30
Bobby soon left and vowed to return to replace the ramp tires once everyone had gone home. Angela was quick to grab a kayak for another adventure on the lake. Kevin retrieved the giant binoculars that hung on a nail at the back door and walked down to the dock to keep an eye on her. Liz and David began putting together a 500-piece puzzle on the coffee table. Liz, a slave to tradition and routine, could have picked from among a dozen such puzzles, but she chose the same one she’d put together at least ten times already. It was her favorite—a photograph taken from a schooner in Camden Harbor looking back up the hill to the library at the peak of “leaf peeper” season, the trees in the hills behind the library a kaleidoscope of fall colors. Putting together this puzzle for the first time with her husband seemed to delight Liz beyond all comprehension. Jack was busy slicing a whoopie pie in half and setting it on the kitchen table in front of Starla along with a cup of coffee.
Without looking up from the puzzle, Liz asked, “Starla, have you never had a whoopie pie before?”
“No, this will be my first.”
“Dad, you should get a picture of this. It’s a major event in her culinary development; you should save it for posterity.”
Jack looked at his cell and mumbled, “I can never take decent pictures with this thing . . . ”
Liz abruptly got up and marched over to him. “Oh, for goodness’ sake, give me that cell phone, you Luddite!” She then aimed the phone at Starla while she bit into the layers of chocolate and cream. Starla couldn’t speak, so she hummed and offered a thumbs-up until she was finally able to swallow.
“Oh, good Lord, that was amazing . . . how come none of you are 300 pounds?”
This time it was David who spoke without looking up from the puzzle. “Superior metabolism—at least, that’s what they all say when I ask that question. I swear, Starla, the first week I came up here, I gained ten pounds and Liz actually lost weight. It just isn’t fair.”
Jack listened to the easy chatter, the conversation flowing as if Starla was a lifelong friend rather than the sword of Damocles hanging over the family’s neck. Glancing out the window, he noticed Kevin sitting alone and sensed an opportunity.
“Liz, how about you let Starla help David with the puzzle for a bit and come down with me to the dock for a minute.” Starla also recognized the moment, smiling gently at Jack and making her way over to take Liz’s spot on the sofa. Liz squeezed her dad’s hand briefly before they walked down the ramp and sat down next to Kevin.
* * *
Angela had thrown all caution to the wind by venturing out in Evelyn’s favorite kayak, alone. Jack had given her an airtight plastic container for her cell phone, and she had left the dock determined to snap pictures of everything that enchanted her, which is to say . . . nearly everything. Not wanting to venture too far, she kept glancing back at the shoreline to locate Kevin sitting on the dock. She marveled at the ripples the paddle made when she lifted it out of the water, at the sound the water made as her craft sliced it, a pair of scissors cutting through fine silk. At one point she laid the paddle across the kayak and gripped her camera with both hands, closing her eyes and tilting her head heavenward. She permitted her thoughts to wander . . . This is the most glorious piece of real estate on the planet . . . I can hear nothing, yet I hear everything . . . Is God really like Bobby described him? . . . I am in love with Kevin Rigsby and I’m going to marry him.
When she finally opened her eyes, she became temporarily disoriented, her kayak facing a different shoreline. At first glance she couldn’t find Kevin’s dock, but before she had time to panic, a loon slipped up through the water’s glassy surface and settled no more than twenty feet from her. She stifled a scream, her heart pounding, then slowly lifted her camera and captured multiple portraits. The bird was majestic, and its big red eyes seemed intent on staring her down. It lay perfectly still on the water and slowly drifted ever closer to her. Suddenly, the great bird arched its head back and rose slightly out of the water, flapping its giant wings several times before settling back down and meeting Angela’s eyes again. Then, as magically as it appeared, it bowed its head and disappeared into the depths. Angela reached up, touched her lips with a trembling hand, and realized that she had been crying.
* * *
In her 48 years on the planet, Starla had never once assembled a puzzle, at least that she could remember. David instructed her to look for all the pieces with straight edges first; once the frame of the puzzle was established, they would work toward the center. He seemed overly solicitous—nervous in her presence, ill at ease, not wanting to say the wrong thing.
Starla sensed his discomfort and attempted to assuage it. “Jack has spoken quite highly of you. He thinks his daughter made the perfect choice of a husband.”
