When he turned onto the dirt drive, he felt nervous again, the way he used to feel when he snuck into the Gordons’ place. After all the years as an intruder it seemed incredibly strange to him that he had a legitimate stake in the home. He wasn’t trespassing—well, not exactly. He was trespassing now, arriving an hour earlier than he was supposed to.
The water in the cove gleamed in the sun: high tide. The driveway was empty. If Ann had been there, she was gone now. He wasn’t sure if he should feel relief, because her absence just pushed off the inevitable. He parked and unloaded the bleach he’d bought to clean off the cellar walls and set the jugs next to the outside doors. He returned to his truck and pulled out his familiar overnight bag and a sack of groceries. Shelby and Deeds were coming for dinner later that night. They loved the house the way he did, and laughed at Ann’s Post-its marking her space: ANN’S, ANN’S, ANN’S. Deedee made Post-its that said BEYONCÉ’S!, TOM BRADY’S!, MELANIA’S!, and attached them to Michael’s drawers. They made Ann seem ridiculous, and she was, so why did Michael feel like he needed to defend her?
He walked quietly toward the bedroom with his bag, stopping in the living room to watch a gentle wind ruffle the old yellow lace curtains that reminded him of Connie. Thank goodness Ann still hadn’t replaced the curtains. He stood in a patch of golden light from the low afternoon sun and watched the dust motes swirl around in the sacred air. He inhaled. That smell, that smell.
He shook off his moment of self-indulgence and walked to the bedroom. Even before he got to the door he could feel another presence, the way you can smell rain before it falls. Quietly, he pushed the door open and saw Ann curled up on the bed. Her hair was longer now, the way it was when they were kids, and it fanned out on the quilt. The curtains fluttered in this room, too, the only movement aside from the gentle rise and fall of her chest. She slept with her head resting over one raised arm. She was sweating, and the hair close to her face and along her neck was dark from moisture. Her cheeks were flushed. She wore a pair of shorts and a tank, more casual than the clothes he pictured her wearing. Her skin glowed. She might have been seventeen.
Michael was caught off guard. Here she was, Ann, and she wasn’t intimidating or full of bluster—she was human, vulnerable, beautiful in this light, a natural fixture in this house she was part of.
Michael began to close the door but the squeak of the old rusty hinges woke her. “Noah?”
What should he do? He had half a mind to run out of the house, get in his car, and leave, but he’d brought in too much stuff to make a quick, quiet exit.
Her eyes fluttered open. She looked at him. “Oh.”
Oh. Why hadn’t she attacked him? Instead she said oh, like she already knew the answer to a question.
She sat up, wiped the drool from her cheek with the back of her hand. “What are you doing here? Is it after five?”
Michael looked at his watch. “Close. I got here a little early. I wanted to, I thought—I had some questions about the house. I’m sorry, I didn’t think you were home. No car.”
Her hair was matted on one side. “Noah took it to Lieutenant Island. I’ll bet the tide covered the bridge and he got stuck. I just wanted to close my eyes for a few minutes. I dozed off.”
“Sorry I woke you.”
Ann looked around the room like she was just beginning to realize where she was. “I had a dream about my parents. I only dream about them when I’m here. It’s so strange, like they come to visit me.” She looked at her hands and paused. “I dreamt my mom sat right here on the edge of the bed and looked out the window. She didn’t say anything. She was just here, present. It was beautiful. Nice. Then I asked her if I could hug her. She said, ‘Sure, you can try. Let’s see what happens.’ I reached for her, and she was gone.”
Michael said, “I dream about them when I’m here, too. I can’t really remember my dreams, just that they were in them. When I wake up I feel like they tapped me on the shoulder or something.” Michael cleared his throat. “We’re talking. Weird.”
Ann grinned; she knew something. It made him uncomfortable. “When I opened my eyes and I saw you standing there in the doorway, I don’t know. You looked just like the Michael I used to know. The old Michael.”
