скачать книгу бесплатно
The smoke detector in the hall chirped briefly, which is what it does when the power surges. I glanced up at it. This was promising to be the biggest winter storm of the season.
“Got your flashlights and candles?” Mark had said to me as we left work that afternoon. The early evening clouds had hovered gray, low and leaden above us.
“I think I’m ready,” I said.
“Hey, you want to grab a coffee somewhere?” he had asked. I was momentarily taken aback. In the two weeks we had known each other, he had never suggested that just he and I go out. It was always the three of us, Mark, Rod and me, sitting together at the coffee shop on the corner, talking about budgets, plans or how we would fulfill the contract in the time allotted. Was this a work thing or a date?
“I have to get home to my daughter,” I said. “I want to get us settled before it snows.”
He knew I had a daughter, but not anything about her or why it was I had to get home early. I didn’t date much. The few men I’d gone out with over the past eight years had run, not walked, away from me when they’d found out about my daughter.
“Well, then,” he had said, nodding his head slightly toward me. If he’d been wearing a cap, he would have tipped it—it was that sort of gesture. “We’ll see each other on Monday. Stay warm this weekend.”
A huge Nor’easter, which had been making its way up the Atlantic coast for days now, was finally reaching us here in Halifax. I had already done all the requisite things; stocked up on flashlight batteries and candles and made sure all my doors and windows were tightly closed. I had also filled the bathtub and containers with water, plus we had plenty of food. One never knew.
Despite the wind tonight, despite the storm, my daughter Maddy was tucked into bed and sleeping soundly, her soft, stuffed yellow animal, Curly Duck, nestled in the crook of her neck. I watched her for a minute before I bent down and pushed a ringlet out of her face. So peaceful. How I longed for that sort of peace in my own life. I ran the back of my finger over the smoothness of her cheek. She flinched slightly, but didn’t waken. I pulled the blankets up around her chin and bent down to give her a whisper of a kiss on her forehead.
I rose. For a few moments I leaned against the doorjamb and watched her sleep. She’s the only good thing that came out of a one-year marriage to a philandering bum.
I crept downstairs, wiping the sleep more thoroughly out of my eyes. I sat down at my quasi-drafting table in my studio/office. It had started out as a dining room in another life, but now was firmly devoted to my boat designs. My eyes blurred when I looked down at the technical drawings for the boat I was designing. Absently, I rubbed an eyebrow with the end of my pencil.
I looked up and out toward the back of my house. It was too dark to see, but I could feel the wind, fingering its way through the cracks around my windows, snow firmly in its grip.
I checked my e-mail. Nothing yet from Rod. As if there would be. Hadn’t I checked it a dozen times before I went to bed at eleven?
Rod and Jolene own Maritime Nautical. Boat builders hire him to design sail-to-keel ratios, rudder length and shape. Rod and I were classmates at Memorial University in Newfoundland and we both have degrees in marine engineering technology.
His wife, Jolene, has been my best friend since high school. She has a degree in Business Administration and runs the business end of the company.
When I went to Newfoundland to study marine design, she stayed in Prince Edward Island and went to university there. Halfway through my last year at Memorial, Jolene came up to visit me. As soon as she and Rod met, sparks flew, and they’ve been together ever since. They were married shortly after Maddy was born, and have been trying, almost from the beginning, to have a baby.
About ten years ago Rod, Sterling Roarke and I, all engineering classmates, decided we’d go into business for ourselves. I ended up marrying Sterling. Within a year I was pregnant and Sterling was running around. It was only after we divorced that I learned the extent of his affairs. He also ran the business into the ground by not getting proposals ready on time, promising things and not following through and lying to me and to Rod. Nine years ago, Rod, Jolene and I decided to let him go and strike out on our own. I was eight months pregnant at the time.
We moved the business to Halifax, despite my misgivings about living here. After Maddy was born, I knew I couldn’t work full-time. I’ve been taking the odd contract here and there, working from home. And then, of course, there is my own little sailboat that I’ve been fine-tuning and tweaking forever. I rested my forehead in one hand as I studied my sketchbook.
The project I was so worried about on this stormy night was a biggie. It would mean going back to full-time work. This was my chance, and I was ready, really ready. Maddy was doing well these days—remarkably so. When Rod called me two weeks ago, I figured fate or God was handing me a gift. Maybe things were looking up for me, finally.
The contract was to design from the keel up, a twenty-foot day sailer/racer for one of the foremost boat builders in Maine. It had to be fast. It had to win races. I looked down at my preliminary sketches. If I shaved a bit off the front end of the keel…And then the worries nagged again. Could I do this? What if I fail? What if they hate my designs? Even though I’d tested it on a million computer programs, there was no guarantee. The best computer program cannot totally duplicate what a real body of water does.
