South of Superior (21 page)

It was only when she heard a woodpecker—it must've been one of the huge pileateds she saw now and then, it was so loud—that she turned back and began to search the shoreline for the cabin Arbutus said might still be standing. The woodpecker seemed to say that this was not a ghostly, forgotten place, but simply a place that had changed over time. Life was going on there still.

 

 

Madeline found the cabin,
a low-slung building made of massive logs, around a curve in the shore of the vanished lake. In the years of neglect the cedar-shake roof had rotted, exposing the structure to the elements. She ran a hand over the logs and pushed open the front door, which hung by a broken hinge. The interior was nearly empty and the wide plank floor had begun to rot like the roof. All that was left of the furnishings were a couple of rusting metal bedsteads, some wooden cupboards hanging crooked off the wall, a rickety table, and a mammoth cookstove, coated with rust.

Her great-grandparents had lived here. Joe and Walter both had been born here.

She walked all around the cabin and the outbuildings—the remains of an outhouse and a few small sheds. Poked into every corner, investigated every inch of ground within strolling distance. She churned the pump handle Up and down Until water flowed from the rusty spout, touched the branch of a gnarled and broken old apple tree, looked off across the meadow that had once been a lake. Took her sketchbooks and pencils out of the little knapsack she'd brought and tried to draw it. With her eyes squinted, the swaying grasses looked like rippling water.

In her rambling she stumbled across a shallow pit behind the cabin. She poked through it and found a rusted metal ash bucket with the bottom missing, the spout of a thick white china pitcher, the delicate handle of a teacup, and a bunch of rusty tin cans. But better than any of this was a glass ink bottle stained indigo blue.

What words had been written with that ink? Household accounts, tonics, a diary, letters to family?—her
own
family, she realized with a start. If there had been letters or a diary or even a prosaic accounting book, they were written by her own people, by dear Walter's parents. Or by Joe. Standing beside this shell of a cabin so deep in the woods, she was willing for the first time to be impressed by the thought of them. What a life must have been lived here. Not a life for the weak. A hard life that might make you hard in return. Gladys was right, she didn't know anything about it. How could she judge people she had never known and could hardly imagine? They were hers, for better and worse, and they'd actually lived and worked in this very place. She put the ink bottle in her knapsack.

Eventually she took out the snack she'd packed, a cheese sandwich and an apple and a chocolate bar. She glanced at her watch when she finished eating—ten thirty already. She'd better go. She'd just take another ten minutes and soak the place in. She settled her head against her backpack, closed her eyes, and basked in the sun, listening to the buzzing of flies and calls of ravens and jays, the insistent hammering of the woodpecker. Smelled the pungent wild roses that were blooming all along the back wall of the cabin. She felt drowsy and relaxed, as happy as she'd been in a long time.

 

 

Madeline didn't know
what woke her. The shifting of the sun, probably. A shadow fell across her, the breeze picked Up a little, and suddenly she was wide awake, shocked that she'd dozed off. How
could
she have? She looked at her watch. Nearly eleven. If she hurried, she'd make it to work on time.

Things were going all right Until she hit the last stretch of water and sucking black muck. Maybe she wasn't paying close enough attention because she was worried about being late. She knew she was driving too fast. For whatever reason, she got stuck. Even with the four-wheel-drive button punched, she was stuck, deeper and deeper every minute, the muck swallowing the tires. Was the four-wheel drive even working? How were you supposed to know?

Madeline hit the button again and again, rocked the truck, felt it keep sinking and sinking.
No!
she yelled in frustration, but of course there was no one to hear. Finally in a great miraculous burst the truck slewed sideways and Madeline gave it a full stomp of gas, determined to get out. She did, but she had so little control in the slimy, sucking mud and was going so fast that the next thing she did was plow into a tree. The back end slid into the ruts again, and then the engine died.

 

 

Madeline dragged into
Garceau's at four o'clock. She hadn't bothered to go home to clean Up or change into her work shirt. She came in the kitchen door bedraggled, muddy, weary, and ill with apology and regret. Paul was swamped, chopping, tossing dough, spreading sauce, sprinkling cheese. She knew better than to interrupt him, but she couldn't wait to say what she had to.

“Paul, I am so sorry I'm late.”

His face was set and pale with anger and he didn't answer. She didn't blame him. She tied her apron on. “I can't begin to say how bad I feel, and I'll work for free for however long it takes to fix everything.”

His eyes flew Up at that.

“I really am so, so sorry.”

Paul pulled a finished pizza out of the oven and rang the bell. She was relieved he'd gotten someone to fill in—Katrina, probably, the most serious of the three Russian girls he'd hired originally. But it was Randi who appeared in the window, wearing a sky-blue
Garceau's Pizza
T-shirt. Madeline stared at her, feeling a stab of betrayal, which of course she had no right to. Randi glanced at Madeline but didn't break stride. “Thank you, sir,” she said in a jaunty way. She snapped another order Up on the wheel and grabbed the pizza. “Looks great, keep 'em coming.” She hurried away.

“Hey hey hey,” Madeline heard her say in her husky, suggestive voice. “Whose pizza is this, you know it's yours, honey, and don't tell me you're not ready.”

Madeline swiveled her gaze over to Paul. His look was murderous. “Randi's here, you can go.”

She ignored this, because of course she would stay. “I know this is bad timing and I apologize for that too, along with everything else, but the thing is, I had an accident with the truck. I will fix it, I promise, you don't even have to think about that.”

