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That did draw a rise from him. Lowering the paper, he said, “I can’t take you away for two weeks.”

“I’m not asking you to take me.” That was the last thing she wanted. “I know you’re busy. That’s why I said I’d go with Marcy.”

He stared at her for a minute before returning to the paper. “I’ll think about it.”

“I really want to go.”

“I said I’ll think about it.”

“It’ll be good for you, too. You won’t have to worry that I’m hanging around here with nothing to do.” As if he would. “I really want to go.”

“Say it a few more times,” he informed her, “and the answer will be no.”

She didn’t say it again, and in the days that followed, she hoped against hope that he’d say yes. He kept her in limbo until the Wednesday before her vacation was to begin, when she couldn’t hold back any longer. “Have you decided?”

“About what?”

“Timiny Cove. My vacation.”

“Oh.” He was getting ready to go out, adjusting his bow tie in the gilt-edged mirror that stood in the front hall. He was in a good mood, looking forward to the evening. Pam had been hoping that might help. “I’ve decided,” he said. “I think you should stay here. Hettie wants some time off, so I’ll need Marcy around to cook.”

Her heart sank. “Did Hettie say she had to go next week?”

“I said she could go next week.”

“Then let me go to Maine the week after.”

“She’ll be gone for two weeks.”

“She never takes two weeks.”

“Well, she is this time, and don’t look at me that way. Your interests aren’t the only ones in this house. Hettie works hard—a lot harder than you do. She deserves the time. Do you honestly think that everyone’s schedule should revolve around yours?”

“No, but Hettie is flexible. She doesn’t have family. When she takes a vacation, she usually takes a long bus ride to somewhere she’s never been. She wouldn’t care when she did it.”

“Well, I do,” He reached for his topcoat. “And she’s doing it next week.” Opening the front door, he stepped out.

Pam caught it before it shut and called after him, “Can I take a bus?”

“No.” He trotted down the steps.

“When will I get to Maine?”

“When I say so,” he called and disappeared into a waiting taxi.

That March vacation was the most miserable of Pam’s life. Her emotions were raw, made worse by memories of past March breaks. She tried to keep busy. She read a lot, doodled and sketched a lot, and several times she dragged Marcy to the movies with her. Once she went shopping with Hillary, who had been good enough to volunteer when Pam told John that last year’s spring clothes didn’t fit.

It rained on and off through most of the vacation, so Pam couldn’t go out much. She did spend one day under an umbrella window-shopping on Newbury Street. But the best day was the one she spent at the museum. It was peaceful there. Thanks to Patricia’s attempts to make her a perfectly cultured young lady, she knew enough about the masters to appreciate their work. For a time, they diverted her mind.

John was out often. Of the fourteen days Hettie was gone, he was home for dinner only five times. Knowing that he could as easily have eaten out those five nights and done without Marcy, Pam was livid. She avoided him when he was at home, fearing repercussions if she vented her anger on him. But the strain built up inside her. She was grateful when the vacation ended and she could immerse herself in school again. Being busy helped. But the pain was still there, deep down inside, and the longing for Timiny Cove went on.

Then John threw a party. It was his first as master of the townhouse and was a coming-out party of sorts. At least, that was what Hillary told Pam in a moment of pique. “He’s invited everyone who’s anyone. It’s his way of announcing that he’s a big man now that he’s the head of St. George Mining. He’s out to impress. Even hired someone to make all the arrangements. I told him I could do it, but he said I didn’t know how. Is that fair, Pam? I have good taste, and I’m competent. So I haven’t had the experience planning parties. How will I ever get the experience if I don’t try it now and again?”

Pam loved Hillary. She couldn’t understand why she wanted to hang around John in the first place, but given that she did, Pam hurt for how he treated her. “You’d arrange a great party. I liked what you did on Valentine’s Day.” Hillary had invited John and a few friends from the
Globe
to dinner at her small Back Bay apartment. Since one of those friends had asked to bring his daughter, Hillary had insisted that Pam come, too. The apartment looked adorable, the food was delicious, and the fresh flowers that filled the place were arranged with an eye for art—not that John appreciated that, but Pam did and was lavish with praise.

What John had thought of the rest of the party, Pam didn’t know. He never shared his feelings about Hillary with her, although she put in good words as often as possible. She liked it when Hillary was around and wouldn’t have minded at all if John decided to marry her.

Marriage wasn’t the issue then, however. The issue was the party he was throwing, for which he had assigned Hillary the role of passing through the crowd making sure that everyone had access to the bar, the wine tray, and the caterer’s spread.

Pam was beginning to wonder what her own role would be. She didn’t know if she was even invited. John hadn’t said anything about buying a new dress, and she would need one, she knew.

A week before the party, he settled the matter in a way that instantly banished all thought of buying a new dress. “I want you and Marcy in Timiny Cove for the weekend. This place will be a madhouse before the party. You’ll only be in the way.”

The fact that he didn’t want her at the party might have hurt if the alternative weren’t so welcome. She counted the days until she could leave, spent every free minute thinking of what she was going to do first, and second, and then after that. She didn’t share the extent of her excitement with John lest he realize how much it meant to her and cancel the trip out of pure malice. She tiptoed her way around him through the course of that week, trying to be invisible, not giving him the slightest cause for anger.

Between the excitement and the fear, she barely made it through the week. She didn’t sleep well, didn’t do well in school. On Thursday night, when she felt certain he’d say something, he didn’t. He wasn’t home when she ran in from school on Friday afternoon, and within thirty minutes she and Marcy had the car packed and were off.

Not until they were out of the city and on the highway headed north did Pam feel safe. She relaxed back in her seat. The excitement was there. Increasingly, though, it wasn’t the only feeling. She remembered the last time she’d been north, when they had buried Eugene. So much had happened since, and it all came back—the fear, the grieving, the anger, the worry, the loneliness. By the time she and Marcy arrived in Timiny Cove, she felt choked by it all.

