The Snow Falcon (11 page)

“The way I heard it,” Coop said, “it wasn’t exactly like that. He did shoot some guy and hold his wife and daughter hostage, though.” “And you know what?” Julie said, her voice rising with self-righteous indignation. “It was only six years ago, and already he’s out of prison. Can you believe that? And he’s living here. I mean, it shouldn’t be allowed. People like that, they ought to lock them up forever, I think.”

“He spent the last few years in a psychiatric unit,” Coop corrected. “I guess they decided he was okay.”

“Come on, Coop,” Craig said. “You know what these freaking doctors are like. They let all kinds of people back on the streets just so they can go and kill somebody else. I mean, the guy shot somebody, for chrissakes! How do we know he isn’t gonna do it again someday?” Coop shrugged. “He’s served his term. We can’t lock people up for something they might do.”

“It doesn’t mean we have to have the guy living in our own backyard.”

Coop held up his hands. “Hey, I don’t like it any more than you do.”

Susan shook her head. “I can’t believe I’m hearing this. I’m not condoning whatever it is he did, but if he had some kind of breakdown or something, we can’t hold that against him for the rest of his life.” The others looked at her in silence, and she knew what they were thinking: that she was sympathetic because of Jamie, because he had been seeing a psychiatrist. But that had nothing to do with it.

“I met him,” she said. “He came over the other day, and he seemed

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like just a regular kind of guy.” She wasn’t even sure why she’d said it, distorting the truth like that, making out that she was so different from the rest of them, and she felt another twinge of guilt.

“You didn’t say anything,” Coop said.

“There was nothing to say. He just came over to say hello.” She felt a surge of irritation that Coop should assume she had to report to him everything that happened. He didn’t answer, just looked over her head.

“Excuse me.” Susan put her glass down on the bar and made her way back to the rest rooms, wishing she hadn’t said anything. She should have just kept quiet. Inside, she looked at herself in the mirror. Her eyes were blazing angrily. She rummaged in her bag and started vigorously brushing her hair. Behind her, the door pushed open. Linda Kowalski came in and grinned when she saw her.

“Having a good time?”

Susan made a face. “Don’t ask. I didn’t know you were here.”

“We were going to come over, but I saw Julie and Craig join you. I didn’t want to interrupt.”

“Thanks a lot,” Susan said. She stopped brushing her hair while Linda lit a cigarette. “That woman just gets to me sometimes.”

“Are you eating with them?”

“God, I hope not.”

Linda raised her eyebrows. “So it’s just you and the good policeman again.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Susan said.

“Whoa. It was just an observation.”

“I’m sorry. I guess I’m on edge. There seems to be this idea that people have that Coop and I are more than just friends.”

Linda met Susan’s eye in the mirror, a skeptical slant to her look. “This is new.”

“Meaning?”

“The ‘just friends’ part. You think Coop sees it that way?”

Susan sighed. “I don’t know what to think. I don’t know how this happened without me noticing it. I didn’t mean to encourage Coop to get the wrong idea. Do you think I did?”

“By dating him? Having him over to supper?” Linda shook her head, smiling. “Of course not.”

“I wasn’t dating him,” Susan pointed out. “He just offered to take me out a few times, that’s all.” She could see Linda remained un-

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convinced. “That’s not true, even I know that. It just seems like this thing has crept up on me. I’m not interested in any man in that way.”

“You could do worse.”

“I know. I like Coop. I mean, he’s been good to us, to Jamie and me. I just don’t feel ready.”

“You know that as far as this town is concerned, you two are as good as married, don’t you?”

“What?”

“What did you think?” Linda took her friend’s hand. “Why else do you think the guys around here aren’t swarming over you like bees around honey? It’s because of Coop.” She paused, letting what she’d said sink in. “Are you sure it’s such a bad thing, Susan? Are you planning to stay by yourself forever?”

“I’m not by myself. I have Jamie. Anyway, it’s not something I even think about. I’m not in a hurry to find myself a man.”

“Don’t wait too long, that’s all I can say. And what about Jamie, since you mention him? I mean, don’t you want more kids? Don’t wait until he’s too old to be bothered with his own brothers and sisters.”