Paul stared at her for a long terrible moment and shook his head as if shaking off some thought or feeling, or
her
, and then snapped back to attention, spinning the wheel, reading the ticket, starting the next order.

“Paul?”

“Go.
Now
.”

“What? Of course I'm not going, it looks crazy.”

“
Now
you think of that?”

“It was an accident. I'm sorry, but I will fix it. I got here as soon as I could—”

“No.”

“What do you mean, no?”

“I mean no, as in go. You're done here.”

Madeline swallowed hard, staring at him. He ignored her. Finally she untied her apron and hung it back on the hook by the door and let herself out.

She went back
late that night, after he was closed. The fireworks were starting, huge blasts of light and sound and color over Desolation Bay. It was gorgeous and exciting, or would have been.
Happy Independence Day
, Madeline said to herself with a grim set to her chin as she walked toward Garceau's.

Paul wasn't watching the fireworks, either. He was in the alley behind the shop, staring at his truck. She had been able to drive it back to town, once the engine dried out. She'd walked out to the highway, where a guy driving a Hummer had come along. He'd driven back in with her and towed Paul's truck off the tree and then given it a try and sure enough, it started right Up. So that was one problem it didn't have. However. The chrome grille was crumpled and so was the hood, the air bags had gone off, the left mirror was broken, the driver's-side back end was dented. What a mess.

Madeline had showered and changed her clothes and tried to eat something but hadn't been able to. Her chest was sore where the air bag had hit her, her legs were still wobbly from having walked so far, and emotionally she was wrecked. But Paul looked even worse than she felt. He looked exhausted,
beyond
exhausted.

“I am so sorry,” she began again, walking slowly Up to him, one hand out at waist level, as if she was approaching an angry dog. She jammed her hands in her jeans pockets and came to a stop a few feet away. “I promise I will make this Up to you.”

“No,” he said, not looking at her.

“Paul, please. I am so sorry, but this was an accident, and it can be fixed.”

“Some things can't be fixed.”

She frowned. Of course it could be. “I'll repair the truck and I'll pay for whatever went wrong because I was late. I'm sure it was hectic, and I'm sorry. If there was a loss—”

He stared at her. “
If
there was a loss?”

“I'll make it up—”

“You can't.”

“Come on. I've never been late before, I won't be again.”

“No, you won't. You don't work here anymore.”

“But I just said I'll pay you whatever loss—”

“No. The loss is that I can't trust you. You think I'm going to stand around wondering if you're showing?”

“I Understand you're angry. I don't blame you. But I
will
make this Up to you.”

“You can't.”

“I had no intention of—”

“No one ever does.”

“Paul.” Her eyes beseeched him to relent a little.

He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “Just fix the truck.”

“I am more than willing to work for free for however long.”

“No. Fix the truck.”

“I wouldn't feel right taking a paycheck—”

He erupted then. “Did you not hear me? You don't work here anymore. You have no respect for this place. I depended on you.”

“But Randi was here—”

His face was full of disdain. “Oh, that's great. What if she hadn't been? What if she hadn't blown off her actual job at the bar to bail me out? You think that doesn't matter? You don't show, so then she doesn't show, and then Russel's screwed over at the Tip Top, and it's all so you can take some field trip. This isn't a holiday for Us.”

“I'm
sorry
. I didn't realize—”

“I don't have any margin for errors, and I can't have somebody around who doesn't respect that. And you don't. You can't. You have nothing at stake here.”

“Oh,” she said, feeling dizzy. Why had she assumed he'd forgive her? She recalled how immediately he'd fired Trisha for calling in sick back in June. “Okay.”

He nodded.

She fought back tears with a vengeance. “You'll have to let me know whatever it is your insurance company wants. My driver's license, a report? Just, I guess, call—”

“I can't make a claim, I only carry the minimum.”

Her heart plummeted further, which hadn't seemed possible. “But you're still making payments.”

“On a credit card.” Paul was again staring at the truck. “So it's not officially financed, so I can save on insurance.”

“So—”

“So I have to pay for this out of pocket,” he said with great and terrible patience.

Madeline swallowed. “Oh.”

“The really great thing about this is that I was pretty much taking it back to the dealer to trade it in for something cheaper, something I can actually afford. Especially after the compressor on the pop cooler blew today.”

“What?”

“The pop cooler. It died.”

“Just out of nowhere?” Madeline knew it was a stupid question the moment the words were out.

“That's how things go,” he half-shouted, spinning to face her. “One minute you're cruising along smooth, and the next minute all Hell's broken loose and you're screwed. You've gotten this far in life and never had to learn that? Lucky you.”

“Can the cooler be fixed?” she asked timidly.

His laugh was mirthless. “Sure. For, oh, eighteen, nineteen hundred, I can probably fix it. Or for two, two and a half grand, I can get a new one.”

“I'm sorry.”

Paul shook his head and headed for the back door of Garceau's. “I've got to go. I promised Greyson I'd watch at least the end of the fireworks with him. I'm not letting this spoil
every
body's Fourth.”

H
ello, Madeline,” Walter said with a big smile. His acceptance of her was so unquestioning that it was easy to feel the same way toward him, and she'd been to see him often since The Day. Two weeks now since she'd smashed Paul's truck. Walter at least was always glad to see her, but then he didn't know what she'd done, and could anyone blame her if this came as a relief? They settled into their rockers in the sunroom, and after a little while she told him she'd been to Stone Lake. Finally she could bear to think about it, the adventure that had started so well and ended so badly.