On the nights he didn’t get to stay over, Virginia would take Gabe home in her boat. They would ride across the river and Virginia would ask him questions about his day like he was her friend, not just some kid. And one night, he finally worked up the courage to say to her, “If you and my dad are friends, or used to be friends, how come you never talk to him?”
Virginia gave him a long look and he couldn’t interpret it and hoped he hadn’t said something bad that would mean he would not be allowed to play with Mae anymore.
“Did your dad tell you we were friends?”
He nodded.
“Well, yes, it’s true. I’ve known him for a long time. Since we were kids, like you and Mae.” She turned off the boat and tied it to the dock, her fingers moving like lightning. “He was my best friend once. Like you and Mae. Two peas in a pod. I hated playing with girls. Your daddy liked to fish with me. He didn’t mind touching worms. So we did that together, almost every day.”
His mouth dropped open. “Really?”
“Really. We had a lot of good times.” A smile played across her lips and he could see that she was remembering things, good things, about his father. It was inconceivable, and yet here it was. “Maybe I should pay him a visit,” she said.
Gabe prayed, hard and silent, that his father wasn’t drunk. Out of nowhere, he thought, Mae cannot know about this.
“Your son told me to come up and say hello.”
There was a beat of silence. But then Jonah replied in an unfamiliar voice. A friendly voice. Maybe even a happy voice. “He did, did he? And here I was just brewing up some coffee. Nice and strong, the way you like it, Gigi. Want some?”
Gigi? Gabe pretended to play in the sand while they sat on the dock and talked. The sun was about to set and Virginia was going to have to turn on her boat light to get home. Eventually, they got up and left their empty cups on the dock and Jonah took Virginia to see the hovercraft he’d been rebuilding—they’d been rebuilding, because Jonah made Gabe help, told him he’d better make himself useful or else, even if he was just a snot-nosed first grader. Gabe hated being in his father’s messy old shed, helping him fix boats—but he loved driving them, and Jonah had said if he helped enough, he’d let him drive whenever he wanted, maybe even give him his own boat to fix up. Jonah was planning to sell the hovercraft once he got it fixed up. It was how he made money: salvaging old boats and selling them, except he never seemed to do it right and a lot of times the people complained, and Jonah blamed Gabe, and Gabe wanted to cry, but what else was new?
“I could use this,” Virginia said. “Chase and I are working on building a fishing camp and log cabin on our island. Next year, we’re going to start our own business: fishing trips and shore lunches. Like a bed and breakfast, but fishing, and lunch.” She grinned, and so did Jonah. “I wanted to have the structure finished before winter, but unless we have a way to cross the new ice, I don’t think we will. This would be perfect. How soon do you think you’ll have this rebuilt?”
“Lickety-split,” Jonah said.
Lickety-split. Jonah never used words like that.
Virginia smiled. “Hey, you should work for us,” she said. “Next season, as a guide. Everyone knows you’re the second-best muskie angler in Alex Bay.”
“Second best, huh? I taught you everything you know, girl.”
Gabe imagined his father working for Virginia and Chase, actually having a job, getting up mornings and going out and coming back like all the other fathers at school, and he felt excited. But he also felt nervous. Two words he wanted to say to her: be careful. Instead, he took their coffee cups and washed them carefully in the sink. Then he got a permanent marker and put an X on the bottom of the one Virginia had used, so he’d never forget that she’d been there, and had taught him something about his father that he had not known to be true before.
* * *
Gabe opens his eyes. Syracuse. He can feel the train gearing up again. Just in time, he grabs his backpack, hurries down the steps of the train and walks into the night as quickly as he can, before he changes his mind, before he decides to just lie down in a snowbank or something, to die rather than get on the bus that will take him home.
Read a mystery novel, all in one sitting.
What is that sound? Who is it . . . George?
The telephone.
Lilly opens her eyes, sits up, ring, ring, ring, and at this time of night, a ringing phone can mean only one thing. Pain in her chest, pain in her heart, “Hello?”
