Snowfall at Willow Lake

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Snowfall at Willow Lake Page 31

by Susan Wiggs


  Finally, Max straightened up. “So is he, like, your boyfriend or something?”

  Or something. That was the standard term, though Sophie didn’t have a word for what Noah was to her. But she couldn’t deny he was important, and Max and Daisy were entitled to know it.

  “I suppose you could say he’s my, er, boyfriend.” She stumbled over the word. It felt wrong, like trying on her daughter’s jeans.

  Neither of her children spoke. “Well?” she prodded when she couldn’t stand it anymore. “Does that sound all right?”

  “How do they get the ship in the bottle?” Max asked.

  “The real question,” Daisy said, “is what’s the point of putting it there?”

  “The point of a ship in the bottle,” said a smooth, English voice, “is that there is no point.” Tariq walked into the room, even more handsome and urbane than Sophie remembered.

  With a cry of delight, she ran and threw her arms around him. “There you are,” she said. “I was afraid you weren’t coming.”

  “I’d never go back on a promise to you,” he said.

  “I can’t believe you’re here. Max and Daisy, you remember Tariq.” Glowing with pride, she showed him Charlie, sweetly sleeping in his carrier. By any measure, he was the most beautiful of babies, with velvety pale skin and a bow-shaped mouth, a swirl of auburn hair.

  Tariq was properly impressed. “Oh, well done,” he said, beaming indulgently. “Well done indeed. Brilliant, in fact.” Then he straightened up and faced Daisy and Max. “I miss your mother. I’m a selfish bastard and I wish we were still working together, but seeing her with you two and the little one, I understand. And I’ve brought you something,” he said to Sophie. “I wanted to give it to you with your children present.” He opened his briefcase and took out a flat, hinged box. “This was awarded to your mother the night of Epiphany,” he said.

  Cold tension gripped her. She’d never shared the details of that night with her children. “Tariq—”

  “Mom, that’s awesome,” Max said, admiring the engraved medal on its multicolored ribbon.

  With studied solemnity, Tariq placed the medal around her neck. This was just a tiny glimpse of her old life, but seeing her children’s expressions now made Sophie glow with pride. Daisy insisted on taking pictures.

  Sophie caught his eye and mouthed a thank-you. It was a moment she knew she would close into her heart, keeping it there forever.

  The baby awoke, and while Daisy tended to him and Max went to explore the snowy gardens, Tariq ordered drinks. “It’s glorious here,” he said. “And you seem happy, Petal. I’m glad to see that. I wasn’t sure you would be.”

  “I wasn’t, either,” she admitted. “I do miss you, Tariq. I can’t say I want that life again, but I do miss the work.”

  “Come for a visit,” he suggested. “Better yet, visit Umoja. I’m going there myself in a month.”

  She fingered the medal hanging from its colored ribbon. “That’s tempting, but I’m needed here. It feels strange, saying that, but I am.”

  Twenty-Seven

  Sophie sat in Noah’s living room after dinner, trying to keep an open mind about the lighted beer clock that hung above the fireplace. Noah had promised that he would try to like her kind of films—a Fellini retrospective was playing in Kingston this weekend. Maybe she should try to like the clock. She certainly had no trouble liking many things about him, including his insistence on doing the dishes. He was in the kitchen now, finishing up.

  How quickly they had fallen into certain habits. They’d taken to having dinner together more often than not. They were learning each other’s taste in music—his was markedly different from hers, though she was beginning to appreciate the sound of groups with names like the Bad Pennies and Mastodon. They went jogging together with the dogs and sometimes rode horses. They were learning how to be in each other’s lives.

  She was starting to regret having to move somewhere else. It was lovely, having him so close. It was…gezellig.

  Stepping over the sleeping puppy, who was always welcome at Noah’s house, she straightened a stack of science fiction novels on the coffee table. He was a fan of Ben Bova, Theodore Sturgeon, Philip José Farmer. There was a sheaf of printouts from the Internet—articles by Brooks Fordham. The discovery sent a chill across her skin. Why was he reading Brooks’s articles?