And then there was Maddy to think about. What if Maddy needed help in school and I wasn’t there? I was feeling a vague unease and I wasn’t quite sure why. I glanced at the time readout on my computer. Three-ten. I really should go back upstairs and try to get some sleep.
I’ve had insomnia for as long as I can remember. It goes back at least to when Maddy was born and I realized that I would be raising her on my own. It intensified ten months later when I learned the extent of her disabilities. Maddy is profoundly deaf.
A blast of storm hit the side of my house. From the dining room there was a door to a large wooden sundeck, and the wind came at it with such a ferocity that it seemed personal. I hugged my arms around me while the drapes quivered. I could feel the storm from here.
I turned up the thermostat. Then I walked around the first floor of my small house, touching things as I passed them; my glass model boat, the newest sailing mystery from the library, a pair of Maddy’s gloves, her stuffed teddy bear, the framed picture of my parents. I don’t know why I was doing this pacing. Nerves, perhaps?
Then I sat down in front of my drawing, picked up the remote and aimed it at the little television I keep perched on a wobbly end table. Maybe there would be news about the storm. Or maybe the sound of it would keep me company on this uneasy, lonely night.
On the all-news channel, a weather announcer stood in front of a map of the east coast and indicated with a sweep of her hand, the track of the storm. It would gain in intensity throughout the night, she said, and peter out by late morning or early afternoon. Scrolling along the bottom of the TV screen in red were the words, “Severe weather watch for all of Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and parts of New Brunswick. Stay tuned to local broadcasts for more information.”
Scrabbles of snow hit my glass windows and slithered down like ghostly spiders. The cups in my kitchen cupboard rattled slightly against each other. I rose and stood beside the window and looked out. Snow swirled sideways underneath the streetlights.
“Please, God,” I found myself praying, “Watch over us.” I chided myself for praying. A long time ago I gave up on God. Yet, at times like this, I pray.
The news channel switched to another item and suddenly my attention jerked abruptly to the television screen. There I found myself looking into the face of the very person who had kept me looking over my shoulder all these years.
Larry Fremont.
Something like lead settled in my stomach. Larry Fremont is the reason I am no longer a Christian. Larry Fremont is the reason I gave up on prayer. I sat down at my table and watched the screen. Another gasp of wind made my house shudder.
One of the richest men in Halifax, Larry Fremont’s name has been linked to more than a few shady dealings down through the years. My fingers trembled. It’s not like I hadn’t seen his face in the newspapers or on posters, billboards or TV before. He’d run for mayor of Halifax a while back. He didn’t get elected—maybe the people were too smart. He was one of those rich entrepreneurs who manages always to be in the public eye. Just like his mother, I thought. Something deep inside me groaned and I felt a rising nausea.
I ran a hand through my hair and swallowed. Most of the time I can forget what Larry Fremont did to my family. Most of the time I can follow my father’s advice to put it behind me. Or my mother’s when she says, “Some things, Alicia, are best left buried.” Most of the time I can do that, not turn over the slime-covered rocks of the past. But tonight, with the winter storm battering my home and my thoughts, it all came back to me in crystal clarity. I aimed the remote at the screen and cranked up the volume, wondering if it would wake up Maddy. If it’s loud enough she can feel the vibrations through the floorboards.
Even though Larry and I lived in the same city now, we had never bumped into each other on the street, which was a blessing. Had I been crazy to move to the same city in which he lived? Sometimes I thought so.
One thing I had done was keep my married name. Maybe that gave me an edge of protection. Or maybe I was only fooling myself.
I kept my eye on the television. There had been a death. His personal accountant or lawyer, someone named Paul Ashton, had been found dead in his hotel room in Portland, Maine. It was believed that Ashton had a heart condition.
“I don’t believe that for a minute,” I said it out loud, shocking myself with that outburst.
Somehow I knew in my soul that Larry Fremont had killed that man. And I knew something else, too. If I would admit it to myself, my insomnia went farther back than to the birth of Maddy, or even learning that I would be raising a deaf child. No, this chronic, fearful insomnia, this locking of all my doors and windows, this habitual looking over my shoulder, the prayers I utter at odd times of the day even though I no longer believe in God, went back a full twenty-five years to when I watched Larry Fremont throw my best friend off a bridge. And then laugh about it.
He had killed once and had gotten away with it once. He has killed since. He would kill again. And I was terrified of him.
