“Tell him I’ll come visit as soon as I get back,” Lincoln said.
“Is that wise?” she replied. Because he’d made similar promises many times and broken as many as he’d kept, and the latter had been more out of duty than love. Why keep making halfhearted promises? was his wife’s point. Because, he wanted to say, maybe it was time to stop pretending, even to himself, he didn’t love the old bugger. After all, paternal love was permitted, even if your father could be summed up in a single word and the word was impossible. Even if he was Wolfgang Amadeus Moser.
* * *
—
THE HOSPITAL’S WAITING ROOM was mobbed. Lincoln offered to stick around, but Teddy said there was no reason to if he had better things to do. He’d shoot Lincoln a text when they were finished with him. Ten minutes later, when Lincoln knocked on Coffin’s apartment door, it was Beverly who answered. She was wearing the same loose shorts and sweatshirt (the latter probably Coffin’s, since she was swimming in it) she’d had on last night at Rockers. They both said “Oh!” at the same instant, and then, in the next, “I wasn’t expecting…”
When she recovered enough poise to invite him in, Lincoln said no thanks, perhaps a little more emphatically than necessary. Yesterday, at the Vineyard Gazette, he’d allowed himself to be attracted to the woman and enjoyed that she seemed attracted to him as well. At the time it had seemed harmless enough. Today, though, nothing felt harmless. “I just stopped by to see how Mr. Coffin was doing,” he told her. Not the whole truth, but still.
“That’s nice of you,” she said, “but he went out a couple hours ago and didn’t say where he was going. Anywhere I’m not was my impression.”
“I’m sorry to—”
“I’m a scold, it seems.” She made a face that signaled a mixture of resignation and exhaustion. No doubt they’d spent the morning arguing about the surgery he’d vowed to skip last night at Rockers. “Nothing I say seems to get through.”
“Maybe he’s hearing more than you think,” Lincoln told her, though he had no idea whether or not this was true. “I know he cares for you.”
“He told you this?”
“Not in so many words,” Lincoln admitted weakly, “but he can’t seem to go more than two or three sentences without alluding to you. It’s none of my business, but is his son still in the picture?”
“He told you about Eric?”
Lincoln nodded.
“No, he took him to the ferry the night he…hurt me. Told him to never come back or he’d…” No need to finish this sentence. “We have no idea where he went. I still have all his things. I think Joe regrets driving him away, but he’d never admit it. We don’t talk about him.”
“I’m sorry,” Lincoln told her, which was true. He’d never seen a man so at war with himself as Joe Coffin.
“He’s hard on people,” she continued, as if reading his mind. “Especially himself. Did you know he went to Dartmouth?”
“No,” Lincoln said, though he wasn’t that surprised, given how offended he’d been when Lincoln mentioned where Minerva was located.
“One semester. But his mother got sick and he came home to help out. He never went back. What money there was went to her doctors instead.”
“That’s a tough break, all right,” Lincoln said, trying to imagine what it would’ve been like for him if he’d had to go back to Dunbar after a semester at Minerva. “Would you let him know I dropped by? I have some news that might interest him.”
“I’m so embarrassed,” she said when he turned to leave. “I’ve forgotten your name.”
“Lincoln,” he reminded her, feeling some of the wind go out of his sails. Which no doubt served him right.
On a hunch he drove out to Katama, and there, a couple hundred yards from the beach, was the old pickup, parked on the strip of grass between the road and the bike path. Coffin registered his presence in the rearview mirror when Lincoln pulled in behind him.
“Even if I believed in coincidences, I wouldn’t buy into this one,” he said, having rolled down his window as Lincoln walked up.
Lincoln nodded. “I had an idea you might want to see your hawk again.”
“Turns out that not everything you want to see feels like seeing you.”
It occurred to Lincoln that he might not be talking about the bird. “I won’t bother you for long.”
“I apologize for last night,” Coffin said. “Did I frighten you?”
“A little,” Lincoln admitted.
“That wasn’t my intention. It was Kevin I was hoping to scare. He pushes steroids to local kids dumb enough to think they could be pro athletes if they could just bulk up. Did he look scared to you?”
