After Kendra’s funeral in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, we returned to my house on a wooded hillside above the Ducktrap River, 140 miles north of the state border. As usual, Charley Stevens had suggested that the four of us—himself, his wife, Ora, Stacey, and me—fly down in his Cessna. It made for a quick trip down and back.
It was the second ninety-degree day of a projected heat wave and, wouldn’t you know, the air-conditioning inside the church had conked out that morning.
Now that we were home, Charley and I were quick to jettison our jackets and ties. The old pilot rubbed a damp hand through his shock of white hair, which always reminded me of a horse brush in its enviable thickness.
“Your house isn’t much cooler than that church,” he said. “And that church was hotter than a skunk.”
Sometimes I thought he invented these colorful expressions for my benefit. Then I’d hear some other old Mainer use them. I bet Skip Ayers would have recognized the saying.
“It might actually be cooler sitting on the porch,” I suggested.
“I’ve had my fill of confined spaces for the day,” said Charley.
“Here or there,” said Ora, looking as beautiful as ever with her pale green eyes and snow-white hair. “I’m fine with whatever the young people decide. And no, Charley, you don’t get a vote.”
“And you wonder why I call you Boss,” said her husband.
“If we sit outside, we can watch Shadow,” said Stacey. “Maybe we can even let him inside.”
“He’s still holding a grudge because I left him alone for a couple of nights. I think he’s planning some revenge.”
“He’s a wolf,” said Charley, sticking out his significant chin for emphasis. “Of course he’s planning revenge.”
Even dressed for a funeral in a black cotton shift, Stacey looked breathtakingly beautiful to me. She had made it through the service with the assistance of one of my handkerchiefs, plus a few tissues provided by Ora.
Be good to her. Those were Maeve McLeary’s last words to me. I heard her voice almost every time I looked at Stacey now. Be good to her.
I only hoped I could.
I served Charley and Ora sun tea on my porch—I’d built a ramp just for Ora’s wheelchair—while Stacey visited with my wolf dog in his fenced enclosure.
“How often are you letting him in the house, Mike?” asked Ora. “When he’s not planning revenge, I mean.”
“Once a day on average. But only when I’m home. I made the mistake of leaving him indoors when I ran to the market for gro-ceries, and I came back to find he’d devoured that ten-pound Atlantic salmon I caught on the Miramichi River with Charley. I paid a taxidermist fifteen hundred dollars to mount that fish. Most of the stuffing ended up in Shadow’s belly. He even swallowed the glass eyes.”
Charley Stevens slapped his knobby knee. A man of his age and folksy affect could get away with gestures like that.
“You always say he’s more wolf than dog. I guess he wanted to remind you of that fact.”
Ora reached out to touch the back of my hand. “You must have been glad to see your friend Steve Klesko at the service.”
I had been thrilled to see him, in fact. And not just because of how healthy he looked.
Steve had informed me that Clay Markham was confined to a bed in the manse with a new pacemaker in his chest. The photographer was being attended to by Ridge and Alyce, who had easily made bail after her arraignment on a manslaughter charge. The gristmills of the justice system would slowly grind out their fates, but Klesko was hopeful. Kendra Ballard’s blackthorn had been covered with Markham’s fingerprints, he said.
Another bright note was the grassroots movement on social media to force museums and galleries to take down Clay Markham’s work. Already the publisher of Children in Their Caskets had announced they were taking the catalog out of print. If ever someone deserved to be “canceled,” it was Markham.
“Who was that big man you were talking to, Mike?” Ora asked.
“Rick Spinney. He’s the Marine Patrol officer we told you about. He’s fighting a suspension for assaulting a lobsterman from Friendship. I don’t think he’s going to win his case—there have been too many other incidents. But it was kind of him to attend Kendra’s funeral. He had a good heart once, and I like to think it’s still in there somewhere. But he shouldn’t be a law enforcement officer anymore. That much I know.”
“A cop who’s in hot water once will take a lot of baths,” agreed Charley.
Besides the Stevenses, Spinney and Klesko had been the only people I had known at the memorial. Stacey had the support of her classmates and other wildlife biologists who’d worked with Kendra.
“It was awkward, meeting Mr. and Mrs. Ballard,” I said. “I felt like they blamed Stacey—and maybe even me—for what happened to their daughter.”
“That’s just grief,” said Charley. “It’ll pass.”
“I’m not so sure,” said Ora. “The Ballards never much liked Stacey. They saw her as a bad influence on their daughter.”
I rattled the ice around my empty glass. “It’s a shame they haven’t gotten to know the woman she’s become.”
“’Tis,” said Charley.
I’d been waiting for a moment alone with Stacey’s parents. I realized this was my chance.
“Ora, Charley, there’s something I’d like to ask you.”
“Mike Bowditch, don’t you dare!” said Ora, slapping my hand.
“How do you know what I am going to ask?”
Then I remembered she was Stacey’s mother, possessed of the same second sight as her daughter.
“This is the twenty-first century,” Ora said, leaning toward me. “Permission is not ours to give. I know you think you’re being respectful and chivalrous, dear, but I wouldn’t mention to Stacey that you almost asked us to give her away. I believe I remember her using the term chattel to describe how daughters were pawned off by their families in days of old.”
“You can still show us the ring,” said Charley impishly.
I produced the box and flipped it open to reveal a platinum band inset with a green tourmaline stone that had been mined in the western Maine foothills.
“Oh, it’s beautiful, Mike!” said Ora.
“Do you think she’ll like it?”
“No,” said her father.
“Charley!” said her mother.
“I just mean, she doesn’t like to wear anything on her fingers, being so active outdoors. But she’ll treasure the ring, even if she keeps it safe in a box.”
“When are you planning on asking her?” said Ora.
I felt the electricity humming in my nerves just as I had in bed that morning. Soon nothing would be the same.
“Not tonight.”
“Why not?” said Ora.
“I thought I’d wait on account of the funeral,” I said. “It’s been such a sad day.”
“There’s still time to redeem it. I think Kendra would be glad to see the two of you find happiness after so much grief.”
“She won’t be expecting it, either.” Charley raised a knobby finger. “So you’ll have the element of surprise.”
He made the proposal sound like a sneak attack.
“You’re wrong about that, dear,” said Ora. “She knows. I’m sure she knows.”
The three of us fell silent while we watched the activity inside the pen. Shadow was stretched out in the late-afternoon sun on the lichen-covered ledge that was his throne. Stacey sat beside him, scratching the massive animal behind the ears. The wolf’s eyes were closed as he indulged in her worshipful attention.
“She’s the only one I’ll let in there,” I said. “In fact, I’m beginning to think Shadow likes her better than he does me.”
The two of them together—the wolf king and his noble lady—made such a fun image I decided to get out my phone. I had to stand atop my chair to get a shot that didn’t include the fence. Stacey noticed my precarious position, threw back her head, and laughed with real laughter just as I pushed the button. I wasn’t much of a photographer, but I managed to capture her beauty in that unguarded moment.
As I inspected the image on the digital photo roll, I noticed that the last one I had taken had been inside the Markhams’ house. It was that snapshot of Shipbreaker. The photograph of the photograph looked so drab and gray on my camera screen. Dislocated from its setting and tainted by everything I had learned about Clay Markham, the seascape had lost whatever interest it once held for me. I no longer cared to learn its secrets. I no longer cared about the picture at all.
I deleted it.