14
Jack hardly recognized her. She looked only vaguely like the woman in the flats and Michelin Man coat but almost exactly as he remembered her from The Hedges. It was as if she had been dragged through an L.L.Bean outlet directly into a hair salon and delivered fresh to his table. She wore new, stylish clothes, a fleece jacket, and proper boots, and her hair was shorter and cut close around her face. She looked ten years younger, and she smiled broadly when she introduced herself.
“Hello there,” she started, looking past Liz. “I decided to take your advice. If I’m going to go hiking around here, I need the right gear.”
Jack was transfixed, eyes wide, mouth ajar, without the slightest clue what to say. Liz was equally surprised. Who the hell was this woman?
“Uh . . . Dad? Do you two know each other?”
Jack roused himself sufficiently enough to attempt an answer. “I’m sorry, Liz—this is someone I met over at Camden Hills Park down by the picnic tables on Pine Run. She’s here on vacation. Never been to Maine before. She didn’t have the right shoes . . . I’m sorry, I don’t recall your name . . .”
“That’s because I didn’t give it to you.”
Liz looked on with a bewildered half smile on her face.
Suddenly, cigarette lady stuck out her hand, first to Liz and then to Jack. “I’m Carolyn.”
Jack recovered and finished the introductions. “My name is Jack, and this is my daughter, Elizabeth.”
Liz managed a quick smile while correcting her father: “I’m Liz.”
“Sorry for the interruption, but I noticed you sitting over here, so I thought I would thank you for the great advice. This really is a beautiful place. I think I might stay for a bit longer than I originally planned.”
A silence (to Liz, interminable) settled in as Jack and Carolyn exchanged awkward smiles.
Abruptly, Carolyn perked up and apologized again for the intrusion. “Nice to meet you, Liz. Thanks again . . . ” Then she turned on her heels and disappeared through the doors and down Center Street.
Liz stared at her father across the table with bemused confusion. “So . . . you’ve met someone?”
Jack’s eyes snapped back from their close inspection of Carolyn’s exit back to his daughter, who was trying to hold back a smile.
“Certainly not! I didn’t even know her name. I wouldn’t exactly call that meeting someone.”
“Maybe not,” Liz conceded, “but she certainly met you.”
The ride back to the cabin was largely quiet and reflective, Liz contemplating the possibility that her father would someday move on to someone new, someone not her mother, while Jack’s thoughts were alternating between the rejuvenative power of fashion and a nice haircut, and three decades of repressed guilt. Carolyn, he thought. Finally, after two decades, a name to go with the face.
After an afternoon of reading around the fireplace, Liz volunteered to make dinner. Jack watched her gliding around in the tiny kitchen, her movements so much like Evelyn’s—graceful and light, with no wasted motion. He walked up behind her and enwrapped her in a hug, telling her how proud he was of her, how much she reminded him of her mother. Liz spun around and melted into his arms—the kind of tender, unforced moment that had been missing in their relationship for so long.
Cajun pasta with blackened shrimp was Jack’s favorite meal, and, judging by the contents of the pantry and refrigerator, the only meal he planned on eating anytime soon.
“Really, Dad? Is this the extent of your diet now? How about a vegetable every once in a while?” Liz teased.
“I won’t be here that much longer, and besides, why reinvent the wheel? I love Cajun pasta with shrimp.”
“How much longer?”
“I don’t know, maybe just a few more days. It’s been nice, actually. Having you visit was a bonus.”
Liz poured herself a glass of Pinot noir. She retrieved a cold bottle of Sam Adams from the fridge for Jack. They sat together at the small, round table in the corner by the French doors and admired the beautiful meal. Liz looked at her father, waiting for him to say the blessing. Growing up in the Rigsby home, this was the ritual before each and every meal, no matter how small or inconsequential. You fix yourself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a bag of chips? You better say grace, even if you’re by yourself. Evelyn had drilled it into her kids’ heads that absent a proper blessing and an appropriate dose of gratitude for their daily bread, all sorts of loathsome habits might soon overwhelm them. The key to a happy life, she would say, is a heart of gratitude and thankfulness. Take nothing for granted!
Liz reached out to hold his hand—another Rigsby family tradition—and waited. After a moment of silence, she glanced up at him. His eyes were shimmering
“. . . You say it . . . ” A plea rather than a request.