“Not particularly.”
“Yeah, he definitely took my attempts at menace in stride. Anyway, you’re too late. I’ve already talked to my friend the police chief. I expect he’ll pay you a visit soon.”
“He’ll be wasting his time,” Lincoln said. “I found out last night that Jacy died back in the seventies.”
“You know this?”
Lincoln couldn’t help smiling. “No, but I believe it. Turns out she was on that ferry after all. She and Mickey secretly met up in Woods Hole. She convinced him to go to Canada with her instead of reporting for induction.”
He was prepared for Coffin to find fault with this narrative, but he just nodded thoughtfully. “A girl that good-looking? He’s lucky she didn’t want him to rob banks. Doesn’t explain why she never told her parents, though.”
“Long story, there.”
“You say she died?”
“Of the same neurological disease that killed her biological father.”
Lincoln could see the man’s mind working. “In other words, not the same guy your friend Mickey beat the shit out of?”
“Nope.”
“I guess I can fill in the blank there.”
“See, Mr. Coffin, that’s the reason I’m telling you all this. Because filling in the blanks, as you put it, is exactly what you and your friend Troyer have been doing, except you’ve been filling them in wrong.”
Here, too, he expected pushback that didn’t come. Coffin only shrugged, as if he’d been shown an arithmetic error in his checkbook. “It happens, Lincoln.”
“Yeah, but when it does, aren’t you supposed to rethink things? Pause to consider all the other things you might be wrong about?”
“Like what?”
“Well, in your shoes what I’d rethink is my decision not to have that operation. You get that right and maybe you’ve bought yourself some time to consider all the other stuff.”
“More time to contemplate everything I’ve done wrong and all the people I’ve misjudged? You don’t make it sound all that attractive, Lincoln, especially when the alternative is dying peacefully in my sleep while believing I did my best.”
“You sleep peacefully?”
He sighed mightily. “Well, you got me there, Lincoln. No, I do not sleep peacefully.”
“Mr. Coffin?”
“Yeah?”
“Beverly really does care about you.”
His expression darkened. “I’m aware of that. You have a point?”
“Well, you’re always saying we ought to do better by girls? Why not do better by her? For your own good, let her win this one.”
Coffin studied him for a long beat, then said, “Shit, Lincoln. I just lost an argument, didn’t I.”
“I believe you did, yes.”
“And now you’re all proud of yourself.”
Lincoln shrugged. “Maybe a little.”
“I don’t know, my friend. It’s a slippery slope giving women what they want. First thing this one’s going to do when I come out from under the anesthesia is start ragging me about writing that cozy mystery book. Make me the laughingstock of this entire island. Th
e whole thing’ll be your fault and you’ll be gone and I’ll have to find some innocent person to take it out on.”
“You see the future very clearly.”
He nodded, rolling his window back up. “It’s a gift.”
* * *
—
ONE FINAL DUTY, Lincoln thought, saved for last because it was the most distasteful.
Troyer answered his knock wearing nothing but a Speedo—a relief, actually, though Lincoln did wonder, and not for the first time, why men with prodigious beer guts were so often proud of their physiques. For Troyer’s part, when he saw who was on his doorstep, he laughed out loud and called over his shoulder, “Roxy! Put some damn clothes on. We got company.”
Even with Troyer standing in the doorway, Lincoln had a direct line of sight out onto the deck, where the woman in question rose from the chaise lounge, came over to the screen door and peered inside through cupped hands and said, “What?”
“Nothing!” Troyer barked back. Then muttered, more to Lincoln than to her, “Show the whole damn world your pussy. See if I care.”
When he stepped aside so his visitor could enter, Lincoln shook his head. “I only have a minute.”
“Okay, I’ll come out,” Troyer said, letting the screen door clap shut behind him, to gunshot effect. Lincoln suppressed a smile. Earlier, when he’d announced his intention to pay Troyer a visit, Teddy offered to come along. Lincoln told him that wouldn’t be necessary, just to call the cops if he heard gunfire. In his mind’s eye he could see Teddy dialing 911.
