Crossing the Bridge

by Michael Baron

  “The buyer has come up to our number,” I said.

  My father took a deep breath and nodded slowly. My mother said, “That’s great” wanly.

  “I don’t want you to take it.” Both of them turned to look at me. I shut my eyes and gave myself a moment before continuing. “I want it. I’m here now and, completely without intending to, I’ve kind of gotten attached to the place. It’s supposed to stay in the family.”

  My mother reached out and took my hand. My father took another deep breath.

  “Howard Crest wants to meet with you this afternoon to finalize the deal. I’d like to call him and tell him that we’re taking it off the market if that’s okay with you. There’s enough money in the store for all of us.”

  My father looked at me carefully. I imagined that he was recalibrating, though it’s entirely possible he was gauging my sincerity.

  “You’re the boss,” he said. “If you think this is the right decision, tell him.”

  I called Howard, who seemed relatively unsurprised and only mildly peeved at having lost the commission, and then, after my parents had gone back out to the deck with Rita, I called Iris to give her the news.

  “You’re doing the right thing,” she said.

  “God, I hope so. Do you realize what I just committed to doing?”

  “You know you’re doing the right thing. You don’t have to wonder.”

  “You’re right. I do know it. Jeez, a shopkeeper. Can you believe that’s what I’ve turned out to be?”

  “As long as you don’t develop a paunch and start wearing an apron, I think you’ll be okay. Hey, come on up tonight. We should celebrate in person.”

  “This commute is going to kill me.”

  She hesitated for a beat and then said, “Yeah, we’ll have to think about that.”

  I sighed. I cradled the phone between my head and my shoulders, imagining that I was nuzzling Iris’ face instead. “I think the last couple of days officially qualify as a whirlwind.”

  “I suppose they do.”

  “I can’t wait to see you tonight.”

  “Come up now. I’ll make some excuse.”

  “I think Jenna would hunt me down and kill me if I did that to her again.”

  “I’ll wait then.”

  “I love you,” I said quickly, not even understanding how right it felt to say until after the words came out of my mouth.

  “I love you, too, Hugh,” Iris said without any noticeable hesitation. “I love you, too.”

  That I was able to go back to the store at all after hearing her say that was the clearest indication yet that I had found my place.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Two Locals Pretending to Be Visitors

  I decided to find a place to live just over the bridge from Amber in Milton. I needed to be at least that far from settling down in my hometown. Iris came along with me as a realtor showed us a variety of apartments. For the first time in my life, I didn’t simply take the first decent place that came along, and by the end of the morning I had three reasonable candidates to consider. Iris and I had lunch at a clam bar overlooking the water as we discussed my options.

  “You really want my opinion, right?” she said.

  “Of course I want your opinion.”

  “Take the duplex. It was a good space and I can definitely imagine spending time there. Nice bathtub.”

  “It did have a nice bathtub. Though realistically, you probably aren’t going to be there very often. We’re still going to want to have most of our time together in Lenox, right? I mean, Lenox is still exponentially cooler than it is around here, no matter how many handmade mugs I sell at the store.”

  “That brings me to the other thing I’ve been planning to tell you today. Have you ever heard of the Spring Street Theatre Company?”

  “I can’t say that I have.”

  “You really didn’t get out much when you were here, did you? Spring Street is an experimental theater group that puts on shows about ten minutes away from here. They’ve been around – getting great notices if you were paying any attention at all – for the past six years. For the past three, they’ve been trying to convince me to come on board.”

  “‘Come on board’ as in leave the Ensemble?”

  “It would be a little tough to do both. Anyway, I always told them that I didn’t have any interest in coming back to this area – until I agreed to meet with them tomorrow afternoon.”

  “Do you think you’ll get it?”

  She tilted her head. “I know I’ll get it. Did you hear the part about them coming after me for three years?”

  I actually felt my eyes tearing. “So you’d be right here.”

  “That’s the idea.”

  “All the time.”

  “Tell me you aren’t going to get hung up about that.”

  I tilted my head. “Did you hear the part about my dreaming about you for the past eleven years?”

  “I deserved that.”

  Armed with this new information, we went to look at the duplex a second time. This time, as we walked through the rooms, I imagined how we would use each one. The bathtub took on new meaning. I signed the lease that afternoon.

  That night we stayed at an inn just off Russet Avenue. Two locals pretending to be visitors for one more night before coming home. After dinner, we took a long walk and found ourselves at the base of the Pine River Bridge. We walked out onto it and leaned against the wall, looking upon the water.

  It was August ninth, the day before the anniversary of Chase’s death. I wondered briefly if there would be a piece about it in the Amber Advisor tomorrow and then let it go. I wasn’t about to start reading that paper now. I’d get my community news elsewhere.

