The Widow's Season (18 page)

She followed David to the summit, where a flat-topped boulder offered a clear view in every direction. Sarah climbed up beside him on that broad rock, the woods rolling up and down the surrounding foothills while the river appeared and disappeared in silvery threads.

“It’s an amazing view,” she granted.

“All-encompassing.” He spread his arms and rotated slowly, north, northeast.

“Look down there.” David pointed south toward two stone towers, reduced to the height of toothpicks, rising from the water like chimneys in a burned-out ruin. She recognized the structures as canal locks.

“That’s the place where I flipped over.”

She stared at the spot, imagining David’s face gazing up from the riverbed—
those are pearls that were his eyes
.

“It changed me,” he said, and Sarah nodded.

A gunshot pierced the quiet. Instinctively they crouched while the air reverberated.

“Deer season,” David said. Another shot cracked to the north, and they both jumped down from the rock.

Sarah turned upriver. “We’d better get back before someone kills us.”

On the return they spoke in deliberately loud voices, tromping through the undergrowth with a clatter that sent squirrels rushing to the treetops. Sarah gathered kindling while David hacked at a huge dead limb that dangled from a maple tree. He dragged it through the woods, slicing a path whenever the approach was narrow. When they reached the cabin he stopped at a wide oak stump, the remnant of a beautiful tree split by lightning years ago. He pulled the thinnest branches across this chopping block, sheared off the leaves and twigs, and began to cut the wood into foot-long sections. Meanwhile Sarah went inside, stretched on the couch, and settled into the opening chapters of
War and Peace
.

By four-thirty, when the sun had dipped below the treetops, she knew that she would spend the night. Her own house still seemed forbidding, and the cabin was warmed by a large fire that David had built. She prepared an early supper, opening a can of baked beans and a jar of applesauce. Some ground meat from the refrigerator was enough for three hamburgers, and she cooked them in the frying pan, cutting off a sliver to see if they were done.

“Yuck.” She spat into the sink. “Your hamburger is rotten.”

“It’s not hamburger.” David spoke from behind his easel. “It’s ground venison. The owner of the general store is a hunter. You don’t like it?”

“It’s not what I was expecting.” But perhaps that was a blessing. Her expectations had sunk so low in the past few years. “Venison is fine.” She pulled a bottle of red wine from the kitchen rack. “We should celebrate your show’s success, and your debut in Washington.” She brought two glasses and a corkscrew to the table.

“Let’s drink to Judith,” David said, “and all of her new discoveries.”

 

 

 

Midway through dinner David made a request: “I was hoping you might join me on Thursday for Thanksgiving. It’s lonely out here, with winter coming on. The nights are getting colder, and the birds are flying south, and they are the only living things that I’ve been speaking to.”

It was odd, how David’s life had become an echo of her own. They were both alone in their separate quarters, equally plagued by silence and the need for closer human contact. “I’ll come,” she said. “I’ll do the shopping, you can help with the cooking.” She rose from the table, took a piece of paper and pencil from a kitchen drawer, and began to write.

“What are you doing?”

“Making a list of things to bring on Thursday.”

“Like what?”

“Clothes, shoes, hats, gloves. Your winter jacket. A snow shovel. Chicken wire for your tulipwood tree.” She had become his accomplice, planning months ahead, anticipating his needs. Perhaps it was only a selfish gesture; she didn’t want her dead husband discovered buying wool socks at Wal-Mart. But there was also some comfort in writing down her traditional Thanksgiving menu: turkey and cranberries, sausage, celery, mushrooms, onions and stuffing, sweet potatoes and green beans, sourdough rolls.

“What would you like me to get for you?” she asked.

“I want fresh fruit.” David replied without hesitation. “And imported beer. And some good steaks . . . I want clean sheets for my bed, and Woolite, and a clothesline with clothespins. Books, and magazines, and a Sunday
New York Times
. More canvases, more paint, and a lot more toilet paper.” She scribbled a list of abbreviations, until he reached his last request.

“And try to see how Nate is doing. You know how depressed he was when Mom died. Maybe you can cheer him up.”

“Yes,” she answered. “Maybe I can.”

That evening they gathered comforters and pillows from the chilly bedrooms and spread them across the braided rug in front of the fire.

“It’s like a winter picnic,” Sarah said as they opened another bottle of wine. By the second glass, she had pulled off her sweater. By the third, she had unbuttoned her blouse. David lifted his shirt over his head, revealing a chest neither so smooth nor muscular as Nate’s, but still the body of an attractive man.

So, thought Sarah. It was time to touch her husband—to place her hands upon him and feel the depth of his change. She put down her glass, reached out her right-hand fingers, and pressed them to his chest.

What she touched was cold, very cold. Cold as the bottom of the river. It’s natural, she assured herself. The air in the cabin was freezing. But still she shivered as she pulled her hand away.

“You’re like ice,” she murmured, and he nodded.

“Warm me up.”

PART THREE

Resurrection

Arriving home on Sunday morning, Sarah opened her front door and was struck with a vision of spring. Lilies graced the hall table and chrysanthemums bloomed in the kitchen. The living room’s red roses now mingled with pink and white, and yellow snapdragons fanned out from the top of the piano. Each room was a kaleidoscope of petals, which she took to be Nate’s version of an exit, until she saw Judith’s card lying on the hall table.
The flowers are for you, left over from the show. Enjoy the moment.