“I am the old Michael.” He smiled.
“You don’t look much older.”
“Neither do you.” Michael cleared his throat.
“Thanks.” She sat up and adjusted her long legs so that she could sit cross-legged on the bed. The anibitz that Avery had left for Noah sat next to her: lion, owl, bee. Until that moment, his project hadn’t felt real. But there it was, in Ann’s hand, as if he’d made it not for Avery and all the kids in the world, but for Ann. He knew at that moment that he wasn’t ready to sell the company. “Anibitz, huh?”
“You remember.”
“Remember? I was the one who made that game up, Michael. Now it’s yours, I guess.”
Michael worried that Ann was about to go after him for stealing her idea. “It started out as a toy, something fun, and then people started telling me I should make more. I thought—”
“Relax. I didn’t get a trademark. You did. The toys are great. They are. I’m impressed. I wish I’d thought of it myself. I’ve always wanted to start my own business.”
“Did you know they write notes to each other?” Michael said. “Avery and Noah?”
“Yes,” she said. “I saw Noah’s notebooks. His drawings. They’re pretty good. And Avery’s got quite an imagination.”
“She told me they leave stuff for each other in the secret compartment by the fireplace.”
“Yes, I heard.”
What was it about Ann? Now that he could finally look at her again he found himself stumbling over every little detail: the freckle in the iris of her eye, the tuft of hair in her eyebrow that bent a different way from the rest. It was as if he’d been born preprogrammed to find her exact form of beauty his singular ideal. Her image was burned into his brain like acid on metal. He’d loved other women, but it was always Ann he measured everyone against, and here she was, in the flesh.
Ann’s phone rang. “Hang on.” She started talking in her mom voice. Noah. She said something about the tide, the bridge, the island, about getting back soon. Her eyes were on Michael the whole time she spoke. She hung up and looked at him. “He’s stuck until the tide goes down. Is it OK if I’m here beyond my time?”
“Well, I got here early for mine, so we’re even.”
“Great,” she said. She stood up and threw a daffodil-yellow cardigan over her shoulders. “Because we should talk.”
“I was thinking the same thing.” Michael scratched his head. “I don’t even know what’s going on. Why are you being nice to me?”
Ann smiled and pointed at the periwinkle wall. “Do you like the paint colors?”
“Yeah. I do, actually.”
“I thought they might be too bold. Maureen picked them.”
“Maureen? Maureen Shaw?”
“Mo. We’re friends now. She’s practically a godmother to Noah.”
Michael looked at Ann in disbelief. “Shut up. You two are friends? After everything? That’s like, I don’t know. Super adult.”
“We grew close after Anthony’s suicide.”
Michael winced. “That’s good, I guess. Not about Anthony, but—”
“I know what you mean.” Ann smoothed the wrinkles out of the sheet with the flat of her hand. “Did you know the Shaws’ house out here was torn down? The pipes burst last winter and the place filled with black mold.”
Michael coughed. “I think I heard something about that.”
“You did, huh?” He still knew her well enough to recognize that she was teasing him. Had she really figured out that it was Michael who’d cut the heat? “Maureen sure was grateful for the insurance money.”
“That’s good. I always thought she was a nice lady.”
Ann said, “She never liked that house anyway.”
“Speaking o
f heat,” Michael said, anxious to change the subject. “About the boiler…”
“What’s wrong with the boiler?”
“It burns oil instead of gas. The thing is a beast. Wastes energy. I think we should replace it now, before all the pipes burst if it stops working. I had someone look at it last year. He said the gasket is rusted—”
“That’s fine. Call him. Let’s have it replaced.”
Fine? What was going on? He thought this would be difficult. Everything that had to do with Ann was difficult. Now she was doing a one-eighty on him.
“But,” Ann said—he knew there would be a “but.” “You should get a second opinion.”
“Not a lot of people to give second opinions around here.”
