Little Comfort

by Edwin Hill

  She turned the corner into the next row and disappeared. He left the novel on the table and followed. He edged up the aisle that ran parallel, and then peeked around the books to where she leafed through a graphic novel with zombies on the cover. He sighed. He glanced over the colorful spines between them to where he could see her hands, tiny hands with well-chewed nails. Her index finger paused. She leaned her shoulder against a shelf to read. The dog, who lay at her feet, lifted her head up, sniffed, then let her head fall to the floor with a sigh.

  Gabe had to tell her to stay as far away from him and Sam as she could, but what would she say if he told her that? What would she ask, and what would she think of him if she knew all of his secrets? Would she still tell him he wasn’t as odd as he thought he was? Would she let him take her dog out for long walks? He couldn’t be invisible anymore with a dog, especially a basset hound like this one, with its long ears and dopey waddle. People would stop him on the street and ask the dog’s name. Waffles, he’d say, and he’d be Waffles’s dad or Hester’s husband. People would remember that about him, at the very least.

  A book popped off the shelf and landed at his feet. Then another followed. And another.

  “Gabe?”

  He’d recognize that croaky voice anywhere. He crouched and peered through the gap in the books. He should say something charming, like in those movies, where bantering through bookshelves was code for meet cute, not stalking. Instead, he smiled.

  “If you want to spy on me,” she said, “you could at least put on a hat and sunglasses. I saw you out in the café. And if you just want to stare at me, then I’ll get going. But if you want to be friends, ask. Maybe we could grab coffee.”

  “Coffee?” he said. He could practically see the word hovering over him in a speech bubble surrounded by pulsing hearts.

  “Yeah, coffee,” she said, taking a step backward. “Meet me over there. But first reshelve those books.”

  He did what she said and then met her in line. “We’ll have to be fast,” she said. “I’m on kid duty. You never appreciate time, do you, till you don’t have it anymore? I don’t even know what I did with myself BK. That’s Before Kate. And the money! I guess I used to sleep in piles of money, because God knows what I spent it on. She’s my niece. Likes princesses, won’t eat her peas. Typical. Cute, but annoying. Honestly, I hate peas too.”

  “Why’s she your problem?” Gabe asked.

  Hester waved a dismissive hand. “I wouldn’t say she’s a problem. But I’m earning my good Samaritan badge.” They stepped up to the counter. “My treat,” she said. “What do you want?”

  “Coffee,” Gabe said.

  “Miss, you can’t really bring your dog in here,” the young woman working the counter said.

  “We’ll go outside,” Hester said.

  At the coffee station, she ripped the tops off of a wad of sugar packets. “I take mine with a lot of sugar,” she said. “And I mean a lot. So, when you make it for me, put in as much as you think possible and then add one more. Morgan says it’ll give me diabetes.”

  “Who’s Morgan?” Gabe asked.

  She started to say something and then lifted up the creamer.

  He nodded. “And sugar,” he added.

  “It’s important to know how you take your coffee,” Hester said. “Especially if we’re going to be friends.”

  “Are we?” Gabe asked.

  “We’ll see, right?”

  A silence fell between them that Hester finally broke by jerking her head toward the door. “It’s cold, and I can feel the snow in the air, but that woman keeps giving Waffles the stink-eye.”

  She led them outside, to a set of black café tables. The heavy sky enclosed them like a fort of gray blankets, and when Gabe inhaled, he felt as though he was sharing her air.

  “I’ve always liked sipping coffee in the cold like this,” Hester said, buttoning her coat up and enticing Waffles to lie on her feet. “There’s something peaceful about it. Private too. You have the world to yourself in a way.”

  Gabe felt the cold metal of the chair through the seat of his pants. In front of them, the parking lot was packed, but she was right. The table felt oddly private. Like their own place.

