Chapter 5

 

Sunglasses in hand, I tiptoed from my room, but the caution was unnecessary. I made it to the first floor without seeing a soul. Loath to trust my luck, I went straight to the kitchen, which was empty as well, and slipped quietly through the screen door and down the back steps.

As Vicki had promised, there were bikes. I spotted one that was my size and imagined myself pedaling hard through the Bell Valley roads, because pedaling hard was like spinning at my gym in New York. But the thought of it now made my legs hurt, surely emotions at play, because I had never been afraid of a workout.

But I did need to learn how to chill.

So I walked down the parking lot to the street. There were a few cars in front of the stores and one parked at the end of the green. Crossing the grass, I sank down beside a bench. The sun soothed. Sounds wafted about—the burr of a mower on the church lawn, the murmur of a couple emerging now from the Red Fox, the su-weet of a goldfinch on a nearby oak. I took one slow breath, then a second deeper one, aware of the novelty as my lungs filled and stretched. It struck me that other than during yoga class, I’d been breathing shallowly—running everywhere, stressing about everything, always connected to machines—for ten years. Just thinking about it quickened my breath.

Drawing in another lungful, I was thinking how peaceful Bell Valley was in contrast to Lane Lavash, where by rights I should be at this moment with my cubicle, computer, and headset, when I saw Vicki striding over from the Red Fox.

“Going incognito today?” she asked, coming down to the grass beside me. I had done right dressing like her. Jeans, sweater, sunglasses—we looked like sisters, which made me feel like I belonged.

I smiled and made a sound of assent. No more was needed with Vicki Bell.

“Did you meet my baker?” she asked.

“No. She wasn’t in the kitchen.”

“Later then.” Removing the sunglasses, she studied my face. “What’re you thinking?”

I felt a catch in my throat. “That I’ve missed you. Seeing you makes me realize how much. Call me disloyal to Kelly, but you were always the sister I would have chosen to have. Even the question you just asked. You always cared what I thought.” In case she was still even the tiniest bit annoyed with me, I added, “We have a history together. That counts for something.”

“Uh-huh. Getting older.” She grew speculative. “Do birthdays bother you?”

Dropping my sunglasses to the grass, I turned my face to the sun. The warmth felt wonderful, cleaner than New York’s, friendlier than Chatham’s. Eyes closed, I considered. “Thirty was something. James thought we should celebrate, only we never had time.” I righted my head. My eyes sought hers. “Is that what this is about? Am I having an early-life crisis?”

Vicki smiled crookedly. “I did. Kind of.”

“You? No way.” Vicki was the most stable person I knew.

“Way. Rob and I grew up together, and I adore him. But I’ve never known anything else. Four years away at college was all. Then it was back here, same guy, same town.”

“Not really,” I reminded her. “You got married. That was big. Then Rob’s parents retired, and you guys took over the inn. The place looks great, Vicki Bell.”

She sputtered a laugh. “Anything would, by comparison. His parents had let things go. And yeah, it’s nice to spruce things up, but that’s not the same as doing something completely, entirely, way-out-there different.” She was pensive for a minute, then resigned. “Each birthday that passes makes me realize it ain’t gonna happen. I went into a blue funk for a little while.”

“Hence, the new baby?”

“Oh no. I didn’t even try to conceive until I was sure I was okay with my life here. Which isn’t to say I don’t sometimes wonder what might have been.”

“It’s the Jude gene,” I remarked, to which she snorted her disagreement.

“Jude was about rebellion.”

“Adventure,” I insisted.

“Emmie, he was a bad boy,” she argued, impatient with me now. “Do you honestly think he would have married you? Yes, I know he asked you to, but he had asked three women before you, the last of whom was Jenna Frye, who took it really hard when he dumped her for you, and then he dumped you for her. Jude was all about the chase. Commitment terrified him. If you hadn’t come along, he’d have found another way to break up with Jenna, and if she hadn’t loved him enough to forgive him, he’d have found another way to break up with you.

I wanted to argue. But Vicki had known Jude a lot longer than I had. What she said did make sense.

“He’s coming back,” I said quietly.