David never looked up but answered, “That’s nice to hear. I love this family very much. They have all welcomed me with open arms. I feel like I’ve known them all my life. The Rigsbys are a very closed tribe, a bit opinionated, but when they decide they like you, they are all in.”
“What happens when they decide they don’t like you?” Starla asked, glancing through the French doors at the three of them talking on the dock.
“Thankfully, I’ve never had to find out.”
* * *
“I’ve been in love with your Mother for over thirty years . . . still am. But our marriage wasn’t perfect. Well, she was pretty much perfect, but we had our share of difficulties, especially when you kids were little. One year in particular was probably our worst as a couple. Liz, you were just an infant, so Kevin, you were three or four. That was a rough six months or so. You had colic, Liz, and Kevin, you were flying around the house like a pinball. Your poor mother had to take care of you both almost full-time since I was just getting the business started and working 65, 70 hours a week. Your mother and I argued a lot that year. It was nothing worse than any other couple’s experience with two little ones in the house. But I, in particular, didn’t handle it as well as I should have.”
Jack looked up from his hands and noticed that neither of his kids was looking at him, each focused on a different obscure point on the horizon. Kevin had placed the binoculars on the deck and folded his arms across his chest. Liz’s face was turned away from him as if she couldn’t bear to watch.
“Anyway,” Jack continued, “one morning, I remember having a really bad argument. Tensions had been building, and just as I was about to leave the house to attend a conference with Mitchell, everything kind of blew up. I left the house and slammed the door . . . it was probably the worst fight we had ever had.”
* * *
David and Starla spent most of their time working the puzzle in silence, neither knowing what to say to the other. Occasionally he would look out to the dock, trying to discern how the conversation was going by observing a hand gesture or a tilt of the head. There was nothing.
After a long sigh, he finally spoke. “You know, Liz has never really properly grieved her mother. For the first few months after, she was so consumed with her dad, she threw everything she had into his recovery, so much so that she just ignored her own grief . . . locked it away somewhere. Kevin just went totally quiet, wouldn’t even talk about it with his sister . . . which broke Liz’s heart. They’re all still messed up about it. Sometimes I feel helpless, like it’s impossible for an outsider to tear down that Rigsby wall. But gradually, they are getting better. Actually, this is the best I’ve seen Jack look since September. I suppose we have you to thank for that?”
“I would love to think that I’ve helped him a little over this past week, but honestly . . . he’s helped me much more than I’ve helped him. I lost my son in September, too. When I arrived up here, I was as lost as I’ve ever been about Robert.”
“So, I see that Kevin’s working theory was true . . . you are the Starla Deloplane. I assumed it was still just a theory.”
“No, I’m afraid that Kevin was right. Yes. I’m Starla Deloplane . . . as far as I know, the one and only.”
“Wow,” David murmured as he looked past Starla to the dock, hoping for a positive sign, finding none.
* * *
“I’ve replayed it over in my mind a thousand times, and I just don’t know what came over me . . . but I slept with her. It was the first and only time I was unfaithful to your mother. I never saw her again after that one night. The rest of my time at the conference, she didn’t come back to work. I didn’t know her name, and she didn’t know mine. On the drive back home a couple days later, I determined that I would bury it in the past forever, that I wouldn’t confess to your mom. I pledged to myself that I would love her well for the rest of our lives together and never, ever be unfaithful to her. I believe that I did that.”
Jack paused the narrative for a second to regain his composure. Hearing the words come out of his mouth in the presence of his two beautiful kids had been emotionally wrenching. He needed time to catch his breath and slow down his heartbeat. He stole a quick glance at them both . . . each still focused on anything but him.
“Then, about a week ago, I was down on the Pine Run Trail when she walked up to me. At first I didn’t recognize her. It was so long ago. Then later in the week, I saw her again down by the Harbor Master’s shack in Camden, and it came to me that it was her—the woman I had slept with back in 1990. It wasn’t until just a couple of nights ago that I discovered who she actually was . . . that she was Starla Deloplane, Robert Deloplane’s mother. As you can imagine, I didn’t react very well to that news. We sat on the dock at the harbor for the better part of three hours hashing it out. I said some terrible things to her, threw every wild accusation that I could think of at her, full of hostility and pain. It was actually rather disturbing to hear just how cold and hard-hearted I could be . . . ”
“But then something strange happened. It occurred to me that she was just as wounded and destroyed on the inside as I was. She had lost her son—a boy she had tried for twenty years to pull back from the abyss. She tried every rehab center, every psychiatrist she could find, but in the end it wasn’t enough. As we sat there telling our stories, we became oddly drawn to each other—maybe to each other’s pain, I don’t know. And for the past few days, our tortured souls have taken comfort in each other . . . nothing more, nothing less. She’ll board a plane Monday to fly home, and chances are we will never see each other again.”
