Envy the Night

from what you’d told me this morning. I’m not scared of you. I don’t think you’re dangerous.”

“Then the old man failed. He spent a lot of time trying to make me dangerous. It would break his heart to hear to you say that.”

She thought of the way he’d come across the body shop, unarmed, the day before. How long had it taken him to knock that guy out with the wrench? Two seconds, tops. So was he dangerous? Maybe he could be, but she wasn’t scared of him. It wasn’t that sort of quality.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m not going to make you sit here and be my therapist. It’s just that a day like today puts him in my mind more than normal. Just being up here, seeing this place and seeing Ezra . . . it works on me.”

“I believe that.”

He drank more of the beer, leaned back from the wall, and braced the heels of his hands on the grass. She could feel a prickle in the middle of her back, touched off by sitting out here in the open, surrounded by darkness. Wasn’t he afraid? Didn’t seem to be. Either he thought they were completely safe here, or he thought he’d sense any trouble before it came.

“Where’s your mother?” She surprised herself by asking the question; one second it had been in her head and the next she’d spoken it, without ever planning to. There was just something about him right now that made her curious, some rootless quality, as if he’d always been alone, drifting along in the company of bad memories.

“Baltimore.”

“That’s where you grew up?”

“No. That’s where she is now.”

“Were they divorced?”

“Not officially. They were together until I was fifteen. She picked up on some changes that I missed, I guess, or maybe he had more trouble facing her than me. Anyhow, things got bad, he moved out, got an apartment. They were still married, and he was always saying they’d get back together.”

“Are you close to her?”

The personal questions that had bothered him so visibly the previous night now seemed almost welcome, taken in stride.

“Not by happy-family standards, I guess, but in a different way. A deeper way, maybe. We’re all we have, you know? To go through something like we did . . . that’s a different sort of bond than what I’d like to have, but it’s there. We talk on the phone, I see her every now and again, holidays, that sort of thing.”

He drummed his fingers on the beer bottle. “She moved back to Baltimore, where my aunt lived. Got remarried a few years ago. And that’s great for her, don’t get me wrong, but the first time I saw the guy . . .”

“What?” Nora prompted when he left the sentence unfinished.

He shook his head. “It’s not an impressive thing to admit, a little too much testosterone in it, but when I met him I was just so disgusted. And angry. Because he’s this little guy with a paunch and a soft chin, a pharmaceutical sales rep who wanted to take me golfing, and I took one look at him and thought, You’ve got to be kidding me. Because he was so, so far away from what my father had been.”

He lifted the beer, took a drink. “Later that night, though? I thought about that, and realized that of course he would have to be. For her. He would have to be so far from what my father had been.”

She was sitting with her knees pulled up to her chest, arms around them, facing the water. The way he was leaning back put him behind her, so she couldn’t see his face, just hear his voice. He seemed more comfortable that way.

“He killed people, and he took money for it, and that seems so obviously evil to most people . . . but I wish they’d met him,” he said. “Not that they would change their minds, or should. But now he’s a monster, you know? And there is no more one-dimensional character than a monster. If Dad was anything, it was multidimensional. He wasn’t all darkness. Sometimes I wish that he had been.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. What a horribly hollow phrase.

The silence was interrupted by the soft sound of a motor somewhere out on the lake. It was too quiet to be a big engine; maybe one of those trolling motors, instead. She couldn’t see any lights. Only when she sat up straighter to stare out at the water did Frank speak.

“It’s Ezra.”

“That’s him in his boat?”

“Yes.”

“How do you know? There are no lights. What if it’s—”

“It’s not them. Whoever’s in that boat took it out around the sandbar, and you don’t do that by dumb luck.”

It was clear he’d been aware of the boat for some time.

“You’re sure it’s him,” she said.

“Yeah. I knew he’d spend the night out there.”

“How did you know?”

“Because he takes his responsibilities seriously,” Frank said. “And tonight, we’re on that list.”

“Is Ezra from the South?”

“No.”

“He talks like it. Has that drawl, the twang.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Where’s he from?”

“Detroit.”

“Detroit?” She raised her eyebrows. “Wow. I wouldn’t have guessed that. He talks like he’s from someplace far away from there.”

“Yes,” Frank said. “He does.”

The motor had disappeared now; she could hear only the gentle thumping of water on the beach and the occasional creaking of a tree in the woods behind them. How was Ezra intending to watch over them from the water, in the dark? Must have some of those night-vision goggles. Or perhaps he could see in the dark. She could imagine Frank informing her of that detail in his detached, matter-of-fact voice: Ezra can sense heat from a thousand yards away. He’ll know if anyone else shows up.

She was smiling at that, her own private joke, when Frank said, “So what’s your story?”

“What do you mean?” She turned back to him.

“You’re from Minneapolis. Your dad lived up here, ran that body shop, and then he had a stroke.”

“Yes.”

“So what else is keeping you here?”

“That’s not enough?”

He leaned forward, so that she could see his face again, and lifted the beer to his lips. “Could be. I’m asking you if that’s all there is.”

All the months she’d been up here now, and nobody else had asked. Everyone just assumed it was all about her father, trusted her good intentions. Now Frank picked them apart as if the ulterior motive couldn’t be more obvious.

“I came for Dad,” she said carefully. “He needs someone here, and I don’t want that shop to close.”

He didn’t answer.

“But there might have been some things going on in my life that made staying here seem more appealing.”

“Okay.”

There was a long pause, an obvious cue for him to inquire further, but he didn’t.

“I was engaged,” she said.

“Yeah?”

She nodded. “Had been for three years.”

“Long time to wait.”

“That’s what he said.”