She frowned, skeptical. “Jude? Here? How do you know?”

“I got a letter from him Friday. He’ll be here at the end of the month.”

Suddenly, she was barely breathing. “Here? Seriously?

“He’s been crab fishing in the Bering Sea.”

“And he just … just wrote you out of the blue?”

“He does it sometimes,” I said, feeling more than a little guilt.

“And you didn’t tell us?”

“I assumed you knew where he was. The letter Friday said he hadn’t told anyone else he was coming back, which is why I’m telling you now. For what it’s worth, I’ve never answered his letters.”

But Vicki was pressing a hand to her chest. “Omigod. What do we do? Who do we tell? No one,” she decided, erasing the news with both hands. “We can’t tell anyone. Jude is the most irresponsible, unpredictable person I know. He may say he’s coming and then chicken out and go somewhere more exciting. Mom is used to the idea of his being gone. If I tell her he’s coming back and he doesn’t show, she’ll be destroyed.”

I couldn’t imagine Amelia being destroyed by much, and might have asked more, if Vicki hadn’t narrowed her eyes.

That’s why you’re here? Not to see me, but because he’s coming back?”

“No. No. I’m here because I need you and I need the peace of this town. Maybe I’m even here because I needed to give you this news, but I am not here for Jude. I’m here for me. Call me selfish. I am.”

“You’re not,” she muttered grudgingly. “If you were, your life wouldn’t be in this mess. You’d have stood up for yourself and your needs before this.” She slouched against my side. “Why is he coming back? He won’t stay. He’ll just stir things up and leave. His idea of hell is being stuck here.”

“Maybe he’s grown up—you know, seen other kinds of hell.”

But Vicki was shaking her head, seeming more sad now than annoyed. “He’s a Bell. Bells have lived here for generations. He may fight the pull, but it’s strong. That’s what’s in our genes.” She reached for my hand. “I could never have walked away from my life, certainly not the way you’ve done. But your doing it doesn’t surprise me. You were always the bolder of us. Like the semester abroad. I wouldn’t have done it if it hadn’t been for you. Wouldn’t have had the courage to go so far for so long. You were my more spirited half.”

I couldn’t remember the last time I’d held a friend’s hand, but with Vicki Bell, it was the most natural thing in the world—the great connector, not to mention a ticket to confession. “And you my saner half.” I had a qualifying thought. “Except for Jude. You didn’t stop me there.”

“How could I? He was my brother. I was hoping you’d be a good influence on him. Besides, there was no stopping what you two had. It was like wildfire—poof, hot as hell in an instant, pure animal magnetism.”

I might have argued that there had been far more than that, only she had given me the opening, and if my dreams were to be believed, the subject had a grip on at least a small part of my mind. “Speaking of animals, there were coyotes that summer. Are they still here?”

“No. Not since Jude left. He was the only one who saw them, or said he did.”

“I saw them.” I could vouch for Jude on this. “There was actually just one, up by his cabin. We watched it—and it us—for hours. Jude used to whisper to it, like they had this awesome connection. He was sure it had a mate in the woods, but we never saw the pair together. So, you haven’t heard them?”

She shook her head.

Not since Jude left. That gave me a little chill. It was only in recent months that my dreams had begun. I wondered what the significance of that was.

“He always drew creatures that way,” Vicki mused. “Like I said, animal magnetism.” Her eyes found mine. “He’s coming back after all this time? Did he say what he wanted to do here or how long he’d stay?”

“He mentioned unfinished business, but he didn’t elaborate, and he knew he might have trouble staying here long.”

“That is Jude. I wonder what he looks like.”

So did I. One look at him that summer, and I’d been lost.

Vicki read my mind. With a little squeeze, she dropped my hand. “Is it good with James?”

“Sex?” Only with Vicki could I have this conversation. “It used to be fabulous,” I said, folding my legs. “Trying to get pregnant makes it less fun.”

“Does James agree?”

“Not in as many words. He would never tell me it isn’t good.”

“Would he ever have an affair?”

I didn’t immediately answer, as if saying the words aloud would make them real. But they were real. At least, my worry was real. “He may be.”

“Having one now?”

