The Light in Summer

by Mary McNear

  “Actually, I’ve never heard this one before,” Cal said. “What happens next?”

  “Hmm. Let’s see. Fast-forward a month. The girl tells her parents that she’s pregnant. Her mom cries. Her dad . . . her dad is livid. This part was not in the fine print when he booked their vacation package. He goes back to the lodge—unannounced—and demands to see the guide.”

  “Ouch,” Cal winced. “Does it get violent here?”

  “No. The girl’s dad is not a violent man. And besides, the guide is nowhere to be found. He’s gone. Poof,” Billy said, mimicking him disappearing with her hands. “He left a few weeks before. No forwarding address. No nothing. The manager at the lodge tells the girl’s dad the guides are always moving on. And this one’s no different. But he does make some phone calls for the dad. He gets in touch with other lodges in the area. He puts the word out.”

  “And?”

  “And nothing. The guide’s gone.”

  “And that’s the end of the story?”

  “No. That’s only the end of that chapter of the story. Because the girl has the baby, and despite the fact that her parents were upset, they come around, and help her out, and for a long time, everyone’s happy.”

  “Aren’t they happy anymore?”

  “They . . .” Billy stopped. “They’re fine,” she said. And to deflect attention from herself, she asked lightly, “What about you? Do you have a story to tell?”

  “I do. It’s very different from yours, though. Let’s see . . . Boy meets girl. They fall in love and get married. Girl said she wanted to have children . . . Girl lied. It took the boy five years to figure it out.”

  “So . . . she changed her mind about having children?”

  “No,” Cal said flatly. “She lied from the start. She never wanted children. She just hid the truth from him until he finally found out.”

  “And did he want kids?” Billy asked.

  “Very much,” Cal said.

  Billy didn’t know how to respond. She wanted to ask him more about this, but she felt the subject was somehow closed. Then something occurred to her: Cal’s wife had lied. She’d hidden the truth from him. Wasn’t Billy doing that very same thing to Luke? But Cal swirled the ice cubes in his glass, bringing her back to the present. “I’m sorry,” she said finally.

  “Did you ever want to have more kids?” he asked her.

  “Yes, I did,” she said, surprised at her own directness. But at that moment, Dawn, the waitress, signaled to her from the other end of the bar. She’d just put a plastic to-go bag at the register. “Oh, look, there’s my order,” Billy said, relieved to be changing the subject. Wanting another child was something she’d never discussed with anyone before, not even her mother. “I’ll be right back.”

  “How’s Mr. Cooper?” Marty asked as he rang up her dinner.

  “Cal? He seems to be enjoying the Dewar’s here,” Billy said, handing him a twenty-dollar bill.

  “You’re damn right he’s enjoying it,” Marty said as he gave her the change. “That’s his fifth one.”

  “His fifth? Marty, what were you thinking?”

  “I was thinking, Billy, that sometimes a man needs to get drunk.”

  What kind of dime-store philosophy is that? she almost asked. But of course, it was Marty’s dime-store philosophy.

  “Oh, relax,” he said. “I already asked for his car keys.” He gestured at the wall behind the bar, where a set of car keys was indeed hanging from a hook.

  “How’s he going to get back to his cabin?” Billy asked.

  “He said he’d call his brother-in-law to pick him up.”

  “He doesn’t need to do that,” she said, looking down the bar at Cal as she put her change back in her wallet. He was finishing off the last of his scotch. “Here, give me his keys. I’ll give them back to him after I drive him home.”

  Marty handed her the keys, and with a philosophic air, dime-store or not, he went back to polishing glasses.

  Billy walked over to Cal, amazed that he was still sitting upright on his stool. “Listen,” she said, “Marty told me he took your keys away. I know you were going to call Walker, but I’ll give you a ride home. I’m leaving anyway.”

  “You didn’t finish your wine,” he pointed out, and for the first time, Billy thought she detected a slight slur in his speech.

  “That’s all right. I can have a glass at home,” she said.

  She half expected him to want to stay, but he looked at his empty glass, shrugged, and said with a smile that was more charming than it needed to be, “If it’s not too much trouble . . . ?”

