The Edge of Winter

by Luanne Rice

  Shane’s mother poked her head into his room, motioned that she needed the line. Probably the major was going to call. For once, Shane didn’t really mind. He knew that if he didn’t get off the phone with Mickey, he’d lose it. He’d beg her not to go, or he’d promise he’d find a way to join her—but how? Sell his heap of a car?

  Sell his bike, or his board? He probably would sell his board—as much as it was part of him. But it was old and patched—he’d bought it used for fifty bucks two years ago. What would it get him now? Twenty-five? That wouldn’t even cover meals for a day.

  “I gotta go,” he said. “My mom needs the phone.”

  “Okay,” she said, sounding hurt and hesitant.

  “Sorry, Mickey,” he said. “About Washington.”

  “It’s okay,” she whispered. “It’s just…I know you say Washington’s not your thing. I just thought that being together was. That being together with me was your thing.”

  “We’ll be together when you get back,” he said, hanging up fast. Because if he’d stayed on even one more second, he’d have told her something he’d never told anyone in his life—words that never got spoken here in his house, that hadn’t been said under this roof since his father had gone into the waves and not come out: I love you.

  “Shane!” his mother yelled. “Get off the phone.”

  “I am already!” he yelled back.

  Shane loved Mickey so much, his hands were shaking. His heart was thudding as he thought of her sitting at home, wondering what was going on; she had sounded so hurt. And Shane wouldn’t hurt her for the world. He pushed himself up off the bed, went over to his desk. It was covered with schoolbooks, none of which he had the remotest interest in opening.

  It was also covered with pages and pages of notes for the materials that he and Mickey had given to Ranger O’Casey. Shane still had plenty of community service left at the beach. While Mickey was in Washington, he knew something he could do to make the time go by—it had to do with one angle his research had turned up, that he and Mickey hadn’t included in the packet.

  He might die trying to make this happen, but at that moment—standing in his room, listening to his mother’s happy voice as she talked on the phone out in the kitchen, knowing that Mickey was going away—he didn’t really care.

  There was precedent in his family for dying for love. Turning his eyes to the pictures on the wall, he looked at his father and knew that’s what he had done. Surfing that winter sea, Shane knew how filled with love his father had to have been.

  That’s what life on the waves was like: having an ocean under your board, the entire sea swelling and building, bearing you in one seismic crash after another back onto the beach. For Shane, there was no other way to express how he felt about the wildness of love, the fullness of life. He looked into his dad’s eyes, knowing something no one else did. And the funny thing was, Mickey had given him the idea.

  The right underwater photo would be one foolproof way to keep U-823 where it was, and if he could accomplish that, Mickey would be so proud of him.

  And that would be worth everything.

  18

  Neve drove down the beach road at dusk, noticing that the sky was staying light a little longer each day. Right now the sun was setting behind the pines on the inland side of the road, spreading thin pink light across the wind-sculpted white sand dunes, into the darkening sea.

  When she pulled up at the ranger station, she took a deep breath and stared at the water for a moment. Coming to the beach had always settled her, brought her back to herself. The sound of the waves came through the car windows. There must be a storm somewhere offshore, because the waves were enormous today. She felt churned up herself.

  There on the water, fifty yards or so down the beach, she saw the shapes of surfers. Was one of them Shane? Mickey had seemed subdued earlier—Neve knew she was torn because Shane wasn’t going to Washington and she was. In spite of feeling relieved that they wouldn’t be in a hotel together, she felt sorry for Shane.

  Climbing out of her car, she grabbed the things she’d brought, then hurried across the parking lot. Tim stood at the door, smiling as he watched her. She ran up the steps, stood facing him.

  “You made it,” he said, taking the bottle of wine and box of cookies she’d brought, placing them on the counter. Then he took her in his arms.

  “I did,” she said.

  He kissed her, brushing the hair back from her face. He was both tender and clumsy in the most endearing way, trying to tuck the hair behind her ears, missing, kissing her anyway, arms around her, pulling her closer now.