“True.” Ann stood up and walked over to the window that looked out to the cove. The afternoon light lit up her hair so it looked like a golden halo. “Noah knows better than to get caught on Lieutenant Island at high tide. I swear he stalls so we can spend more time here. He never wants to leave.”
“Same with Avery. She loves this house as much as I do.”
Michael smiled, almost drunk with surprise. He felt like he’d slipped through a net and found himself in a parallel universe that seemed just like the one he knew, only Ann didn’t hate him, or at least she didn’t act like it. “Look,” he said. “While I’ve got you in a good mood, I may as well give this a shot: I was thinking we should fix up the kitchen.”
“The kitchen is OK the way it is.”
Michael rolled his eyes. “Oh, come on.” He walked out of the room and gestured for Ann to follow him, and she did, her bare feet almost silent, padding across the wood floors. He walked into the kitchen and tried to pull out a drawer. “Stuck,” he said.
“It’ll come loose in winter.”
“It’s tighter than a clamshell.” He jiggled it again before it finally flew loose, rattling the cooking utensils. “We could get drawers on glides.” He pointed at the ground. “And look at this linoleum. It’s all beat-up. There’s asbestos under it. I don’t want Avery breathing that in, or you and Noah.”
Ann crossed her arms across her chest. “We breathed it in our whole lives. We’re fine.” This he could handle; he’d come prepared to disagree.
“The stove,” Michael said. “Come on, Ann. You’ve got to agree it needs to go.”
Ann looked at the avocado-green stove with the tilted electric coil burners and started to laugh, a sound that was as beautiful and unexpected as hearing a call from a rare bird. “I’m messing with you. The stove is a complete piece of shit,” she said. “It took Noah two hours to cook a frozen pizza.”
“Want me to pick one out?”
“It’s fine. I’ll do it.”
“Look, I think we should do the whole kitchen.”
“I think so, too.”
“I know it’s expensive. I can pay for it if money is the problem.”
Ann drew in a breath, and with it, the relaxed atmosphere in the room. “Because you’ve got money.” There it was, that edge he’d expected.
“I’ve got some.” He stuffed his hands in his pocket and waited for Ann to lay into him. “The business. The Anibitz thing? It’s starting to do well.”
“We need to talk about your money, Michael,” she said, although the iciness he’d thought he’d heard in her voice was gone. “Can I show you something?” She walked past him into the living room and pulled a manila envelope out of the desk. “Let’s sit on the porch. The light is better.”
What was this all about? Michael followed her out to the three-season porch that looked out into the woods. The room was the last to be fully updated. The white paint on the clapboard wall was chipped, and the rusty screens pulled away from the edges of their frames. Ann had replaced the old couch with a small loveseat that Michael had to admit was a lot nicer, with upholstered cushions that were, well, cushiony. Ann gestured for him to sit right next to her. He must have looked like he didn’t believe her. “Sit,” she said, patting the cushion harder.
He sank down, careful to keep some distance between them.
She set the envelope on her lap.
“What is it?”
Ann tilted the envelope so that Michael could see what was written on it: Please give this to your mom.
“That’s not Avery’s handwriting,” he said. Then he looked again. Shelby? His stomach knotted up. That was her writing. What was she up to?
Ann smiled and opened the envelope, pulling out a pile of papers held together with a binder clip. “There’s a little note.” She pulled off a sticky note that said FAILED NUN—he’d given those notes to Deeds as a stocking stuffer last year—and held it close so he could read it. Michael is a good man!
“I had nothing to do with this. I didn’t put Shelby up to whatever this is, I swear.”
“It’s OK, really. She’s great. We met for coffee this morning. She’s shared lots of helpful information.” She tossed the papers so that they landed on Michael’s lap. The one on top was a statement. He immediately recognized the bank logo. “The account,” he said. He felt like he’d swallowed a stone.
She ran her finger down a column. “Here’s where it started, with fifty grand, the same amount Anthony told me you’d extracted from him.”