Jack had found any kind of prayer excruciating since losing Evelyn, even minor blessings like this one. It wasn’t that he’d lost his faith—he just felt so disconnected from religious pursuits. His church attendance had dropped off considerably. Being there without her felt empty and reminded him how alone he was. Church was the kind of place where they always went together, making solo trips even more painful. He found it too depressing, sensing everyone’s eyes on him and practically hearing their thoughts in his head . . . I wonder how he’s holding up? He’d decided that going to church was too much trouble, too disruptive of his mental health. The last sermon he’d heard landed heavily on his heart with a discordant thud. The preacher had read aloud from the book of Romans—“the wages of sin is death.” Jack had shuddered at the idea, then become angry after applying the idea to his newly-murdered wife. What did she ever do to deserve her fucking wages? It had infuriated him, and he had never gone back. Maybe he had lost his faith.
The next morning, Liz left for the airport. Her short visit had provided her with a measure of reassurance about her father’s well-being. Although he wasn’t out of the woods by any means, Liz found him more upbeat than she’d expected, closer to the man that she had always known. In her parting words, she pointed out that Evelyn would not have wanted him to pine away for her the rest of his life, that at some point he would need to find someone new to share his life with and that this was a good and proper thing. She had surprised herself with her own words. It had not occurred to her that her father might be happier if he found someone else until she’d watched him stare at Carolyn as she walked away from their table at the Café. There wasn’t lust in his eyes, but rather, a longing for something that he had lost . . . a best friend, a partner, someone to do life with. Her father had always been the most generous man she knew, but now that famous generosity had no beloved beneficiary.
Jack returned to the house and pondered a series of troubling questions. He thought mostly about Carolyn’s transformed reappearance. The woman he had encountered in the park had seemed mysterious and possibly dangerous. When he had finally recognized who she was in a subliminal flash at the lake, he felt a surge of fear, followed rapidly by guilt—the nagging shame of betrayal after twenty-six years. He had been repulsed by her in that moment, angry at her appearance. How the hell had she found him in the first place? They hadn’t even known each other’s names. Nearly thirty years had passed, for God’s sake!
But then she had stepped out of the darkness and into the light at the Café. He had seen her in full, noticed her eyes . . . beautiful and haunting. Her hair, soft and playful around her face, made her appear much less dangerous—more like someone he could see himself with. It had embarrassed him at the table when a mental replay of their fevered sexual encounter had flashed across his mind as she shook Liz’s hand. What was the matter with him? Twenty-six years later, and the images of that night still shone in his mind in brilliant living color.
Was her reappearance merely a function of random chance? Why here, in Maine? Why now? Was this the reason he had been drawn to travel here in April—some divine hand stirring the cosmic pot? On further reflection, he decided that he better leave the Almighty out of this, the Holy Creator of the Universe not likely involved in the serendipitous reunion of two adulterers.
It had to be random chance. No other explanation held up to scrutiny. She didn’t know his name . . . how could she possibly have tracked a total stranger to this time and this place? The odds were outrageous. No, this had to be one of those bizarre, unexplainable turns in the road. To overthink it might lead to some sort of existential crisis, which would quickly freeze into paralysis. Jack had decided to stop overthinking. He was determined to find this Carolyn again, to tell her that he remembers her . . . everything about her.
It had grown colder. Jack found his heavier jacket, walked out on the deck, and watched a pair of loons crest the water twenty feet from the end of the dock. The lake was still as glass. The mid-morning wind hadn’t started to blow. All he could hear was the soft sound of loons slipping back underwater.
Jack slipped his kayak into the silky water.
15
“Dad has a girlfriend,” Liz had exaggerated.
Kevin was speechless, the concept of his father with another woman entirely incomprehensible. “Wait . . . what?”
“Well, not really a . . . girlfriend. But there was this lady who came up to him at the Café and struck up a conversation. They had met hiking down by Pine Run or something, and she just walked up to our table to say hello. Although he denied it, I could tell by the way he looked at her that he was interested. It was so weird!”
Other than her encouraging report on his mental health, this tidbit had interested Kevin the most during Liz’s hour-long phone call. Kevin thought of little else the rest of the day. Once the initial surprise wore off, the practical applications of his father moving on with his life unsettled him. What’s it been, seven months?