  They walked into the living room, and she sat down while he went to pour the wine. He’d put out a plate of cheese and crackers—Brie, cheddar, chèvre. Dar Williams sang on the stereo—“Mercy of the Fallen.” Neve leaned back and tried to let the music soothe her. Glancing nervously toward the kitchen door, she knew she had something to tell Tim, and she’d better do it soon.

  “I hope you’re in the mood for fish,” he said as he walked in, handed her the glass.

  “I am,” she said. “Especially here—” She motioned toward the window, with its stark view of the beach and sea.

  “Good. A friend of mine runs charters out of Galilee, and he brought me some winter flounder. Fresh this morning…”

  “Sounds great. It must be almost the end of their run,” she said.

  “I didn’t think spring was coming this year,” he said, sitting beside her. “It hasn’t in a long time, no matter what the calendar says.” He put his arms around her, tilted her head back, kissed her gently. Then again, not gently.

  Neve closed her eyes, feeling his body pressing against hers. She turned half into him, one leg crossing his. His body felt so hard, and she couldn’t get enough of it. Thoughts flickered in her brain, but she pushed them away. She told herself there would be time to talk in a few minutes, or a few hours.

  While they kissed, the sun went all the way down; it was the moon rising that got their attention, pulled them back from the brink. Or maybe it was the smell of good food coming from the kitchen.

  Neve could feel how much he didn’t want to pull away, and he didn’t—he just took her hand, tugged her toward the kitchen when he had to go in there. She fell easily into the rhythm of helping out. Mixing the salad dressing, tossing the greens. Cutting French bread, placing it in a basket. He had set the table, so she lit the candles.

  They sat down across the small table from each other. Crossing her legs, she bumped his foot; they smiled.

  “Sorry,” she said.

  “No problem,” he said.

  The candlelight flickered in a draft coming through the window. It threw shadows across the table, but there was plenty of light from the moon rising over the beach. White-blue moonlight spilled across the table’s oak grain, across their plates. They ate, and the food was delicious.

  “You’re a good cook,” she said.

  “Thanks,” he said. “I like doing it. I guess I started right after the separation; my son would come spend weekends with me, and we were both sick of pizza.”

  “He’d stay with you?” she asked. “Here?”

  “Well, before I was posted here, I was the ranger for a nature preserve up near the Massachusetts border. The cabin there made this one look palatial.” He laughed, as if remembering the close quarters. “But yes, eventually he stayed with me here.”

  She nodded, glancing around. The place was so small; she imagined Frank sleeping on the couch. It didn’t matter to him, she was sure, as long as he was near his dad.

  “I wish Mickey’s father were more…” she started to say.

  “Doesn’t she ever spend weekends with him?” Tim asked.

  Neve shook her head. “Not at all anymore. She did, a few times at first. He made a big show of renting a fancy condo just outside of Providence, so she could have her own room, and there was a pool and a game room…. I wondered how he’d be able to afford it…but I did like the fact he
was thinking of Mickey.”

  Tim didn’t comment on that, but she saw an expression cross his face—maybe reflecting what she felt about Richard renting an expensive place supposedly for Mickey, and then never seeing her.

  “What does he do on weekends if he’s not seeing her?”

  “Alyssa,” she said. “At least at first. He fell in love.” She shook her head. “And when Richard does that, stop the presses; everything else falls by the wayside. He tried to balance his two lives for a while—Mickey and Alyssa. Then Alyssa got pregnant.”

  “You can’t tell me he loves the new baby more than Mickey?” Tim said, looking up with anger in his eyes.

  “The baby hasn’t even been born yet,” Neve said. “Richard just…well, I guess he got scared. He let the condo go and bought a big house. The payments must have been something to behold. Mickey would be happy with anything—pizza, a walk, taking a ride—as long as she was with her father.”

  “And he can’t handle that?” Tim asked.