“What’s the deal?” Troyer wanted to know. “Your friend didn’t give you my message?”
“No, I got it. I just wanted to let you know I won’t be putting my place on the market after all.”
“You don’t want to sell it. I don’t want to buy it. So why tell me?”
“Well, my realtor noticed something when he was looking at the survey of my lot.”
The other man stiffened visibly.
“Apparently you don’t have an easement through my property. Were you aware of that?”
“Oh, now I get it,” he said, his eyes narrowing. “You don’t want to sell me your house, you want to sell me an easement for the price of your house.”
“No, I was thinking one dollar would do it. Of course if there are legal costs, you’d pay for those.”
Troyer cocked his head. “You’re saying you’d sell me an easement for a dollar?”
“Correct.”
“Why?”
There was a long answer that involved an apology Lincoln didn’t feel like making, so he opted for a shorter one that didn’t. “Why not?” he said. “We’re neighbors, right?”
“Not really. You’re never here.”
“Actually, my wife and I are thinking about spending a couple weeks here next summer,” Lincoln told him, though he hadn’t broached the subject with Anita yet. “Maybe bring my father along, if he’s well enough.” Who knew? If Dub-Yay was going to Mass, maybe he’d be game for this, as well.
“Avoid August,” Troyer advised, relaxing a bit now, but still suspicious. “That’s when Obama comes. Him and all the other libs.”
Lincoln indicated the man’s Trump sign. “You wouldn’t actually vote for him, would you?”
Troyer snorted. “Nah. That’s just there to piss off the rest of Chilmark.” But then he shrugged. “On the other hand, if he gets the nomination, I just might.”
Lincoln felt a chill, but shrugged it off. “The price of your easement just doubled,” he said.
He was halfway back up the hill, when he heard his name shouted. Turning, he saw Troyer loping uphill toward him, his gut jiggling over his Speedo. He arrived winded and clutching a swatch of papers. Lincoln didn’t recognize them as pages from Teddy’s manuscript until the other man handed them over. “Roxy found these in the yard.”
Unless Lincoln was mistaken, they’d been crumpled up and tossed in the trash and, just now, retrieved and hastily smoothed out. “Thanks. Teddy will be pleased.”
“So…this whole easement thing? Does this mean we’re good? No more bad blood?”
Lincoln nodded. “That’s what it means.”
“All right, then,” he said, offering his hand. “Good deal.”
Lincoln swallowed hard and shook it.
Teddy
“You’re sure Anita’s okay with this?” Teddy said.
It was late Tuesday morning and they were leaning against Lincoln’s rental car in the Oak Bluffs ferry terminal’s vehicle reservation line. The boat pulling into the slip was half empty, but it would be full going back, more people leaving the island this time of year than coming to it. Yesterday, Teddy had taken the same ferry on foot, retrieved his car from the Falmouth lot and brought it over to the island. Tomorrow he’d call the college and resign from his position there, letting people know that unless they could find a new editor-in-chief he’d be shutting down Seven Storey Books. Later in the week he’d have the English department send a work-study student over to his apartment to gather up whatever he’d need for the autumn—warmer clothes, work boots, his laptop—and ship it here to the island. The apartment itself he’d hold on to until the first of the year, just in case things didn’t work out on the Vineyard. And they might not. He knew that. In the aftermath of a spell, a manic stage often ensued, with bright possibilities everywhere that would fizzle out after a week or two. Something about this new plan felt right, though, and anyway it had been a long time since he’d been really excited about anything.
“Actually, Anita likes the idea a lot,” Lincoln assured him. The Mosers had been on the phone half a dozen times yesterday making a long list of things that needed doing in the Chilmark house before they listed it in the spring. Teddy thought he could handle most of it on his own. He couldn’t do electrical work, and a couple other tasks would likely require two people, but he’d be one of them, and if things went as he hoped he knew who the other would be. “You’ll be saving us money.”
Teddy supposed that might be true, but he also worried that his proposal had caught Lincoln off guard and he’d been unable to come up with a good-enough reason to say no to an old friend. On the other hand, he seemed genuinely of two minds about selling the place, so maybe putting off the decision until spring made sense for them, too. “Well,” Teddy said, “if you change your minds, just let me know, and I’ll clear out.”