Jack was done—exhausted by the story, finished with words. The kids sat quietly, asking no questions.
Liz’s frail, tender voice broke the silence. “Daddy, I’ve seen the way you look at each other. It seems much more than the picture you are painting . . . ”
Kevin came to life: “Yeah, and everything you say makes sense to me except for one thing. What on earth brought her all the way up here? Why would she have gone to all the trouble of finding you, tracking you down to this tiny speck of real estate? Just to renew a twenty-five year old acquaintanceship? I don’t buy it. There’s got to be another reason . . . ”
Jack took in a deep breath, giving up hope that he might have avoided the unavoidable. “Well, kids . . . there’s something else.”
* * *
Angela paddled her kayak quietly up to the dock, so quietly that the three of them hadn’t even noticed her arrival. When they all looked up, she burst out with the unbridled enthusiasm of a first-timer, “You guys are never going to guess what happened to me out there! I was floating along with my eyes closed, and all of a sudden, out of nowhere . . . ”
Kevin finished the sentence for her: “A loon popped up out of the water right there in front of you and stared at you!”
Angela was ecstatic. “YES! Wait . . . how did you know?”
Jack stood up, walked over to the edge of the dock, and answered, “That was Sebastian. He was Evelyn’s favorite loon. He always followed her around the lake when she went out there in that yellow kayak—the same one you’re using.”
Angela’s eyes were bright and wide, like a child coming down the stairs on Christmas morning. “Are you serious?”
Jack smiled at her naïveté. “Oh, probably not. It’s sort of a Rigsby family myth that every year it’s the same family of loons that greets us on this lake. Evelyn gave them names, and I think she was half convinced it was true. Although, loons never seemed to follow the rest of us around the lake, and they hardly ever popped up right beside our kayaks and gave us the side eye. It was only Evelyn.”
Kevin now stood and extended his hand to help Angela out of her kayak and up the steps of the ladder. “ . . . Rigsby family myths die hard.”
31
Angela’s arrival at the dock had abruptly ended Jack’s confession. Somehow it was late afternoon. The kids decided they should unpack the car and get settled. Jack gave them their accommodation assignments, then they all scattered and started unpacking. Starla felt awkward bringing her suitcase down to the cabin but managed to slip it into the master bedroom without anyone noticing. Jack entered after her and closed the door for some privacy, then collapsed onto the bed.
Starla sat on the edge of the bed and held his extended hand. “So, how did it go?”
Jack closed his eyes. “Honestly, I’m not sure. They were completely quiet for a long time, only starting to speak just about the time Angela arrived at the dock, so we kind of left it hanging.”
“What did they say at the end?”
Jack smiled and turned to face her. “Liz thinks we are a thing. She says she has noticed how we ‘look at each other.’”
Starla raised her eyebrows, an embarrassed smile flickering on her face. “But we’re not a thing. We’ve talked about this.”
“Yeah, well . . . Liz isn’t buying it. And then Kevin wanted to know what brought you up here in the first place. I was getting ready to tell them that part of the story when Angela interrupted the momentum . . . so it’s all up in the air.”
Starla watched Jack laying still and exhausted on the bed, eyes closed. He was such a fine-looking man, she thought, even with the weight of the world on his shoulders—such a beautiful man. She straddled him and leaned down close to his face.
“I’m very proud of you, Jack. That took some guts.” Then she leaned closer and kissed him slowly, with an aching tenderness. “So, I suppose we’re gonna have to be careful how we look at each other. You can start by wiping that lustful leer off of your face.”
“Me? What about you? I’ve noticed how you’ve been undressing me with your eyes out there. I mean, I’m not blind!”
“In your dreams, mister.”
* * *
When they came out of the bedroom, they noticed Liz and Angela rummaging through the fridge and cupboard. Liz turned towards them both.
“Dad, how can you have been here for two weeks and have literally nothing in the house to eat?”
“Can I help it that all of you showed up and guzzled down every beer in the fridge?”