“I didn’t extract—”
“And here are the monthly payments to me—here, here, here, here. Anthony said you’d set this up. He said it was your idea. But it was his, wasn’t it?” Ann pointed at Anthony’s name on one of the pieces of paper. “Anthony was on the account, too. It was all set up to look like the money was coming from just you.”
When Michael had discovered that a chunk of the money was missing, he’d asked the bank to send photocopies of the statements. There they were, straight out of his file, including the withdrawal slip with Anthony’s signature, signed so hard the pen almost broke through. It was painful for Michael to see Anthony’s handwriting. The thought of Anthony still bothered Michael in that primitive, raw way, only now it was harder for Michael to summon the anger and revulsion he’d once felt. He’d pulled up the news stories after Jason told him he’d died—news Jason had received when he called Maureen to tell her about the house. He saw the photo of police tape on the porch steps, another of Maureen with her hand over her face, trying to avoid reporters. He hated to see her so upset.
“Anthony took that money, not you.” Ann turned her head to get a good look at him.
Michael stared at his feet. He still wore his battered Red Wing boots even though he wasn’t landscaping anymore. He liked the way they made him feel like he was really working. He let out a deep breath. Here was something he’d wondered again and again: How could one man sneak into their lives the way Anthony had, and mess everything up? He’d been a crowbar of a man, wedging open every seam he could pry loose.
“Thirsty?” Ann asked.
“Yeah,” Michael said. “I guess I am.”
When she left the room Michael wondered if she’d ever really even been there in the first place, or was it just a dream? She returned holding two glasses of lemonade, poured into the old Welch’s jelly jars decorated with Muppets from Space characters. One with Kermit in an astronaut suit holding his helmet like John Glenn, the other with Gonzo just before blastoff.
“Lemonade, spiked with vodka. I think we both need it.” She took a long drink and reached for the papers, which had fallen to the floor. “So, here’s what I thought was fishy.” Her bangs fell forward, and she gently tucked them behind her small ear the same way she’d tucked her hair behind her ears when she was young. When a thick strand slipped out, it was all Michael could do to resist fixing it for her. “The account was drained to almost nothing. But then look, suddenly there’s a deposit, and a check issued to me for seventy-eight bucks. Such a random amount. Two months later? A hundred and twelve. And here, nineteen dollars. November was a good month: six hundred and eleven.” She looked up at him, waiting for Michael to say something.
He didn’t. He couldn�
�t.
“You made those deposits. That was your money.”
Michael looked out beyond Ann, out into the yard, the cluster of oak trees, the barn that needed to be painted. He felt like he was getting busted. Why was he so embarrassed? “I did what I could. Just a little here and there.”
“That’s not the point,” Ann said. “You helped. You used your own money to help me, and it came at a time when I really needed it.” Ann’s voice broke.
“Yeah,” he said; then he lowered his voice so he almost couldn’t be heard. “I’ve always cared about you, Ann.” It was as close as he’d ever come to telling Ann he loved her. He could tell that Ann was moved by what he said. If things had been different between them, if they had an easier rapport, he swore she might have hugged him. Instead, she kept her distance. What was that definition of hell that Connie had taught him from Dante? Something like proximity without intimacy, the kind of hell he’d known with Ann when he’d lived with her as a teenager. Later, he would suffer the opposite: intimacy without proximity, feeling so close to Ann and the whole family, even though they were far away.
Ann said, “You convinced Anthony to give you money in exchange for saying Noah was yours, so why?” He felt like he could melt under the heat of Ann’s intense gaze. “Why, all those years later, did you care?”
“Wait, what? You think I convinced Anthony? He blackmailed me, Ann, not the other way around. He said if I didn’t take the money and sign the forms to open the account, he wouldn’t support you.”
“He said that?” Ann set her glass down so hard that the lemonade spilled over the top. “Anthony bribed you? Not the other way around?”
“He said you’d get nothing if I didn’t lie and get lost. And he’d try to take your kid away from you. He said the account was your idea.”
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