  She heard him approaching, and quickly stacked the books on top of the printouts. She came across an ancient phone directory that should have been recycled three years ago. When he came into the room, she was about to scold him about the clutter. Instead, she flipped the phone directory open. “Adams, Anna,” she read aloud. “Six forty-seven Mill St. 372-3858. Ammon, Bradley, 74 South Maple…”

  “What are you doing?” asked Noah.

  “Reading the phone book. You once said it would be interesting to hear me reading the phone book.”

  “Naked,” he qualified. “Reading the phone book naked is what I meant.”

  “You didn’t say that.”

  “I’m saying it now.” He grabbed her, unbuttoning her shirt.

  She batted his hand away and kept reading. “Anderson, Barbara. Twenty-one forty Lakeview Terrace, apartment 9-B. Archer—hey!”

  She laughed helplessly, until the humor played out and heated into desire. Moments later, he was making love to her, right there on the sofa. His touch made her feel young again in a way she had never been young. When she was with him, she felt transformed. She was more full of hope and possibility than she’d been in…maybe ever.

  Much later, she lay in his arms, quiet but teetering on the edge of something. “I need to ask a favor of you.”

  “Anything. I’d do anything for you.” His matter-of-fact statement was more convincing than flowery promises. “What do you need me to do? Walk across hot coals? Follow you to the ends of the earth? Yeah, that’d be good. I’ve always wanted to travel.”

  “Worse. I need you to sit through a kids’ hockey game.”

  “Ouch.”

  “As my date. I told Daisy and Max about—I told them I was seeing you. It was awkward, but they seem to understand. So will you?”

  “It’ll cost you.” He whispered a suggestion in her ear that made her blush.

  “I suppose I could accommodate that.”

  “I’ll hold you to it.”

  While he made a fire in the grate, she went to the window and looked out at the glowing blue twilight, spreading darkness across the snow. A black silhouette was cut starkly against the landscape. It was a deer, browsing on strips of bark from the trees in the yard. She remembered the night they’d met. She liked to think the deer she’d hit had survived.

  He finished making the fire, then circled his arms around her from behind. She turned in his embrace, feeling open and calm. “There’s something I’ve been wanting to tell you,” she said. “It’s about what happened to me in The Hague…”

  “Yeah? What about it, honey?” His voice was terribly gentle.

  She told herself it was safe to trust him. She had never trusted anyone the way she did Noah, but then again, she had never loved anyone this way. Tell him.

  “I haven’t told this to anyone.” She indicated the printouts on the coffee table. “Not even Brooks. You won’t read about it in any of his accounts. I thought it wouldn’t matter if I kept this to myself, but I was wrong. It matters, Noah. So much.”

  He opened his arms. “Would it help if I hold you?”

  She nodded. “That always helps.” She settled against him, feeling his warmth and the strong, steady rhythm of his breathing. “Remember when we first met, and I told you I’d survived worse than a cut knee?”

  “You made some joke about being taken hostage at gunpoint and plunging off a bridge in a speeding van,” he recalled. “And…you weren’t joking after all, were you?”

  “I was glad you thought so. It made it…less real. And that helped, for a while. But it did happen, and what you read about the incident is all true, every
word of it. The lie was in what I left out.” She stopped to catch her breath, knowing there was no going back now. “There’s a part of that night I never told anyone, not even the doctors who treated me. It’s the one thing I couldn’t face. I still have nightmares, though. I still think about that night. When it was over, there was no diagnosis of PTSD, but I’m still at risk for it, and sometimes I worry so much about that. People depend on me here—”

  “And people love you here, Sophie. Never forget that.”

  He wasn’t letting her forget that. But just by shutting her eyes, she could take herself back to that night, to the scene inside the van, the chaos and rage, her desperation and determination to survive. “When the van went off the bridge, three of the men inside died.”

