The Vanishing Expert
Page 65
Ruth had already moved into one of the large bedrooms on the second floor by the time Ben returned from Europe. It had been the second of the two conditions James had proposed to Ben a year earlier, and Ben had enthusiastically approved.
Ruth sold the house on Clark Point Road in October, making a sizable profit on the sale and, at Ben’s insistence, placing the money from the sale in the bank. As with James, Ben refused to accept anything from Ruth in exchange for her living there. It was as much her home now as it was his or James’s or Jean’s. He asked only that Ruth continue her tradition of baking her delicious muffins on Sunday mornings. He wanted nothing more from her.
Ben and Ruth enjoyed each other’s company immensely, sometimes giving the appearance of an old married couple, though there was never any romance between them, each of them forever devoted to the loves they’d lost. But the loneliness and the sadness that had crept into their lives— into Ruth’s over years, into Ben’s over decades— had been replaced by companionship, which they both welcomed. They sometimes did puzzles together on the long trestle table near the window that looked out onto the porch which, in turn, looked out onto the harbor. At other times they sat quietly with books in the big family room, sometimes reading passages aloud that they thought the other might enjoy. Ben even developed the habit of leaving the daily crossword puzzle unfinished for Ruth to complete after she’d told him of Henry’s ritual, for no other reason than it sparked a happy memory for her.
It wasn’t all perfect, but then, what life is? Christina decided to remain in Portland after being offered a teaching job there. She lived in a small apartment off State Street and on weekends she enjoyed wandering about the city, strolling along many of the same streets that Ben Jordan had once walked decades earlier. She even frequented the bakery beneath the office of Eugene Sisk, the Portland lawyer, though she’d never once seen him or his corpulent wife, and she had no interest in seeking either of them out.
Jean constantly urged her to try to find a teaching job on Mount Desert Island and to live with them in the big house in Northeast Harbor. But Christina claimed to have found a home in Portland, and she seemed sincere about her love for the city, despite Jean’s disappointment that it was so far away.
Still, Christina visited her now extended, and unusual, family during school breaks. She appeared happy when she visited. She was always cheerful and loving with William, but then there was never any question that she loved him, only that what she felt was a mother’s love, which was a sometimes unbearable thing when she couldn’t actually be a mother to him. She’d never told Jean her real reason for going away, hoping to spare her from some of what she was struggling with, even though Jean would have been the most likely to understand what she was feeling. The hardest part about being a mother, she’d often warned, was letting your children go, and as a result of Christina’s generous gift— a single act of sacrifice— both Jean and Christina were doing exactly that, each in their own way.
During her early visits, James initially found himself observing Christina for signs of the sadness she’d confessed feeling that last Christmas Eve before she left— for good, as it turned out— but he soon stopped, concerned that his searching for her melancholy might somehow draw it out.
It was an unusual family that gathered around the table on Sunday mornings, each of them having been broken or incomplete in some way before they found each other. But now that they’d been brought together, whatever the circumstances that connected their lives, they appeared to fit perfectly together like the pieces of one of Ben's and Ruth’s puzzles to complete a picture.
There were decisions that James would always question, mainly that first decision that led to everything else. Certainly he'd always wish he’d never crossed paths with Joe Tibbits. But it was also impossible to ignore that all of his choices, even his missteps, had ultimately guided him on his journey— along that path that was not a path— to this place. Perhaps it was because he’d come so close to losing it all that he realized, as Ben had warned him, how fleeting and fragile happiness can be, but not a day passed that he wasn’t grateful for his life— a simple life, at last, surrounded by the people he loved, in a grand old home with a view of the sea.
About The Author
David Movsesian was raised in Lynnfield, Massachusetts. He graduated from the University of Maine at Orono in 1984 with a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism. He currently resides in southern New Hampshire with his wife, Lori, and their dog, Zoe.
The Vanishing Expert is his first novel.