Nights in Rodanthe

Eleven

Robert Torrelson sat at the aging rolltop desk in his living room, listening as his son boarded up the windows at the back of the house. In his hand was the note from Paul Flanner, and he was absently folding and unfolding it, still wondering at the fact that he had come.

He hadn't expected it. Though he'd written the request, he'd been sure that Paul Flanner would ignore it. Flanner was a high-powered doctor in the city, represented by attorneys who wore flashy ties and fancy belts, and none of them had seemed to give a damn about him or his family for over a year now. Rich city folk were like that; as for him, he was glad that he'd never had to live near people who pushed paper for a living and weren't comfortable if the temperature at work wasn't exactly seventy-two degrees. Nor did he like dealing with people who thought they were better than others because they had better schooling or more money or a bigger house. Paul Flanner, when he'd met him after the surgery, had struck him as that type of person. He was stiff and distant, and though he'd explained himself, the clipped way he'd spoken the words had left Robert with the feeling that he wouldn't lose a minute's sleep because of what had happened.

And that wasn't right.

Robert had lived a life with different values, values that had been honored by his father and grandfather and their grandfather before that. He could trace his family's roots in the Outer Banks back nearly two hundred years. Generation after generation, they'd fished the waters of Pamlico Sound since the times when the fish were so plentiful that a person could cast a single net and pull in enough fish to fill the bow. But all that had changed. Now there were quotas and regulations and licenses and big companies, all chasing fewer fish than there'd ever been. These days, when Robert went down to the boat, half the time he considered himself lucky if he caught enough to pay for the gas he'd needed.

Robert Torrelson was sixty-seven but looked ten years older. His face was weathered and stained, and his body was slowly losing the battle with time. There was a long scar that ran from his left eye to his ear. His hands ached with arthritis, and the ring finger on his right hand was missing from the time he'd got it caught in a winch while dragging in the nets.

But Jill hadn't cared about any of those things. And now Jill was gone.

On the desk was a picture of her, and Robert still found himself staring at it whenever he was alone in the room. He missed everything about her; he missed the way she rubbed his shoulders after he came in on cold winter evenings, he missed the way they used to sit together and listen to music on the radio while they sat on the porch out back, he missed the way she smelled after dabbing her chest with powder, an odor that was simple and clean, fresh like a newborn.

Paul Flanner had taken all that away from him. Jill, he knew, would still have been with him had she never gone to the hospital that day.

His son had had his turn. And now the time had come for his.

Adrienne made the short drive to town and pulled into the small gravel parking lot of the general store, breathing a sigh of relief to find that it was still open.

There were three cars out front parked haphazardly, each coated with a thin layer of salt. A couple of older men wearing baseball hats were standing out front, smoking and drinking coffee. They watched Adrienne as she got out of the car, and they stopped speaking; as she passed them on her way into the store, they nodded a greeting.

The store was typical of those in rural areas: a scuffed wooden floor, ceiling fans, shelves with thousands of various items packed close together. Near the register was a small barrel offering dill pickles for sale; next to that was another barrel containing roasted peanuts. In the rear was a small grill offering fresh cooked burgers and fish sandwiches, and though no one was behind the counter, the odor of fried food lingered in the air.

The ice machine was in the far rear corner, next to the refrigerated compartments containing beer and soda, and Adrienne headed that way. As she reached for the handle of the ice machine door, she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirrored door panel. She stopped for a moment, as if seeing herself through different eyes.

How long had it been, she wondered, since someone had found her attractive? Or someone she'd just met had wanted to kiss her? If someone had asked her those questions before she'd come here, she would have answered that neither of those things had happened since the day Jack had moved out. But that wasn't exactly true, was it? Not like this, anyway. Jack had been her husband, not a stranger, and since they'd dated for two years before they walked down the aisle, it was closer to twenty-three years since she'd encountered something like this.

Of course, had Jack not left, she could have lived with that knowledge and never thought twice about it; but here and now, she found that impossible. More than half her life had passed without the interest of an attractive man, and no matter how much she wanted to convince herself that her reasons for turning away had been based on common sense, she couldn't help but think that being out of practice for twenty-three years had something to do with it as well.

She was drawn to Paul, she couldn't deny that. It wasn't just that he was handsome and interesting, or even charming in his own quiet way. Nor was it just the fact that he'd made her feel desirable. No, it was his genuine desire to change--to be a better person than he had been--that she found most compelling. She'd known people like him before in her life--like physicians, attorneys were often notorious workaholics--but she had yet to come across someone who'd not only made the decision to change the rules that he'd always lived by, but was doing so in a way that most people would be terrified to contemplate.

There was, she decided, something noble in that. He wanted to fix the flaws he recognized in himself, he wanted to forge a relationship with his estranged son, he had come here because a stranger seeking redress from him had sent a note requesting it.

What kind of person did those things? What kind of strength would that take? Or courage? More than she had, she thought. More than anyone she knew, and as much as she wanted to deny it, she was gratified that someone like him had found her attractive.

