“It’s Toussaint.”
“Oh.” Cranwell left it at that. At least with me. I heard him later that evening asking Severine about it.
“Have you heard of Tucson?”
“
I went to bed early.
I heard a soft knock on my door after I had turned out my light. I was wearing a silk chemise and didn’t even think of throwing on a robe until after I had reached the door.
I turned the handle and opened it, using the door to shield my body.
It was Cranwell. He was in his silk pajamas and was shifting his weight between his bare feet. He looked about ten years old.
“I’m sorry. About the whiskey crack.”
“That’s okay. You didn’t know.”
“No, but I do know you.”
“I had a drink in his memory. One. Bushmill’s was his favorite.”
“I just wanted you to know that I was sorry” He turned to leave, but I came out from behind the door and placed a hand on his forearm.
“Thanks.”
He put a hand over mine and squeezed it, clearing his throat as if to say something.
I waited.
His eyes searching mine made me aware of how little I was wearing.
“Good night.”
“Good night, Freddie.”
Cranwell’s public reading tapered off, but he’d started asking questions. Lots of questions. He was no longer looking for facts, but rather for opinions. The topics ran the gamut from politics to gender. And they were not always the easiest to answer.
He caught me at work in the garden one overcast, gusty afternoon, as I was tidying it up for winter. The gusts kept catching the tail of my gray plaid wool shirt, trying to pull it over my head. Thankfully my black wool turtleneck and trousers kept the bite of the wind from my body. And the thick gray stocking cap jammed over my braided hair trapped my body heat. But clouds were beginning to scour the steel-colored sky, and I was in a hurry; it felt like the onslaught of the first winter storm.
“Freddie, pretend you were married in the Middle Ages at the age of thirteen. What would you have taken with you when you left home?”
“At thirteen? That’s asking for a lot of imagination.” Not to mention a lot of thought. And that’s something I didn’t really have time for. The wool of my hat was making me itch. I tried to scratch through the wool yarn, but I only succeeded in smearing mud across my forehead.
He squatted beside me, in blatant disregard of his mulberry cashmere sweater, pleated pants, and five- hundred-dollar driving moccasins. He casually took a handkerchief from his pocket, hooked a finger around my chin to turn it toward him, and wiped the mud away. Then he began to help me pull up the few weeds that had lingered after the frost. Wouldn’t you know he’d be the type to carry a handkerchief?
“Really Freddie, what would you take?”
“My favorite things.”
“But what
I thought back through the years to my preadolescent days and the box of treasures that I had kept underneath my bed.
“Yo-yos, art projects, dried flowers, insect collections.” I stopped for a moment to tug at a particularly stubborn root. “Paper dolls, gum machine jewelry. Favorite books. Notes from friends.” Rain began splotting around us. The wind had begun to blow more forcefully. Three rows left. I wouldn’t be able to finish. “Time to go inside.”
Cranwell helped me to my feet and picked up my pail of gardening tools. “Would you like me to run this to the garage?”
The raindrops were starting to fall faster.
“No. I’ll just leave it in the kitchen and take it back tomorrow.”
We sprinted the fifty yards to the kitchen’s back door. Cranwell helped me shove the door shut and bolt it.
“It’s going to storm all night,” I commented as I pulled the hat from my head and stuffed it into my pocket.
“You think?”
“I know.” I’d gotten used to the weather’s rhythm during the three years I’d spent in Brittany. As if the wind’s chill fingers had followed me inside, my teeth began to chatter. “Espresso?” I asked as I made a beeline for the machine.
“Great. It’ll help take the chill off.”
Primed by the jolt of caffeine, I opened my mouth and started talking; I soon found I couldn’t stop. Before I had the presence of mind to censor my words, I heard myself talking to Cranwell about the day Peter died.
“I was always nervous when I knew he was flying somewhere. And I was always nervous when I knew he was on assignment. But that’s the funny part: He wasn’t flying that day, and he wasn’t on assignment. I always thought that if something happened to him, I would know. I would feel it.
“I felt nothing. I thought they were joking when they told me. I just could not believe that he would leave this world and that I would have no knowledge of it. That’s what was most devastating.
“That and the fact that I have no idea whether or not I believe in heaven anymore, and even if I did, I don’t know whether or not he’d be there.”
“He wasn’t a believer?”
“Not that I know of. And I knew him very well.” If Cranwell really wanted me to talk about my ongoing feud with God, I’d decided that the time was now. “I just don’t know if I can be part of a religion with a God like that.”
“What did you do after he died?”
“I went to a therapist in Paris, and that helped.” The French are great humanists and humanism is noble. It’s very big on human potential and relatively silent on guilt and sin. “But mostly I cooked. I cooked these fabulous five-course meals. For myself. It was the second year, when I moved here, that I really worked through it. This chateau was my therapy. I worked on one room at a time, contracting out what I couldn’t do myself. By the time it was finished, I had worked out the grief.”
“Do you miss him?”
“Of course.” I’d had enough of talking about Peter. I shrugged out of the heavy wool shirt I was wearing and set it on top of the island. “What made you want to be a writer?”
“Don’t know, really. I just always knew I had the ability to write a book. I finally got to the point where I had something to write about.”
“I’ve always heard you should write about things you know. Is that true?”
“In certain ways. I write about international espionage, politics, and conspiracy. I don’t know anything personally about that sort of lifestyle. But I do know about betrayal. I know about loyalty and what it costs. I know about love and the sacrifice it requires.”
I caught myself gazing deeply into his eyes, leaning toward his voice. I blinked and reoriented myself on my stool.
“If I strictly wrote what I knew, I would continually be writing an autobiography.”
“Your life must be so different.”
“Than whose? Than yours? We have quite a bit in common, I think. I go underground when I write, and you live your life hiding out.”
“I do not.”
“Yes, Freddie, you do. Why else do you refuse guests? Why else do you live twenty miles from the nearest town?”
“I need solitude.”
