A Sea Change (40 page)

WINTER

“…In the long way that I must tread alone,

will lead my steps aright.”

William Cullen Bryant

Chapter
Forty-Eight

The sunlight was deceptive. Her grandmother would have said it had teeth.

The bitter cold which had descended on the Sound cut through Maddy’s wool jacket. Her hands, already clumsy from the gloves, grew numb and useless. As she attempted to tie a knot for the third time, Maddy finally pulled off the gloves and dropped them on the deck.

She’d already stuffed crumpled newspapers around the rootstock of the rose, but tying a burlap sack around the large pot was nearly impossible. She couldn’t get her fingers to work. They smarted in the twenty-five degree temperature. Exertion borne of frustration made her breathe hard, and her lungs ached.

Maddy finally went to her knees and reached around the pot once more. As she brought the twine to the front, a thorn snagged her sleeve.

“Damn it! I’m trying to
save
you.”

She angrily tore herself away from the cane, finally tied something resembling a knot, and stood. Maddy draped another piece of burlap over the top of her rose – her
Love
– and weighed it down with several small rocks before stepping back to catch her breath. It hurt her hands to put the gloves back on, but she still needed to wrap the outdoor faucets.

Taking a break, Maddy walked to the edge of the deck stairs and stared down at the
QVII.
The white boat cover was blinding in the sun, and when she looked away red spots floated through her vision.

The sky was an endless vista of unbroken milky blue. She didn’t see a single cloud, and was positive the weatherman was wrong again. He kept talking about snow – up to six inches. Maddy laughed to herself.

Yeah, well, it’s probably gonna snow
somewhere
in the world in the next twenty-four hours, but I don’t see it happening here.

She turned to finish up outdoors.

Dropping an armload of wood into the crate next to the fireplace, Maddy stripped off her gloves and held her hands out to the blaze. With the help of a space heater she managed to maintain the temperature in that small area of the living room at a tolerable sixty degrees. But the bedroom never seemed to get above fifty, and sitting on the toilet was just plain brutal. Maddy vowed to talk to Jaed about the benefits of insulation.

Maddy had pushed the couch and coffee table closer to the hearth, and did most of her work from there.

Photographs, interspersed with Danny’s drawings, were neatly lined up on the dining room table, their negatives resting on top. The discard pile occupied a chair. Since the arrival of winter, working in the darkroom had become an impossibility. Maddy could handle the days in the fifties by running the space heater for half an hour, getting the chemicals up to the proper temperature. But below that, it wasn’t worth the effort. And the past couple of weeks it had been unseasonably cold, with highs only reaching the low-forties. Those numbers were usually reserved for February or March.

So Maddy satisfied her creative urge with self-critique. And she’d managed to winnow out the best of her work. And Danny’s.

After seeing his sketches, Wendy Pratt had enthusiastically agreed to Maddy’s plan. She wanted to put a price on them, though, and was disappointed when Maddy explained their origins. As a way to allay the gallery owner’s pique she finally gave her two nature studies for auction, with the stipulation that the homeless shelter downtown receive seventy-five percent of whatever they brought.

Now, holding her third cup of coffee of the morning, Maddy regarded each photograph one more time. They were good. But were they good enough to sell? She’d shown the final selection to Mary yesterday, but didn’t really trust a friend to be completely unprejudiced, so she’d taken Mary’s zeal with a grain of salt.

Maddy had looked at them so many times. And each time she had to silence the tiny voice in her head; the one that said, “If only Nick were here…”

She missed him. Some days she ached for him. And every day Maddy needed to tell herself he was gone, and to get on with it. She felt she was doing an admirable job, considering.

Considering how much I still love him.

Maddy turned from the table and went into the kitchen. She needed something to do, and making her contribution to Thanksgiving dinner seemed like a good idea right now.