As she reflected on these things, Adrienne grabbed the last two bags of ice and a Styrofoam cooler and carried it all to the register. After paying, she left the store and headed for the car. One of the elderly men was still sitting on the porch as she left, and as she nodded to him, she wore the odd expression of someone who had attended a wedding and a funeral on exactly the same day.

In her brief absence the sky had grown darker, and the wind cut past her as she stepped out of the car. It had begun to whistle as it moved around the Inn, sounding almost ghostlike, a spectral flute playing a single note. Clouds swirled and banded together, shifting in clumps as they passed overhead. The ocean was a sea of white tips, and the waves were rolling heavily past the high-water mark from the day before.

As she was reaching for the ice, Adrienne saw Paul come out from behind the gate.

"Did you get started without me?" she called out.

"No, not really. I was just making sure I could find everything." He motioned to the load. "Do you need a hand with that?"

Adrienne shook her head. "I've got it. It's not that heavy." She nodded toward the door. "But let me get started in there. Would you mind if I went into your room to close up the shutters?"

"No, go ahead. I don't mind."

Inside, Adrienne set the cooler next to the refrigerator, cut open the bags of ice with a steak knife, and poured them in. She pulled out some cheese, the fruit that had been left over from breakfast, and the chicken from the night before, stacking it with the ice, thinking it wasn't a gourmet meal, but good enough in case nothing else was available. Then, noting that there was still room, she grabbed one of the bottles of wine and put it on top, feeling a forbidden thrill at the thought of sharing the wine with Paul later.

Forcing the feeling away, she spent the next few minutes making sure all the windows were closed and latching the shutters from the inside on the bottom floor. Upstairs, she took care of

the empty guest rooms first, then made her way to the room where he'd slept.

After unlocking the door, she stepped in, noticing that Paul had made his own bed. His duffel bags were folded beside the chest of drawers; the clothes he'd worn earlier that morning had already been put away, and his loafers were on the floor near the wall, toes together and facing out. Her children, she thought to herself, could learn something from him about the virtues of keeping things neat in their rooms.

In his bathroom, she closed up a small window, and as she did, she spied the soap dish and brush he used to create lather lying next to his razor. Both were near the sink, next to a bottle of aftershave. Unbidden, an image came to her of him standing over the sink that morning; and as she pictured him there, some instinct told her that he'd wanted her beside him.

She shook her head, feeling strangely like a teenager poking through a parent's bedroom, and headed to the window beside his bed. As she was closing it up, she saw Paul carrying one of the rockers off the porch to store beneath the house.

He moved as if he were twenty years younger. Jack wasn't like that. Over the years, Jack had grown heavy around the midsection from one too many cocktails, and his belly tended to shimmy if he engaged in any sort of physical activity.

But Paul was different. Paul, she knew, wasn't like Jack in any way, and it was there, while upstairs in his room, that Adrienne first felt a vague sense of anxious anticipation, something akin to what a high roller might feel when hoping for a lucky roll of the dice.

Beneath the house, Paul was getting things ready.

The hurricane guards were corrugated aluminum, two and a half feet wide and six feet high, and all had been labeled with a permanent marker as to which window they protected on the house. Paul began lifting them from the stack and setting them aside, putting each group together, mentally outlining what he needed to do.

He was finishing up just as Adrienne came back down. Thunder sounded in the distance, rumbling long and low over the water. The temperature, she noticed, was beginning to drop. "How's it going?" she asked. Her tone, she thought, was unfamiliar, like another woman was speaking the words.

"It's easier than I thought it would be," he said. "All I have to do is match up the grooves and slip them into the braces, then drop these clips in."

"What about the wood to hold it in place?"

"That's not too bad, either. The joints are already up, so all I have to do is put the two-by-fours in their supports and hammer a couple of nails. Like Jean said, it's a one-person job."

"Do you think it'll take long?"

"Maybe an hour. You can wait inside if you'd like."

"Isn't there something I can do? To help, I mean?"

"Not really. But if you'd like, you could keep me company."

Adrienne smiled, liking the invitation in his voice. "You've got yourself a deal."

For the next hour or so, Paul moved from one window to the next, slipping the guards into place as Adrienne kept him company. As he worked, he could feel Adrienne's eyes on him, and he felt the same awkwardness he'd felt after she'd let go of his hand earlier that morning.

Within a few minutes a light rain started, then it began to fall with more intensity. Adrienne moved closer to the house to keep from getting wet, but she found that it didn't help much in the swirling wind. Paul neither sped up nor slowed down; the rain and wind didn't seem to affect him at all.

Another window covered, then the next. Sliding in the guards, dropping the hooks, moving the ladder. By the time the windows were done and Paul had started on the braces, there was lightning over the water and the rain was driving hard. And still Paul worked. Each nail was sunk with four blows, coming regularly, as if he'd worked in carpentry for years.

Despite the rain, they talked; Adrienne noticed that he kept the conversation light, far from anything that could be construed the wrong way. He told her about some of the repairs he and his father had done on the farm and that he might be doing a bit of this in Ecuador as well, so that it was good to get the feel of it again.

