long run.
It was always me pushing this, me trying to keep us together, when she had her own problems and it felt like she was never letting me get too close to her. But now, on a day when we both faced our own deaths in different ways, it was Natalie who wanted to hold on to us. It was Natalie who wanted to keep on living so we could be together.
“So what do we do now?” I said. Suddenly, anything was possible.
“I don’t know. But I do know two things for sure.”
“Yeah?”
“One is that I want to go to sleep right now.”
“And the other?”
She settled in next to me. It was cold outside. It was dark and colder than any summer night should ever be.
“I can’t even say it…”
“What?”
“I’ve never walked away from anything in my life,” she said. “Not because I was scared.”
“You don’t want to go back?”
“Don’t let me.”
“Are you serious?”
“Yes,” she said. “Whatever you do, don’t let me go back there.”
Chapter Twelve
I woke up before she did. It was a Sunday morning, another day of cold mist hanging in the air. But today everything felt different. I stood there over the bed and watched her sleeping. “Don’t go away,” I said softly. Then I headed to Vinnie’s house.
His truck was still where I had left it. I didn’t imagine he had even noticed the cut battery cables yet. I slipped in through the open front door and found him asleep on his couch. His feet were propped up on the table. His face was every shade of red, purple, green, and blue. I knew he’d be looking worse for a few days before he started to look better, but this was one beaten-up face. He seemed to be sleeping all right, though. His breathing was even. So I left him there and promised myself I’d be back later to check on him.
I had one more thing to do before going back to Natalie. I had a reservation for one of the cabins, and as far as I knew, the family was still coming up from downstate. I had called them and left a message, giving them a chance to cancel, but they never did. What they’d do up here if they were still coming, I couldn’t imagine. Who knows, maybe they wouldn’t mind wet, chilly air that feels twenty degrees colder than it really is. Maybe just being away from home was enough to make them happy. If they were still coming, I was going to try to make them comfortable.
I threw some firewood in the truck bed and drove down to the fifth cabin. It was the nicest place left after my father’s masterpiece was burned to the ground. I loaded up the wood stove and started it. I stacked the rest of the wood inside to keep it out of the wet air. By the time I was done, the place was already feeling cozy.
I wrote the family a note, told them to make themselves at home, told them I’d be down in the first cabin if they needed me. I didn’t know exactly when they’d get here, but I assumed it wouldn’t be for a while, unless they were already on their way and were driving most of the night.
When I got back to my cabin, I opened the door and smelled coffee. Natalie had a pot going, and was sitting on my bed looking at her cell phone. She was wearing my sweatshirt again. This time it didn’t look like she was wearing anything else underneath it.
“You’re right,” she said when I came in. “Your cell phone reception sucks here.”
“We make up for it in other ways. Like the perfect summer weather.”
“Yeah, what’s with that, anyway? I can’t believe I have to go back to Canada to get warm.”
“I’ve heard some of the old-timers talk about it. Every twenty years or so, it’s like summer just forgets to come.”
“I need to use your phone,” she said. “This thing just isn’t going to work.”
“Go ahead.”
I poured myself a cup of coffee while she called the Mounties’ office. I could only hear her part of the conversation while she talked to the special operations commander. It was mostly a string of yeses and I understands. When she was done, she hung up the phone and stayed sitting on the bed.
“What’s going on?” I said.
“There’s some disagreement about whether we’re going to pull the plug. As of now, we’re still a go.”
“They can’t be serious.”
“I need to go back, no matter which way they call it.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow morning.”
“So it’s a pretty short visit.”
“Are you sorry I came out?” She had a hint of a smile on her face.
“Uh, no. I think I’ll take it.”
“It’ll be your turn to come out to Toronto.”
“Okay,” I said. “I think I can find the place.”
“I need to call Don. Then we can go do something. You have any plans for today?”
“Lady’s choice.”
She dialed my phone again. “Don,” she said when it went through, “where are you? Keller is looking for you.”
I waited for her to finish the conversation. It felt a little strange, hearing her talk to the man she was spending so much time with in a hotel room. I knew she wasn’t alone with him. I knew it wouldn’t matter even if she was. It was just a gut reaction that I couldn’t quite stop.
“He sounds really weird today,” she said when she hung up. “He must be feeling the stress, too.”
“You know, you made me promise you something last night.”
She looked at me. “I know,” she said. “But I have to go back. You know that. I was just a little freaked out last night.”
“Or maybe it was the voice.”
“Which voice.”
“You know. The cop voice. In your head. The one you should always listen to.”
“Come here.”
“Why?”
“You said it was lady’s choice today. I just thought of the first thing I want to do.”
When we were finally dressed and on our feet, we headed down to the end of my road. I showed her the work Vinnie and I had been doing on the last cabin.
“This is going to be beautiful,” she said. She ran her hand along the staircase.
“I hope it’s half as good as what it was before,” I said. “That’s all.”
“You’re doing all this for your father, aren’t you. You couldn’t bear to see this place destroyed.”
“I don’t know how far I would have gotten without Vinnie helping me.”
“Where is he today? I’d like to see him.”
I hesitated. “Sure, if you want to…”
Vinnie had been with us from the beginning, from the first time I had met her, up at the lake. Through the death of her partner. I knew she must have felt almost as close to him as I did.
“Is he at the casino?”
“No, he’s home. I don’t think he’ll be going to work today.”
“What happened?”