  “Do you have everything for French toast?” Hester asked. “Bread, milk, eggs. That’s what everyone buys before a storm. Me? I make sure I have enough scotch in the house. Honestly, though, I love a good storm. Especially right before the holiday like this. It’ll be nice to have a white Christmas. I’ll take Kate sledding tomorrow and then worry the whole time she’ll crack her head open, but let her do it anyway. I’m learning.”

  “Learning what?”

  “Oh, not to be an asshole, I guess.”

  She could never be an asshole, not to him.

  “I wasn’t too thrilled when Kate came to live with me. Now … let’s say I’m getting used to it.” She took another long sip from her coffee, gripping the cup in both of her mittened hands. “Listen,” she said. “I’m sorry. I’ve been nosing around in your business this week, and I bet it’s brought up some bad memories.”

  She had brought up bad memories, but those were always there, weren’t they? Below the surface, a wound barely masked by a scab. There were good ones there too, if you dug deep enough.

  “I saw Sam today,” she said. “I followed him to the VA Hospital in West Roxbury. He’s working with one of the patients there, and when he saw me, I thought he’d know that I mentioned Lila to you the other day, but he didn’t. You didn’t tell him anything that I told you, did you?”

  Gabe shook his head.

  “Sam said we should grab drinks one of these days. Should I? Should I tell him that his sister hired me, or is it not worth going there?”

  It wasn’t worth it. Not at all. “He wants to leave that life behind. And so do I.”

  “Got it,” Hester said, standing suddenly. “Understood. None of my business. I should have dropped this a couple of days ago. And I have to pick up Kate. So here’s the thing.” She dug in her pocket and pulled out a business card. “No more stalking me in bookstores for you, and no more pretending I want to rent an apartment for me. Let’s be friends, okay. Or not, that’s okay too. Call me if you want, though, and maybe we’ll make plans.”

  Gabe stood too. He wanted to run as far as he possibly could from her, to leave her to her life, but he wasn’t strong enough, because he also wanted to come up with a story, the right story, a story that would get her to stop asking questions about what was and keep asking questions about what could be. He wanted to be like Sam, someone who could reinvent himself so thoroughly. Someone who could leave the past behind. “Can I walk with you?” he asked.

  “I guess,” Hester said.

  They walked for a block. What would she say if he asked her to dinner? He looked at her hand, clutching the dog’s leash, at those tiny fingers. What would happen if he slid his hand over hers? What would it be like to be wanted?

  “Do you know Jamie Williams?” Hester asked. “Sam’s friend. Big, black guy. Nice smile, but a bit like Lennie, if you know what I mean. He’s crushed out on Sam, but most people are. I mean you are, right?”

  Gabe stopped midstep.

  “Oh, calm down,” Hester said. “I know you’re not crushed out in a gay way. You probably like the attention. Who wouldn’t?”

  She pulled open the door to a day care center. Inside, a half dozen other parents waited in the hallway. Not ten seconds later, the door to a classroom opened, and a wave of children ran screaming into the hallway, including Kate, with her honey-colored hair. Hester lifted her from the ground and spun her around and kissed her on the nose and cheeks in a way that said anything but that she found the kid annoying. The girl held out some Popsicle sticks that had been glued together.

  “Beautiful,” Hester said, holding the craft up to the light where the pink glitter sparkled. “Kate, this is Mr. DiPursio.”

  The girl buried her head in Hester’s shoulder.

  “You can
say hello, can’t you? You met him the other day at his house. Remember?”

  Kate mumbled hello.

  “Can I give this to him? I bet he’d like it.”

  She nodded.

  “All yours,” Hester said.

  Gabe took the Popsicle sticks from her and felt like his heart might melt right there. He wanted to lift the little girl in his arms and swing her over his head and cover her face with raspberries.

  “So call me,” Hester said. “Any time.”

  Gabe looked at the card that was still clutched in his glove.

  “And one more thing. Barry or Gabe? Your choice.”

  “I never liked Barry,” Gabe said.