Susan squeezed back on Linda’s hand. She knew how much Linda and Pete had wanted children, and that they’d never been able to despite all the treatments they’d undergone. It was such an unfair world sometimes, Susan thought.

She really hadn’t meant to encourage Coop, but if she was really truthful, she must have known what would happen. Maybe her holding back had nothing to do with him at all, maybe it was just that she was caught up in the past. She still missed David. She thought about him a lot, finding herself at odd times disbelieving that he was gone. She still expected him to walk through the door at the end of the day. Then, of course, there was Jamie. How could she think about anything else, really, while Jamie occupied so much of her thoughts?

“Can I just say one thing?” Linda said. “Coop’s a good man, and there aren’t too many of them in this town. Sometimes we don’t appreciate the things we have until it’s too late. Don’t write him off yet.”

“I’m not writing him off. I promise,” Susan said. “I guess I should get back.”

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“Say hi to Coop for me,” Linda said, and together they went back out to the bar.

AFTER DINNER THEY drove back to Susan’s house. She’d had a few glasses of wine and was feeling mellow, content to listen to the low sound of music on the radio and watch the headlights flash through the trees along the road. It didn’t strike her until they pulled up outside her house that Coop had been unusually quiet on the way home. She’d been absorbed herself, thinking about her conversation with Linda. There had to be a time when she moved forward with her life, she thought. Perhaps it wasn’t a good thing to dwell on the past and cling to her memories of a dead husband. She looked at Coop in a fresh light, asking herself how she felt about him.

“How about a cup of coffee?” she asked when he turned off the engine.

Normally when he dropped her off, he didn’t come in, and she expected nothing different, but tonight he was looking at her in a different way. It made her suddenly aware of the quiet, of how the porch light cast his features into shadow.

“I’ll just come in for a minute,” he said.

She covered her surprise and, inside, reminded him they had to be quiet because Jamie was upstairs and Wendy was staying over. She wondered why she’d felt the need to mention something he couldn’t have forgotten.

She made coffee and they stood together in the kitchen, side by side, leaning against the bench in the soft light from the lamp in a corner. It occurred to her that she didn’t really know a lot about Coop. Sure, she knew the basics—where he lived, how old he was, that he liked fishing and was content with his life—but there had to be more to him, personal things they’d never discussed. Looking back, she realized that he’d listened to her talk often enough, especially after David had died. He’d always been there for her, a sensitive ear when she’d needed one, but to her slight shame, she’d never delved into his life, his inner life. He wasn’t the kind of man who talked much about himself, about what he thought.

“Coop?” she said, and he turned to her, his face half in shadow. “Can I ask you something? How come you never married?”

T

NOW

L C O N

He considered her question thoughtfully, then gave the smallest of shrugs. “I guess I never met the right woman before.”

It was a stock answer, but there was an implication in the way he added “before.” Before what? Was she supposed to read something into this? she wondered. A silence that was fraught with meaning extended between them, and Susan felt her heart hammering in her chest. She felt the vibrations in the air and knew that something subtle had altered between them. I could stop it now, she thought.

He finished his coffee and put his cup down. She held her own cup to her lips, looking ahead. Neither of them spoke. When I put it down, she thought, that’s when something will happen, unless I say something. She felt panicked, but at the same time there was a current of excitement about the situation. Coop was going to kiss her, and she was unsure exactly how she felt about that. Her eye caught David’s picture on the bulletin board. A part of her questioned how she could have allowed things to come to this, while another argued she must have always known it would. It had been a long time since she’d been held, since she’d felt that she wasn’t all alone. Her conversation with Linda came back to her. Maybe Linda was right, maybe she didn’t appreciate what she had right here beside her.

She placed her cup on the bench. He put his hand on her shoulder almost tentatively, then turned her toward him. Her heart was thumping wildly and her breath fluttered in her throat. His lips touched her own, slightly parted, firm to her own softness. She closed her eyes, and in the darkness she could feel his body and the pressure of his mouth. She responded to his movements. His big hands held her lightly, gently, almost reverentially at her shoulders, her own against his arms. A spark of warmth ignited in her belly and glimmered.