  “It’s not.”

  “Thank you, then. I appreciate it. Let me just . . . settle up my tab here.”

  He took his wallet out of his pocket, extracted a bill from it, and left it on the bar.

  Billy leaned closer. It was a hundred-dollar bill. “Are you . . . sure you want to leave that much?” she asked.

  “Why not?” he said, getting off the barstool. “I like overtipping if the service is good.”

  Oh, it’s a great hobby, Billy thought. If you can afford it. They left the bar together, and Billy tried to ignore the significant smile Joy gave her as she and Cal said good-night. It would take twelve hours to get all the way around Butternut that she’d left with him, she reflected—eighteen hours at the most.

  She was parked only a block away, which turned out to be a good thing, since it was still drizzling outside. She and Cal walked quickly, Cal comporting himself like a man who could easily pass a field sobriety test, and Billy trying to stay dry under Main Street’s awnings.

  “Here we go,” she said when they got to her car. “Don’t mind about the dog hair,” she added under her breath. She’d just vacuumed it up the other day, but Murphy’s yellow fur still clung stubbornly to the front passenger seat. It was where Murphy sat when he and Billy went anywhere without Luke, as they had today. She’d taken him to the beach to chase tennis balls in the rain. Oh, great, the car wasn’t just covered in blond fur; it would also smell like wet dog.

  When she got into the car, though, there was only a faint Murphy-ish smell. Still, she left her window cracked open for good measure. They were quiet as she drove out of town, the only sound in the car the not unpleasant squeak of windshield wipers.

  “Do you know where the cabin is?” he asked once Billy had turned onto Butternut Lake Drive.

  “It’s the driveway after Allie and Walker’s, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Small town,” she said for the second time that night. She glanced over at him and saw him smile faintly.

  “It’s nice,” he said.

  “No sushi,” she reminded him.

  “No. But have you had the Butternut Burger at Pearl’s?”

  “Have I had it? Only about a million times. If Pearl’s were open for dinner, I’d never eat anywhere else. And speaking of dinner,” she said, navigating carefully on the rain-slicked, twisty road, “have you had any?”

  “Not really.”

  “You can have mine,” she said of the to-go bag on the backseat. Its cheeseburger odor was countering the car’s doggie odor, she hoped.

  “I’m fine. Thank you for the offer, though.”

  They were quiet again, and though the view outside the car’s windows was a wet, gloomy one as gray evening shaded into gray night, inside the car it felt warm and almost . . . cozy.

  “Right up here,” Cal said before they got to his driveway. She saw the cabin’s lighted windows—bright squares of yellow—through the darkening pine trees.

  “This looks cheerful,” she said, more to herself than to him. She stopped in front of it and let the engine idle. It was raining harder now, and in between the wiper’s strokes, water sheeted over the windshield.

  “Do you want to come in for a nightcap?” Cal asked quietly.

  Billy hesitated for only a second. “No, I’ve got to be getting back,” she said, holding his car keys out to him.

  “Th
ank you for the ride, Billy,” he said, gracing her with another of his smiles.

  “You’re welcome,” she said, smiling back. He got out, and she watched him climb the porch steps and let himself in. He never stumbled on the steps, never fumbled with the keys; he was a model of self-control. Before he disappeared inside, he waved at her, and she waved back. “Good night, Cal Cooper,” she said softly before she turned around in his driveway and pulled out onto Butternut Lake Drive.

  CHAPTER 13

  When she got home, Billy took her dinner out on the back porch and split her cheeseburger with Murphy. It was still raining, but where Billy perched in her wicker reading chair under the roof’s overhang, it was more or less dry. She thought about taking a bath and going to bed early, but she felt strangely restless. She’d poured herself another glass of wine when she’d gotten back, though it sat untouched on the side table now, and she’d taken Pride and Prejudice out of the box set. She wanted to read the scene—one of her favorites—where Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy have a conversation on the dance floor. Still, the book sat opened but unread on her lap. She was looking at Murphy curled up at her feet. Was it her imagination, or was there something faintly critical in his expression as he watched her now?

