The Ice Cradle

by Mary Ann Winkowski

  We walked in silence for several moments, and then Baden spoke.

  “You did a wonderful thing for that boy. You have no idea.”

  “I’d do it for anyone. I’ll do it for you.”

  He drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Would that I were as ready as Redmond.”

  “He wasn’t ready,” I said. “He was scared to death. But he did it anyway. It can be awfully hard to leave, even if it’s the right thing to do.”

  “Yes. In my case—”

  He paused. I looked over.

  “In your case …,” I prodded. When he gave no indication that he intended to go on, I decided that the time had come for me to storm the gates. I was going to be leaving the island in a day and a half, and I’d really come to like the old guy. I knew he wouldn’t appreciate my elbowing my way into matters he considered private, and possibly quite shameful, but I hated the idea of leaving him here, stranded on his own desert island when I went home.

  “In your case,” I said gently, “there isn’t just one woman waiting for you there. There are two.”

  “But you forget, my dear. I don’t believe there is a ‘there.’ ”

  “You think there’s the light, and the door, and then nothing?”

  “Precisely.”

  I nodded politely.

  “Tell me about her,” I said. “Your wife.”

  “Lise and I were married for fourteen years.”

  “Were you happy?”

  “Completely.”

  I gave him a look. From my experience, people whose marriages are completely happy don’t usually find themselves in the arms of lovers. Then again, how would I know? Maybe they do. And besides, how many marriages are “completely” happy?

  “I know it does not sound possible,” Baden went on, “but this is true. I had no complaints—she was a fine girl, lovely to behold, kind and honest.”

  “Did you have children?”

  “No. This was not possible. As a child, Lise had rheumatic fever and her heart was badly scarred.”

  Aha! A clue?

  “Did you want children?”

  “No. Not at all. I have asked myself all these questions, searching for the roots of my behavior, and I still do not understand what led me to betray my wife. It all comes down to a very simple fact: I truly loved two women.”

  “That’s not so terrible.”

  “But it is!”

  “A person can’t help what they feel!” I insisted.

  “No, but a person can help what he does. If I had not acted upon these feelings, perhaps in time they might have faded.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not.” I stopped and looked him in the eyes. “It doesn’t really matter, though, does it? What happened, happened; you can’t undo it now. You could stay here for a thousand years, for ten thousand years, and that fact will never change.”

  “I know this.”

  I sighed. I wasn’t getting very far. I decided to try another angle. “I know you’re not religious, but in my church—I was brought up Catholic—we believe that it’s enough to own up to something and be truly sorry for it and determined not to do it again.”

  “That’s the easy part,” he quipped, and when I gave him a puzzled look, he said, “Not doing it again. She’s dead and gone.”

  “And you’re dead. And here.”

  I was determined to press on. “And then we do penance.”

  “Ah, yes,” he said dismissively. “Sackcloth and ashes.”

  I felt a flash of annoyance. “Nowadays they try to keep it positive: do something good for someone else. Maybe helping Mark and Lauren can be your penance. Because after a person does penance, the chapter’s closed.”

  “And your God forgives you?” Baden said with an ironic sneer.

  I noticed a pair of headlights coming toward us.

  “No,” I said. “You forgive yourself.”

  The car was traveling fast. Way too fast. Baden was in no danger, of course, but the moon hadn’t risen yet, there were no streetlights on this part of the island, and I was dressed in dark colors from head to toe. Just to be on the safe side, I stepped off the road as the headlights bore down on us and the car roared by. It was the Subaru! With the girl from Rawlings’s party at the wheel!

  “Good Lord,” Baden said. The car’s tailwind had blown him off his feet, though that’s not really a problem for ghosts. They just float.

  “That’s her!” I said.

  “Who?”

  “The girl from the party. The girl who set the fire! Follow her!”

  “What?” Baden stared at the car’s taillights, which were receding around a curve.

  “Please! I’ll explain later. Go after her!”

  “And what?”

  “See what she’s doing!”

  I could tell he thought I’d gotten pretty bossy all of a sudden, which, admittedly, I had. But he also seemed to be enjoying the turbulence, almost in spite of himself, after the deadly calm of his last hundred years. He looked at least a decade younger than when we first met.

  “I don’t spy,” he said proudly.

  “Then start!” I commanded.

  “I most certainly will not.”

  “Come on, Baden! This is the girl who helped set fire to the barn!”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Bert went through their trash.”

  “He what?”

  “Look, I’d follow her myself, but the last time I was over there I practically got eaten by a dog.”

  “I know.”

  I took a deep breath and launched back in. “The police want her for questioning!”

  “Then let them handle it.”

  “Do you see any police cars around here? No. Neither do I. Look, something fishy’s going on. She was at the senator’s party! Doesn’t that strike you as a little weird?”

  “You believe the senator is involved? Anza, dear, that’s not true.”

  “No? Are you sure? He doesn’t want the wind farm. Wouldn’t want to obstruct those million-dollar views.”

  “Your cynicism stuns me.”

  I paused. Maybe I was a cynic.

  “I’d be thrilled to be proven wrong,” I said.

