at Safeco.
“Ted, Abe Winter.”
“Abe!” said Ted. “Holy moly! It’s been a while!”
“Geez, maybe two, three years?” said Abe.
“Longer,” said Ted.
“Look, Ted, there’s a claim you adjusted, I wrote the policy early last year, a family friend here on the island, tragic situation, an accident. I just want to make sure the payout is on schedule.”
“Let me grab the file,” said Ted. “What’d you say the name was?”
“Mathison, James.”
“You wouldn’t have a policy number handy?”
“Sorry,” said Abe.
“I’ll find it,” said Ted. “I’ll get back to you by end of day.”
As promised, Ted called back two hours later.
“Here’s the thing, Abe,” he said. “I’m not really satisfied with the accidental death in this case. I should probably flag it. I mean, say this wasn’t an accident, we gotta consider the clause of—”
“Don’t do it, Ted,” said Abe. “This was an accident, you understand? Pure and simple. You’re gonna have to trust me on this.”
“What about the commission? Or SUI?”
“They don’t need to know,” said Abe. “Just don’t flag it, and everything will just…take care of itself.”
The line fell silent momentarily.
“Abe, what are you asking me here? Are you asking me to commit insurance fraud?”
And there was Abe, frozen at the moral crossroads, caught in the headlights.
“I’m just asking you not to flag it, Ted. As a personal favor. For old times.”
Ted never provided Abe explicitly with an answer one way or another; their call was left open-ended, and Abe assumed hopefully that Ted would comply to honor their history together. But for weeks, Abe was on pins and needles as he awaited news of the settlement. Was the claim still under review? Had Ted flagged the cause of death after all? Three times during the impasse, Kelly Mathison called to inquire about the settlement.
“These things take a while to process,” he assured her. “Just routine stuff, lotta channels, et cetera, no reason to worry.”
Twice, Abe phoned Ted DeWitt to inquire about the settlement’s approval, a reckless move if ever there was one, for should the commission ever divine Abe’s keen interest in the matter, there was sure to be an investigation, and SUI would no doubt crucify him.
“That settlement we talked about,” said Abe. “Any word?”
Ted’s momentary silence was an unspoken remonstration.
“Routine audit,” he said at last. “Shouldn’t be any hang-ups.”
“Thank you, Ted.”
“Just doing my job,” said Ted, his tone anything but pleased. “You’ll hear from the company.”
Despite Ted’s assurances, Abe felt worse about the prospects after the call. Would Ted DeWitt actually report him after all Abe had done for him? But why would he string Abe along like that, why act as though he’d help, then do the opposite? Why not decline Abe’s ask from the get-go? Even more agonizing was the reality that there was nothing more Abe could do to press Ted for confirmation; he was at the mercy of Ted DeWitt as his livelihood, along with the Mathison family’s fate, hung in the balance.
For weeks, Abe was nervous to the point of distraction. On edge, he couldn’t concentrate. His monthly sales hit an all-time low. Any moment he might get a call from SUI. He didn’t dare risk further correspondence with Ted. After eight weeks without word, Abe was convinced he was part of an ongoing investigation. What would become of all he’d built, the company, the farm? Should he start reorganizing his assets to protect them? He could have strangled Ted DeWitt, the duplicitous little prick. One evening, after two uncharacteristic martinis at the Lemon Tree, Abe even considered ferrying over to the city and showing up on Ted’s doorstep just to give him a piece of his mind, right in front of his family. Let his wife and kid see what a heartless bastard he was, letting a bereaved family suffer the ignominy of poverty and destitution, when all he had to do was check a few boxes.
God, what had Abe been thinking by going against the foundational principle of transparency? Why would he risk everything for somebody else’s family? And how could he reasonably expect Ted DeWitt to be complicit in such a scheme wherein he had absolutely nothing to gain and everything to lose? When Abe framed the dilemma in those terms, he couldn’t blame Ted for reporting him.
Just when Abe was convinced that his hypocrisy would come crashing down upon him, that what was left of the USS Winter would soon be sunk, he got the word from Safeco. Nearly three months after Abe had initiated his ill-advised scheme to save the Mathisons, he received a letter from corporate informing him that the claim had been approved, and that the settlement check would be disbursed by courier to Abe’s office within five business days.
Such was Abe’s relief that he laughed out loud in spite of himself. To think he’d ever doubted Ted DeWitt!
Three days later, upon another “drizmal” island afternoon, Abe set out to hand-deliver the check to Kelly Mathison. When he rang the bell, Kelly met him at the door barefoot in jeans and a sweatshirt.
“I’ve got something for you,” said Abe, presenting the envelope.
Kelly looked momentarily stunned, then threw her arms around Abe, clutching him so fiercely about the trunk that he could feel her fingernails digging into his back as though they were looking for purchase.