“I don’t know for sure. There’s one woman. They work together all the time. Breakfast, lunch, everything in between. When they work late, it’s take-in dinner in the conference room.”

“Aren’t other people there?”

“Sometimes.”

“Have you asked him about it?”

“Indirectly, like a joke.” Unable to meet her eye, I pulled at the grass between my legs. “He laughs it off.” I straightened. “I really don’t think he is. He is not that kind of person.” I wanted to believe, oh, I did. “And I’m hypersensitive about it because of Jude.”

“I’ll never forgive him for that.”

“It’s done.”

“So now you worry about James. Would you ever cheat on him?”

“Never. Of course, he’d probably say I’m cheating on him now.”

“By being here?”

“By not telling him I’m here.”

Vicki was silent. She would agree with James on that one.

“Maybe it’s a power thing,” I suggested. “I’ve felt so without power for so long.”

“He is your husband.”

“But I don’t want him coming after me.” I shot a look at the guy in the car at the end of the green. For all I knew, he was a detective. James couldn’t have sent him so fast, but my father might have. More likely, he was the husband of a woman having her hair done in the shop behind the General Store.

I sighed. “And that’s all I know, that I want time without James. Pathetic, isn’t it? I mean, I’m sitting here trying not to think. But if I don’t think, I won’t figure out my life. And what do I do in the meanwhile?”

Vicki’s smile was warm. “Whatever your heart desires. Isn’t that what Bell Valley’s about?”

This time, it was me taking her hand. “You are such a good friend. I don’t have friends in New York. Well, I do, but it’s different.”

“Different, how?”

“Less personal. Less face-to-face. Mostly we text, and when we’re together, one of us is either typing or talking to someone else entirely. We’re all on all the time, so any one relationship is diluted by the others. It’s sad. I’m supposed to be a bridesmaid at Colleen Parker’s wedding, but we’re not even close. We met through book group, and since we’re both lawyers, we figured there ought to be a connection, but I wouldn’t call it strong. Book group meets once a month, and we relate the books to our own lives because we’re so hungry to talk about feelings. But there are ten of us in the group, so it isn’t intimate, and we only meet for an hour because that’s all we have. Colly and I used to meet for lunch, but even that stopped. No time.” I was working myself into a snit. “Maybe Colly defines friendship this way, but I don’t. I don’t know where she comes from, don’t know where she’s headed or what she dreams. I don’t know her family or her friends, and I don’t want to be in her wedding.”

“Why did you tell her yes?”

I had asked myself that dozens of times, kicking myself then and now for not having gently refused when she first asked. Explaining it to Vicki, I squirmed a little. “Because I want close friends, and this is what close friends do, and for whatever reason, Colly was desperate for it. Her specialty is patents, which I don’t understand, so it’s not like we even talk about work. Once the wedding’s over, we’ll probably only see each other at book group. We don’t have much in common”—I grabbed a breath—“which, in a nutshell, describes the friends I’ve made.”

“Then you haven’t found the right ones.”

“You’re right. But I’ve been in the city seven years. What’s the problem?”

Vicki’s eyes spoke for her.

“Okay. It’s me. I neglect friends, like I neglected you, so relationships never have a chance to develop, which would be fine if I didn’t want them, but I do.” I rubbed my forehead, pushing the dilemma around.

“Do not do that,” Vicki ordered. “You’re here to relax.”

“I’m here to decide what to do with my life,” I said, mildly hysterical.

“Shh. One step at a time. Right now, what are your choices?”

There were three. “Stay here. Go back to New York. Go somewhere else.”

“Forget somewhere else. Short run, it’s here or New York. Start with New York. If you went back, what would change?”

“Nothing. That’s the problem. If I go back, I have to accept that that’s my life, but I don’t know if I can. The alternative—staying here—creates other problems.”

“Like Jude?”

“No. Jude is not a factor in my being here. I told you that.”

“Okay.” She indulged me. “Then James. If he knew you were here, you could buy time with less guilt.”

“What about Lane Lavash?”

“Tell them you’re sick,” she said as she stood.

“That’d work if I planned to be back by the end of the week, but maybe I won’t.” I eyed her cautiously.

