God, he looked haggard even as he slept.
Frankie shut off the light on the bureau.
“Do you love him?” Alex asked in the darkness.
She gasped. “I didn’t know you were awake.”
“You think I can sleep?”
“You drank enough.”
Alex cursed softly. “Not nearly.”
Frankie walked over to the bed and sat down carefully on the edge. “Is there anything I can get you?”
“Stop asking me that, okay? It makes me feel like a cripple. Besides, what I want I can’t have.”
Frankie smiled sadly. She and Alex had always had quick tempers and she knew exactly how he was feeling right now. His skin was probably itching for her to leave him alone.
“Well, do you?” her brother demanded. “Love that guy?”
“I don’t know.” Actually, she did. But she couldn’t say the words out loud.
“He’s not bad, you know.”
She laughed. “Now there’s a ringing endorsement.”
“I like the way he takes care of you.”
“Me, too.” She took a deep breath. “But he’s leaving soon. Going back to New York. He’s want to open his own restaurant.”
“You going with him?”
“God, no. Who would run this place?”
“Then he should stay here with you.” Alex’s voice was biting with disapproval.
“He has a right to follow his dream.”
“He’s a fool.”
She glared into the dark. “How can you of all people say that? You left Saranac because what you wanted couldn’t be found here. Why can’t he do the same?”
“Because you’re my sister.”
“And I was your sister back when Mom and Dad died, too. That didn’t stop you then, did it?” She slapped her hand over her mouth. “I’m sorry, Alex. I didn’t mean—”
“It’s okay. I deserved that. And more.”
They were silent for a while. He shifted on the bed and grunted.
“I’m so damn sorry about what happened,” he said softly.
She put her hand on his arm. “But the Coast Guard said the accident wasn’t your fault—”
“No, about you staying behind all those years ago and taking care of Joy and Grand-Em. I didn’t give you a choice. I took off and left you to clean everything up and it wasn’t fair. That’s why I want Nate to stay. So someone can take care of you for a change.”
Her breath caught.
“I want you to know something, Frankie. You did a great job raising Joy. Mom and Dad would have been so proud of you. Not surprised, just proud.”
“Thank you,” she whispered as she started to cry.
Alex cleared his throat as he moved his arm away from her touch. “Anyway.”
She sniffled. “I’m so glad you said something. I—”
“You better go to your man, now. You should enjoy him while you have him,” he said gruffly. “Although I still think he’s a fool for leaving.”
“Alex—”
“Go on. I’m tired.”
She wiped her tears away and stood up. “Okay, I’m leaving.”
As she shut the door, she thought that Alex was as Grand-Em had become. Every once in a while, you’d get a glimpse at what was inside.
But it never lasted long enough.
Late the following afternoon, Nate wiped plaster dust out of his eyes as he got off the stepladder and put down the crowbar. He’d finished removing the last of the water-damaged sections of Sheetrock from the rafters. With a clear path made, a fresh ceiling could be put up the minute those new pipes were installed.“Excuse me, Chef?”
Nate turned around and looked at Henry. The boy was with his mother and dressed in real clothes, not the bathing suit and life jacket that had been his uniform of late.
“Hey, bud. What’s up?”
Since their conversation on the dock, the kid had managed to corner him two more times. They’d covered vegetables while on a tour of Frankie’s garden and then bread-making.
“We’re leaving.” Henry marched forward, holding out an envelope. “I wanted to give this to you so you could remember me. We’re coming next year, and even though your kitchen’s ruined now, I want to see you when I come back so we can sit on the dock again. Because you never did finish telling me about chickens, you know, and I really should know about them if I’m going to go to cooking school like you did and wear a big tall hat…”
Nate took the envelope and glanced at the boy’s mother. She smiled and mouthed the words, thank you for being his friend.
“…and my dad said it’s only about three hundred miles to the city so you could come visit us if you wanted to…”
As the chatter continued, Nate realized he was going to miss the kid.
“…and that’s all I have to say about that.” Henry put his hands on his hips. “So can I have a hug now?”
Nate swallowed. And then carefully put the envelope on the counter. He knelt down and opened his arms, not sure what to expect. Henry, however, was an old hat at the hug thing. He launched himself like a bottle rocket into the chest that was being offered and grabbed onto Nate’s neck so hard Nate saw stars.
Henry pulled back. “See you next summer.”
And then he marched over to his mother, took her hand, and led her out the door.
Nate let himself fall back onto the floor.
A moment later, he reached up for the envelope. Inside was a black-and-white photograph of Henry and him in the garden. Nate was pointing over the boy’s shoulder to a tomato plant and Henry was looking up gravely. One of Henry’s parents must have taken it, though Nate had never noticed because keeping up with that kid required a lot of concentration.
After staring at the image for a long time, Nate took the picture and put it to his chest.
In the distance, he heard the phone ring and Frankie’s voice as she picked up in her office. She’d just returned from Albany. The gemologist had been out that morning, but the jeweler’s assistant had promised her an answer from the man soon.