  “Ah, Sophie. I’m so sorry. I hate that you went through that—”

  “Noah, listen.” She turned to him, forced herself to look him in the eye. “It was my fault. I was the reason the van went off the bridge.” She explained about how things had gone wrong for the terrorists that night, and how they’d been forced to abort their plan and flee, bringing her along as a hostage. She told him what was said in the van, and how her certainty that she would die led to her act of desperation. She was crying now, and shaking. “They died, and it’s my fault, Noah. How do I live with that?”

  “They died because they were murderers,” he said, framing her face between his hands, catching her tears with his thumbs and wiping them away. “And you survived for the sake of your family, Sophie, and because you’re brave, and you have a heart as big as the world.”

  After making her confession to Noah, she felt drained but, somehow, unknotted. Telling Noah about that night, about the terror and the trauma that had shot her life off in a different direction, had unfurled the tension inside her. He was a good listener, simply holding her, asking nothing but accepting everything she had to say. She told him about André and Fatou, and how helpless she’d felt. He didn’t pretend to understand, he didn’t try to offer advice on how to fix it, but by simply listening, he helped her. Outwardly, nothing had changed. Yet she felt like a new person. It was late, although she didn’t feel tired in the least.

  Noah held her cheek cradled against his chest, so that she could hear the beating of his heart. “I don’t know what to say.”

  She smiled. “You’re already saying it. The experience completely changed me. It’s the whole reason I gave up my career at the ICC and came back to my kids.”

  “I don’t blame you. I’d do exactly the same thing.”

  She hugged him tighter. “I wish just one of my colleagues in The Hague would have said that. I was so torn up about it.”

  “You need a glass of wine,” he said.

  “Maybe the whole bottle,” she replied.

  While he went to the kitchen, she switched on the TV. She found herself looking at a heart-tugging infomercial about orphans in Bolivia. Although she didn’t consider herself vulnerable to such pitches, she found herself grabbing a pen from the coffee table. There was no paper, so she jotted the toll-free number on the back of her hand. For the price of a cup of coffee each day, she could save little Matteo from starvation. What she really wanted to do was scoop him up and hold him in her arms the way she held Charlie, making him feel safe in the world.

  She muted the sound on the TV but it was too late. The inevitable guilt set in. It must’ve shown on her face.

  “What’s wrong?” Noah asked, returning with a bottle of wine and two glasses.

  “Here I am, all warm and cozy, while children are suffering. I should do something—”

  “You have. You spent your whole professional life doing something.”

  “But I could do more.”

  “You are. You’re raising Max and Daisy. Charlie, too. You’re teaching them to be like you—compassionate, dedicated. And I imagine one day they’ll do their part.” He handed her a glass of wine. “That’s how you change the world, Sophie. One person can’t do it all. Believe it.”

  He had a way of looking at things that struck Sophie as spectacularly sane. She couldn’t change anything that had happened, but she could change from how she was in the past. She had been so locked into the idea that she had to be working directly on a problem or issue. Now here was Noah, telling her she could make a difference simply by being a good mother. No one had ever explained to her before that raising your family was the most important job in the world.

  She set down her glass and wrapped her arms around his neck. “Noah. I love the way your mind works and the things you say.” She paused, leaning back to look up at him. “I love you.”

  “Damn. You really mean that, don’t you?”

  “I do. I’m sorry, but it had to be said.”

  “Sorry.” He laughed at her. “Sorry?”

  “And I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before.”

  “That’s okay. That way, I’ll always have something to lord over you—I said it first.”

  Always. He seemed to have no trouble making the assumption that they would have an always. When he pulled her close, kissed her as though sealing the deal, she wanted it to be so. And it amazed her to want such a thing. It amazed her even more to discover that she believed it was not only desirable, but possible.

  He backed off a little, smiled down at her. “And here I thought you only ever wanted me for the sex.”

  “Is something the matter with the sex?” she asked.

  “Lord, no. The sex is unbelievable.”