Sarah crumpled the card. Enjoy the moment indeed. She could imagine Judith’s lilting smile, the arch of her penciled brows when greeted at the door on Saturday morning by a bleary-eyed Nate. So be it. She walked into the kitchen and tossed the card into the trash. The gods will have their little jokes.

On the refrigerator, Nate had left a note as laconic as her own farewell.

 

 

 

Yes, she would call him. She would telephone during work hours and explain to his home machine that she was oh, so busy. Maybe they could get together after Thanksgiving.

Inside her room, Nate had made the bed with precise, hospital corners. She lifted a pillow and inhaled the lingering scent of his hair, then stripped the pillowcases, bundled the top sheet in her arms, and paused at the sight of the fitted sheet, with its Rorschach test of wet spots. The memory of Nate’s soft lips made her dizzy, and she lay down on the bed with the linens hugged to her chest. Five minutes—that was all she would allow herself. Five minutes to absorb his sweet narcotic, to slide backward forty hours into the care of his warm hands.

Red numbers clicked by on her digital clock: ten, eleven, twelve minutes. Sighing, she stood and pulled off the fitted sheet, carrying the guilty linens into the basement. As the washer filled with water, she poured in a cup of Tide, and when the load was almost swimming, she added another. Upstairs, she opened the linen closet and took out a set of flannel sheets, soft and innocent as the lining of children’s sleeping bags.

Resting on her newly made bed, she pressed the blinking button on her answering machine.

“Hello, love.” Margaret’s voice was a ray of sunlight. “My refrigerator is full of leftovers from the show. Judith brought them all this morning. I want you to come for dinner and help me make a dent.”

Next came Nate, calling on Saturday night. “Hi, Sarah. Just checking in. Call me when you’re back.”

Then Margaret spoke again, repeating yesterday’s invitation. “Where are you, my dear? I can’t eat all this alone.”

And so, at five o’clock Sarah found herself in Margaret’s kitchen, bracketed by granite counters arranged in a cold smorgasbord—cream cheese with red pepper jelly, salmon with dill sauce, a bowl of spinach dip circled with torn chunks of bread.

“You’re looking well.” Margaret admired the color in Sarah’s cheeks. “Did you finally get some sleep?”

“Yes.” Sarah smiled. She had never before appreciated the tran quilizing effect of sex.

Margaret poured two glasses of red wine. “I hope you were pleased with the show. Everyone I’ve seen this weekend has been going on about it. Judith was still excited when she came yesterday. She was wondering where you were.”

Sarah stirred a slice of bread in the bowl of spinach dip. “The weather was so nice, I went for a long walk by the river.”

“Well, be sure to call her. She’s got some questions for you.”

“Sure. How are your daughters doing? Are they coming for Thanksgiving?” Sarah was adept at subject changes—
No, she had lost the baby, but weren’t the cherry trees looking lovely?

“Beth is coming on Wednesday to help me bake our usual pies, pecan and pumpkin and apple. We always make extras so that each girl can take one home. And Kate will be here Thursday with her boyfriend.”

“The one who works at the music store?”

“Yes, the budding disc jockey.”

“You don’t like him?”

“It’s not a question of liking. I suppose he’s very likable. But he’s one of those sweet types who’s always at loose ends.” Margaret dipped a chicken skewer into a plate of mango chutney. “Can you join us for Thanksgiving dinner?”

“Thanks”—Sarah stared into her wine—“but I’m going to visit Anne.”

“Oh, good. How is she?”

“She’s busy with all of her daughters’ activities. Dance class and music lessons and that sort of stuff.”

“I remember it well.” Margaret spooned a pile of blueberries onto her plate. “And what are you doing for the next few days?”

“I’m in charge of the campus food drive, so I’ll be carting lots of boxes over to St. Francis’s.”

“Do you need a hand?”

“No.” Sarah balanced a slice of salmon with a trio of capers on a Table Water cracker. “Some fraternity brother is supposed to do the lifting.”

“Men do serve their purpose,” Margaret said.

“Yes.” Sarah blushed. “They do.” Her fingers shook ever so slightly, causing a caper to roll off onto the floor. She leaned over to pick it up, and when she lifted her eyes again to Margaret, Sarah detected a smile in the corner of her friend’s lips.

“Clumsy of me.”

“It’s not that.” Margaret laughed. “It’s your expression. I can always tell when you’re hiding something. Your eyes are so obvious.”

Sarah dropped her gaze to the bottom of her wineglass, where the stem formed a dark pupil. “Yes,” she murmured. “I do have a secret. A
big
secret.”

She envisioned David, thigh-deep in the river, water dripping over the rim of his hip boots. His fly rod hissed across the water’s surface, and as she listened for its words, Sarah opened her mouth and let the syllables fall.

“I slept with Nate. It happened after the show. We were drunk and I could barely remember what happened the next morning. But there he was, lying beside me.” She laughed. Saying it aloud made it seem almost comical. “I was so embarrassed I fled the scene. I haven’t answered his calls since. It was a stupid thing to do . . . It won’t happen again.”

Margaret remained quiet until at last Sarah flinched.