  “He can’t handle anything,” Neve said quietly. “How did we get started talking about Richard?”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t like talking about Beth, either. It just must be so hard on you. Mickey has to know it’s not her fault, right?”

  “I hope so,” she said. “But he’s her father, you know? The other day, after my friend Chris took Mickey out when you and I went to Newport, she told me Mickey spilled the beans about a class trip—she hadn’t even asked me to go, because she didn’t want to get her father in trouble for not helping out financially.”

  “It must be hard on you,” he said.

  “We get by,” Neve said. “I’m going to ask for a raise, though.”

  “You should,” he said. “I’m sure you’re doing a great job there—I can’t wait to see the catalogue you did of my uncle’s work.”

  Berkeley. Her stomach fell, and she looked into Tim’s eyes, knowing she had to tell him that she’d slipped up, told Chris, and that Dominic knew, too. She had finished eating, laid her fork and knife down.

  “There’s something I have to tell you,” she said.

  “Come here,” he said, pulling her up out of her seat, leading her into the living room. The moon had completely risen, and it looked like a disc of pure silver. The sight of it took everything away, especially because his arm was around her, drawing her closer. His breath felt warm on her cheek, and his arms felt so hard and strong, and her heart was racing so fast she could barely catch her breath.

  “It’s important,” she said, just as he was about to kiss her.

  “Okay,” he said, backing off just slightly, easing her down onto the couch beside him. “Sure, what is it?”

  “It’s about your uncle,” she said. And although her heart was still beating fast, now it was more from fear than passion—how would he react to what she was about to say?

  “What about him?”

  “I did something awful,” she said quietly, holding his hand. “No one’s ever known Berkeley’s real identity, all this time…. I know you asked me to promise not to tell, and I never would have—there’s no excuse, Tim. But I was so excited about it, I told someone. I just blurted it out.”

  He didn’t drop her hand, didn’t look away. He just nodded as if he wanted her to go on.

  “My best friend,” she said. “Chris Brody. It was yesterday, right after you’d told me. She came to the gallery, and I was distracted—she had just told me about Mickey’s school trip, and I was shocked because I didn’t even know about it, and Mickey obviously hadn’t told me. I can’t even remember exactly how it happened, but I said it right out loud—that Berkeley was your uncle.”

  He hesitated, and in those few seconds, she felt the ground tilt. She wanted to take it all back, rewind time, retract her words.

  “Okay,” he said slowly. “That’s not the end of the world.”

  “The worst part is, my boss walked in just as I was saying it. He heard, but I swore him to secrecy. Both of them—Chris and Dominic.”

  That worried him a little bit more. Even as she watched the doubt cross his face, she kicked herself a little harder for letting it slip.

  “Why has your family kept it secret for so long?” she asked.

  “Before he went to war, he kept the paintings to himself,” Tim said. “They were just for his family, friends…. It wasn’t until after he got back that he was ‘discovered.’ A collector got hold of some, I guess, and the word was out. Suddenly my uncle—who’d just been this bird-loving guy who happened to paint—was sought after. But by then, he was gone.”

  “Gone?”

  “I don’t mean dead—I just mean, so damaged. He’d stopped painting—which only made the frenzy greater. His family was devastated; his wife and daughters.”

  “Daughters?” Neve asked, wondering where they were now.

  “My father wanted to protect him,” he said quietly. “From people asking questions, wanting his work, wanting to know why he’d stopped making art. To know that my uncle had that kind of talent, and to know that the war blasted it out of him. It was all lost.”

  “You don’t lose talent,” Neve said.

  “You do if you stop using it,” Tim said, pulling her closer. “That’s true of everything, not just art. Things that come so naturally—if you don’t use them, they go away. Trauma can do that. You lose the ability to talk, to give, to care, to love.”

  “His wife and daughters?”

  Tim nodded.

  “That’s what happened to me,” she whispered, looking up at his eyes—dark blue in the moonlight.

  “To me, too,” he said. “Until you.”