“So, what were you guys planning to have for dinner . . . Tostitos and Velvetta? Because that’s all there is.”
“We hadn’t planned that far ahead.”
Liz rolled her eyes at Angela. “Why does that not surprise me?”
Right away, Angela and Liz set about planning dinner. Within thirty minutes, they had written up a grocery list and dispatched David and Kevin to the Mercantile. Jack and Starla settled down on the sofa and started on the puzzle, listening intently to the increasingly animated conversation between the two girls in the kitchen. Liz began describing the Rigsby “first night at camp” tradition of toasting marshmallows over a fire-pit outside. Angela was over the moon at the prospect.
Jack spoke up from across the room: “Lizzy, it’s April. When that sun goes down, it’s going to get pretty cold out. I’m not sure an outdoor fire is such a great idea. We can just have a fire in here.”
Liz instantly rebuked the notion. “We’ve got plenty of blankets. It will be fine!”
Liz refused to budge on the matter. After dinner there would be a fire in the fire-pit, no matter how cold it got.
Starla leaned over to Jack and whispered, “Lord, how many Rigsby family traditions are there?”
The girls had chosen burgers and dogs on the grill, but David was horrified by the sight and smell of the meat freezer at the Mercantile, so a side trip into Camden was deemed necessary. I’m not going to add “food poisoning” to my Rigsby family resume, he had explained to Kevin. Consequently, it was already dark by the time they made it back to the lake. Kevin carried the tray of meat to the outside grill and found his dad preparing for a fire in the pit.
“Let me guess,” he said, “Liz demanded a first-night fire?’
Jack laughed. “Of course she did. By the way, you build better fires than I do. Can you finish this while I get started with dinner?”
“Sure.”
Jack lay a row of burgers on the back of the grill and placed the hot dogs on the front, then shut the cover.
“I’ve had so much fun watching your girlfriend today. Have you seen anybody fall in love with a lake harder than she has?”
“Well, David was pretty bad. Remember how he damn near started crying when he first walked out on the dock?”
“Oh yeah! I forgot about that.”
Kevin began arranging the wood in that peculiar way he had, stacking them in all different directions like Jenga blocks. “We’re gonna freeze our asses off out here tonight.”
“Yes. Yes, we will. But you know your sister. There was no talking her out of it. Besides, you should have seen the look on Angela’s face when she heard the word s’mores. Kev, has she ever spent any time outdoors? She looks like a kid in a candy store.”
“She’s the ultimate city girl, Dad. This is all brand new to her.”
“Well . . . it’s a marvelous thing to look at the lake through fresh eyes.”
“What about Starla? What did she think when she first saw it?”
“She was blown away . . . but I can tell she’s not an outdoorsy sort of person . . . the worst kayaking skills I’ve ever seen.”
“Seriously?”
“Pretty tragic, actually.”
Jack flipped the burgers for the first time, mentally celebrating their most pleasant conversation in months.
* * *
The kitchen table had always felt cramped, even when it was just the four of them. When the kids grew up and David came along, five had been tight. Now, six wasn’t working at all. Jack decided to eat his burger leaning against the counter. Starla found herself sitting in between David and Kevin, who were involved in a heated debate about whether they’d needed to drive into Camden for ground beef. Jack watched Starla taking little, timid bites of her hot dog, head swiveling back and forth between the two like she was watching a tennis match. He caught himself . . . realized he was staring at her, remembered Liz’s observation, then cut a quick glance at Liz, who was laughing at her husband’s misfortune.
David offered a defense: “So, you can make fun of me all you want, but if somebody in this family got food poisoning, who would’ve been stuck with the blame?”
The second the question passed his lips, Liz, Kevin and Jack all shouted in unison, “David’s fault!”
David looked at Angela and wagged his finger. “Let this be a lesson to you, new girl. The Rigsby tribe is a closed tribe. Outsiders are responsible for every misfortune that happens on this lake . . . no exceptions.”
Everyone laughed except Starla, who heard ‘the Rigsby tribe is a closed tribe’ as yet another reminder of her status as forever on the outside looking in. The type of Norman Rockwell moments she had observed since the kids had arrived were foreign to her. Her family life back home didn’t feel this way. She loved her kids and they loved her, and Rich and Bobbie certainly loved each other, but it wasn’t like this, not nearly as free and self-confident. Perhaps parading three different men through their lives had resulted in a guarded affection, a hesitance to pull too close lest something gets ripped away. As Starla listened to the lighthearted quips flying around the table, she became painfully aware of the inadequacy of her choices, the toll her lifestyle had taken on her children.
