But when I was practically up at the truck, I heard her whisper my name and I turned.
Meet me tomorrow, she said.
Where?
My mom was inside the truck, waving at me, like I hadn’t seen her in a year.
At the state park, Cissy whispered, after lunch.
It was a good thing I put a seatbelt on when I got in the truck, cause I felt like I’d just fly away.
You look happy, Mom said when she turned onto the highway.
That’s what this feeling is, I guess.
Winona couldn’t sleep. Turning on the light in her bedroom, she slipped into her favorite pink terrycloth robe and went to the kitchen.
Nothing in the fridge appealed to her, so she made a cup of herbal tea and carried it outside. Leaning up to the railing, she stared out at the inky water. A slivered moon hung suspended above the invisible mountains, casting almost no light. After all her years in town she’d forgotten how dark it was among the trees and along the shore. If not for the water breathing along the sand there would be no sound at all.
It made her feel even more alone, all this quiet darkness. At her house on First Street, she often went onto her back porch in the evenings. There, she could sit in her glider and look out over the Canal House Bed and Breakfast and the beach park parking lot. Even in the dead of winter on a cold and frosty night, there was light and movement, and she was, however tangentially, a part of it.
Here, there was nothing. Just mountains unseen, black water, and distant stars.
“Hey, Winona.”
She turned toward the sound, trying to see him, but it wasn’t until he came closer, until he stepped onto the wooden deck, that she could make out more than his shape among the shadows. “Mark,” she said, uncertain of what to add.
“I saw your light come on through the trees.”
“I couldn’t sleep.”
He moved closer, stepping at last into the pool of light cast through the kitchen window. “Me, either.”
She could see now how disheveled he looked, how ill-put-together. Like a man who’d been pacing for hours, running a hand through what hair he had until it stood up in all different directions. His shirt was buttoned wrong, too. “Is something wrong?” she asked.
“My whole life is wrong.”
“I know that feeling.”
“Do you?”
“Sure,” she said quietly, putting her tea down on the table behind her. “I’m forty-three years old, Mark. I’ve never been married and it’s probably too late to have kids now. And you may have noticed that my weight is a problem. So, yeah, I know about life not being what you thought it would be.”
“I had such a great time with you tonight,” he said. “It freaked me out.”
“It’s okay. We have lots of time.”
He shook his head. “That’s the thing I’ve learned this past year. You think you have all the time in the world, but shit happens.”
“What are you saying?”
He moved closer. “I’m saying I want you, Winona.”
She felt a little thrill move through her, and as intoxicating as it was, being wanted, she couldn’t be completely swept away by it. Her body might be aching for his touch, but her brain was up and working, too. “You’re not ready,” she said.
“I know I’m not.”
“You could have denied it.”