It was late at night, and Noah was asleep, when Lincoln finally called her.
“I’ve picked up the phone a dozen times to talk to you,” he said, “but something always came up. We’re pulling double shifts here, just to keep up with the calls.”
“Did you hear about the attack on Rachel Sorkin?”
“Mark mentioned it in passing.”
“Did he also mention he was a total jerk?”
“What did he do?”
“It’s what he didn’t do. He didn’t take the attack seriously. He passed it off as simple vandalism.”
“He told me it was just a broken window.”
“The vandals spray-painted a message in her kitchen. It said, ‘Satan’s Whore.”
There was a silence. When he spoke again, she heard barely controlled anger in his voice. “These devil rumors have gone too goddamn far. I’m going to have it out with that Damaris Horne, before she starts writing about Penobscot Indian curses.”
“You haven’t told her about your conversation with Vince, have you?”
“Hell, no. I’ve been trying to avoid her.”
“If you do talk to her, you might ask her about her good buddy, Officer Dolan.”
“Does that mean what I think it means?”
“I heard it from one of the reporters, Mitchell Groome. He saw them together.”
“I’ve already asked Mark whether he’s been talking to her. He absolutely denies it. I can’t take action against him without proof.”
“Do you trust his word?”
A pause. “I honestly don’t know, Claire,” he sighed. “Lately I’ve been learning things about my neighbors, about my friends, I never knew before. Things I didn’t want to know.” The anger faded from his voice. “I’m not calling to talk about Mark Dolan.”
“Why are you calling?”
“To talk about what happened last night. Between you and me.” She closed her eyes, bracing herself to hear words of regret. Part of her wanted to be cut off, cut free. It meant she could leave this town without looking back, without struggling for the right decision.
But another part of her, the largest part, wanted him. “Have you thought about what I said?” he asked. “About whether you’ll stay?”
“Are you still asking me to?”
“Yes.”
He said it without hesitation. He was not cutting her free, and she felt both joy and apprehension.
“I don’t know, Lincoln. I keep thinking of all the reasons I should leave this town.”
“What about all the reasons you should stay?”
“Besides you, what other reasons are there?”
“We can talk about it. I can come over now”
She wanted him to come, but was afraid of what would happen if he did. Afraid that she’d make a premature decision, that just his presence alone would prove to be the most convincing argument of all for her to stay in Tranquility. So many things were driving her away. Just to look out her window, to see the impenetrable darkness of a November night and to know that that night is cold enough to kill…
“I can be there in ten minutes.”
She swallowed. Nodded to the empty room. “All right.”
The instant she hung up, a sense of panic seized her. Was she presentable? Was her hair combed, was the house tidy? She recognized these scattering thoughts for what they were, the feminine longing to impress one’s lover, and she was startled to be experiencing it at this late stage of her life. Middle age, she thought with a rueful smile, does not automatically confer dignity.
She deliberately avoided even a glance at her mirror, and went downstairs to the front parlor, where she forced herself to occupy the next moments building a fire in the hearth. If Lincoln insisted on paying a visit at this late hour, he’d have to be satisfied with what he found. A woman with soot on her hands and the smell of wood smoke in her hair. The real Claire Elliot, beleaguered and unglamorous. Let him see me this way, she thought rebelliously, and let’s see if he still wants me.
She lay down wood and kindling, then struck a match and touched the flame to the crumpled newspapers. The fire was well set and would burn without further attention, but she remained by the hearth, watching with primitive satisfaction as the kindling caught, and then the logs. The wood was fully seasoned and would burn hot and swift. She was like this wood, left dry and untouched for too long.
She scarcely remembered what it was like to burn at all.
She heard him ring the doorbell. Instantly she was a bundle of nerves. She clapped her sooty hands, then rubbed them against her hips and succeeded only in transferring the soot to her slacks.
Let him see the real Claire. Let him decide if this is what he wants.
She went to the front hail, paused to regain her composure, and opened the door.
“Come in,” she said.
“Hello, Claire,” he answered, equally at a loss for words. They just looked at each other for a second, then broke eye contact, gazes drifting off to safer territory He stepped inside, and she saw that his jacket was dusted with fine snow, that the darkness outside swirled with a powdery whiteness, like mist.
She closed the door. “I’ve got a fire going in the other room. Can I hang up your jacket?”
He took it off and as she slipped it onto a hanger, she felt the heat of his body in the lining. So many times before, they had met, had spoken, yet this was the first time her awareness of him extended to all her senses, to the warmth of his body lingering in the jacket, to his scent of wood smoke and melting snow.
To the certainty of knowing, even with her back turned, that at that moment, his gaze was on her.
She led the way into the parlor.
By now the fire was fully ablaze, throwing its bright circle of light against the gloom. Claire took a seat on the couch and turned off the lamp burning beside her. The fire gave off light enough; it was in shadow she sought refuge.
Lincoln sat down beside her, a comfortable space apart, a statement of neutrality that did not distinguish between friend, lover, or mere acquaintance.
“How is Noah doing?” he finally asked, neutrality maintained even in conversation.
“He went to bed angry. In some ways, he wants to be a victim, he wants to feel like the world’s against him. There’s nothing I can do to change his mind.” She sighed and dropped her head against her hand. “For nine months he’s made me the villain for forcing him to move here. This afternoon, when I told him I was thinking of moving back to Baltimore, he blew up. Said I wasn’t thinking of his needs, what he wanted. No matter what I do, I can’t win. I can’t please him.”
“Then all you can do is please yourself.”
“It feels selfish.”
“Does it?”
“It feels as if I’m not being the best mother I could be.”
“I see you trying so hard, Claire. As hard as any parent could.” He paused, and sighed as well. “And now I suppose I’m throwing another complication into your life, at a time when you least need it. But Claire, there is no other time for me. I had to say it before you made a decision. Before you left Tranquility.” He added softly: “Before it’s too late for me to say anything at all.”
At last she looked at him. He was sitting with his gaze downcast, his head tilted wearily against his hand.
“Not that I blame you for wanting to leave,” he said. “This town is slow to warm up to strangers, slow to trust them. There are a few who are just plain mean.
But for the most part, they’re like people everywhere else. Some of them are unbelievably generous. The best folks you could ever hope to find…“ His voice faded to silence, as though he’d run out of things to say.
A moment passed between them.
“Are you speaking on behalf of the whole town again, Lincoln? Or yourself?”
He shook his head. “It’s not coming out right. I came to say something, and here I am, beating around the