  No one had ever said such a thing about her before. Perhaps because no one had ever had that opinion of her, in bed, anyway.

  He aimed the remote, clicked off the TV and slipped his arms around her. This night had set something free in her, igniting a new heat between them. There was an element of complete trust…and complete abandon. With Noah, she found herself doing things that would have made the old Sophie blush. With Noah, and her heart full of love, everything seemed exactly right.

  Twenty-Eight

  Chelsea, the girl who lived up the road from Max’s mom, handed Max his phone. “Thanks for letting me borrow it,” she said. “My grandparents won’t let me get one, but they’re always wanting me to check in. Pisses me off. If they expect me to call, they should get me a phone.”

  Max handed her Opal’s leash while he stuck the phone in his pocket. No fan of hockey, she was going to watch the dog during the game. He shaded his eyes, scanning the parking lot of the sports complex by the lake. He and Chelsea had come with Max’s mom, who was parking the car while they walked the dog. He kind of felt sorry for Chelsea, who didn’t have many friends. It seemed she would rather spend the afternoon walking the dog than staying home with her grandparents.

  “You looking for someone?” Chelsea asked, nosy as usual.

  He took back the dog’s leash and shrugged without looking at Chelsea. They weren’t exactly friends, but they found themselves together quite a lot. For one thing, Max took the school bus to his mom’s every day he didn’t have something after school, and he often found himself talking to Chelsea during the ride. For another thing, she was really good with animals, and did chores in the clinic and around the barn. Max’s mom said Noah’s place, with all its video games, sports equipment and animals, was like a theme park for kids who didn’t want to grow up.

  “Sort of,” he said. “Noah Shepherd. He’s coming to watch the game with my mom.”

  “You mean, like a date?”

  He nodded, glad he’d decided to level with her about this development. It was something new, and he was trying to figure out how he felt about it. He didn’t want to bring it up with his dad or Nina—no way—and his other friends would just tell him it was no big deal.

  “So is it weird for you?” asked Chelsea.

  “Nah,” he said, “it’s not weird.” This was what Max told himself, anyway. When married people split up, they dated other people. It happened, like it or not. “I don’t mind Noah. He’s cool.”

  “That’s what I think, t
oo.”

  The parking lot was fast filling up with players and spectators. This was going to be the biggest match of the season for Max’s team. It was one of the first events of the Winter Carnival. The Inn at Willow Lake was completely full, and Max was staying at his mom’s, which meant he got to spend lots of time with his dog—and with Chelsea. She wasn’t that bad. Annoying maybe, but what girl wasn’t?

  He let Opal off her leash. She was getting really good off leash, although Max kept a constant eye on her. The dog scampered back and forth through the snow, plunging her muzzle in, then racing off in a zigzag pattern. “I suppose my mom could do a lot worse,” he said. “Picking a boyfriend, I mean. She knows a bunch of boring lawyers and diplomats from her work. At least I’m not stuck with one of them.”

  “Noah’s awesome, with all the animals and stuff. And him going out with your mother—I figured it was only a matter of time.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “Well, it’s so obvious he’s into her. I could tell right from the start.”

  Max hadn’t been able to tell a thing. “Did he say something to you?”

  “No. I just work there, okay? But he was always talking about her, you know, to his patients and friends who came by, saying how she just moved here from Europe and how smart she was and all. I heard him talking on the phone to his mother in Florida, and she asked him if he was seeing someone and he owned right up to it.”

  “You never told me that.”

  She stooped down, made a snowball and tossed it to Opal. The dog leaped up, detonating the snowball in midair. “It wasn’t mine to tell.”

  Oh. Max was kind of glad to know she wasn’t some big gossip like a lot of girls he knew. Chelsea was pretty okay. He didn’t like like her, but she was okay to hang out with sometimes. She lived with her grandparents, and never talked about her family. Max never asked, because she tended to get all huffy and say how stuff pissed her off.

  She nudged him with her elbow. “What’re you looking at? And what’s funny?”

 

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