LITMIR.BIZ

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      After Julie had announced that she was also in love with somebody else, Steve had taken the ferry across to Vinalhaven, Maine. Halfway across, he’d removed his wedding ring from his finger and thrown it as far as he could into the choppy ocean. That was three years ago.

      He still felt he would never be the kind of man any woman could love. He had so much to learn, so far to go.

      It was quite ironic. Two months after Julie left, he did just what she wanted. He separated from the military, escaped to Whisper Lake Crossing and went back to the quiet pursuit of cabinetmaking. He loved it. Whenever Alec, the local sheriff who also happened to be his friend, would offer him full-time police work he always had the same response; “Full time? Not interested.” Occasionally, Steve helped with something that really caught his fancy—like the disappearance of the girl from church and her boyfriend.

      That was the last time Steve had been out to Trail’s End. They had been out there looking for any sign of two teenagers. They had to satisfy their curiosity by just walking the grounds. Earl refused to let them search the place, and because the evidence was so flimsy, Alec had never been able to get a search warrant.

      He quickly found the small house where Connolly lived with his parents and four siblings. When he told Connolly’s mother the nature of the work, she pushed her glasses up on her nose, shook her head and said, “No. I don’t think he’ll want to work out there.”

      “Come on, Rita, tell him about the job at least. I took the job out there and she needs help.”

      “I’ll tell him. That’s all I can promise. If he doesn’t want to go, I won’t be forcing him. You know those kids are still traumatized.”

      Steve got back into his truck and drove down the driveway to Flower Cottage, where his friend Bette and her son Ralph lived. The white house with the flower baskets under each window came into view. As always, the place looked pristine. It reminded Steve of a quaint little English country cottage. Not that he would know what a quaint little English country cottage looked like.

      Bette and her thirty-year-old son, Ralph, had emigrated from England forty years ago and Bette had brought with her, her English accent and her country garden ways. Ralph was a bit slow and simple, yet capable of a good day’s work. Rumor had it that when Ralph was about five, Bette’s husband went back to England. He just couldn’t take the responsibility of a mentally disabled son. No one had heard from him since and Bette never talked about him.

      Steve parked his truck next to Bette’s Volvo and as he and Chester got out, Boris, their springer spaniel, ran over, tail wagging and tongue flapping. Steve had a certain affection for the old dog. Despite the male name, Boris was Chester’s mother. The two dogs took off down the expanse of lawn that Bette still referred to as a “garden” even though she’d been in Maine for years.

      Bette and Ralph were out back piling dry weeds into a wheelbarrow. Bette waved when she saw Steve, and came toward him, pulling off garden gloves.

      “Hello, Steven. How lovely that you’re here.”

      He smiled and said hello. It was like this little place on the planet was infused with peace. Coming here was like coming home. Bette had become almost a mother to him.

      “Are you staying for supper?” she asked. “I’ve got a chicken in the Slow-Cooker.”

      “Didn’t come for that express purpose, but I’ll never refuse an offer of a meal here. I came about work.”

      By this time, Ralph had appeared, wearing a grass-stained pair of khakis and a baseball cap.

      “Hey, buddy,” Steve said. “How’s it going?”

      “Good. Good. Good. Working hard. Working here. Lots to do.”

      “You want to work with me for a while?”

      Bette’s eyes lit up. “Really, Steve? You have a job for Ralph?”

      Steve nodded and grinned, and then to Ralph he said, “But it’s hard work. You up for a bit of hard work?”

      “Yes, Steve. I can do hard work. I can.”

      Ralph was a big man with a big heart. Steve had used him before on work projects.

      “The work is up at Trail’s End, for someone named Nori Edwards.”

      Ralph dropped the handles of the wheelbarrow, and it clanked down onto the flagstones. He frowned and shook his head. “No. No. Can’t go there. Not there. No. Not over there. Mum. No.”

      “Ralph,” Bette said. “It’s okay. Nothing out there can hurt you.”

      But the young man was shaking his head over and over. “Can’t go there. Can’t go there. Can’t go…” He kept repeating it over and over.

      Bette put her arm around her son. “You’ve been listening to Earl’s boys. They put all sorts of silly things into your head. There is nothing to be afraid of there.”

      Yet Ralph’s eyes were wide. “But there is…there is…”

      Bette, her arm still around her big son, smiled up at Steve. “He’ll come. We’ll talk about it over tea.”

      Lately, Nori always had the feeling that she was forgetting something. She would walk out of a store and when she got to the door she would make a point of turning and looking back to make sure she hadn’t left anything on the counter. Or when she got out of her car she would mentally count the items she was carrying—bag over shoulder, sunglasses on head, keys in hand, cell phone in pocket. Even when she counted, even when she looked back, she still felt as though she was leaving something important behind.

      It didn’t used to be like this. Marty always told her that she was the most organized person he knew. She had to be. When you were married to the most head-in-the-clouds individual on the planet, one had to compensate. Marty, her sensitive, artist husband, could be so into a painting that he would lose track of everything—time, appointments, meals. She was the one in the family who made sure the girls got to piano lessons and gymnastics on time. She was the one who would make sure they had regular family meal times and that Marty was called in, precisely at six, from whatever piece of art he was working on. She made him see the importance of that.

      When Nori complained that she had to do all the thinking around the place, all the organizing, all the setting down of schedules, Marty would take her in his arms and call her his primary color, the color from which all other colors got their hues; that without her, there was no color at all.

      The color thing wasn’t entirely true. If she had been the primary color, then Marty had been the palette where the colors were mixed and made usable, because when he’d died her whole world had faded into a kind of pale, soupy, grayish monochrome.

      “Ma’am?” Nori turned in the doorway of Malloy’s Mercantile. Back at the cash register, the checkout girl was waving Nori’s plastic bag of purchases. “Don’t forget your bag.”

      Nori retraced her steps and made an effort to smile as she took the proffered bag. As she walked away she made some comment about forgetting her head if it wasn’t attached.

      She had purchased a package of flimsy, cheap towels that might make good rags, plus a six-pack of heavy, wool work socks. In her former life, Nori never wore this kind of footwear. Her city socks were mostly light trouser ones that she wore underneath dress pants. Sometimes at home she would put on funky socks with flowers or diamond patterns. After a few weeks of blisters here at Whisper Lake though, she decided she needed something heavier inside her work boots.

      Before she reached her truck she stopped and counted, just in case. One—Malloy’s Mercantile bag, two—shoulder bag, three—sunglasses, four—cell phone. Keys? In pocket. She threw the plastic shopping bag on the passenger seat and grabbed her backpack, which contained her laptop, closed the truck door, aimed the remote and locked it, and off she went to Marlene’s Café.

      Grief and stress, she told herself. What had everyone

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