Jack noticed. He watched the shadow pass across her face. He tried not to stare.
* * *
After dinner, it was David and Angela’s job to clean up the kitchen while Liz gathered the supplies for s’mores.
“No lighter fluid!” Jack called to Kevin from the fire pit..
“Yes, Dad . . . no lighter fluid. How many times have you said that to me in my life?” Kevin replied in an annoyed voice.
“Just checking,” Jack answered as he headed up the hill to the garage attached to the guest house. Since they’d built the addition, no car or truck had ever made it inside, but it was still called the garage. What it had turned into was a large room for all of their lake junk: kayaks, canoes, floats, rafts, beach chairs, and assorted knick-knackery that a family accumulates at a lake house over fifteen years.
In the corner beside the water heater was a great cedar box with a dreadfully heavy lid. A strong scent of pine needles wafted from the box as Jack ran his fingers over the pile of neatly folded blankets inside. Jack paused and took it in. It occurred to him that the last time this lid had been lifted was right after Labor Day. It would have been Evelyn standing in this very spot, folding the blankets into perfect rectangles and stacking them in that special way she had to make sure they all fit. These blankets were fire blankets and would be used for nothing else. Each year, Evelyn would resupply the box with new scented sachets of pine and spruce to fight off the smell of smoke. Now Jack hesitated, looking down into the box, seeing her work. He picked up the first blanket and held it to his face, smelling spruce but straining for a whiff of Evelyn’s hand lotion. Jack closed his eyes for a moment. . . . Oh, Evie . . .
* * *
By the time he made it back to the pit loaded with six blankets, the fire was blazing and everyone had found a seat. He passed out the blankets, then sat down beside Starla. When Liz took her blanket, she buried her face in it and took a deep breath.
“Angela, smell your blanket! Mom stores these things in a cedar box all winter so when we bring them out for the first fire of camp, they smell like this!”
Angela inhaled deeply and closed her eyes. Liz added, “Is that not the most amazing smell in the world?”
Angela looked caught up in a dream and was just now starting to suspect that none of it was real. Her eyes were mesmerized by the flames. Above her head, a million stars stretched out for what seemed like a million miles. Now someone handed her a fancy stainless steel retractable poker with a marshmallow attached to the end and was instructing her in the fine art of toasting. She could hardly take it in and was fighting the impulse to cry.
David watched her holding her poker and asked, “This your first campfire, Angela?” She smiled and nodded. Kevin scooted his chair closer to her and kissed her on the cheek.
Starla watched it all in silence, holding the blanket tightly up to her chin with one hand while toasting a marshmallow with the other. When it was finished, she popped the whole thing in her mouth and smiled at Jack. “How do you ever leave this place?”
After the s’mores were devoured, the fire’s flames lowered, but the heat emanating from the bed of hot coals at least kept everyone’s front side comfortable. The conversation died down, everyone hypnotized by the bright orange embers.
The surprising sound of Starla’s voice startled everyone. She had not spoken a word the entire night except a few whispers to Jack. Now, her voice was sharp and clear.
“I would like to say something, if that’s alright.”
She instantly had the floor; every pair of eyes around the fire fixed on her.
“I realize that my presence here has been difficult for you all. But I want to thank every one of you for your kindness. The fact is, you would have been within your rights to ask me to leave. You have every reason to hate me. To find me, of all people—the mother of the man who killed your dear mother—here at this special place, must have been upsetting. I really appreciate your kindness and consideration.”
Starla paused, lifted her eyes from the bed of coals and scanned each of their faces. “The thing is, I’ve never seen anything like this place in my life, and I’ve never been around a family like this. Whether you know it or not, this is very special. Jack had told me a bit about each of you over this past week. As he talked about you, his voice took on a certain lilt that I envied. Now, I see why. So, I hope you all will excuse my intrusion into your time together, but I would like to thank you from the bottom of my heart for allowing it. I’ll never forget this day . . . ”
32
Jack lay motionless in the dark room, waiting for Starla. She had insisted on taking a shower. She had been gone for quite a while. Jack felt nervous and anxious. Even though they had slept together just 24 hours earlier, that now seemed a lifetime ago. So much had happened, so much had changed. He thought about the speech she had made, the expression on her face as she made it, the impact of her words. Jack had watched both Liz and Angela approach her on the way into the house, both embracing her. Even Kevin had touched her shoulder gently with his hand as he passed by. David had walked down to the lake and filled two plastic milk jugs with water, slowly pouring them on the bed of coals as Jack stirred them with his broom handle poker. He’d shyly offered, “ . . . She’s something, Jack.” Jack made no response.