They kissed for half a minute. It was a little awkward and strange, but nice, too. She waited for the glimmer to become a glow, but it failed to happen, and she thought it was just the situation. They were both nervous, which was strange for people of their ages, and then she thought that maybe it wasn’t strange after all. He’d been David’s friend and he must feel his presence in that way, as she did in other ways. All at once she wanted to be alone; she needed time to think.

Perhaps he sensed that she was hesitant. He let her go, for which she was grateful.

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“I should leave,” he said quietly.

“Coop…” she said. “I don’t know if I’m ready… I mean, I need time.” She shook her head, uncertain of what exactly it was she was attempting to say. She let him move away, feeling the cool space of air between them, and smiled uncertainly. She didn’t trust herself to speak again.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Coop said.

“Coop, I can’t promise … I mean …” Her voice faltered. She felt like a fool, stumbling over her words like a tongue-tied teenager.

“It’s okay,” he said, and started for the door.

She walked him out, and on the porch he brushed her lips, their mouths barely touching, and she watched him until the lights of his car vanished in the trees and the sound of the engine faded.

When he’d gone, she washed up their cups and turned out the lights. Before she went upstairs, she checked that everything in the TV room was off. The reel that Coop had bought for Jamie lay where he’d left it on the floor.

In her bed she closed her eyes, but sleep was slow in coming. She kept thinking about Coop’s kiss, the feeling of being close to another human being after so long, but it was David’s image that filled her mind, and though she screwed her eyes tight and bit her lip, she couldn’t stop the tears from coming.

IN THE EVENING, MICHAEL SAT ON THE PORCH while twilight faded. Since moving in, he’d discovered he liked the light best around dawn and just before night fell. In the mornings he rose early and went out to walk. He’d watch the sky lighten over the mountains, their dark shapes changing from black to ink blue before the first sunlight hit the snow. At the other end of the day, as the sun went down, the clearing was awash with a soft pinkish light.

The woods around the clearing had fallen silent, not a breath of wind to disturb the air. The chatter of birds preparing to roost for the night had vanished, and the sound of nocturnal prowlers rustling in the undergrowth beneath the trees hadn’t yet started. The color of the snow had altered from its customary crisp white and seemed to possess a hazy radiance. Occasionally at this time of the day everything was suffused with tones of purple and pink, and it was eerie enough to believe that somebody somewhere had begun the end of the world.

Michael felt he might be the only person still living, marooned somehow to inhabit this small, mysterious clearing. He smiled at the track of his own thoughts. He was startled by a cry from beyond the clearing and searched for its source. It had sounded close, and brought goose bumps to his flesh.

He heard it again. Kek kek kek kek. High-pitched, echoing. A shape passed above the trees, dipping down toward the far edge of the clearing, and another came close behind. The first shape darted into the cover of trees, and its pursuer twisted and banked so that for a

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second he saw its back and outstretched wings. The impression was fleeting, gone in the blink of an eye, but vivid, and then silence returned and the clearing was empty. It was almost as if he’d seen a ghost. The image he retained was of a large bird, pale in color, almost white. The experience left him feeling he’d witnessed something strange, and for no reason that he could put his finger on, he was certain it was the falcon he’d prevented the hunter from shooting. He waited, half expecting something more to happen, but time passed and twilight faded to dark.

He used only a few rooms in the house. He discovered, as he wandered around when the mood took him, that memories he’d buried for so long he’d forgotten even their presence began rising to the surface. Perhaps because so many times he’d told himself and others who’d asked, like Louise, that he’d left Little River because he’d hated the town, he’d come to think of it as the truth. He knew now that it wasn’t so. He would have left anyway, he was sure of that; as plenty of other people shed their smalltown roots to search for something else in the wide world to satisfy their needs, so he would have done the same. But he doubted he would have hated the town. He would have thought about it fondly, maybe, in a hazy kind of idealistic way, redolent of images of youth. That he’d buried it so far in his subconscious that he never thought about it in any terms was because the town, his growing up, was all so tightly interwoven with his hate for this house that he could never separate them.