Kevin sat at his workstation overlooking the busy street below, trying to concentrate on the website he was designing for a new startup out west—some sleazy virtual porn company. Normally he would have declined the job out of squeamishness, but the amount of money they were willing to pay was outrageous, too good to pass up. Any guilt he might have felt for listing a porn site in his credits would be overcome by a large contribution to Habitat for Humanity or some other virtue-signaling organization. Apparently, there were mountains of cash being made around the sins of the flesh—“gold in them there hills,” so to speak. His charitable-giving plans notwithstanding, the project had stalled out. His creativity didn’t hum around such filthy graphics. Kevin never thought of himself as a prude. Angela had moved in with him, so technically they were living in sin themselves. Still, two people in love cohabitating without the proper spiritual paperwork seemed a far cry from the debauched business plan of a porn site. He had grown to regret the decision to accept the job but felt ethically bound to complete the work. The irony of his ethics fettering him to an agreement with a smut merchant felt like a cruel joke.
He had warned Angela, “Okay, . . . if you happen to see graphic nudity on one of these screens over the next few weeks, don’t freak out. I’m not cheating on you . . . I’m making a small fortune.” She hadn’t laughed at his deflection, making him feel even worse. The image of his mother came to mind, and he wondered what she would think of him if she knew about his latest client.
Angela walked through the door with a bag of groceries, looking like a runway model, full of bright energy and unbridled optimism. Kevin swiveled his chair around to face her.
“You’re never going to believe what happened to me today.”
Angela set the bag on the counter and blurted out, “What? You found that moral compass you misplaced, came to your senses, and told Screwtape.com to literally stick it up their ass?”
It was the single most surprising thing Kevin had learned about her since they had started living together. The love of his life had a brutal, searing wit. Normally fastidious with her words, she would occasionally let fly a flaming rejoinder like this one. Kevin felt the burn.
“Uh . . . no. Not yet, at least. No, I got a call from Liz. She’s back home and called to fill me in on how Dad is doing. Apparently . . . Dad may have met someone!”
“Are you kidding? That’s great! Isn’t it?”
“I don’t know . . . maybe.”
Angela walked over, pulled up a chair, and sat next to him. She had an almost comical power to draw out even his most carefully hidden thoughts. It was some sort of Jedi mind trick, Kevin had decided, an unfair advantage endowed upon her by the gods. How could he ever win an argument with this woman if he was denied secrets?
“No, I’ve always known that at some point Dad would move on and find someone. He’s not the sort of man who would do well on his own. It’s just that I hadn’t thought it would be this soon. Seven months, Angela. Don’t you think that’s awfully quick, considering . . . ”
“Considering what? That Evelyn was murdered? What difference does that make? Listen, if Liz came back from finally seeing him and thinks he’s better, that’s good news, right?”
“I didn’t say she said he was doing better.”
“You didn’t have to. If you lead with, ‘Dad may have met someone’ . . . I already know he’s better. I’m thinking that the Rigsby men are on a roll.”
* * *
Starla stood in front of the full-length mirror back in her room at the Tidal Beach Inn. It had been a productive morning. It was dumb, blind luck running into Jack at the Café—yet another serendipitous encounter between them. Everything seemed to be working out perfectly. Meeting his daughter had been a surprise, but not an unhappy one. She looks just like her mother, Starla thought as she gazed at her new reflection in the mirror.
It had been years since she had lavished so much care, time, and money on her personal appearance. But if she was going to stand a ghost of a chance with a man like Jack Rigsby, she needed to start caring about how she looked. It was already paying dividends. She had noticed every path taken by Jack’s eyes once he realized it was her. As she left, she could feel his stare. When she had first seen her reflection after the shopping binge and the makeover, it had taken her breath away. This was a Starla she had forgotten ever existed—someone capable of turning the occasional head. Nobody was ever going to mistake her for a movie star, but she was much more than the bedraggled wreck she had allowed herself to become. She finally looked good, and for the first time in years, it mattered.
She carefully removed the fork from her purse and placed it in the plastic bag, wrapped it in toilet paper, and addressed the FedEx box to Maxwell Johnson, Esq. She had patiently waited until they were done with their meal, biding her time in a dimly-lit corner. When she made her introduction, she had amazed herself by how easily and calmly she’d slipped the fork off the tablecloth with her left hand while reaching to shake Liz’s hand with her right. It was as if she were born for this sort of thing—the cloak and dagger part, at least—the misdirection.
