Town in a Lobster Stew

“Wilma Mae, I don’t doubt that for a moment.”

“So you’ll look into it?” the elderly woman asked, pressing her.

Candy gave her assurance. “I will definitely look into it. Now, have you met Maggie’s daughter and boyfriend- in-law?”

“Oh no, I haven’t yet,” Wilma Mae said with a shake of her head.

“Well, you’re in for a treat.”

Thirty-Four

They found Maggie in the kitchen with the kids, talking and laughing. Maggie had her arm thrown casually around her daughter’s shoulders, while Cameron had his hands wrapped around a double-decker Italian sandwich from a takeout place up on Route 1. Candy noticed another three or four still-wrapped sandwiches on the counter. Obviously they had stopped and put in a good supply for Cam before heading home.

Cam had grown taller and even shaggier since the last time she’d seen him just a few weeks ago. His face had also changed over the past year or so. It had become leaner and more mature as the last of his boyhood years fell away and he approached adulthood.

“It’s amazing how you stay so skinny, considering the way you eat.” Candy gave him a quick peck on the cheek before she turned to hug Amanda. She’d come to think of both of them as her own kids.

“Whatever diet secret he has, he should bottle it and sell it. He’d make a fortune,” Maggie agreed.

“I already got a fortune,” Cameron said around a mouthful of cold cuts, cheese, extra onions, and Italian dressing.

“It’s all the hiking and camping he does,” Amanda added, brushing aside a few strands of her long dark hair. “He climbed Mount Baxter a few weeks ago.”

“And there was still snow at the top!” Cameron said with genuine enthusiasm. “It was awesome.”

“You’re awesome, babe,” Amanda told him.

“No, you are,” he shot back at her, and they all laughed.

He certainly had come alive since finding out about his real birth parents, Candy mused, watching him eat and laugh with the others. He rarely used to smile, let alone laugh, except when he and Amanda were together. But now he was more social and easygoing, joining in on conversations and even expressing opinions. He seemed to have a new appreciation for life and his place in it. But his love for Amanda had never changed nor faltered.

Maggie saw Wilma Mae standing near the doorway and crossed quickly to her, pulling her into the conversation. “Wilma Mae, this is my daughter Amanda and her boyfriend Cameron Zimmerman. Amanda graduates on June 12 in the top third of her class,” Maggie said proudly, “and Cam’s been practically living here for the past year or so. He’s been taking care of some family business. Isn’t that right, Cam?”

The tall teenager gave her a thumbs-up, but he was too busy chewing to say anything.

“He’s working with a famous writer, who’s helping him publish a book of poetry written by his biological father,” Maggie explained. “But that’s a whole ’nother story.”

“Oh, isn’t that wonderful.” Wilma Mae’s face was as bright as a full moon as she shook hands with the two teenagers. “It’s so nice to meet you both.”

Amanda said hello to her pleasantly, and as she shook hands with Cameron, he said earnestly, “I was very sorry to hear about Mr. Sedley. He was a nice old guy. I used to see him in the hardware store.”

“Oh, thank you so much, young man. He was a dear old friend.”

Cameron took another bite of his sandwich, chewing briefly before he continued. “Yeah, he loved poking around the store, checking all the shelves and bins to see what had just come in. He used to buy tools for himself, and I think he sometimes used to buy stuff for the museum, too.”

“Oh yes,” Wilma Mae said with a smile. “He loved volunteering out there. And he frequently made donations, though not money. Just things he felt they needed, like tools and knickknacks and such. I think he recently bought a new set of chisels for the maintenance people. He was wonderful that way. Those were his two passions — cooking and the museum.”

“The lighthouse museum?” Candy asked, her interest piqued. She turned abruptly to Wilma Mae. “You never told me Mr. Sedley volunteered out there.”

Wilma Mae gave her a curious look. “You never asked. Besides, I thought everyone knew. He’s been doing it for years.”

“But...” Candy turned toward Maggie, her face scrunched up in thought. “Did you know about this?”

“About what? Why, what’s wrong?”

Candy drew a long face as she considered the question. “I’m not sure.”

But deep down she was sure. It was all too coincidental. She could feel her heart beginning to beat faster. Her mouth was suddenly dry.

She turned to look at the people standing around her. They were all watching her curiously. Then her eyes met Wilma Mae’s. Something the elderly woman had said stuck in her mind:

It seems to me you’re getting close. I think it’s right under your nose.

Right under my nose.

Her gaze dropped to the floor.

“Well, well,” she said, mostly to herself.

Maggie was studying her carefully. “What’s going on? Are you okay?”

Candy looked up at her best friend. “I have to go.”

“Go where?”

“There’s something I need to check out.”

Maggie seemed to know instinctively what was going on inside her friend’s head. She suddenly became very serious. “You want some help?”

“Maybe. I’ll call you, okay?”

Maggie nodded as a worried look came to her face. “Okay, but... be careful.”

“I will.”

“Don’t do anything crazy.”

“I won’t.”

“You sure you don’t want some company?”

Candy smiled gently, looking from Amanda to Cameron to Wilma Mae, all of whom were still giving her curious looks. She suddenly realized how much she loved them all. “No, I’ll be fine. You stay with your family. And take care of Wilma Mae. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

And before she could change her mind, she walked out of the house toward the Jeep, fishing her keys out of her back pocket.

Thirty-Five

As Candy drove toward town, she encountered the first probing fingers of a quickly moving fog, and by the time she turned left onto the Loop’s northward leg, heading past the docks along the river and the Rusty Moose Tavern, she was enveloped by it. She switched on her lights and eased off the gas as the lines of fog trailed across the road and between the buildings, giving the town a ghostly appearance as visibility dropped to only a few thousand feet.

It wasn’t uncommon for great banks of fog like this to move quickly onshore, especially in the late spring and early summer, when the air was warming but the ocean waters remained cold. As she hit a particularly thick patch of fog, she slowed even more, so she didn’t miss the entrance to the parking lot at the English Point Lighthouse and Museum.