“It’s all there,” he said.
When Kelly finally relinquished her grip and recomposed herself, she invited Abe into the kitchen for a cup of coffee.
“Look, Kelly,” said Abe, setting the envelope on the table. “There’s something I’ve got to say about all of this, and it’s very important. Strictly between us, I don’t know who you’ve told what in terms of family, friends, and the like. But from now on, what you told me about Jim, how he died, the circumstances, you can’t tell anybody that, okay? If the insurance company ever caught wind of it, there would be trouble, big trouble, you understand? It was an accident, and that’s the end of it.”
Though Abe was making Kelly Mathison complicit in the deception with this briefing, it was a necessary safeguard for everybody involved.
“Of course,” she said, wiping her eyes.
“Good,” said Abe. “If they were to find out that he…that it wasn’t an accident, they…”
“I understand,” said Kelly.
They deferred to silence momentarily, Abe sipping his coffee as Kelly moved nervously about the kitchen looking for purpose. Abe found himself at a loss for what to say to her that hadn’t already been said.
“Here, let me top you off,” she said.
“No, no,” said Abe. “I’m good. It’ll keep me up all night.”
“Well, how about a sandwich?”
“I had a late lunch at the office,” said Abe.
“Oh, Abe, let me get you something,” she said.
She moved to the refrigerator and opened the fridge, which, for all its bareness, was in disarray.
“Really, I’m good,” said Abe. “Thank you. Sit, sit.”
It was a relief when Kelly shut the refrigerator. Something about its bare shelves and untidiness made him sad. All that space probably once occupied by family leftovers and Jim’s favorite beer. A fridge that in a former life demanded organization just to accommodate its bounty. Once the center of family life, eating had become an afterthought. How well Abe knew that feeling, even today.
Seated again, Kelly exhaled the breath she’d been holding in, and Abe watched as the nervous vitality drained from her being. She looked wooden in its absence.
“Don’t take this the wrong way, Abe,” she said from some great distance. “The money will go a long way, it will. But I still just…” She averted her eyes. “I don’t understand why he did this, Abe. Like he was punishing us.”
“He wasn’t trying to hurt you,” Abe said.
“Then why?”
“We’ll never know,” said Abe.
“How can I keep going?” said Kelly. “Why should I keep going?”
“Because you have to,” he said.
Abe left Kelly Mathison bereft on the front landing and drove back to Bainbridge Island Insurance in the downpour.
That night, when he should’ve been home hours ago, Abe sat at his desk in the darkened office and listened to the rain tap ceaselessly on the roof, staring at nothing, trying to disengage from the world. No newspaper, no busy work, no distraction. As he was gazing out across the floor past the empty desks to the foyer, there came a stirring from deep in his chest, almost like the first rumblings of acid indigestion. But when he tried to swallow the sensation as he might swallow a burp, the reservoir of his pent-up grief came rushing up like molten lava to the base of his esophagus. The dam finally broke. Abe cried for twenty minutes without pause, wept until his throat was sore, until his sinuses were ravaged. And when these paroxysms finally subsided, Abe slumped in his chair, strangely hopeful.
Shortly before ten that night, he returned to the farm in the old Ford wagon, where he found Kyle in the kitchen, still clad in his dirty football uniform, eating a giant bowl of macaroni and drinking milk straight from the carton. As Abe stood watching him for a moment without comment, he felt another welling in his chest.
“Um, can I help you?” said Kyle.
“I love you,” said Abe.
“Uh, all right,” said Kyle. “Everything okay, Dad?”
“Yeah,” said Abe. “I think it is.”
Abe padded up the stairs a different man than when he’d left the farm that morning, and every other morning for the past two years. He crept into Maddie’s darkened room and hovered above the bed looking down on her, watching the gentle rise and fall of her chest as she slept, the slightest hint of a smile playing at the corners of her mouth. He could only marvel at the child’s grit, her effervescence in the face of everything going on around her. How was she happy? Abe could not say. But he was determined to do everything in his power to keep her that way.
Leaving Maddie’s door cracked open, Abe continued down the hallway to the bedroom, where he began to undress quietly in the darkness.
“I was starting to worry,” murmured Ruth drowsily.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I should have called.”
“Mm,” she said.
Abe piled his slacks on the wicker chair, set his shirt atop them, leaving his socks balled on the floor beside his shoes, before climbing under the covers in briefs and T-shirt.
Though Ruth did not stir, Abe felt her flinch when he set his hand upon her bare shoulder and began to gently knead until her body slackened.
“What I mean,” said Abe, “is that I’m sorry. For the past couple years. Christ, for the past twenty. Yesterday. This morning. Karen. Me. I’ve been lost, Ruthie, and I’m sorry. I guess I couldn’t see past myself most days. I should have been doing more.”