Silence. Breathing. “Who’s there? Make yourself known!”
“It’s Peter.”
“Peter? I don’t know anyone named Peter.”
“Please, Lilly. I don’t have much time. Is Mae there?”
“Mae here? Why would she be here? She’s in the city. That’s where she lives.”
“Oh. She didn’t . . . ? I was sure she’d go home—sorry. Really, I’m sorry.” There’s a click and then the dial tone and Lilly is sure for a moment that she’s going to have a heart attack. But she stands up and doesn’t fall over dead, so she leaves the bedroom and goes downstairs to her desk. With George gone there’s no reason not to flip the lights on as she goes, so she makes it to her desk easily, and opens her navy leather address book when she gets there. She finds Mae’s cell phone number, dials and feels hope and relief when she hears Mae’s voice right away, but then the hope falls away because the voice is telling her to “leave a message and I’ll call you back as soon as possible.” Lilly hangs up, dials again, same result. “It’s your grandmother,” she says. “Please call home. Someone was looking for you and he sounded like bad news, and I’m worried.”
She hangs up again and stares down at the . . . the . . .
Telephone.
If there is any right moment to call George this is the one, but to her horror she can no longer remember where he went.
He’s staying at, he went to, he said he was . . .
She stands in the lobby, alone in her white nightgown, and cries like an overgrown child. Peter called, on the telephone. Peter—she remembers now, Mae’s Peter, but Mae isn’t here, and she doesn’t know why that is either. She doesn’t know where either of them went and she doesn’t know when they’re coming home.
The biggest muskie always come out when it rains. Best bait ever: large safety pin with tinsel attached. The fishermen call this the “Virginia Summers,” just so you know. I’m pretty good at fishing.
There are lights on upstairs and in the lobby. But when Mae taps at the door, no one comes. She knocks again. Then the door opens and her grandmother is there, looking alarmed and confused but also achingly, wonderfully familiar with her white cap of hair and her long flannel nightgown. “Mae! You came!”
Mae steps inside, pulling Bud by the collar. She closes the door against the blowing snow. The dog is dripping dirty slush onto the threadbare carpet but sitting very straight and still, as if he were trying to make the best possible impression regardless.
“What on earth?”
“He’s—Peter’s dog.”
“How did you get here? Where’s Peter?” Lilly leans her head around Mae to peer out the window. Then she puts her hand to her forehead. “He called here before. He was looking for you . . .”
Mae looks alarmed. “He did? Are you sure?”
“No,” Lilly says. “No, I’m not sure, actually.”
“Are you okay?”
“No,” Lilly says again.
“Grandma, what’s wrong? Where’s Grandpa? Are you sick?”
Too much silence, but then, “I’m fine,” Lilly says, with force. “I’m fine now. Take off your things. Let’s go into the kitchen.” She turns and walks ahead, turning off lights as she goes. Her nightgown shines like a beacon ahead of Mae in the darkness of the hall, but the kitchen is bright. Bud follows behind her.
Mae tries again. “Is Grandpa upstairs, asleep?”
“I told you, no. He’s away. Would you like some brandy? I think this is a night f
or brandy.”
“Away? But where?”
Lilly pours brandy, pulls out two chairs. “You tell me what happened. Don’t worry about anything else right now.”
“Peter and I broke up.” Mae sees relief pass over her grandmother’s face, quickly, like a cloud passing over the sun on a windy day.
“Another woman?”
“Worse.”
“Another man?”
Mae laughs for a surprising moment—when was the last time she laughed? She takes a gulp of brandy, then explains about the Ponzi scheme, the police, WindSpan Turbine never existing. “I’m sorry,” she says when the entire mess has spilled out of her. “I’m so sorry. He took your money, everyone’s money. And it’s my fault.”
“Your fault?”
“I should have known. I should have done something.”
Lilly is petting Bud’s neck absently, as if he has always been there at her feet. “Well,” she says. “I suppose I always had a feeling about him. That he wasn’t quite all he seemed to be. Bit of a show pony, really. But sometimes we see what we want to see in a person . . .” She trails off and looks down at Bud as if she’s now surprised to find him there.
