Ten minutes later, as she waited for the garage attendant to bring her car around, she considered how escaping the city would put her out of the loop with people at the clinic, who’d be among the first to hear news about the murder investigation. Cell service was spotty where she was headed, so if someone decided to call her, it might be impossible to get through. After pondering this for a few minutes, she called the clinic and asked for Maggie.
“I just wanted to let you know that I’m going to be at my house in the Catskills this weekend,” Lake told her. “The cell service around Roxbury is bad so I thought I’d give you my number up there-in case you want to reach me.”
“Is one of the doctors supposed to call you?” Maggie asked.
“Um, no-I just thought it would be good for you to have it. You know, in case someone needed me.”
“Okay,” she said obligingly. “But I’m sure it won’t be necessary. Since we have no transfers today, Dr. Levin is sending everyone home at lunchtime. He thought we all needed the break.”
Lake also left a message on Molly’s voice mail, telling her about her plans and that she would catch up with her later.
The traffic north was heavy and aggravating, though Lake managed to make the first part of the trip in just over two hours. When she finally pulled off the highway for the last leg-along several rural highways up through the Catskill Mountains-she felt a rush of pleasure override her anxiety. In her mind there had never been a better word to describe the landscape up there than piney-endless fir trees hugging the mountains that rose steeply from the road. The temperature was seven or eight degrees cooler here than in the city, and she rolled down the window to breathe in the mountain air.
Nothing had changed in the months since she’d last been here, but then again it never did. The small towns she passed through, with their general stores, painted clapboard houses, and weathered steel bridges, seemed untouched since the 1950s. She and Jack had bought the weekend house here ten years ago based mostly on the affordability of the area, but she’d come to love the region-it reminded her of parts of the Pennsylvania landscape where she’d been raised.
Jack, however, had eventually grown bored of it. “Every other restaurant is made from an old caboose,” he’d said snidely during a drive up just a few months before their split. It had been no surprise when he’d told her she could keep the house.
Just outside of Roxbury she stopped at a farm stand to pick up fresh tomatoes and fruit. When she pulled into the town a few minutes later, it seemed deadly quiet, and there was the usual dustiness the town always seemed to wear in August as the summer wound down.
Her house was at the far end of town. When she and Jack had gone house hunting they hadn’t been able to afford a place with lots of land, so they settled on a lovely center-hall colonial in a short row of houses across from what was called the village green, but what was really a smidgen of park with a few tired benches. The house didn’t provide much privacy, but the backyard was spacious enough for the kids to romp around in. And she loved her next-door neighbors, David and Yvon, gay partners in their fifties.
It felt strange but good to set eyes on the house again. As she parked in the driveway and unloaded her bags, she heard someone’s long strides behind her. She turned to see David approaching the car.
“Hey, stranger,” he said, embracing her. “We’ve missed you like crazy.”
“Same here. And I so appreciate you keeping an eye on the house for me. You guys have been wonderful.”
“We weren’t expecting you this weekend. Does this mean you’re going to start coming up again?”
“Yes, I really plan to-though this trip turned out to be just a spur-of-the-moment thing. I’m going to parents’ day at the camp tomorrow. How about a drink tonight before dinner?”
She’d originally planned to hibernate for the evening, but she suddenly felt the need to have Yvon and David chattering on her back porch.
“I can’t think of anything I’d like to do more, but we just heard that Yvon’s mother is in the hospital. It’s probably just another kidney stone but we’ve got to head back to the city right now.”
She felt a rush of disappointment. “Well, we’ll do it another time. I just hope she’s okay.”
“She’s fine, I’m sure, though I don’t know if I’ll be okay after spending the weekend at Mt. Sinai, waiting for the damn thing to pass. What about you? How are you doing these days?”
“Better, much better, really.”
“And you’ll be all right here all by yourself?”
“Of course,” she said. “I’ve been up here plenty of times without Jack.”
“It’s going to be kind of quiet around here-Jean didn’t come up this weekend and the Perrys are at a wedding in Dallas apparently.” He gave her a smile. “Well, I’d better dash. We don’t want to make Momma Bear cross.”
He sprinted back across her front yard and up the steps of his house. Next door, Lake saw that Jean Oran’s house was locked up tight, and so was the Perrys’. Lake glanced over to the green across the street. Usually there were a few kids kicking a ball on the grass, or people lounging on the weathered benches, but today it looked totally forlorn. Except for a pair of ratty squirrels scampering after each other, there wasn’t any sign of life.
Please, Lake thought as she unlocked the door to the house, don’t tell me I’ve been a fool to come all the way up here alone.
8
THE HOUSE SMELLED both musty and lemony at the same time-it was likely that the cleaning lady Lake had kept on through the summer had dusted every surface but never cracked open a window. Lake set the cooler down on the kitchen table and went back to the car for her duffel bag and the cat.
“Okay, Smokey, here you go,” she said, unzipping the front of the carrying case. “Freedom…country air.” The cat crept cautiously out into the kitchen, reacquainting himself with the space. For a minute he just slunk around the room, peering and sniffing, and then, with a sudden burst of bravado, pushed through the pet flap in the side door of the kitchen and disappeared. She’d been nervous when they’d first experimented with letting Smokey go outside, but there’d never been any problems, other than the occasional dead mouse or bird he triumphantly brought back with him.
After unpacking the cooler and wrenching open a few first-floor windows, Lake prowled through the rooms, taking stock. Though the house had come fairly cheap, it had wonderful bones and had cleaned up beautifully. To the left of the center hall was a long, wide living room with a fireplace. On the other side were a small library and a dining room. The kitchen was at the back, and though not huge, it had what real estate agents like to call “country charm.” Flowing from it was a tiny den with a TV. Her favorite part of the house was the screened porch that ran along the back. Whenever she read or just daydreamed in one of the black wicker rockers out there, it brought her instantly back to her grandmother’s house in central Pennsylvania.
It had been four whole months since she’d last been at the house. Though she’d been avoiding coming up here because she feared her grief was still too raw, it wasn’t sadness that she experienced today. It was discomfort. The house felt foreign to her, as if she were in a dream and everything that should be familiar was slightly off, out of place. Give it a few minutes, she told herself. You love this place and it’s just going to take time to feel at home here again.
She poured a glass of water from the tap in the kitchen sink. There was a small purple stain in the porcelain sink. What was it from, she wondered. Blueberries? She couldn’t even remember now.
With the glass still in hand, she carried her duffel bag upstairs. The stairs creaked and groaned, disturbed by the sudden weight. When she neared the entrance to the master bedroom she felt a pit begin to form in her stomach. It was this room, far more than her bedroom in New York, that she associated with the death of her marriage. Because it was here, on weekends, that she and Jack most often had sex-and it was here where he had first shrugged her hand away.