I’d said it before, but it bore repeating: when it came to me, Vicki Bell got it.

“The room is yours as long as you want it. I don’t hate you anymore—not even for telling me about Jude, because I’d rather know than not.” She studied me for another minute, before reaching down with a hug. “I don’t live in the city, and I do have lots of friends, but you were always the best of the bunch.”

The feeling was mutual. I thought about that as Vicki walked back to the Red Fox. What made a friend a best friend? Did it have to be someone who knew your people, who shared your life outlook or your views on religion or politics? Could it just be someone who could talk and listen and commiserate?

Vicki and I were strangers until we were eighteen. It was move-in day freshman year. Assigned to different roommates down the hall from each other, we met for the first time in the communal bathroom. I was brushing my hair, she was brushing her teeth, both of us needing to escape the scary newness of our lives by doing the mundane.

She was from New Hampshire, I was from Maine, she wanted Art, I wanted English, but we started to talk and didn’t stop until my worried mother came looking for me. I found myself looking for Vicki wherever I went, and she did the same. When her roommate dropped out after a week, my moving into her room was a no-brainer.

Chemistry. Vicki and I had that. Right from the start.

But wasn’t a best friend also someone you could trust not to hurt you? I had hurt Vicki, yet here she was, opening her home and heart to me again. So maybe being a best friend entailed the ability to forgive.

Gradually, the sun moved, casting me in the dappled shade of the goldfinch’s oak. Thinking about friendship, then marriage, then dreams, I sat on the grass as the life of Bell Valley flowed by. It was a leisurely life, but it had purpose. There was Carl Younger, owner of the hardware store, carrying a bag of trash out the side door and pausing to check a birdfeeder before disappearing around back. And Sara Carney, adjusting the big OPEN flag in front of The Fiber Store, which had been The Sewing Store when I was here last but had expanded into yarn, to judge from the colorful window display. Likewise, the telephone store was now The Gadget Store.

Simple and straightforward. That’s Bell Valley. What you see is what you get.

Take The Bookstore. A hot new release was advertised in the window, along with displays of other books, but I also saw puzzles, games, and gift wrap. Vickie Longosz—the Book V, we called her—had branched out, which made total sense, given the economic reality. I wondered if she would think me a traitor for owning a Kindle.

I was thinking that I ought to drop in and buy a few books with the cash that my husband was worried about, when I saw the car that had been parked at the end of the green move closer. It was a small charcoal SUV. I smiled, wondering if the hair shop was still doing the same tight perms, when I heard another car, this one mine, coasting around the green. Slowing, it turned into the parking lot of the Red Fox. A second car followed and waited while the gangly boy who’d been driving mine went inside. This would be his ride back to the garage.

The responsible thing would have been to act. Nestor’s son should be thanked, and he would need to be paid. But I remained in the shadow of the bench, watching as the door of the second car opened and a chocolate lab hopped out. It trotted across the street and onto the green, pausing to pee before making for me. Its nose was cold, but its eyes were beseeching, and when I scratched its ears, its whole rear end wagged. Its tongue followed, licking me into a laugh.

I loved dogs. We’d always had one when I was growing up, first Morgan, then Dane. I cried for weeks when Morgan died, and leaving Dane when I went to college was harder than leaving my mom. At least Mom and I could talk on the phone. She used to put the handset to Dane’s ear, and she told me that my voice made him grin, but did he understand where I was, why I was there, and that I loved him even though I’d left?

Did James?

At the sound of a whistle, the dog loped back to the car. I wanted to think he watched me out the window as, with Nestor’s son inside, they drove off. I wanted to think we had connected and that he would seek me out whenever I was within sniffing distance. I wanted to think it had been love at first sight.

My car dying had been a sign telling me I was right to have come to Bell Valley. I wanted to think meeting this dog was a sign I should stay.

Foolish me. It was a sign, all right—a sign that I was hungry for love. Thought of that choked me up, and since I was tired of crying, I closed my eyes, put my head back against the side of the bench, and changed the subject.