The nagging problem that Starla Deloplane now faced was determining exactly what she was doing. Each encounter with Jack had only served to confuse the endgame. She was drawn to him. She could see the pain in his eyes. His was the pain of grieving the innocent, while hers was grief for the guilty. But at the end of the day, pain was pain. Starla recognized it well enough when she saw it, and Jack’s pain shrouded his face like a death shadow. It had moved her. That wasn’t part of the plan. She, too, had been stirred by their first encounter in the park. He had aged, grown a bit thicker, but men like Jack never fully shed the physical magnetism they were born with. The flash of recognition, followed swiftly by the memory of his naked body over hers, had startled her. She’d quickly recovered, returned to the job at hand, asking him, What’s the difference between talking to yourself and thinking out loud?
His rambling, tortured answer had been endearing—a man trying to justify himself to a complete stranger. He hadn’t recognized her, she could tell. But why would he? How could he? He had aged better than she had, but she couldn’t muster up any feelings of resentment. Now, today at the Café, it had clicked. She saw the glint in his eyes, the nervous batting of the eyelashes, the brief flush of color in his cheeks. She also thought she saw desire.
She gathered the FedEx package in her arms and took one more look at herself in the mirror. She lingered over what she saw. Who are you, Starla? For the first time in forever, she didn’t know the answer. She didn’t know if she was out for revenge or if she was after . . . Jack.
Regardless, there was always the chance that he wouldn’t believe her. If so, she would need irrefutable proof. She slid the package into the heavy metal door of the FedEx box at the end of the street and walked back into town.
* * *
Halfway across the lake, Jack let his paddle rest as the kayak drifted along the surface. He closed his eyes for a moment like Evelyn always did, allowing his mind to drift along with him. He thought of her, the hours she would spend out on this lake, alone with her thoughts. It occurred to him that his wife never had a nihilistic bone in her body. Everything was always good news. There was no bad news . . . just opportunities for growth. No matter how garbled and disjointed the material world became around her, she clung to her simple understanding of what she called God’s infinite mercy. Some would dismiss Evelyn Rigsby’s worldview as part merry optimism, part naïve isolation. Indeed, Evelyn had been effectively isolated from much of the world’s evil and dysfunction because of her marriage to Jack and the resulting affluence that their flourishing financial success had ensured. But Jack thought it was more than that . . . it was just her character. She was the most optimistic person he had ever known. Sometimes when the two of them were out kayaking together early in the morning, after a long period of silence, he would hear her singing softly to herself . . .
This is my father’s world
And to my listening ears,
All nature sings, and round me rings
The music of the spheres.
This is my father’s world
He shines in all that’s fair.
In the rustling grass, I hear him pass
He speaks to me everywhere.
This is my father’s world
Oh, let me never forget
That though the wrong seems oft so strong,
God is the ruler yet . . .
He could almost hear her soft alto voice. He lingered in the moment as long as he was able, but soon the oppressing guilt of his betrayal choked out her voice. What would his confession have done to her notion of God’s infinite mercy? For years he had told himself the comforting story that he withheld it from her to protect her innocence. But now that she’d been taken from him, he found that he regretted it more than any single thing . . . the fact that he had denied her the truth, that he had not been brave enough to trust that their love for each other was deep enough to survive it. He wasn’t protecting her; he was protecting his own understanding of the world and his place in it as the virtuous, faithful, and loving husband and father. But now between them laid a great chasm. It was too late for confessions. He had kept the greatest secret of his life from her—her knowledge of exactly what kind of man she had married was forever imperfect, slanted by Jack’s timid selfishness, his giant thumb on the scale of justice. What a coward I was, Jack thought as the loons began to call.
He listened to the unique warble, its haunting echo ringing out from the tall pines along the edge of the water. It was getting colder. The afternoon sun was sinking fast in the western sky. Jack turned his kayak toward home. Finally, the still afternoon had produced a breeze. As he paddled into the freshened current, he scolded himself for the self-flagellation. She was gone. There wasn’t anything he could do about it now. It was time to let it all go—the good with the bad.
As he rounded the last cove before Loon Magic, he saw Carolyn standing at the end of his dock.
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