The Nelsen’s were hosting a small group, and providing the turkey. Rita and Susan were on the list for candied yams and stuffing, Emily DeMille was baking pies, Mary had agree to make her honey wheat rolls. To make life easy on the bachelors, Corina Nelsen requested cranberry sauce from Sparky Karlson, and a salad from George Gustafson. And Maddy volunteered a molded salad that had become a very American tradition in her vaguely Greek family.

As she added each ingredient – as she stirred the soupy mixture – Maddy couldn’t keep her thoughts at bay any longer.

What was Thanksgiving like with Nick’s family? What was he doing right now? Would he have liked her salad? Wanted to make it a tradition for the family they might have been?

Maddy knew – just
knew
– she’d have loved spending the holiday with his people. They would’ve taken her in, treated her like one of them, and she’d be there right now, if…

Stop!

She shook her head to muddle the thoughts, but it didn’t help.

Did Becky go with him this year? What little traditions did his sister – his parents – have? Once, and it seemed like a lifetime ago, Nick had called Kay and put Maddy on the phone with her. They’d discussed the holiday and Kay, without hesitation, had said, “You’ll get to make a Greek salad for us while you’re here. I
love
Feta cheese.” Maddy remembered how easy it had been talking to her. How warm she’d felt when she handed the phone back to Nick.

God, Maddy, just stop it.

She put the plastic gelatin mold in the refrigerator and went back to the fireplace. Kneeling, Maddy pushed the poker into the logs. A wave of dry heat fanned her face, and she relished the way it made her cool cheeks seem to constrict. Placing one more log on the fire, she closed the screen and sat back against the couch. Chloe, curled on a small pillow, slitted her eyes open for a second, then went back to her nap.

Maddy stared at the flames, hoping they’d narcotize the lonely feeling which had stolen over her.

Was he thinking of her? Did he miss her, too? Would their lives – now that they’d changed because of each other – be better without each other?

An unexpected tear trickled from her eye, and she blinked it away. Her self-pity only lasted a short moment, and for that Maddy was grateful. Alone had become an okay thing to be, but there was nothing wrong with wanting to share her life. Maddy had finally begun to understand the difference between being lonely, and being alone.

With a sigh, she stood and began the tedious chore of dressing to go outside once again. Mary Delfino had central heat, but Maddy wanted to check on her anyway. And some human contact, at least for a little while, was probably a good idea right about now.

She came home two hours later. A feeling of anticipation – of restlessness – had stolen over her as the day had progressed. Maddy turned on the radio and listened for the weather report. They were insisting it was going to snow. But the setting sun still shone in the clear, cold sky, and Maddy went out to the deck to watch its rapid farewell behind the bluffs.

The Narrows had turned a steely blue. It was like glass. Unheard of.

Maddy pushed her gloved hands into her pockets, put her face up, and exhaled. Her breath appeared then disappeared into the atmosphere. Smiling, she thought a little snow would be fun and then went back inside to fix dinner.

*****

Maddy slowly woke from a dream she didn’t want to end. Nick’s face faded the moment her eyes opened, but the feel of his hand in hers lingered, and she touched her fingers to her cheek to feel the warmth that seemed so real.

In the darkness of the bedroom, Maddy lay perfectly still and tried to remember what had been going on in her subconscious only seconds before. Nothing came to her except the knowledge that the dream hadn’t been sexual in any way. She knew this because of the calmness of her heart. There was no – always very real – physical ache between her legs from this nighttime encounter with Nick. No painful fullness she needed to ease by herself. It must have been one of her “day in the life” visions, and – in many ways – those were the hardest to take.

Her eyes adjusted enough to see the clock; only a quarter to six.
Too early.
But the feeling of anticipation was still with her. She pushed aside the down comforter and walked to the window, the cold air in the bedroom washing over her sleep-warm body. Drawing the curtains, Maddy gasped in delight.

“I don’t believe it,” she said softly. “For once, they were right.”

Journal Entry

N
ovember 26

I’ve just come inside. My fingers still have that not-quite-attached feeling, which is why it looks like an imposter is writing in my journal.