With one sense closed off, the others sharpened. The Grill might be the only restaurant for miles around, but the lack of competition hadn’t hurt it any. The food had always been good. From the smell of it now, nothing had changed. My mind’s eye pictured a bacon cheeseburger, a BLT, even a Cobb salad with warm goodies crumbled all over the top.

I was definitely hungry. But having lunch at The Grill would mean Exposure with a capital “E.” So I returned to the Red Fox and entered the kitchen through the back door, then stopped short when I spotted Rob. Brown-haired and lanky, he was standing at the counter forking down lunch. I might have backed away, postponing the moment of reckoning, if he hadn’t looked up.

“Hey,” I said with a sheepish smile. I had always liked Rob. He was quiet, perhaps a tad boring, but kindhearted. Taking off my hat, which somehow felt wrong in such a personal place, I kissed his cheek. “Good to see you, Rob.”

“And you,” he replied, and though I heard caution, his voice felt like home. “Vicki’s putting Charlotte in for a nap.” Chahlette. Definitely like home.

“That’s good.” I leaned against the counter. “She’s precious, Rob. And a new baby on the way?” I clucked in admiration. “That’s great.”

He was studying me, waiting.

I sighed. “I’ve been a bad friend, Rob. I’m sorry. It wasn’t intentional.”

“Vicki was hurt.”

“I know.”

“Don’t do it again.”

I smiled. With Vicki the talker, Rob never said much. Like her, though, he let you know where he stood.

“I’m serious,” he said, but I could see he was softening.

“Hey, in shutting her out, I hurt me, too. I need to mend that for both our sakes.”

Looking down, he studied his fork as it moved macaroni and cheese around the plate. When he looked back at me, there were furrows on a brow that was normally smooth. “It isn’t just Vicki and me or even Charlotte. It’s the rest of Bell Valley. You left abruptly.”

“So did Jude.”

“Jude’s one of ours. You’re not.”

“But if Bell Valley is a refuge, shouldn’t everyone be welcomed?”

Maybe it was my words, maybe the sound of my need. Looking chastened, he set down his fork and pulled me close. “Just a warning, kiddo. I know how Bell Valley thinks. Once burned, twice shy.” The phone rang. The arm that had held me let go to stretch past for the handset. “You’ve reached the Red Fox. May I help you? Oh. Good God. No, we need decaf, too. That was s’posed to have been an automatic delivery. We’re almost out.”

Leaving him to business, I opened the fridge. It was stuffed in ways my own had never, ever been. For James and me, eating in was about bare essentials. I might blame that for my being a lousy cook, but I had been a lousy cook well before James and New York. My mother was a great cook. There had been no need for me to learn. I didn’t have to serve breakfast to upwards of twenty people a day, like Vicki did. Nor did I serve tea, and though I guessed that cookies and cakes would be baked fresh that afternoon, the plastic bins in the fridge said that the fruit tray would be huge.

I didn’t want fruit now. I lived on fruit—no, that was wrong. I lived on salad. Which meant I didn’t want salad now, either. Studying my options, I realized that I craved good, old-fashioned comfort food, which made Rob’s mac and cheese too tempting to ignore. Removing the container, I heated a small dish. Rob was still on the phone. Catching his eye with a tiny wave, I pointed to the backyard.

With other guests likely gone to the Refuge for the day, I had my choice of seats. Not wanting to be too close to the woods, I headed for the Adirondack chair that sat at the trunk of the Norway maple I had seen from my room. Setting the dish on one of its wide arms, I sank into it, but had barely tucked up my legs when I saw a small, dark-haired figure scurry from the parking lot to the back steps. This would be Vicki’s baker, here to make those cookies and cakes. Head down, she looked like she didn’t want to be seen any more than I did.

She disappeared inside, leaving me alone with the woods.

The sun had shifted, shedding light on the face of the trees. I saw the broad, tri-tipped leaves of the sugar maple, the single, soft-green ones of the beech, and the paper birch, standing out not for its leaves but for its peeling white bark. At their feet were a bed of last fall’s leaves, as packed down as the winter snows had been heavy. There were spruce here, conically shaped, and more evergreens behind. I picked out the graceful arms of the hemlock, the blue-green needles of the balsam fir, and, towering above, the white pine. All would be rising from beds of moss, which I couldn’t see from here. Nor could I see the boulders that were strewn about in the forest, whether standing alone or guiding the brook.

