“What do you mean, stay away?”
“I mean let him go away to school, let him spend holidays with me, or where he wants to, make no attempt to claim custody or make him live with you or your husband.”
“My God, just so you won’t tell about one indiscretion?”
“Monthly indiscretions-random, promiscuous. Actually, probably neurotic. If I were you, I’d get some help. Also, if you don’t do what I say, you get not another penny from your husband, alimony, nothing.”
“How can you…”
“Call him,” I said. “See what he says.”
She looked at the phone.
“So there you’ll be,” I said. “Alone and broke. Disco Steve will roll you like a buck’s worth of nickels if he thinks you’re messy.”
“It’s not neurotic,” she said. “If a man did it, you’d say it was normal.”
“I wouldn’t, but that doesn’t matter to me. I want that kid out of the middle and I’ll do what needs to be done to get him out. You go along or you’re broke and abandoned like they say in the soap operas.”
She looked down the hall where Stephen had disappeared. She looked at the phone. She looked down at the river. And she nodded her head.
“Do I hear a yes?” I said.
She nodded again.
“I want to hear it,” I said.
“Yes,” she said, staring at the river.
“Okay,” I said. “You and Stephen can go back to watching his jeans fade.”
I started for the door. “Spenser?”
“Yeah?”
“What did Mel do?”
I shook my head and went out and closed the door.
CHAPTER 33
Paul sat astride the ridge pole of the cabin, nailing the final row of cedar shingles four inches to the weather. He was shirtless and tan and the muscles moved on his torso as he took the wide roofing nails one at a time from his mouth and drove them three to a shingle with the hammer. He wore a nailing apron over his jeans and periodically he took some nails from it and put them in his mouth. I put together the ridge cap on the ground. When he was finished with the final row, I climbed the ladder with the ridge cap and we nailed it in place, working from each end and moving toward the center of the ridge. The early fall sun was warm on our backs. At the center I said, “You drive one on that side and I’ll drive one on this.”
He nodded, took an eightpenny nail out, tapped it into place, and drove it with three hammer swings. I drove mine. We slipped the hammers into his hammer holster and I put out my hand, palm up. He slapped it once, his face serious. I grinned. He grinned back.
“Done,” I said.
“On the outside,” he said.
“Okay, half done,” I said. “Enclosed.”
We scrambled down the ladder, me first, Paul after, and sat on the steps of the old cabin. It was late afternoon. The sun slanting along the surface of the lake deflected and shimmered in formless patches when we looked at it.
“I never thought we’d build it,” Paul said.
“Never thought you’d run five miles either, did you?”
“No.”
“Or bench press a hundred fifty pounds?”
“No.”
“Or put on twenty pounds?”
Paul grinned at me. “Okay,” he said. “Okay, you were right. I was wrong. You want to have an award ceremony?”
I shook my head. There was very little breeze and the sweat on our bodies dried slowly. On the lake someone water-skied behind a hundred hp outboard. There were bird sounds in the close woods. The area was strong with the smell of sawn wood and the faint burnt odour that a power saw produces when the blade dulls.
I got up and went in the cabin and got a bottle of Moet & Chandon champagne from the refrigerator and two clear plastic cups from the cupboard. I put some ice and water into a cooking pot and stuck the champagne in to keep cold. I brought it and the plastic cups out onto the back steps and set it down.
“What’s that?” Paul said.
“Champagne,” I said. “Elegantly presented.”