  He kissed her, and she knew everything was going to be okay. He’d forgiven her for the slip—she’d done damage control, and they’d manage to keep the secret. She closed her eyes, felt the moon’s brightness penetrating her eyelids, felt Tim’s mouth on hers and his arms tight around her body.

  The beach behind them, out the window, was deserted. The surfers had gone home. Kissing Tim, Neve heard the waves crashing, couldn’t tell the difference between the sea and her own heartbeat. He was right: she’d lost the ability to talk, to care, to love a man—she’d told herself that being Mickey’s mom was enough. To think that she might have missed this, missed Tim, was almost too much to bear.

  His kiss was insistent, and so was hers. The candles on the table flickered, and the moon’s brightness poured in. She felt she was floating on it, just drifting with Tim on a sea of moonlight, feeling the air and water move beneath them. Nothing had been right for so long, and now it seemed as if nothing could ever be wrong.

  Just then the phone rang.

  Tim could have ignored it; Neve felt him wanting to. The call would go to voice mail; they could keep kissing, keep holding each other. But suddenly she thought of Mickey—what if she was trying to get them? It could be something important—Mickey or someone else. Tim must have thought the same thing, because suddenly he kissed her gently, pushed up from the couch, went over to the small table that held the phone, weather station, and binoculars.

  “Hello,” he said.

  Neve leaned back—not quite nervous, but unable to relax until he came back. She heard the ocean pounding, tried to breathe more slowly, listening to the sound.

  “Oh—hi, Beth,” he said, shrugging as he looked at Neve. What could she want? His ex-wife…did she call him often? They must have been bonded hard and fast by Frank, maybe even more by his loss. Neve turned away, not wanting to intrude. She swiveled on the couch, arm across the back, stared out the window at the moon on the water. The waves moved constantly, breaking the light into a million pieces.

  The tone of his voice caught her attention—even more than the words.

  “When?” he asked sharply. “What did they say?”

  She couldn’t keep looking away after that—she had to turn and face him. He wasn’t meeting her eyes. That was her second clue, after the hard edge in his voice.

  “Yeah, w
ell, thanks for letting me know. Thanks for telling Dad.”

  He hung up the phone—and Neve knew.

  “Oh, no…,” she began.

  “Your boss called the press,” he said. “He was on the six o’clock news, saying that he’d solved the mystery of Berkeley.”

  “Tim, no—”

  “Beth heard it, and she called my father to warn him—one thing, after twenty years as my wife, she knows how O’Caseys feel about having their stories told. Privacy—secrecy—is a big deal with us. I guess you know that, too.”

  “But you said…” she began, feeling panic. She had arrived here feeling so nervous and upset, not wanting to admit to him what she’d done. But Tim had been so understanding, so forgiving.

  “The funny thing is, I didn’t think it would bother me,” he said. “When you first told me, it was almost a relief.”

  “Then why is it so bad?” she asked, crossing the room, standing right in front of him, looking up into his eyes. “Don’t let it be, Tim. Please don’t…”

  “You know why it’s so bad?” he asked. “Because it will lead straight from my uncle to Frank.”

  “Frank?” she asked, confused.

  “Even Beth said that. She’s in shock—I could hear it in her voice. But your boss laid it all out for everyone; he said my uncle was ‘destroyed by the war.’ Already the reporter tracked down his service record, and my father’s. They’re putting it together, our family connection with war. U-823 is a hot topic, and they were on it—Beth said the TV showed footage of Landry’s big announcement.”

  “But that’s not about Frank….”

  “Not yet,” Tim said. “But it won’t take them long. His obituary mentioned my father and uncle. Some reporter will drag it up, put everything together.”

  Neve pulled back from him, dropped her hands to her sides. She felt sick. She felt like attacking Dominic, but the whole thing was her fault.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said.

  Tim just shook his head, walked to the window. She reached out, wanting to touch his back; he was staring at the moonlight as if he wanted to disappear into it. It suddenly looked so cold—white light filling the night, coating the waves like spilled mercury.