  What, Murph? I gave you half my cheeseburger. The rest is gone. I was so hungry I could have eaten this chair. And it’s only fair that I had the french fries, isn’t it?

  Murphy, usually so forthcoming in their conversations, said nothing. Billy frowned. This wasn’t about the cheeseburger. This was about Cal.

  Look, I gave the guy a ride home. Which was the only responsible thing to do, Billy explained to him now. And I did not go in for a nightcap, even though there was a part of me that wanted to. I mean can you blame me, Murph? The guy is ridiculously good-looking, not to mention charming, and rich enough to throw one-hundred-dollar bills around like confetti. Of course I was tempted. The important thing is that I didn’t give in.

  At this, Murphy actually sighed, a long though still patient sigh.

  I know. I get it, Murph. I shouldn’t even have been tempted. He is the definition of a poor risk. Still technically married, and planning, for all I know, to head back to Seattle tomorrow. I should put Cal Cooper right out of my head, shouldn’t I, Murph? The whole thing is a bad idea, isn’t it?

  Murphy looked at her, and his liquid brown eyes confirmed this. It is a bad idea, he told Billy. A very bad idea.

  Yes, still technically married isn’t very promising, is it? she asked herself. But then she remembered something Cal had said about his wife. He’d spoken—somewhat bitterly, it seemed to Billy—about how his wife had kept from him, for years, her disinterest in having children. There it was again—the lie of omission. And Billy knew, sitting there on the porch with the rain dripping down, that she was doing the same thing to Luke; she was lying to him. Albeit for a different reason than Cal’s wife had lied to Cal, and maybe Billy’s reasons for lying, as a mother, were more defensible . . . but she was lying nonetheless. After all, she had the manila envelope her father had given her a year ago last spring, only months before he’d died, as evidence of this. She remembered now the afternoon her dad had summoned her into his study.

  “Dad?” she said, standing in the doorway to this little-used room. “Mom said you wanted to see me.”

  “I do,” he said, looking up from some papers on his desk. “Come on in, and close the door behind you, would you?”

  “Of course,” Billy said, closing it. “Why the secrecy, though?” she teased. The last time they’d had a discussion in this room behind a closed door had been . . . well, never. Even Billy’s teenage pregnancy, as she recalled, had been discussed with both of her parents in the living room.

  “No secrecy,” he said, “just privacy. Your mother and I, by the way, have already discussed this.” In the next moment, though, he took a key out of his trouser pocket, unlocked his top desk drawer, and removed a manila envelope from it. Her name was printed on it in her father’s neat block lettering, and the flap was sealed and reinforced with clear tape.

  “Okay, Dad. Now I am curious,” Billy said, pulling a chair over to his desk. She felt a little tremor of anxiety then. The year before, her father had been diagnosed with Hodgkin’s disease, and while it was in remission now, it was never far from any of their thoughts. “This . . . this isn’t about your health, is it?” she asked.

  “No, it’s not. Let’s sit on the couch, though,” he said, gesturing at the nearby leather chesterfield. Billy sat down on it, but she was still apprehensive. “Are you feeling all right, Dad?” she asked as he joined her. “You look a little pale.”

  “I’m fine,” he said. She would later learn that he was not fine. He’d found out a few days earlier that his cancer had returned. But he would wait until the following week to tell the rest of his family since, as he explained to them, Billy and Luke were down from Butternut for the Easter holiday and he hadn’t wanted to spoil it for them. This was typical of her father’s stoicism and unselfishness. The worst thing about his illness, he’d once remarked to Billy, was that it was so damned inconvenient for everyone else.

  “If I look pale,” he said to Billy, balancing the envelope on his knees, “it’s probably because of this sweater your mother insisted on knitting for me.”

  Billy smiled. The sweater in question was bright yellow, or “baby chick yellow,” as her father had pointed out light-heartedly at the breakfast table that morning. “Dad, why don’t you just tell her you don’t like it?” Billy said. “She’ll get over it.”

  “I can’t tell her because, if I’m going to be honest, I’d have to tell her that I’ve never liked any of the sweaters she’s knit for me. I don’t like wearing sweaters. Period.”

  “Dad, you’ve been wearing her sweaters for thirty-five years.”

