“He came from a big family. And wanted a big family. We—I—couldn’t have children at all. He didn’t want to adopt. So he found a better breeder.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Oh, I’m over it long since. Seems like a dream now. Nightmare, actually.”
Are you over it? Hallie wondered. Something in Merritt’s tone and expression suggested otherwise.
“You two tying the knot anytime soon?” Merritt asked.
Hallie had not heard that expression for a long time, but something in Merritt’s tone made it sound more like a hanging than marriage. She shrugged. “We both travel a lot and do dangerous work.”
“Can get addictive, though, right? That kind of work?”
Hallie had been thinking about that a good bit recently. Still, the question surprised her, coming from a relative stranger.
“Honestly, yes. I’m always glad to be home. But then I can’t wait to get out again.”
“Interesting choice of words.”
“How so?”
“Most people would have said ‘leave home’ or maybe ‘go away.’ You said ‘get out.’ Like from prison.”
12
Wil Bowman lived on a hundred remote acres in northwestern Maryland, in a stone house built in the 1850s by a farm family named Mongeon and refurbished at odd intervals since. Bowman’s place was accessible by a dirt service road that curved and twisted more than a mile from State Route 550. The land was mostly mixed hardwood forest on the southern flank of Piney Mountain. Remnants of an orchard intermingled with native trees off to one side of the house. Bowman was slowly bringing the apple trees back, heirloom varieties like Northern Spy, Orange Pippin, Winesap, Roxbury Russet.
A quarter mile behind the house, a sheer granite face rose vertically for 150 feet and ran a half mile in either direction. In spring, freshets poured down the mountain above the cliff and joined into foaming cascades at several places. In winter, those waterfalls froze solid. In front of the house, Bowman had cleared several sloping acres to reclaim what, once upon a time, had been sheep pasture bounded by ruler-straight, knee-high stone walls. When time between operations allowed, he kept working to open things up beyond the fields. He liked making space for the big maple, beech, and oak trees to have light and flourish. He also liked clean, open sight lines.
He sat at an oak table in front of a cavernous fieldstone fireplace. It was fitted now with a Vermont Castings Defiant woodstove, which heated the house all winter on four cords of seasoned wood, which he cut, split, and stacked himself.
He had been trying to write an email to Hallie for some time now, starting and stopping, uncharacteristically twisted up in his own thinking. He had not liked the way they had parted on Thursday. On the way to Dulles, she’d told him that she had thought she was pregnant. It had come as a surprise, but no more so than the fact that she’d waited until they were almost at the terminal.
“Why didn’t you say anything before?” he asked, wanting her answer and fearing it in about equal measure.
“I wanted to be sure,” she said.
He looked over. Something in her tone. “That wasn’t the only reason, though.”
“No, it wasn’t the only one.”
Perhaps that was why she had waited until they were so close to the airport. Before more could be said, he double-parked in front of the terminal. He knew that she had to board in less than an hour and had two huge bags to check, not to mention passing security. He could feel her impatience. Cars were lining up behind them. A cabbie honked, then another. A dirty wind came up, making them both blink to clear the grit. He tossed her luggage onto a redcap’s wagon, then drew her aside.
“We need to talk more, Hallie.”
“We do. But I have to go.”
He held her with his eyes. “There are things you don’t know. About me.”
“And about myself, apparently.”
That surprised him. Shocked, almost. Hallie never spoke about herself that way, was virtually allergic to the argot of self-help books and guru mantras.
He held her, and they kissed. She promised to call from Los Angeles, or maybe it had been New Zealand. She waved to the redcap, who followed her into the terminal.
A green minivan pulled to the curb directly in front of him and disgorged people: business-suited man, woman in white parka and jeans, young girl with shining blond hair in red jacket and white cap. The man hauled a suitcase out of the van’s back, faced the woman, and they embraced. The girl fluttered around them.
Bowman turned away. More honking, a woman leaning out her car window, gesturing, yelling something. He heard none of it.
He started another emaiclass="underline"
Hallie,
I didn’t like the way we left things at the airport. I was caught off guard by what you told me and did not respond appropriately. Since we hadn’t talked at all about anything relating to
No, he thought. Sounds like a fuddled college kid. He deleted that attempt, got up, walked around. Looked out the front windows. It was midafternoon, the sun dipping behind the mountain’s western shoulder, white woods turning blue, wind spinning through the forest, twirling up snow devils in the old sheep pasture. Bowman looked out, watched shadows stretch, thought about climbing one of the frozen waterfalls. Tossed that idea away. Quit stalling, mister.
He went to the bathroom, used the toilet, saw his reflection in the mirror while he washed his hands. Bowman liked living among old things. Some young Marylander might have gazed at himself in that mirror before heading off to Antietam. Bowman had bought it for the oval frame of hand-carved butternut and had never replaced the glass, though it was cracked and dulled with age. It was like looking at himself through fog — not such a bad thing, actually. Thirty-nine, not old, but not much youth left in that face. Had he ever looked young? Must have, once. The job ages you. Other people told you, so you knew that when you took it on. Like being a soldier. Or a cop in a big city. People thought the fighting ended when the bad actors swung, but it never really did end. Just smoldered underground, out of plain sight, waiting to flare again like roots that reignite forest fires.
There were certain rules he never broke. Some had to do with killing. Always finishing what he started was another. One of his favorite books was Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant, and one of his favorite passages described young Grant’s attempt to ride home, on a short leave, before deployment separated him from family and friends. At one point he had to take a green horse across a rain-swollen river. Mixing fast water and young mounts was a good way to produce dead riders, as Grant, possibly the finest horseman ever to pass through West Point, well knew. But he wrote, “One of my superstitions had always been when I started to go anywhere, or to do anything, not to turn back or stop until the thing intended was accomplished.”
Bowman had never forgotten that sentence, thought it worth adding to his collection of personal commandments, and allowed it to guide actions large and small. An email was one of those small things that could have very large consequences, and he would not let this one go unfinished. Now, though, he felt the way he imagined Grant’s horse must have, knowing it had to go, wanting like hell not to.
Walking back to the table, he felt, rather than heard, some disturbance. Might have been a very faint sound like a slap. He stood where he was for several seconds, then went to the kitchen and moved a switch that killed every light in the house. He stepped out onto the small back porch — the noise, or whatever it was, had come from that direction — leaving the door open. He stood there for a long time, listening, feeling the dark, and finally went back in.