our being in love had finally repudiated all that, and we were
strangely happy. In the midst of all the terror, we were happy. The
caves had shown us the worst the world could do to you, and for just a
moment, something of the best.
I was going to Boston because I wasn't dying anymore. Inside, I felt
cleaner than I'd ever been.
I tried to explain that to Kim.
'You've got a second chance, 'she said. 'Me too. So do I.' Then she
shook her head. 'Steve and Casey they were both so good at the end.'
A year ago last December I drove by the Crouch place and there was
smoke coming out of the chimney. Someone was living there. I wondered
if they knew. I asked Rafferty.
'Sure, they know. Everybody does. But the guy living there is just a
caretaker. He'll be there two or three months, tops, while the
surveyors and execs do their work. You know who owns the property now?
Central Maine Power. The town bought it from the bank just like
everybody wanted them to do for Ben and Mary. Then CMP bought it from
the town. Scuttlebutt is that what we're going to have there is a
waste dump from the nuclear plant in Wiscassett. Ain't that a killer?
Nobody knows for sure, of course. But god knows it
would be just like the town fathers. Bring some industry into town.
Some jobs. And of course, ten years down the road you kill the
fish.'
He paid some serious attention to his beer.
'That house is well over a hundred years old, you know.'
I'm thirty-five this coming November. Basically, college paid off
pretty well for me. I'm employed.
I think of Casey.
I can't say I've been in love that way since. Not once. But then I
never really expected to be. I think of her often, and sometimes it
seems that everything I do is just a substitute for having her there.
Sometimes.
Because the woman I live with I'm close to.
She is switching careers at thirty-seven. And I'm writing this. It's
no big thing, but both of us have our little risks.
