“That was just for show,” I told him. “Mostly she didn’t mind at all.”
“Guess you’re right,” he agreed, then rapidly changed the subject. “Are you in trouble?” he asked. “Do you need help?”
“I don’t think so.”
“You look it.”
“I admit I could have used a hand yesterday.”
“Cops beat you up, is that right?”
I nodded.
“They used to do the same thing when I was young. They see a guy they thought was trouble, they’d smack him around a little just to keep him in line. I saw that a lot when I was young. I bet you did the same when you were a cop.”
“No, not at all,” I assured him.
Dean just smiled. I don’t think he believed me.
“You’re going back, aren’t you?” he asked.
“Back where?”
“Back where they beat you up.”
“I suppose,” I admitted.
“Yeah, I knew it. I remember telling Laurie when she first started bringing you around, ‘One thing about Taylor,’ I said. ‘He’s no quitter. He’s not going to quit on you. He’s like a marine. You can kill him, but he’s not going to quit.’”
“Did you really say that?”
“Yes, I did.”
“No wonder it took her so long to accept my marriage proposal.”
“Don’t give me that,” he said. “If you only had the guts to ask, she would have married you the weekend after you two met.”
“Really? She said that?”
Dean nodded.
The things you learn.
The warm sun played peekaboo behind white, fluffy, daydream clouds—perfect weather for lake watching. I descended the long, steep flight of stairs that led from the Bernelles’ home on top of the hill to the lake below, carrying three cans of beer that I’d found in the refrigerator. About halfway down I realized I was overburdened and stopped for a half hour to drink one of the beers. My load reduced, I continued to the L-shaped dock, making myself comfortable on the bench at the base of the L.
Like most forms of human endeavor, lake watching can be elevated to an art form in the proper hands. Me? I’m the Monet of lake watching. I can do it for hours, thinking about nothing and everything, whereas less dedicated artists grow weary and bored after thirty minutes or so. The difference is that most people look for answers in the gently rippling waves while I search only for questions.
“I wonder how much that cost?” was one of the questions. It was directed at the sailboat moored to the stem of the L. I remember the day Phyllis had launched it. Dean and Laura had both asked, “Where did you get it?” I asked, “How much did it cost?” I wondered what that said about me.
I was tempted to pollute Phyll’s lake with the empty beer cans, thought better of it, and set them on the dock. A short time later Phyllis herself came down the stairs. The sports jacket was gone. In its place were pink shorts and a white tank top. She was a fetching woman, my mother-in-law. Like her daughter.
She sat next to me and looked out over the lake. She asked me how I was feeling, and I said I was okay and asked her how the meeting went, and she said the customer bought all five lots. The exchange pretty much exhausted us, and we sat there without speaking for a good half hour. Finally, Phyllis took my hand, gave it a tug, and asked straight out, “Have you found anyone yet?”
“No.” I answered quickly, without even thinking of Cynthia—and when I did, I didn’t take the answer back. I guess that said something about me, too.
“I’m sorry.”
“I can’t imagine getting married again,” I said.
“I wish you would,” Phyllis told me. “Imagine it, I mean.”
I shrugged, wincing at the pain the gesture caused me.
“There is a woman,” I said. “Her name is Cynthia. My mom can’t stand her.”
“Why not?”
Because she defended the man who killed your daughter and granddaughter, I nearly said. “It’s a long story,” I told her instead. “Anyway, she’s somebody. I just don’t know if she’s someone, if you know what I mean.”
“I know. It’s just that I see the loneliness in you.…”
I turned quickly to face her. How could she see that?
“It’s in your eyes, the way you carry yourself.…”
Nonsense.
“Maybe I recognize it and others don’t because I knew you before the loneliness came.”
“I’m not lonely,” I insisted. “Alone, okay, but not lonely. There’s a difference.”
A small cloud passed over the sun before Phyllis replied, “It’s time to move on. Laurie would say so, too.”
A few more clouds came and went.
“I want you to come visit us again real soon, and I want you to bring a girl with you.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“‘Most people are just as happy as they make their minds up to be.’ Know who said that?”
“Who?”
“Abraham Lincoln. Find a girl,” Phyllis told me. “Start over.”
I thought of Alison. She had tried to start over. Look what had happened to her.
“It’s not that easy.”
“It’s not supposed to be easy. Loving someone is the hardest thing there is.”
She got that right.
“Find someone. If not this Cynthia, then someone else. A life unshared is a life wasted.”
“Yeah? Who said that?”
“Me.”
I had to smile.
“Find someone to share your life with,” Phyllis added.
I gave her hand a squeeze.
“How ’bout you?” I asked, waving at the sailboat and the lake and the house on the hill. “Let me take you away from all this.”
Phyllis laughed. “Then who would feed Dean?”
The next morning I waited in bed as long as my conscience would allow. When I finally shuffled into the bathroom, I was appalled by what I saw in the mirror. I touched each bruise that marked my body from face to upper rib cage to belt line—connect the dots and see a gruesome picture. There was some physical pain, some stiffness, but nothing I couldn’t live with. My mental health was a different matter. My hand shook when I borrowed Dean’s razor to shave, and I caught myself humming the theme songs to movies in which the hero got killed—the part of my brain that decided I was going back there was having a hard time convincing the rest of me that it was a good idea.
Dean lent me a shirt, and to my great relief, Phyllis had run the rest of my clothes through the washer, so they were lemon fresh—she’d even managed to remove most of the bloodstains; it was a miracle. I put them on and examined myself in the mirror, full face and then profile. I was convinced I looked presentable if not downright handsome; pretended that no one would notice the dark splotch beneath my ear or my bruised lower lip or the blood clotted in my right nostril.
After a while, I stopped humming.
Dean was standing by the kitchen sink drinking coffee when I entered. Phyllis, dressed like she intended to skip down to the dock and jump into her sailboat at any moment, was sitting at the kitchen table and reading the newspaper.
“You’re leaving now,” she told me, looking up from the paper.
“Yes.”
“Are you coming back?”
“When I can.”
She folded the paper neatly before asking, “Is there anything we can do for you?”
“I need a favor.”
“What?” Dean asked.
“I want to borrow the Walther PPK that I gave you that Christmas.”
“My gun?”
“I’ll make sure you get it back.”
“No problem,” he said and left the room.
“You didn’t tell us exactly what happened in Kreel County,” Phyllis reminded me.
“I’m not sure I know myself,” I told her.
Dean put the gun down on the table in front of me. It was lightly oiled, in the box it came in. The Walther PPK weighed only twentythree ounces but it felt heavy in my hand. My reason told me to leave the gun. But my instincts—and my bruises—told me to load the Walther and slip it into my jacket pocket. So I did.