  “Oh, longer,” he said. “We’ve been married for thirty-five. She’s been knitting them for me since we started dating.”

  “And you’ve never asked her to stop knitting them?”

  “I have not.”

  Billy, who’d been amused, turned serious. “I’m not sure I understand marriage,” she said, shaking her head.

  “Well, every marriage is different. But I like to think ours has been a pretty good one.”

  “Are you kidding? Dad, it’s been a great one. From my perspective, anyway.”

  He smiled, and she thought again how tired he looked. He studied the envelope, started to say something, and then stopped and started again. “I’ve been thinking about how to broach this subject with you,” he said. “I don’t know that there’s any graceful way to do it, though. It’s about Wesley. Wesley Fitzgerald.”

  Billy’s eyes widened. It had been years since they’d discussed Luke’s father, even in passing. “What . . . about him?”

  “I found him,” he said simply. “I mean, I didn’t find him, not personally. The private investigator I hired found him.”

  Billy said the first thing that came to her mind. “Where was he?”

  “Canada. Vancouver Island, actually.”

  Canada. Is that why her own feeble efforts to find him had been unsuccessful? Because she was looking for him in the wrong country? Of course, she had found a lot of other Wesley Fitzgeralds out there, just not her Wesley Fitzgerald.

  Her father, as if reading her mind, said, “I know. I tried to find him, too. Not in any methodical way, only the occasional late-night Google search. It didn’t seem possible to me that in this day and age, someone could fly so completely under the radar.”

  Billy nodded. She’d felt the same way.

  “I think I understand now why he was so hard to find,” her father continued. “He hasn’t left that much of a mark on the world. And I don’t necessarily mean that in a negative way, either,” he added quickly. “What I mean is, he has no criminal record. Not in this country or Canada. He has no record in civil court, either. Never sued anyone or been sued by anyone. He never graduated from college. Never served
in the military. He’s not on any social networking sites. Even his business—he owns a fishing boat that’s available for charters—doesn’t have a Web site. Apparently he relies on word of mouth for clients.”

  Billy nodded, distracted. She had another question for her father, but she was unsure about whether she really wanted to know the answer.

  Again her father seemed to understand. “He’s married. With two children,” he said. “Both daughters. One is nine and one is five. It’s all in here,” he added, holding the envelope out to her. But when she didn’t take it, he withdrew it.

  “Look,” he said quietly. “Take your time with this. It’s a lot to absorb. I know that. And while I do want you to take this with you today,” he said, indicating the envelope, “I don’t want you to feel like you have to do anything with it yet. You don’t even have to open it. Just put it away someplace private, and leave it there. Until . . .” He shrugged. “Until whenever.”

  Billy looked at it distrustfully. “Dad, how long have you . . . ?”

  “I’ve had this for about six weeks,” he said. “I contacted the detective a few weeks before that. For all of our amateur sleuthing,” he said with a half smile at Billy, “it didn’t take this man very long to put a file together on him.”

  “Did the private investigator . . . go there? To Canada?”

  He nodded, a little sheepishly. “I okayed the trip only for records collection. I didn’t say anything about taking . . . photographs. But he had some extra time while he was waiting for a flight to leave, so he followed him for a couple of hours and snapped a few photos. Not of his family. Just of him. They’re in here, too.”

  “Does he—Wesley, I mean—does he seem like a, you know . . .”

  “A nice guy?”

  Billy nodded.

  “There’s nothing to suggest he isn’t a nice guy. During the time the PI trailed him, he did what can only be described as some pretty . . . unremarkable things. He worked on his boat, picked up one of his kids at school, went to some kind of social function with his family at a church. I don’t know if it’s possible to get the measure of a man from the contents of a manila envelope, but . . .” He shrugged. “The PI said he seemed like an average joe. That was the phrase he used. He said he would be glad to dig a little deeper, talk to his ex-girlfriends, business partners, those kinds of things. I didn’t want a whole dossier on the man, though. Really, what I wanted was his contact information. And I wanted to rule out, you know, a worst-case scenario kind of thing, in case he was someone we wouldn’t want Luke to have any contact with, under any circumstances.”