TWO
I woke with a groan the next morning with Maddy jumping on my bed and me and then pointing excitedly toward the window where it was still snowing, but more gently now. The fierce storm of the previous evening had spent itself out and all that was left were huge, lazy flakes wafting earthward. I had not gotten back to sleep until almost four. I had watched the news, hungry for more information about Larry Fremont and the death of his financial adviser, but there wasn’t a lot.
Ashton and Fremont were down in Maine discussing trade opportunities when Ashton retired to his room early, complaining of a stomachache. The maid discovered his body in the morning. He had not called down to the front desk or to his wife. That was all. I had clicked through several more news channels but found nothing.
I’d finally fallen into a fitful sleep then only to be awakened in what seemed like mere minutes when Maddy came in, signing that it was snowing, and that the snow was all the way up to the windows.
“I don’t think it’s that high,” I signed, and laughed. I signed and spoke at the same time. “Did you feel it? It was windy. The house shook.”
She signed excitedly, asking if we could go out and play in the snow.
“Later,” I signed. “We’ll have to shovel the snow, especially if we want to go out and get you those skates I’ve been promising you.”
My fears of last night were for now erased by the sunny dawn. All would be well. In a day or two my coffers would be overflowing with cold, hard cash and brand-new, name-brand skates would be no problem. And Larry Fremont? He was in the news all the time, anyway. How was this time any different?
“We can get new skates? Not old ones?” she signed.
“Yep, that’s the plan.” I pulled myself up out of my bed. Oh, yuck. Did I feel awful or what? I needed about four more hours of deep sleep.
“Are you ready for waffles?” I signed, and then yawned, fell back on my bed. “Maybe I should sleep first,” I said.
But Maddy would have none of that. She jumped on me, and we giggled and tickled for a while. Then I got up and put on my robe, and Maddy went and stood on tiptoes at my window. She ran her hand over the inside of the pane where snow was piled on the outside. I looked at her skinny, bare legs and her blond curls still tangled from sleep and thought to myself that she was the most beautiful little girl in all the world. I would give my life to not have the same thing happen to her as happened to me when I was a young girl, not too much older than she was now.
I tapped her shoulder and she turned to me. “You need your slippers,” I told her. “The floor is cold. Get your slippers and then we’ll make waffles.”
“Blueberry waffles?” she asked.
“Sure.” And then I signed something and she smiled and came into my outstretched arms.
We have a sign between ourselves which really means, “Come here for a hug, pumpkin pie,” which is my nickname for her because of her blond hair with its pumpkin-colored tints. She didn’t like the sign for strawberry blond. She was the one who came up with “pumpkin.” I added the “pie.” I held her fiercely and was surprised at the tears that swam in my eyes. I’m so very proud of her. When you have a deaf child, the learning curve is steep. First, there were multiple visits to specialists, only to discover that with the kind of deafness she had, a cochlear implant was a crapshoot. It might work. It probably wouldn’t. I learned that deaf children are often a year or so behind in their reading and literacy. I took a sign-language course for parents of deaf children and taught her signing from babyhood on.
I told her how much I loved her and how proud I was of her and how she was the best ice skater in the world and how as soon as the roads were cleared we’d go get new skates.
“Today?”
“I don’t know about today. It depends on how soon they come and plow the roads. And when we can get shoveled out.”
The two of us headed downstairs to make Saturday-morning waffles. Maddy went and stood in front of the picture window and gazed out at the snow. The morning sun peeked through the clouds. It was a white, wintry wasteland out there, a pale desert after a sandstorm. Sun on snow always brings a beauty, a whiteness to the inside of a house that isn’t there in other seasons. The snowplows hadn’t been by yet, so there was no delineation between the frontyard and road. One hearty soul was already out there attempting to clear his driveway with his snowblower, but it had gotten windy suddenly and from here it looked like the snow he was blowing was landing right back where it started.
Later when the wind died down, Maddy and I would bundle ourselves up and try to clean up the place with our shovels. The task looked daunting. Maybe my kind duplex neighbor Gus would snowblow my driveway when he cleared his own. He often did.
I pulled out the waffle iron from under my cupboard beside the stove and plugged it in to warm it up. I got out the eggs and flour and frozen blueberries and while I did so, I aimed the remote at the television to see if there was any news of the storm. Or of Larry Fremont. Especially Larry Fremont.
The news was the storm, of course, which had left an estimated twenty thousand Haligonians out of power. I felt fortunate that all we’d had were a couple of flickers. There was nothing about Larry Fremont, or the death of his associate.