Running into the house, which Deenie kept open and fresh, she dashed to her room and changed into jeans and the old shirt her father had given her to use as a paint smock years before. It wasn’t as big on her as it once had been, but under its rainbow of spatters, it was loved. Back downstairs, she took a twill jacket of his from the closet. It smelled old and familiar.

“Pammy?” Marcy joined her in the hall.

“I have to go out.”

“Deenie left dinner. I could heat it.”

“A little later?” Pam asked. She swallowed against the hurt in her chest. “Maybe you should visit your mom.”

“I’ll wait here for you.”

“Don’t, Marcy. I need some time. Visit your mother. I’ll feel better that way.”

Marcy hesitated. “You sure?”

Pam could only nod. In the next instant, she was out the door and running down the street. It was suppertime in Timiny Cove. Those few people who were still in their yards or on their porches waved as she ran past, but she didn’t stop. She ran to vent the anguish she felt inside, ran on and on, not caring that her hair came free of its ribbon or that the ribbon floated to the ground on a gust of evening air. She didn’t feel the coolness, didn’t feel a thing but the need to keep running and running and running.

By the time she reached Cutter’s she was out of breath but no more peaceful than she’d been before. Banging on the door, she yelled, “Cutter?” She waited, panting, never quite standing still, before banging again. “Cutter!”

When he didn’t answer, she sat on his front step, pressed herself to the rail post, hugged her knees to her chest, and waited. She didn’t consider the possibility that he might be off doing something private and adult on a Friday night, that he might not be back until late, that he might not be back until morning or even the one after that. She just pressed herself to the rail post, hugged her knees to her chest, and waited.

It wasn’t long before she heard the roar of his cycle. She stood. He slowed the instant he saw her. Barely taking his eyes from her, he parked the cycle under a shelter by the house. Scooping up a brown paper sack, he came to where she stood. He didn’t speak, simply looked, taking in each of her features one at a time, until his eyes met hers.

Pam felt the same choking sensation she’d experienced earlier, the crowd of emotions, so long stifled, now gathered and working their way into her chest and throat. She tried her best to produce a smile, but there was desperation in her high and broken voice. “Take a walk with me, Cutter?”

His fingers grazed her cheek. “You bet.” Setting the paper sack on the porch by the door, he took her hand and led her around his cabin and into the woods.

She knew the way well; they’d walked it many times in the past. But she held tight to his hand and let him lead. Only when they reached the stream did she let go, moving to the water’s edge, squatting. She felt Cutter’s presence beside her. Something about his solidity and his warmth was so genuine, so strong, so like Eugene’s that everything she’d tried so hard to keep inside for so very long filled up and overflowed. Tucking her face tight against her knees, she began to cry.

Cutter murmured something, but the sound was lost, just beyond the realm of her misery. Then he put his arms around her and, jacket and all, drew her close to give her the comfort she’d been wanting and needing. He didn’t speak, didn’t tell her that she shouldn’t cry. He hugged her more tightly when the sobs came faster, stroked her hair when they eased, pressed her face to his chest when low, mournful moans came in their stead.

In time, her hands relaxed their grip on his shirt. She sniffled but didn’t pull away. With her cheek flush to his chest, she whispered, “I miss him, Cutter. I miss him so much.”

He scooped a swirl of hair from her cheek and tucked it behind her ear. “I know. I do, too.”

She’d guessed that, which was probably why she had needed so badly to see him. “In Boston, there’s just this awful emptiness when I think of him.” She took a hiccuping breath. “I thought it would be better here, but when we were driving up today, I kept remembering all the times I knew he’d be waiting for me. Then we drove through the center of town, and everywhere I looked he was there. Only he wasn’t. The house was just the same, but so different, and I thought I’d die if I didn’t find you. I ran through town like I was crazy. That’s what people must have thought.”

“Nah. They’d never think that. They love you.”

“They loved Daddy.”

“They miss him, too.”

Her thoughts flew back to the day of the funeral, when so many of those people had come out to say goodbye. Remembering their faces, remembering the huge coffin and the way it had disappeared into the ground, she started crying again. “I’m sorry,” she whispered between sobs.

“Don’t be.” He sounded as distressed as she felt. “You need this. So do I. It helps me with all I’m feeling myself.”

“You hurt, too?”

“I loved your daddy,” he said, and there was a sudden fierceness in his voice. “He did more for me than any other person on this earth ever did. I loved him like I’d’a loved my own daddy if he’d been worth a dime—” His voice broke.

Pam held tighter to him until she felt she was in control, but even then she didn’t pull back. Cutter’s heartbeat was the most reassuring thing she’d heard in four months.

After a time, he asked about Patricia, and she told him. She also told him about John and how he was in charge of everything, and about Hillary and how good she’d been, and about school and her friends and Marcy. When she asked, Cutter told her about things on the mountain and how they’d tightened under John’s command. He told her about her old friends, who was doing what and how.

By that time they were facing each other in the dark, no longer touching but closer than ever. “What are we going to do, Cutter?” she whispered.

“We’ll go on. That’s what he’d have wanted. We’ll go on and do the best we can.”

“But it’s so hard sometimes. Sometimes I just want to yell and scream, I get so angry. It isn’t fair, all that’s happened. It isn’t fair that Daddy died, or that my mother’s in a hospital, or that I’m stuck with John. Life shouldn’t be like that.”

“But it is, and it’s the strong ones who survive. You’re a strong one, Pam. You’ll do fine.”

“But it hurts so.”

“I know.” He pulled her close for a final minute, before standing and drawing her up. “I’d better give you a ride home.”