  He touched her hand, and they stood for what seemed like hours in silence, children running around them. He should tell her to leave, to never speak to him again. He should tear the card up into tiny pieces and forget that they’d ever met. But she looked directly at him. Kate squirmed in her arms. Her glasses had slipped down her nose, but she didn’t bother to push them up. “Good to know,” she said.

  He reached out to keep the glasses from falling. Before he could stop himself, he kissed her, and she, he swore, kissed back. Or at least she did till she shook her head and wiped her mouth with the back of a fist. She left without another word. He watched through the window as the two of them hurried toward the parking lot with the dog. He ran his fingers along the Popsicle sticks till glitter wore off. He imagined picking Kate up from day care. Like with Waffles, the preschool teachers would remember him. They’d be required to, since it was part of their job, but even more so because they’d see how lucky Hester was to have a man around who cared so deeply.

  “Can I help you, sir?”

  One of the preschool teachers eyed Gabe warily. A few parentless children milled around behind her. He couldn’t help but think he’d done something wrong by being there. He headed out into the cold, trying not to think about Sam or Lila or any of it, but he could see that braid again. He could taste the tobacco on Lila’s lips. He could feel her under him. He’d told Lila about the motel, lying there, in her bed while Sam slept in the other room, his head resting on her breasts. He’d told her what those men did, sobbing, wanting her to say that she’d protect him, wanting her to say she loved him the way he loved her. But he felt her tense, and then push him away. He reached for her, and she brushed him off, slipping into a robe with her back to him.

  “Those men have diseases,” she said.

  “Help me,” he said.

  Lila stood and held the robe closed. “I don’t want to see you again.”

  In the end, Gabe had only had Sam.

  Ahead, a streetlamp shone like the fullest of moons, and like that, Gabe was in New Hampshire again, loping through the trees toward the dock on a night that was anything but cold.

  Sam is beside him. They run in tandem, without any effort, and then guide the canoe into the water, away from the shore, with Sam at the stern. Gabe leans into his paddle, his fingers brushing along the still surface with each stroke. He doesn’t know why Sam even talks to him, let alone meets him out on the lake for these late-night jaunts.

  Sam is beautiful—though that’s not a word for other boys, is it?—with his fine features and slender hands and eyes that find your very core. For Gabe, these nights aren’t about sex. They’re about escape. And they’re about something else he can’t name, something to do with being wanted, being seen. Feeling solid.

  Sam steers the boat alongside one of about fifteen docks that jut from the shore of a small island. He jumps lightly to the boards, wraps a rope around a piling and, before Gabe can even put his paddle up or crawl onto the dock or even ask where they are, disappears into the trees. Gabe secures the boat and hurries after him. It takes a moment for his eyes to adjust to the dark, but he soon finds a well-worn path. Intermittent moonlight filters through the foliage to help guide him to a small clearing, where church pews glow white under the moon and a pulpit stands beneath a bell tower. Gabe walks up the aisle of the tiny outdoor chapel to where Sam sits in the front row.

  “Haven’t you seen them on Sundays?” Sam asks. “In their bonnets and seersucker, rowing their rickety boats. This is one way in, this lake, and this island, but not when you spend Saturdays cleaning shit from their toilets.”

  He clears a thick layer of sodden leaves from the forest floor and uncovers the lid of a rubber trash pail that’s been buried up to its rim and filled with magazines. “I like to think of the devoted worshiping at the altar of Larry Flynt,” he says, tossing Gabe the flashlight with a damp copy of Penthouse.

  “Who else knows about this place?” Gabe asks.

  “Only you, my friend. No one matters but you and me.”

  Gabe rolls on his side. The leaves rustle beneath him. It means something to be one of two who matter. This is before, but after. Before the ad on Craigslist, and after Gabe lived with Cheryl, when he’d come to stay at Sam’s house. Till this very moment, Gabe still felt hopeless and alone and like no one on earth had ever heard him cry. He still closed his eyes at night and pretended what happened hadn’t.

  “I’ll always watch out for you,” Sam says. “Always. No matter what. We’ll watch out for each other.”