These woods were dense. Level for a short stretch before starting to climb, they grew increasingly rugged the higher they went, eventually giving way to a bald granite peak that was easily fifteen degrees colder than the air where I sat.

And no, these woods weren’t for wimps. They held black bears with ferocious claws and fisher cats with ferocious screams. They held owls and the occasional eagle. And coyotes. Yes, there were those. They might not have been here lately, but I had seen one myself, first in the flesh, then in my dream.

Lest I’ve built it up into something it’s not, let me say here that the dream isn’t earthshaking. There’s no action, simply two creatures staring at each other, one human, one not. I see gold eyes that simmer, though reflecting what in the pitch black of night, I don’t know. It’s always the same. We watch. We wait.

In time I wake up. And that’s when the heart of the dream takes hold. In those woods, I feel haunted. I awake to a stark loneliness, and I feel a yearning.

The feeling always fades, forgotten in the rush of my life until the dream recurs—and I do yearn for something. I don’t think it’s Jude. I love James. But Jude is wild and unchained, like the coyote. How not to envy that, when my life is the opposite? Particularly now. I had a decision to make. It wouldn’t wait much longer.

I needed another sign. A sign would tell me which way to go without my having to make the decision myself.

So I waited, keeping to myself as I vegged the afternoon away. Was I bored? Surprisingly not. Into my third day of escape, my limbs were starting to relax on their own. I sat, I walked, I read a magazine. I worked on the communal jigsaw puzzle in the living room, and when Charlotte wandered in, I coaxed her onto my lap and guided her hand to fit in a piece.

This was what people did with leisure time. I wasn’t entirely comfortable with it, partly because it lacked direction, partly because, much as I pushed it to the back of my mind, the weight of decision was there. Stay or go? It wasn’t a simple choice. There would be consequences either way.

As the afternoon stretched on, the air grew warmer. A dog barked, a robin hopped across the lawn. I watched guests return for tea. Not a one held a cell phone to his ear.

By the time Charlotte was in bed, the backyard was alive with a chorus of crickets. Charmed, I ate dinner on the back porch with Vicki while Rob mingled in the parlor with guests. She wanted to talk about Jude, grilling me about his letter until I finally brought it down from my room and let her read it herself. We talked about sobering experiences in life—Vicki’s dad’s death when she was sixteen, my grandmother’s when I was twelve, Jude’s friend’s when he was forty. We talked about Jude’s conscience having to be newly dreamed up, since he hadn’t had much of a conscience at all when he was here. But if I was hoping for a personal ah-hah moment in which she said something that would shed new light on my dilemma, it didn’t come.

I went to bed in my room in the clouds, no closer to a decision. Then came the dream. It was late and very dark when it began.

Have you ever heard a coyote howl? It’s an eerie sound that undulates from high to low in pitch. The sound is often broken by barks or yips, but the howling is what makes you shiver. In some instances, multiple voices join in. Though coyotes mate for life, they often travel with others that help rear their pups. I had used the word “pack” when Jude had first told me this, but he quickly objected. Wolves ran in packs, he explained, and though coyotes were descendants of wolves, they banded more for domesticity than power.

In the darkness this night, I heard only one. Its howl wasn’t prolonged, but since my dream didn’t usually have a soundtrack, it was enough to jolt me awake.

I was lying in bed wide-eyed when the sound came again.

Incredulous, I held my breath. When a third howl pierced the night, I flew to the window and pushed it as high as it would go.

Vicki swore there had been no coyotes here since Jude, but either she was wrong or one had suddenly returned. More than one? I couldn’t tell. I heard a few yips and another howl, then nothing but the bark of a dog from a house on the green, and the resumption of cricket chirps in the woods.

I sat back on my heels. Maybe I was grasping at straws, but the coincidence was too great. There had to be some meaning to the fact that the coyotes had returned to Bell Valley just when I had. Could I leave until I knew what that meaning was?

Here was my sign.

Now came the tough part.