Now he stared at the ceiling and waited, not having a clue what to expect from this woman whom he seemed to understand less the more he knew her. The door cracked open, and he could feel her presence in the room, could smell her hair. She got into bed beside him and lay still in the silence. She reached for his hand and grabbed hold.
“It just dawned on me in the shower that I haven’t had a cigarette in four days . . . ”
Jack was startled by the discordance of her statement but also surprised that he hadn’t noticed. It occurred to him that he never had any earthly idea what was going to fly out of her mouth. The thought was oddly comforting.
“You know, I must admit that I hadn’t noticed.”
“Neither had I—that’s the weird part. There’s just something about this place.”
A long moment of silence passed.
Then: “Jack, I need you to do something for me tonight . . . ”
“Anything . . . ”
“Just hold me close. Can you do that? Hold me like you’re never going to let me go . . . just for this one night.”
She turned her back to him, and he moved close and wrapped his arms around her, kissed her hair, and they both drifted off to sleep.
* * *
Sunday dawned clear and calm, the lake still as glass. Starla was the first up and walked softly into the kitchen to make coffee, being careful not to wake Kevin and Angela, who were asleep in the open loft bedroom upstairs. As she waited, she sat at the kitchen table and admired the water. She thought about Jack, of his tender embrace throughout the night. She tried to imagine what Bobbie and Rich would have made of a place such as this. She’d thought of little else since waking, throughout the quiet hour before she could bring herself to slip out of Jack’s warm arms. She needed to go back home to them, to hold them close, to promise to be a better mother. But she had decided around the fire that she would not tell them who their father was. She would not parade a fourth man through their lives. She would not chip away further at their stability by stealing their memories away—memories of a father who might have been largely absent from their lives but at least made an effort to provide for them. She would permit them the comfort of certainty. She would inform Jack of her decision to keep their secret before boarding her plane Monday afternoon. He deserved to know.
The coffee was finally ready, but when she turned around to pour a cup, she was startled by Kevin’s presence in the kitchen.
He apologized: “The smell of the coffee woke me up . . . everybody tells me I walk like an Indian, whatever that means . . . ”
“I think it means that you don’t make any noise when you walk, so you’re really good at sneaking up on people,” Starla explained. “My mother used to love watching old westerns, and she used that expression a lot.”
“Mind if I join you?”
Kevin’s tone and demeanor had changed. He was less hurried, seemed less suspicious. All day Saturday, it seemed like everything he said was a tactical calculation designed to trap her, to catch her in some lie. Now, he seemed like he actually just wanted to pull up a chair and share a cup of coffee. Even if Starla was wrong, she was tired of worrying about what he thought of her.
“Sure. Hope I didn’t make it too strong.”
Kevin poured a cup and sat down, looked out at the lake, and murmured, “Beautiful, isn’t it? But by ten o’clock, the wind will blow.”
“How do you know?”
“I don’t know for sure . . . it’s just what my gut says. Actually, I could say that every morning and stand a 50/50 chance of being right. Ha.”
Starla could see his father in him, more so in the morning light—the color of his eyes, the sound of his voice. She took a sip of her coffee.
“I don’t know that I’ve ever seen anything so peaceful.”
“You know, Starla . . . I came all the way up here to save my dad from you. I had figured out who you were, and I suspected that you might be here . . . and I was afraid of what your intentions were.”
“Yes. I know. But can I ask you a question? How did you put it together?”
“Dad’s business partner gave me the backstory. I learned that you had come to Camden . . . ”
Kevin paused for a moment, wondering whether he should tell her the truth. He didn’t want some big confrontation. He was past all of that now.
“Actually, Starla, I learned that from your kids.”
Starla could suddenly hear her heart beating in her ears, and she struggled to veil her emotions.
“You talked to my kids?”