“Are you mad? About the money?”
“I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed. But it wasn’t everything we had. And maybe they’ll find him, and everyone will get their money back.”
“Maybe.”
Lilly stands and takes their empty glasses to the sink. Mae can hear George’s voice in her mind. “Everything in moderation.” If you were going to drink liquor, only one, no matter the gravity of the situation.
“Where’s Grandpa?”
Her grandmother is motionless for a moment, staring out the window. She looks smaller than she did even a month before.
“He’s away right now.” Lilly’s tone is remote.
“Where did he go?”
“Oh . . . just away.”
“Grandma. Please.”
She turns. “We had a disagreement,” she says. “And he went away for a little while, to clear his head, I suppose. He’s staying at a hotel.”
“I— He what? Which hotel?”
Lilly pauses for a moment. Is it possible she doesn’t know which hotel? But then she exclaims, “The Ship!” and smiles. Her dentures look too big for her mouth suddenly, her expression too joyous in relation to the news she has just delivered. Mae has to look away, when she knows she should do something else, hug her grandmother, say she’s sorry, say she’s sure George will be back soon. But it’s preposterous, what Lilly has just said. The idea of her grandfather gone at all is too shocking for her to begin to understand it, never mind know how to comfort Lilly about it.
“He hates The Ship,” is all Mae manages. “He hates all hotels, except for this one.”
“People change their minds about things,” Lilly replies. “It just happens. You can’t stay sure about everything your whole life.” Her words are clipped and matter-of-fact. She’s her pragmatic self once more. “Now, let’s go up to bed. I’m sure you’re exhausted from your journey.”
Mae isn’t; she slept on the train. But she follows Lilly up the stairs, and Bud trails Lilly as if he’s forgotten all about Mae. Lilly gets fresh sheets and hands them to Mae. “Perhaps your dog would like to sleep in my room,” she says, and there’s that smile again, but Mae forces herself to meet it head-on. “Your grandfather would hate that. But he’s not here, is he?” Mae gets that sensation again, the idea that Lilly is searching for something. An answer. Is he? She reaches for her grandmother, hugs her tight, squeezes her eyes closed against the reality of her birdlike bones.
“Good night, dear.” The door to her grandparents’ room closes before Mae can see inside. She doesn’t like the feeling upstairs, the emptiness. Someone is missing, another person is gone from this house. And it’s her grandfather, the most reliable man she’s ever known.
She makes her bed, finds an old T-shirt in one of her drawers to sleep in and lies down. She didn’t close the curtains and the moon is full. It reminds her of a big flashlight, up there in the sky—and flashlights remind her of Gabe, who used to sneak into this room with one when they were kids. After her parents died he started to live at the inn, almost. It felt like a special gift, like a surprise for Mae. But he was like a visitor from a foreign land, maybe even another world; periodically, he’d go back to the cabin for a day or two, and she never knew when that would be. Then he’d appear at the inn again, a pilgrim returned. Mae asked him hundreds of times why he couldn’t just stay, couldn’t just belong to them, but he would never answer. Perhaps she should have seen it coming, then. She should have known he was never going to be hers.
He’d creep in late at night, carrying his little flashlight and some book or other, usually a joke book. He was a better reader than she was, and not just because he was older: Gabe was smart. They would make a tent with her duvet, his head the highest point, and he would hold a flashlight and read to her. Jokes if she was extra sad and missing her parents—“Where do cows go on a date?” “The moooo-vies.” “What kind of cheese isn’t yours?” “Nacho cheese!”—and she would always laugh, even if she had heard the joke dozens of times before. Or, if she wasn’t in need of too much cheering up, they would tell each other stories about the Boldt Castle widower haunting the shore, or the spirits of priests that lived on the Isle of Pines that everyone in town knew about, that made them a town of believers in ghosts. Then they’d lie beside each other in silence, listening to the sounds the old inn made in the middle of the night: clicking radiators, dripping faucets, clanging pipes and a gentle sighing Mae always wondered if she was imagining, an ancient sound from within the walls that made her feel the place was alive, not a structure but a being, a member of the family, another ghost beside a river that teemed with them.