As Adrienne listened to him talk of this and that, she could tell that Paul was giving her the space he thought she needed, that he thought she wanted. But as she watched him, she suddenly knew that keeping her distance was the furthest thing from her mind.

Everything about him made her long for something she had never known: the way he made what he was doing look easy, the shape of his hips and legs in his jeans as he stood on the ladder above her, those eyes that always reflected what he was thinking and feeling. Standing in the pouring rain, she felt the pull of the person he was, and the person she realized she wanted to be.

By the time he finished, his sweatshirt and jacket were soaked and his face had paled with the cold. After storing the ladder and the tools beneath the house, he joined Adrienne on the porch. She'd run her hand through her hair, pulling it back from her face. The soft curls were gone, and so was any evidence of makeup. In their place was a natural beauty, and despite the heavy jacket she was wearing, Paul could sense the warm, feminine body beneath it.

It was then, as they were standing under the overhang, that the storm unleashed its full fury. A long, streaking lightning bolt connected sea to sky, and thunder echoed as if two cars had collided on the highway. The wind gusted, bending the limbs of trees in a single direction. Rain blew sideways, as if trying to defy gravity.

For a moment they simply watched, knowing that another minute in the rain wouldn't matter. And then, finally giving in to the possibility of what might come next, they turned and headed back into the house without a word.

Twelve

Wet and cold, they each went to their rooms. Paul slipped out of his clothes and turned on the faucet, waiting until the steam was billowing from behind the curtain before he hopped into the shower. It took a few minutes for his body to warm up, and though he lingered far longer than usual and got dressed slowly, Adrienne hadn't reappeared by the time he went back downstairs.

With the windows covered, the house was dark, and Paul turned on the light in the sitting room before heading to the kitchen for a cup of coffee. The rain beat furiously on the hurricane guards, making the house echo with vibration. Thunder rolled continuously, sounding both close and far away at the same time, like sounds in a busy train station. Paul brought the cup of coffee back to the sitting room. Even with the lamp turned on, the blackened windows made it feel as though evening had settled in, and he moved toward the fireplace.

Paul opened the damper and added three logs, stacking them to allow for airflow, then threw in some kindling. He nosed around for the matches and found them in a wooden box on the mantel. The odor of sulfur hung in the air when he struck the first match.

The kindling was dry and caught quickly; soon he heard a sound like the crinkling of paper as the logs began to catch. Within a few minutes the oak was giving off heat, and Paul moved the rocker closer, stretching his feet toward the fire.

It was comfortable, he thought, getting up from his chair, but not quite right. He crossed the room and turned off the light.

He smiled. Better, he thought. A lot better.

In her room, Adrienne was taking her time. After they'd reentered the house, she'd decided to take Jean's advice and began filling the tub. Even when she turned off the faucet and slipped in, she could hear water running through the pipes and knew that Paul was still upstairs showering. There was something sensual in that realization, and she let the feeling wash over her.

Two days ago, she couldn't have imagined this sort of thing happening to her. Nor could she have imagined that she'd be feeling this way about anyone, let alone someone she'd just met. Her life didn't allow for such things, not lately, anyway. It was easy to blame the kids or tell herself that her responsibilities didn't leave enough time for something like this, but that wasn't completely true. It also had to do with who she'd become in the aftermath of her divorce.

Yes, she felt betrayed and angry at Jack; everyone could understand th

ose things. But being left for someone else carried other implications, and as much as she tried not to dwell on them, there were times when she couldn't help it. Jack had rejected her, he'd rejected the life they had lived together; it was a devastating blow to her as a wife and mother, but also as a woman. Even if, as he'd claimed, he hadn't planned on falling in love with Linda and that it had just happened, it wasn't as if he simply rode the wave of emotions without making conscious decisions along the way. He had to have thought about what he was doing, he had to have considered the possibilities when he started spending time with Linda. And no matter how much he tried to soft-pedal what had happened, it was as if he'd told Adrienne not only that Linda was better in every way, but that Adrienne wasn't even worth the time and effort it would take to fix whatever it was he thought was wrong with their relationship.

How was she supposed to react to that sort of total rejection? It was easy for others to say that it had nothing to do with her, that Jack was going through a midlife crisis, but it still had an effect on the person she thought she was. Especially as a woman. It was hard to feel sensual when you didn't feel attractive, and the ensuing three years without a date only served to underscore her feeling of inadequacy.

And how had she dealt with that feeling? She'd devoted her life to her children, her father, the house, her job, the bills. Consciously or subconsciously, she'd stopped doing those things that would give her the opportunity to think about herself. Gone were the relaxing conversations with friends on the telephone, or walks or baths, or even working in her garden. Everything she did had a purpose, and though she believed she was keeping her life orderly in this way, she now realized that it had been a mistake.

It hadn't helped, after all. She was busy from the moment she woke until the moment she went to bed, and because she'd robbed herself of any possibility of rewards, there was nothing to look forward to. Her daily routine was a series of chores, and that was enough to wear anyone down. By giving up the little things that make life worthwhile, all she'd done, she suddenly realized, was to forget who she really was.