“Actually, I visited them. I made a trip to the area last week for the first time since September. I had a thousand questions stirring around in my heart, and I decided to go back and visit the store parking lot where Mom was killed. I don’t know what I was expecting to learn, but I went anyway. Then, I took a chance that maybe you would be home. I drove by your house and knocked on the door. All I was trying to discover was whether or not you were the woman that Dad had slept with all those years ago. Instead, I met your kids. It was while we were talking that they mentioned that you had recently made a trip to Camden, Maine. Apparently they tracked you down using the Find Me app on your cell phone.”
The information was coming fast and furious and Starla felt unsteady. He visited my kids? He was in my house? What did he say to them?
“I must confess something to you, Starla. When I went to your home and met your kids, I carried with me a lot of expectations of what they would be like . . . of what you would be like. I was angry and resentful, full of grief and judgment. I don’t offer that as an excuse, just maybe an explanation. Anyway, your kids were incredibly gracious to me. When I told them who I was, they would have been entirely within their rights to hustle me out of there. Instead, they offered me condolences and told me all about their brother, his whole story. I went away with a lot of respect for them . . . I want you to know that. Anyway, as soon as I heard that you were up here, I assumed the worst, and . . . here we are.”
Kevin then put down his cup of coffee and turned to face Starla. “But I think I was wrong about you. I’m not crazy about you and Dad . . . but I think you’re a good person. I don’t think that you would do anything to hurt him. And seeing you all day yesterday, I can tell that you and Dad are both grieving . . . a lot. And maybe, at least for the moment, you have been good for each other. So, I wanted to apologize for the way I behaved yesterday. You’re a good person, Starla . . . and you didn’t deserve my attitude. The thing is . . . I’m sorry for your loss, too.”
Starla could not bring herself to look into his face, fearing that if she did, she would never stop crying. Instead, she whispered, “Thank you, Kevin . . . from the bottom of my heart, thank you.”
* * *
The rest of the morning consisted of a spirited debate between the three Rigsbys over the best way to spend their last day together. Their flight out Monday morning was early out of Portland, an hour and a half away, so they would be leaving Loon Magic in the wee hours. Starla, Angela, and David sat back and watched it all unfold, largely silent spectators. David served as a comical translator of what he called Rigsby-ese: the harsh, combative language spoken by the family when arguing about the proper way to spend a day on the lake. David whispered halfway through the exchange that this was the first such argument he had witnessed without Evelyn, and he wondered what would become of them all without her conciliating presence.
It started when Jack had suggested heading into The Café for breakfast.
Kevin: “But it’s already 9:30. By the time we all get ready, drive into town, wait for a table, and eat, it will be noon and we will have missed three hours of lake time.”
Jack: “But there’s not enough food in the house to feed six people breakfast, unless everyone would be fine with shrimp creole.”
Liz: “Yeah, Kev . . . why didn’t you and David think to get anything for breakfast during your two-hour expedition to buy hotdogs last night?”
Kevin: “David, do you remember any breakfast stuff on the list they gave us?”
David: “No breakfast stuff.”
Liz: “It’s called initiative, gentlemen. You think ahead, anticipate a need, and craft a solution. So, because of your simple-minded neglect, we will all be forced to miss three hours of lake time? I don’t think so.”
Jack: “So, what’s your solution, Lizzy?”
Liz: “I say we send David and Kevin to the Mercantile for breakfast sandwiches. Of course, we run the risk that David will turn his nose up at the color of the bacon or the lilt of the country ham, but that’s a chance we will have to take.”
Kevin: “See, David, this is what it was like growing up with a bossy sister. But why am I telling you? If anyone should know about bossy women, it’s you! I only have to put up with her once a day on the phone . . . you have no escape.”
Liz: “Listen, if I left it up to you two, we would all starve to death and die of exposure. Angela, have you noticed how he packs to come up here? One pair of underwear per week, one sweatshirt, one pair of shorts, and twenty-five T-shirts. Then he complains when it’s thirty degrees in the morning and he only has one long-sleeved shirt . . . idiot!”
Starla took it all in with a bemused smile on her face, her mouth slightly ajar, eyes darting back and forth between the combatants. At one point her eyes locked onto Jack’s, and he smiled warmly and winked to reassure her that this was all in good fun. His smile had surprised her with its tenderness. For a brief moment, she felt like crying. Leaving this man was going to be one of the hardest things she had ever done.