We’ve had about six inches of snow in the past six hours. There’s no way not to sound trite about this, so I won’t even try. It’s absolutely beautiful out there. The snow is pristine and undisturbed. The path has been used, but if you wait just twenty minutes, evidence of human passage is obliterated. Up on the bluff side I saw animal tracks; probably dogs.

It’s hard to see across the Narrows because the snow is coming down so thickly, but in the middle of all this pure white, the water is a rippled blue-black.

I took a walk up to Mary’s without my camera. Wanted to enjoy the silence without thinking about what a great picture this or that would make. Will take photos later. Had a cup of tea with Mary. We didn’t talk much. Just stared out the window, smiling.

I ran into George Gustafson on the way back. He looked like an ancient Elmer Fudd, with his plaid jacket, round-toed boots, and wool hat with ear flaps. He said this would be the first white Thanksgiving he could remember, and then asked if I was “prepared for the inevitable power-outage.”

I think I am, even though right now everything seems pretty stable. My little heater is still doing a fine job. I’ve kept the fire stoked for three days now. I’m thankful I went to the store earlier in the week. Power or no, driving would be an impossibility. I could probably get across the parking area, but taking the steep hill in the Volvo is unthinkable.

(I’ve never understood why the Swedes built a car with rear-wheel drive. What was it? Some kind of macho challenge? “What do you think, Sven? Maybe front-wheel drive would be a good idea, ya?” And a horrified Sven answering, “No way, Ole. Are we not men?”)

Earlier, I initiated Chloe into the Snow-Cat Club. I don’t think she was impressed with the membership rite. When I dropped her into the snow on the deck she didn’t know what to do first, so she just stood there, paralyzed. Her little legs disappeared in the white stuff, and she looked like a kitty-slug. It didn’t take her long to start doing the hokey-pokey, though. Put one paw up, shake it violently, put it back down, try it with another. She finally eyed me with an “I thought you loved me” look on her face, and shot back into the house.

It’s letting up a little now. The flakes are getting bigger, but the sky doesn’t seem to be lightening up.

3 p.m.

I’ve been on the phone all afternoon. Had a long chat with Karen. Even though the Barons’ season is over, she’s been busy trying to coax season-ticketholders into renewing for another year despite the price hike.

Then Jaed called, from London. She said Mykonos didn’t feel right in the rain. That if she was going to be in a gloomy, wet, blustery place, it should be somewhere that made a little more sense. Hence, London. I guess Alex didn’t agree with her and stayed behind.

She mentioned “this gorgeous man” who relentlessly hit on her in the Frankfurt airport until she “finally told him to fuck off in three languages.” Then she kind of sighed, and asked, “Do you think I’m actually in love with Alex?” in a doomed voice. I laughed and said, “It’s not a death sentence, Jaed. It happens to us all.”

I wanted to ask if she’d talked with Nick, but couldn’t bring myself to do it. And she never volunteered any information. I think she was too wrapped up in missing Alex. It’s just as well.

Nick’s been on my mind so much today. Wouldn’t it have been fun to take a walk in the snow with him? Have a snowball fight. Kiss under the canopy of a fir tree.

And then I sit in front of the fireplace and wish him here. I want to make love to him with the fire as our only light and heat. I can feel his body under mine. If I close my eyes and really concentrate, my daydreaming fingers run along his skin and remember every muscle ridge and valley, every vein, and scar.

I wonder if I’ll ever feel this way about anyone else. I suppose it’s possible, but right now seems improbable.

I picked up the phone to call Mom, but have had such a hard time talking to her lately. There were times, while Nick was still in my life, I thought about telling Mom I’d found someone to love. I’m glad I didn’t. I know part of that relief is not having to listen to her tell me what I did wrong in our relationship, now that Nick’s gone. And she would’ve, even though she’d never met him; knew nothing about him, or – for that matter – me anymore.