“We won’t,” Lincoln assured him. “I just hope…” But then his voice trailed off.
“I know,” Teddy said. What probably worried Lincoln, who’d always been a thorough planner and averse to risk, was that Teddy was acting impulsively, committing to such an important life change without really having thought things through. “You hope I’m not setting myself up for a major disappointment.” He hoped the same thing himself. Exhausted as he’d been the night Mickey told his story, he was unable to fall asleep afterward, partly because his eye was pulsing to the beat of his breathing. When the sky finally started to lighten in the east, he’d dressed quietly and gone out into the kitchen to make himself a cup of Keurig coffee. He was doctoring it when Delia appeared in the doorway. She started to say something, but Teddy put an index finger to his lips and indicated the front room, where her father lay snoring on the sofa. When she joined him at the counter, Teddy handed her his coffee, made himself another and whispered, “Take a walk with me?”
She looked dubious but followed him out onto the deck and then down to the lawn below. When they were out of earshot, he extended his hand. “I don’t think we’ve been formally introduced. I’m Teddy.”
When she took it, he noticed her fingernails were chewed down to the quick. “I recognized you from your photo in the Minerva yearbook.”
Teddy was surprised Mickey still had one of those. Did he dig it out to show her, or had she found it herself in a closet or on some dusty bookshelf?
“Plus he talks about you and Lincoln all the time. I know the two of you a hell of a lot better than I know him, actually. Is it true all three of you were in love with my mother?”
“Yes, it is.”
“So what the fuck was she thinking when she chose him?”
Teddy couldn’t tell whether this was supposed to be a joke or a sincere if rudely put question. “Hey,” he said, “the other two scenarios don’t result in you.”
“Big loss for the world, right?”
“Lose the sarcasm, and I’d agree with you.”
“Nice of you to say, except you don’t know me.”
“I feel like I kind of do.”
“Feel however you like, dude, but trust me, you don’t.”
Teddy couldn’t help chuckling. “You sounded just like your mother right then.” They were quiet for a while until Teddy tried a different tack. “So your father doesn’t talk about himself that much?”
She made a yeah-right face. “He says that what I see is what I’m getting.”
“What would you like to know?”
She took a deep breath. “Why he’s like he is? What he was like when he was young? How he can be so laid-back most of the time, and then be, like, a total dick?”
So, he’d just started in. Told her about Mickey’s family in West Haven, Connecticut. How as a boy he’d been spoiled by his sisters and by the time he was sixteen was sneaking out to play in bars with older musicians. How his father always called Fender guitars Fensons. (This elicited a smile.) How Mickey’d stunned everyone by acing his SATs. How one day Michael Sr. and his crew had lunch at their local diner, and when it was time to go back to work, everybody but Mickey’s dad stood up, and he’d just sat there, his heart having quit on him. How the three of them had met at Jacy’s sorority, where they all slung hash, and how Mickey had opted to scrub pots in the kitchen. (“So that’s where Big Mick on Pots came from!”) How the three of them and her mother, who was engaged at the time, had returned to the Theta house late one night, and Jacy, after being called a slut by a sorority sister, had given all three of them big, wet kisses right in front of her. How another time, after one of their Friday afternoon keg parties, Mickey and some of the other hashers had gone over to the SAE house and her father, pissed off by the stone lions out front, had coldcocked the pledge who’d opened the door to welcome them to the party. (“Okay, that does sound like him.”) And, most important, how he and Lincoln and Mickey had all watched the first Vietnam draft lottery together in the sorority’s back room, when her father’s number had been nine out of three hundred and sixty-six, and how Jacy had been waiting for them out in the parking lot afterward and had cried when she heard. And finally how their motto had been All for One and One for All. By now, Delia had gone completely silent, and her eyes were liquid. It only took a moment, though, for her to return to what Teddy recognized as her default mode. “So basically what you’re saying is I’m an asshole for not appreciating what a great guy he is.”
Chances Are . . . Page 31