“Listen, I’ll be up a few days before the gala. So I’ll book five days all together.”
“It’s two days shy of a full week.” Skye taps her upper lip with a forefinger. “You know, by the time you come back, that little cabin will be available for a long-term rental if you want to consider staying for a bit longer. Call it a summer vacation. A little R and R.”
“I have a board meeting that week, back in Boston.” Adam shakes his head, truly regretful. “I wish I could.”
As he pulls out onto Meander Road, Adam feels Chance breathing down his neck. “Ready to go home?” The dog makes no reply. Adam rolls down the back window, and the dog, uncharacteristically, sticks his head out and barks. There’s Mingo, on his knees, pulling weeds, Dawg lazing beside him. Adam slows the car down, sticks out his arm, and waves to the boy. Mingo waves back.
What if he did blow off his meetings? Give himself a whole week to relax. A summer vacation. Time spent in a little cabin nestled in a nice scenic crook of a mountain, plenty of time to decompress, to walk the dog, to read something besides the paper, to contemplate the next move. Maybe even see if there are any fish in that little lake. Go for a swim. Explore the little towns and byways of Western Mass. Head up to Vermont. Spend a little more time with Skye. Whoa, where’d that idea come from?
Chance pulls his head in, sits, then flops on the backseat. A great sigh issues out of him, sounding not of contentment, but disappointment.
What exactly is he heading back for? Solitary reheated dinners? Unwelcome pity invitations? Unwanted advances from middle-aged women? But he has responsibilities, important work to be done. Tasks unfinished. Suddenly, Adam is reminded of his former self. The one who proudly never took time off; who sent his wife and daughter to their Vineyard summer house with unfulfilled promises to join them on the weekend. The man who sat at the head of the boardroom table on a Friday night negotiating some power move instead of seeing his only daughter off to her first dance. A man so intense that he finally exploded.
Losing everything had given him a new chance at finding a balance. Gina made no bones about reminding Adam, when he was on the verge of backsliding, that he was a new man. And here he is, blowing off an opportunity to relax, and, let’s be honest, be with someone whose company he does enjoy. She’s not Gina. She’s no substitute for Gina. But Skye has become something he’s lacked for a long time. A friend.
Adam fires up the Bluetooth, tells Siri to call the LakeView Hotel.
“Skye, any chance that cabin is available for the month of July?”
Skye doesn’t even hesitate. “Yes.”
“Book me in.”
* * *
Black Molly is sitting in one of the folding lawn chairs staged around a cold fire pit filled with scraps of unburned paper and cigarette butts. The sound of a soap opera blares from the open door, playing to an empty room. No one is there. Molly’s parents are nowhere to be seen; both the pickup truck and her mother’s ancient Cutlass are gone. Molly’s siblings are out in the woods riding a borrowed four-wheeler. The baritone whine of the ATV’s motor comes and goes as the boys circle the lake on walking paths not meant for all-terrain vehicles.
Molly tosses her smoked-to-the-filter butt into the pit, sits back. “You want a beer?”
“No.”
“Got something for me?”
“I want you to stop harassing me.”
“I want you to do what I ask. A little somepin’ somepin’ for Black Molly. A handful. Nothing more.”
“I can’t.”
“Sure you can. We’ve been over this. You’re just being a mama’s girl.”
“I’m not going to steal.”
“Guess I ain’t got no choice then, do I?”
“No one will believe you.”
“Sure about that?”
Cody isn’t. Cody isn’t sure about anything. She has stopped searching online for information about the hunt for the driver. She just can’t do it anymore. “I told you: No one will believe you.”
“Bet your mother will.”
“No, I don’t think she will. She won’t believe you over me.”
“Sure she will. I’m your best friend. Don’t friends tell each other everything? Don’t they watch each other’s backs? Don’t they keep their bargains?”
Walking down the road away from Molly’s trailer, Cody has to wonder if she’s just traded one kind of unhappiness for another. The unhappiness of no friends for the unhappiness of a treacherous one.
* * *
“Skye, I don’t know if you’ve heard, but I thought you should know that there’s been a break in Randy’s case. They’ve identified the driver of the car.” My mother tells me this in the same tone of voice she might use to let me know that the price of boiled ham has gone down—good news, but hardly earth-shattering.
“I didn’t. Who is he?”
“I can’t remember what they said. Something Polish, or maybe Russian.” In other words, not Irish. Like us. Or like those Randy ran with.
“So, he’s a fugitive?”
“Oh, no. Not anymore. He’s dead. Shot execution style.”
I know that anything my mother might tell me will be corrupted by having come through the sieve of her perceptions, so I thank her for the news and then hop onto my computer.
Stanislaus Prezwieski, a suspect in the slaying of small-time drug dealer Randy Mitchell, was found dead in his car, a black Honda Civic, a single shot to the back of the head. Forensics are testing to see if the weapon used in Prezwieski’s murder is the same as that used in Mitchell’s.