  I thought he was going to continue arguing with me, but he shook his head and smiled. And then he went after the car.

  I would have loved to follow him, but I had to get back to Henry. I didn’t know whether Bert had taken Henry to his house or back to the Grand View, not that that presented me with a choice, for I had no idea where Bert lived. I walked for a while toward the lights of town, grateful to be alone for more than five seconds. It was turning out to be a beautiful night. Stars were just beginning to appear, and the sea air was sharp and cool on my face.

  As I rounded the corner where Water Street straightened out, I saw Bert’s truck heading toward me. I waved and he pulled over.

  “Where’s Henry?” I asked.

  “Down for the count.” Bert smiled.

  “He fell asleep?”

  “In the rocker by the woodstove.”

  “Oh!”

  “Lauren put him to bed.”

  “She did? And he didn’t wake up?”

  Bert shook his head. “She’s in for the night. She said she’d keep an eye on him, so …”

  “So …?” I smiled.

  “You’re sprung.”

  “I’m sprung?”

  Bert nodded.

  “Well, how about that!” I opened the door and got in.

  “Where to?” Bert asked.

  “What are the choices?” I couldn’t imagine that there were many, at this time of year.

  “Have you eaten?”

  “Uh-uh. Have you?”

  “Nope.”

  “We could go out somewhere,” I suggested.

  “Or … we could stay in somewhere.” Bert didn’t look at me when he said this.

  The proposal sent a nervous charge through my body. Was he suggesting going to his house? Alone? Without any pressure to
get back to the inn anytime soon?

  He must have sensed my brief hesitation because he said, “I’m not half bad with a skillet. And I’ve got a ton of food in the back. I just went to the store.”

  “Oh!” I said. “Great!”

  He’d planned this! Henry was taken care of, and Bert assumed I hadn’t eaten and had gone to the store before coming to find me.

  Nice.

  He looked over. “Okay,” he replied. He put the truck in gear and off we went.

  I barely had time to start imagining the delicious offerings that might come my way in Bert’s kitchen—or elsewhere in the house—when I saw Baden hurrying in our direction. Flying, actually, which is not his customary means of ambulation; he usually prefers to walk.

  “Stop!” I said to Bert.

  He hit the brake. “What? Why?”

  “There’s something wrong!”

  He quickly pulled over to the side of the road. “Another ghost,” I explained. And then, because I thought he might be getting a little fed up with all my supernatural distractions, I leaned over and gave him a kiss. And not just a chaste little peck. Then I threw the door open and got out of the truck.

  “Baden!” I called out.

  He immediately stopped and flew back to where I was standing.

  “The old woman,” he said. “She’s in trouble.”

  “Mavis?” I asked. “The one with the dog?”

  “She’s ill,” Baden explained. “She needs help.”

  “What about Mavis?” said Bert, who had gotten out of the truck and come around to where Baden and I were standing.

  “She’s sick!” I said.

  “What?” He gave me a dubious look, as though I were hallucinating.

  “She is!” I insisted, remembering suddenly that from Bert’s point of view, it was just the two of us standing here.

  “I’ll explain everything later. I promise. Do you have your cell phone?”

  Bert dug his phone out of his pocket and held it up.

  “Does she need an ambulance?” I asked Baden.

  “Yes.”

  “Who?” asked Bert. “Mavis?”

  “Call 911,” I said.

  “You’re sure about this,” he said.

  “I’m positive.”

  So Bert put in the call, and then we got back in the truck and raced over to Ballard’s Way. It wasn’t very far, so we were there in a couple of minutes. Baden met us at the edge of her property, and I instantly recognized one big problem: the dog. He was standing guard just outside Mavis’s back door, and as soon as we got out of the truck, he rose to his feet with a menacing growl. Nobody, but nobody, was getting through that door. Not if he could help it. And now his behavior made sense: with his owner sick inside, he’d been taking his guard duty very, very seriously.

  “I thought you didn’t spy,” I said to Baden.

  “You are correct.”

  “Then how did you know she was sick?”

  “The dog. He is starving, but he won’t leave that door. I entered the house through the other side.”

  I passed along the information to Bert. “Baden thinks the dog is starving,” I said. “But he won’t leave his post.”

  Bert thought for a minute and then said, “Yeah? We’ll see about that.” He walked back to the truck, rustled around in the grocery bags behind the seats, and reappeared a moment later with a T-bone steak.

  “Our dinner,” he said apologetically.

  “That’s okay. Good cause.”

  Bert had taken off his denim jacket and wrapped it around his hand, in case the dog lunged for the steak and got Bert’s arm instead. I caught my breath as Bert slowly advanced on the growling canine, one step at a time, holding the steak in front of him as he moved forward.

  You could practically see the poor dog struggling: Guard Mommy—Food—Guard Mommy—Food! Bert talked quietly all this time, soothing words intended to lure the poor frantic animal away from the door. Then, finally, it happened. Just as we heard the distant sound of a siren, the dog stopped snarling, dropped his aggressive mien, and trotted over to where Bert was standing.