  Back then, Sam’s words sent a wave of something through Gabe. He felt as though he was standing on center stage, lit up for the whole world to see. It took years—maybe till this very moment, on the sidewalk, watching Hester retreat—for him to put a word to the feeling or to learn how fleeting happiness could be and how vulnerable it left him. A ravenous chasm of loneliness, desperate to be filled.

  He closes the Penthouse and lays it on the leaves. “I have a plan,” he says. “Will you help me?”

  “Anything,” Sam says.

  “I need to tell you something. Promise you’ll believe me.”

  *

  Gabe traced the letters on Hester’s business card. He already had her number and e-mail memorized. He really should forget her, but what if he sent a text tonight to say hello, to tell Kate thanks for the Popsicle sticks? A small touch. A reminder. He’d save the dinner invitation for another time. He headed down the street toward home, barely able to keep the skip from his step. His phone rang, and even though he somehow knew that he should ignore it, that it would bring this perfect moment to an end, he believed it might be her. He dug the phone from his pocket. It was Sam.

  “Where are you?” Gabe asked.

  “Never mind that,” Sam said, in a voice barely above a whisper. “There’s someone in the other room, but I wanted to tell you that I’m sorry I lost my temper earlier. You know we have to deal with this though, right?” And when Gabe didn’t respond, Sam clucked his tongue. “You’ve always had my back,” he said. “Since day one. And I’ve always had yours.”

  Gabe touched Hester’s name on the card. A wave of unbearable sadness swept through him. He found a bench and sat. He thought about that house he’d dreamed of.

  “Who hired her?” Sam asked “Do you know?”

  Lila’s name slipped off Gabe’s tongue before he could catch it.

  “Lila,” Sam said. “That’s not good for her either.”

  Gabe felt the inevitable descend in heavy clouds of gray. He listened for a few more minutes, but when he hung up, he was sweating. Anxiety chewed at his stomach. He tore at his coat, ripping it off and hurrying the few remaining blocks to their house. In the basement, he checked the plastic bag where the two remaining fingers had already begun to desiccate. Under one blue nail was the faintest smear of blood. Gabe flushed that finger down the toilet. The other finger he ran along his scalp and then placed in the batik box on his dresser, right next to his stash. It would be easy enough to find there. The police would call it a trophy.

  It was time to go. It was the only way.

  He packed a duffel bag, filling it with fleece jackets and gloves and hats, anything for warmth. He added a pair of boots, a box of granola bars, and some fruit. He’d drive over to Burlington to buy snow sh
oes from L.L. Bean. They’d need them tonight.

  Then, he left the house and went into the square, where he found one of the few remaining pay phones. He gripped the receiver for a full minute before he took a deep breath and dialed. No matter how much he owned Sam, no matter what Sam had done for him, there had to be another way out of this. There had to be a way forward. And besides, he could still feel her lips on his.

  CHAPTER 20

  No one who knew Twig Ambrose besides her father seemed worried about her, but Angela White was convinced that something terrible had happened to the woman. Nearly twenty-four hours had gone by since Donald Ambrose had called the mayor, and Angela hadn’t found a single person who’d seen Twig since Saturday, not a friend, neighbor, or colleague. She’d interviewed more than two dozen people from the party. Some remembered seeing Twig, others didn’t. That Felicia Nakazawa had, among other things, sworn she’d seen Twig standing outside the French doors at the Richards mansion wearing an emerald-green dress, but then Felicia Nakazawa was the type of witness who told you whatever you wanted to hear. She was the type who fingered the wrong person during a line up and sent them to jail.

  By midafternoon, Angela had called her boss, Stan, and told him that she thought this was serious and that she needed backup, and he’d put together a taskforce to wade through the remaining interviews and pull together a data trail. They’d subpoenaed Twig’s phone and credit card records, and even those worried Angela. The last text Twig had sent was the one to Wendy early on Sunday morning. She hadn’t used her credit cards since Saturday afternoon either.