  I reached an arm around Iris’ shoulders and she leaned her head against mine. Numerous cars passed us by, shuttling between Amber and Milton. I could hear a boat somewhere off in the distance. Down on the beach, a hit song played on the radio and teenagers laughed. But the water was remarkably calm, barely lapping in the August stillness.

  Iris turned her head and kissed me on the cheek. I pulled her closer.

  Eventually, and without a word, we walked arm in arm back over the bridge.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  I grew up in the New York area and I’ve lived there my entire life. I worked in retail and taught high school English before I got my first book contract. I have gotten several additional book contracts since then, which is fortunate because I didn’t have the patience to work in retail and, while I quite enjoyed teaching, my approach was a bit too unconventional for most school systems. One school administrator told me that, “there are more important things than being a dynamic teacher.” Since I couldn’t name any of those things (at least in the context of school), I figured I didn’t have a long-term future in the profession. Hence, I became a writer, where I believe people appreciate a certain level of dynamism.

  My first several book deals were for nonfiction books. Though I started with nonfiction, I have always loved fiction and I have always wanted to write it. I’ve always had a particular affection for love stories. In fact, the very first book-length thing I ever wrote, when I was thirteen, was a love story. Mind you, it was the kind of love story that a thirteen-year-old boy would write, but it was a love story nonetheless. I have a deep passion for writing about relationships – family relationships, working relationships, friendships, and, of course, romantic relationships – and I can only truly explore this by writing fiction. My novels have given me a way to voice the millions of things running through my head.

  My wife and kids are the center of my life. My wife is the inspiration for all of my love stories and my children enthrall me, challenge me, and keep me moving. One of the primary reasons I wrote my first novel, When You Went Away was that I wanted to write about being a father. Aside from my family, I have a few other burning passions. I’m a pop culture junkie with an especially strong interest in music, I love fine food (as well as any restaura
nt shaped like a hot dog), and I read far too many sports blogs for my own good.

  “Michael Baron” is a pseudonym. This isn’t because I’m in the Witness Protection Program, or anything of that sort. I’m writing these novels “undercover” because they’re not entirely compatible with the nonfiction books I write and I didn’t want to confuse readers. We’re all different people sometimes, right? I just decided to give my alter ego another name.

  My next novel is called The Journey Home. It’s a love story, too, naturally. It follows three people going through three different types of emotional battles.

  Joseph, a man in his late thirties, awakens disoriented and uneasy in a place he doesn’t recognize. Several people are near him when he opens his eyes, all strangers. All of them seem perfectly friendly, but none of them can explain to him where he is or how he got there. They offer him a delicious meal and pleasant conversation in a beautifully decorated room. This would be a very nice experience if not for one thing: Joseph doesn’t know where he is, and he has no way to contact his wife, who he is sure is worried sick over him. Thanking the people for their hospitality, he leaves to make his way back home. The only problem is that whatever happened to him has stripped him of most of his memories. He knows he needs to get back to his wife, but he doesn’t know how to find her. He sets out on a journey to find his home with no sense of where he’s going and only the precious, indelible vision of the woman he loves to guide him.

  Antoinette is an elderly woman in an assisted living facility. She’s spent the last six years there since her husband died, and most of those years have been happy. She enjoys the company of others in her situation, and her son comes to visit often. But in recent months, she’s had a tougher and tougher time leaving her room. Her friends seem different to her and the world seems increasingly confusing. She spends an escalating amount of time in her head. There, her body and mind haven’t betrayed her. There, she’s a young newlywed with a husband who dotes on her and an entire life of dreams to live. There, she is truly home.

  Warren, Antoinette’s son, is a man in his early forties going through the toughest year of his life. His marriage ended, he lost his job, and in the past few months, his mother has gone from hale to increasingly hazy. Having trouble finding work, he spends more and more time by his mother’s bedside. But her lack of lucidity both frustrates and frightens him. With far too much time on his hands, he decides to try to recreate his memories of home by attempting to cook his mother’s greatest dishes using the rudimentary appliances available in her room. He finds the challenge surprisingly rewarding, especially because the only time he feels his mother is truly with him anymore is when she is eating the meals he prepares for her.

  Joseph, Antoinette, and Warren are three people on different searches for home. How they find it, and how they connect with one another at this critical stage in each of their lives, is the heart of the story I tell in The Journey Home.

  The novel goes on sale May 11, 2010. Check www.michaelbaronbooks.com in the early spring for a preview of it.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and

  incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or

  are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales,

  organizations, or persons living or dead, is entirely coincidental

  and beyond the intent of either the author or the publisher.

  The Story Plant

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  Copyright © 2010 by The Fiction Studio

  eISBN : 978-0-984-19051-5

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  First Story Plant Printing:

  January 2010