“Nate! It’s for you.”
He put the picture back into the envelope so it was safe and went to her office. After giving her a quick kiss on the mouth, he picked up the receiver.
Spike got right to the point. “Change in plan, Walkman. Evidently, I talked Tamale’s owners into selling on my own. They’re putting the place on the market tomorrow at noon and I’m at our lawyer’s right now. What did the bank say we could do, outside limit?”
Nate rattled off the numbers for a down payment and final purchase price, knowing them by heart. As he talked, he was aware that Frankie was scribbling on a sheet of paper, trying to look disinterested.
When he was finished, Spike read the figures back. “Do I have this right?”
“Wait,” Nate blurted.
“What did I screw up?”
There was a tense silence. Nate had a sour taste in his mouth, like he’d chewed tin. His stomach was on fire.
“Nate? What’s the problem?” When he didn’t answer, Spike’s voice grew frustrated. “What’s going on? This is exactly what we’ve been waiting for and the damn thing’s going to go fast. I’ll fax the papers to you so you can review and sign them and then first thing tomorrow our lawyer’s going to put the bid in. We need to be on the ball here.”
“I know.” So why did he feel deflated?
“Are we going to do this thing or what?”
Nate forced himself to speak. “Yeah. Let’s do it.”
He hung up and found himself staring at Frankie’s hand as it gripped the pen she’d been moving in aimless circles. Her knuckles were white.
“I hope you get the place,” she said brightly as she looked up. “I know you’re going to be a huge success.”
But her eyes didn’t meet his. They were focused over his shoulder, and when he glanced behind him, he saw what she was looking at.
It was the picture of her family together, taken all those years ago.
Frankie snuck out of the house an hour later. Nate was busy getting faxes off the machine and reviewing his offer. He’d looked up when she told him she was going out. He’d wanted to know where she was headed and she told him she wasn’t sure, she’d just wanted some air.Except she knew exactly where she was going. And she wanted to go there alone.
She crossed Route 22 and walked into the woods, picking up the dirt road. When the trailhead appeared to the left, she stayed in her tire groove as it curved in the opposite direction. When the cemetery’s entrance appeared, she faltered briefly, the sight of all the gravestones chilling her. But she forced herself to keep going, stepping forward and walking around the gate. Inside, the grass under foot was long, ready for a mowing.
Her parents’ headstones were over to the left and she went to them slowly. Joy’s flowers had long wilted and the pink taffeta bow had collapsed in on itself. Frankie picked up the bouquet, stripped off the bow and tossed the dead flowers into the bushes.
While she tucked the ribbon into her pocket, she read the inscription on her father’s marker. It was a relief to find she didn’t feel like screaming at him. She was sad and she missed him, but she was too distraught to yell.
Nate was leaving, her heart was breaking, and what she was looking for from the slate headstones, what she wanted from the cool quiet of the place, was peace. Peace with her decision to stay when part of her wanted to go. Peace with the sacrifice she was making.
She looked at her mother’s stone and reached down to brush off some of the memorial hemlock’s needles from the top.
Maybe she’d also come up because of what Alex had said to her the night before. The idea that her parents would have been proud of her was a balm of sorts. And Alex, though he didn’t say a lot, always spoke the truth.
Before she knew what she was doing, she sat down in the grass and leaned back against the hemlock. Its trunk was strong, supporting her weight easily while she stared at her parents’ graves.
She took deep breaths in spite of the ache in her heart. And after a while, a kind of calm came. There would be no peace, she realized. Not without Nate in her life. But there was relief to be had that White Caps was safe for at least another year or two. Alex would be able to recover at home. Grand-Em would have the continuity with her past that helped preserve what little of her sanity was left. And Joy wouldn’t have to go out and get some office job to support herself. She could continue to design dresses and work with the fabrics she loved so much.
And as for her, Frankie thought. What would she have?
Her family.
They’d been enough for her before she’d known Nate. And they would have to suffice now, too. Because as much as she loved him, she couldn’t give up her sister and her brother and her grandmother and her home and the place she loved to live in just for a man who was only “emotionally attached.”
If he’d loved her, things might have been different.
But he’d never said the words and she wasn’t about to ask. That was just too much like begging for her to stomach.
Besides, if you had to pose the question, chances were you weren’t going to like the answer.
The next morning, Nate woke up alone. He’d overslept after having tossed and turned for most of the night. The bid that he and Spike had put together was a good one and he should have been thrilled. But triumph was not what had kept him up.He swung his legs over the side of the mattress and looked out at the water. It was another crystal clear day, an early harbinger of fall’s arrival. Looking at the cloudless blue sky, he thought of Frankie saying that she’d found herself in the seasons of Saranac Lake.
He could see why.
When he went downstairs, he looked for her and found her in her office. She smiled at him, but her eyes were vacant. This was not a surprise. Ever since the call from Spike had come in yesterday, she’d been pulling away by inches and then feet. She’d even stayed on her side of the bed last night.