There isn’t much more, the excitement of an execution à la Whitey Bulger is quickly subsumed by more interesting tragedies of the week. A final mention shows up in the Saturday edition. Yes, the same gun was used. So my ex-husband’s killer is out there. The obvious conclusion to draw is that the police were getting close, having Prezwieski on their radar, and he, the shooter, eliminated the problem. As far as I knew from the minimal police investigation, Prezwieski was the only witness to tie him to the crime.
I wonder if I should tell Cody.
* * *
Preparing to leave town for a month is mostly about canceling things—the paper, a long-scheduled physical, a bath for Chance at the groomer’s. Maybe by now the new dog spa lady has shown up and he can get her to do the honors. It’s a good thing Adam has never been an indoor plant kind of guy. The two dish gardens he received as condolence gifts he’s already managed to kill off. The neglected perennial garden out back is weed-choked and will have to fend for itself—as usual. All of that was under Gina’s purview. The irises were just coming up when she went into the hospital for the last time; the daffodils in full glory when she said no to more treatment, the tulips voluptuous on their stalks. The night after the funeral, a sudden cold wind had come up and with it a heavy rain that beat down the summer blooms, flattening them into the ground. Adam stood at the kitchen window that next morning and saw the destruction, the waste of all that effort to break through the soil, to emerge into the light, to spread forth leaves and give birth to such transitory blooms. He’d forgotten to look at them. Forgotten to take a picture and show it to Gina in those last days before she faded into her own transition.
This year the daffs and the tulips emerged again and he cut them all and placed them on her grave. Now the summer flowers of another year are up. Peonies and lilies. The hydrangeas in various shades of blue. He’ll take some to the cemetery before he goes west.
Chance is there, leaning his weight against Adam’s leg. The dog sighs, as if he, too, is thinking of Gina. How is that possible? Adam kneels and wraps his arms around the dog. “You are such a good boy.”
The dog doesn’t disagree.
* * *
There is something different about this departure. I’m used to the efficiency of our travels. I can tell the difference between a quick car ride and a trip. A trip means a bag. A bag that goes into the back of the car. This is clearly a trip, but there are more things put in the back of the car. I can also tell the difference between clothes that Adam wears for work and those he wears for not work. Of course, I don’t really see anything we do as work, which is his word, but when he wears the leash thing around his neck, he’s quieter. When he pulls on those heavy boots, we get to explore the outdoors. Today he’s pulled out both. I’m beginning to catch on. But there’s something else different about this time. Adam is bustling around the house, whistling, but not a Come here whistle. He’s opened the fridge and thrown out all the potential goodies inside. Travesty! Oh no, I whine. He hands me some meat. A leftover slice of cheese. At last we leave the house, Adam following me as I lead him to the car.
* * *
“Hello, Adam.” It’s Next Door Beth.
He really doesn’t want to be rude, but he wants to get to the LakeView before dark, and it’s already taken him more time than he thought to get ready. “I’m kind of in a hurry, Beth. Sorry.”
“So, how are you doing?” She has that sympathetic expression on her face, and he’s a little puzzled as to why she’s giving him that look right now; she hasn’t asked that question in exactly that way for some months. “I know, it’s a hard time, isn’t it?”
For a nanosecond, he doesn’t know what she means. And then he does. He’s holding the bunch of flowers he intends for Gina’s grave, telegraphing his very private intention, a quick visit to tell Gina he’s going away for a while.
And then it hits him: It’ll have been a year at the end of this week. A lifetime and a moment. The “almost a year” he’s been saying has come to its terminus. Tomorrow he pushes into the second year without Gina.
Beth takes a small step toward him. “Would you like to come in for coffee?”
Chance turns around and stalks back to Adam, pushes aside the bouquet dangling from his hand. Bops Adam on the knee as if to say, Come on, we need to go. Adam declines Beth’s invitation. “Thanks, no. I’ve got to get on the road. Look, I’ll be away for a bit.”
“Anything I can do?”
“Beth.” Adam walks over to where she stands on her side of the driveway, takes her hand. “It would be great if you would stop asking me that.”
* * *
I like that lady, but I can tell that there is something about her that brings out the stress in Adam. He stiffens up, kind of like a dog meeting a rival. No, that’s not it exactly. Maybe we dogs don’t have an equivalent. She says Gina fairly often, and each time she does, I feel Adam’s heartbeat alter. His pulse changes. This time, he hurried me along to the car, as if I had to be encouraged to move quickly. In a few minutes, I could sense that he had calmed down. His hand squeezed the skin of my neck gently. It’s okay, boy. She doesn’t mean any harm. I wasn’t sure of the entire meaning of his words, but the slowing of his pulse told me that he was back to normal. I counted it as good that his recovery period was so short. There were times when it took him days to get through one of these stress times. As soon as I recognized that we were traveling west, I felt myself relax, too.