One night, she started to sing Gabe the song her mother always used to sing to get her to sleep. “Your grandpa would sing this to me,” Virginia would whisper to Mae. Gabe reached for her hand and held it in the darkness. “I love that song,” he said. She didn’t know what it was called because no one had ever told her, but it was about a sly old gentleman who lived on Featherbed Lane.
“I like that part about the dreams,” Gabe whispered.
“You’re my best friend,” she told him. “And we’re always going to be best friends, no matter what. Promise?”
“Swear to God.”
“But you don’t believe in God. Swear to Han Solo.”
“I swear to Han Solo, we will always be best friends.”
They woke the next morning to find that the blankets had been tucked around them. Lilly never said anything when she found Gabe in Mae’s room. At least not back then.
* * *
Mae opens her eyes. Damask wallpaper, toile curtains, knotty pine furniture and a dog in bed with her now; Bud must have found her in the night. She looks at the digital clock on the bedside table, the one she’s had since grade six, gray and pink, the turquoise squiggles on the plastic. It says 8:15. Bud pushes his snout into one of her hips. She hits the snooze button and sits up.
“Bud, okay, okay. Listen, though. Lilly was nice to you last night, but you’re on probation.” She stands, pulls on some old jeans. Bud dials down the exuberance of his tail wagging, then walks sedately down the hall, hitting a Royal Doulton dancing figurine; Mae catches it just in time and puts it back on the table, to dance pointlessly once more.
Her grandmother has left the pot full of coffee and a note on the kitchen table saying she’s gone into town for some groceries. Mae looks out the window and sees the fresh tire tracks.
Bud is whining, nudging at her hip. She moves toward the front vestibule and finds an old pair of winter boots in the closet. Outside, Bud stands beside her, ears pushed forward, head cocked. She takes him down the drive and then turns toward the river, where they’re met with a blast of wind.
At the river, she unclips Bud’s leash and he runs out onto the ice immediately. “B
ud, wait!” She knows the ice is sound, at least a foot thick at this point in a cold winter. Still, she doesn’t have the courage to go out onto the ice; she hasn’t since her parents died. She stands on the bank and tries not to picture Bud plunging through.
Farther out on the river, movement. She lifts her hand to shield her eyes from the sun. A man is walking across the ice. It looks like he’s coming from Island 51, or at least from that direction. No one else but Jonah is crazy enough to live on an island on the river year-round. And he’s not a fisherman; he doesn’t have any gear. A black toque is pulled down over his ears. Mae’s heart starts pounding. Fast.
She has feared Gabe’s father, silently and viscerally, for as long as she can remember. And now, seeing him out on the ice, she has the urge to run. It’s been at least ten years since she last saw him in town, and she crossed the street to avoid him. He’s coming closer. “Bud! Come!” Bud tears toward her. She turns and walks the other way, never looking back.
Once she’s at the inn, she jiggles the sticky door and reenters the lobby. The smell of wet dog is already taking over. There are familiar things everywhere: the painting of the first Alexandria Bay settlers by the river negotiating with a tribe of Iroquois Indians; the tall bucket of umbrellas; the cuckoo clock (a gift from Dutch guests and silent now; apparently there is no one alive anymore, at least not in the vicinity, with the expertise to fix such a clock); and, there: her mother’s “Things to Do When It’s Raining” list, tacked to the bulletin board, the same list she has kept a copy of all these years. She steps closer and runs a finger down the list as if that could bring her closer, as if that could bring her mother back to life.
The door opens and Mae drops the page.
Lilly is breathing heavily. “There’s a huge bag of dog food in the car; I hope it’s the right kind. You’ll have to carry it in.”
“Of course. I could have gone to get it myself.” Instant guilt.
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