  He sniffed the meat. He licked it. Bert then led him over to the truck and tossed the meat into the back. The dog jumped right up after it, and Bert slammed the tailgate. Bert got into the truck and turned it on. I had to hand it to the guy. It was a brilliant maneuver. Getting the dog away from the door so the paramedics could get inside.

  “Back in a while,” he called, steering the truck out onto the boulevard as the ambulance turned the corner and pulled up to the house.

  Baden saved Mavis’s life. It was only a case of severe dehydration, brought on by a stomach flu, but if Baden hadn’t happened by, or happened in, who knows how things would have turned out. Mavis hadn’t been out of bed in days. No wonder the dog had been fierce.

  I still didn’t know what Baden had discovered about Elsa Corbett, if anything. He’d disappeared as soon as the ambulance arrived, and I wasn’t about to go looking for him. I’d had more than enough of ghosts for one day.

  Bert made a pretty great dinner, given the fact that our main course had been sacrificed to the greater good. We still had the fixings for a very nice pasta, and I made a salad while he chopped tomatoes and sautéed shallots and grated cheese. By the time the fettuccine was done, we’d gone through almost a whole bottle of Zinfandel. I can barely remember the dinner itself. I just recall the sight of him across the table, all warm and flushed from cooking, goofily holding up another bottle of wine and then proceeding to uncork it. Oh, and I remember us laughing at Mavis’s dog snoring. He turned out to be perfectly friendly, now that the hunger and anxiety associated with guarding his sick mistress had been assuaged.

  “I’m going to regret this,” I said, holding out my wineglass.

  “You’ll be fine. These are small glasses.”

  “What does that have to do with anything?”

  He poured me an inch or two, and we left the dishes right where they were and settled in on a couch so soft and downy that I could have gone right to sleep. Bert built a fire in the fireplace while I cruised around on cable, lucking out with the opening frames of an old black-and-white mystery on Turner Classic Movies. And that was that; the evening was sealed, all the way to the moment when the good guy confronted the bad guy at the top of the Statue of Liberty.

  All in all, it was probably just as well that despite a goodly number of truly memorable kisses, we didn’t find our way upstairs or onto the floor or even into horizontal positions on the world’s comfiest couch. I would have loved that, and I’m pretty sure he would have, too, but the facts were the facts: I was leaving in a day and a half.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  SATURDAY

  HENRY WAS AWAKE at the crack of dawn. This shouldn’t have surprised me, given that he was asleep at seven and didn’t have supper. It was barely light outside when he crawled into my bed.

  “I want to call Daddy,” he said.

  “It’s too early.” I glanced at the clock on the bedside table. It read 6:35.

  “He’s up,” Henry said.

  Declan probably was up, but still.

  “Let’s wait a little while,” I whispered. “Come here.” I pulled him close and attempted to adjust the blankets around him.

  “No!” He squirmed away. “You said we could and we didn’t. I have to talk to Daddy!”

  I opened my eyes fully. “Why?” I asked.

  “I had a dream.”

  “What kind of dream?”

  “A bad guy got him. At work.”

  “Oh.” I sat up. Recently, Henry’s concept of what his dad did for a living had undergone an adjustment. For a long time, he seemed to imagine that the work of a Boston police detective resembled that of Michael, the friendly cop in Make Way for Ducklings. Michael lined up police protection so Mrs. Mallard could lead her babies across Beacon Street to meet the ducklings’ father in the Public Garden. About a year ago, there appeared to be a brief transition in
Henry’s imagination, chiefly having to do with police on horseback and police on motorcycles, but lately, he had somehow come to understand that guns and knives and “bad guys” in speeding cars are often in play.

  We’d tried to tackle his fears head-on, joking about Daddy’s spending all day long at the computer or drinking coffee from Dunkin’ Donuts, but at a certain point, this was insulting. Declan did have a dangerous job. Not as dangerous as undercover drug work, maybe, but he still spent a fair share of his time in rough neighborhoods, where routine encounters could turn dangerous, if not fatal, on a dime.

  I had never gotten used to this, not really, so I could hardly expect Henry not to worry. Dec wouldn’t want him to be anxious, either, so I decided to give in to Henry’s plea. I threw back the covers, located my purse on the floor, and pulled out my cell phone. Luckily, I had a little power left. I dialed Declan’s number and handed the phone to Henry.

  This was what Henry said.

  “Hi, Daddy.”

  “Yup.”

  “Nope.”

  “No.”

  Now he smiled and looked over at me.

  “Yeah.”

  “Today. We got the car done.”

  “Greased Lightnin’.”

  “Red, with, like, fire.”

  “I think tomorrow.”

  “Okay.”

  “Bye.”

  Henry handed me the phone.

  “Hey there,” I said. “Sorry to call so early. He had a bad dream.”

  “I was up,” Dec said.

  “And I think he misses you,” I added, aware as I said it that this would embarrass both Henry and Declan. Normally, Henry would be at Dec and Kelly’s right now. He’s almost never gone this long without seeing his dad.

  “He’ll be home soon enough,” Dec said, a little gruffly, just to demonstrate that he wasn’t going to encourage this namby-pamby missing Daddy business.

  “How are you?” I asked.

  “Oh, fine, yeah. You?”

  “Good. Quite the week.”