Maddy, now clad in her favorite slippers and pink fleece housecoat, helped me measure flour into the mixing bowl, getting it all over her hands. She was signing happily about snow and skates and how much fun we’d have later, and could we make a snowman? And a snow fort? And could we have a snowball fight? And could her friend Miranda come over to play?
“Hey,” I signed, “Don’t talk so wildly, you’re getting flour all over the place.”
She giggled and wiped her fingers on her housecoat before she signed again. “Can Miranda come over?”
I nodded and signed that we could do all of those things, except, for perhaps, Miranda. “It will be hard to get anywhere today,” I signed.
Miranda is her school friend and deaf like Maddy.
The news flipped to a new item. I listened with one ear while I finished up the waffle batter.
Maddy said, “Look.” She said these words rather than signed them and I was really proud of her for talking. I followed her gaze to a man on cross-country skis who was walking a dog. It looked windswept and barren, like some scene out of Nanook of the North.
“Can we go skating like him?” she asked me.
I did a sort of made-up finger spelling sign for skiing, because this wasn’t a word I thought she knew. The two of us, like every deaf family, have a lot of made-up signs, “family signs,” they’re called.
“Can we go skiing, then?”
I laughed and said we had no skis. I poured the batter onto the waffle iron, filling every crevice. She kept her eyes on the snow while the waffle sizzled.
When it was done, I opened it up and took out the waffle, cut it in two and placed it on our plates. I poured on thick maple syrup, the real stuff, and we sat down and began to dig in. As we did so it struck me, as it sometimes does, that we didn’t offer any kind of table grace. The only time we ever do is when my parents come for a visit. I grew up in the church with grace at every meal and summer church camp and memorizing Bible verses and Sunday School. There are times when I wonder if Maddy might be missing out.
She was pouring on way too much syrup and I signed that that was enough. She turned away from me, pretending not to see. That’s what she does when she doesn’t want to talk to me, she’ll either turn her face away or close her eyes, scrunching them up and facing me defiantly. Although I love her to death, my little daughter can be stubborn at times.
I heard the name Fremont from the television and turned quickly away from Maddy and aimed the remote to turn up the volume. But it was the identical broadcast that I’d heard before. No new information. What was I expecting? And why did I care so much anyway?
After breakfast Maddy and I spent a lazy morning cleaning the house and doing laundry and making a batch of ginger molasses cookies. Later on she “chatted” with Miranda via her computer and then watched TV. Other mothers mind when their children spend too much time on the computer, but not me. It enhances Maddy’s reading. I tried to keep my eyes open while I sat at the table and worked a bit more on the boat design, but I was tired, very tired. What I wouldn’t give for a nap.
The snowplow eventually came by, leaving a tanker-load full of snow at the end of my driveway. By early afternoon, I began to hear the sound of snowblowers in the neighborhood. If you closed your eyes you could almost pretend it was summer and these were lawn mowers.
Midafternoon my neighbor began snowblowing my driveway. I waved to him from the picture window. Bless him. My neighbor Gus and his wife, Dolores, often make sure my driveway is plowed. I rarely even have to mow my own lawn in the summer. I know they feel sorry for me, a single mother with a deaf daughter.
I looked again. There were two men out there working on my driveway. Gus was behind the snowblower and someone else wielded a shovel at the end of it. I peered more closely. Mark? Could that possibly be Mark? I squinted. Yes! Farther down the street was his car. I put a hand to my face. Why on earth was he here shoveling my driveway? And how had he driven these roads in the first place?
I grabbed my coat and pulled on my boots and signed to Maddy to “Wait here. Watch from the window. I’ll be right back.”
I stomped through thigh-high snow to where Gus had cleaned a foot-wide swath to the end of my driveway. Mark looked up, saw me, grinned and put down the shovel and leaned on it rakishly. Mark has these studious, smart, good looks that can stop women in their tracks. With his neatly cut short, light hair, and his little rectangular glasses, he looks upscale; rich even, like he belongs in New York, not Halifax. No matter what he wears, clothes look so good on him. Like today. Even though he had pulled a ratty-looking, gray woolen toque down over his ears and that old man’s green down jacket.
I called to him. “What are you doing here?”
“I thought you might need a plow out.”
“And you came all the way over here?” The moment I said it, I realized I had no clue where he lived. He could live on the next street for all I knew.
“Actually,” he said scooping another shovelful of snow. “I was up late. I got going on the interior design of the boat. I wanted to run some of these plans by you.”
“And so you come out on a day like today?” Without calling first? I wanted to add.
“Why not?” He grinned a crooked little grin and I felt myself melting under his gaze.
“How did you even know where I live?” I was still astounded that he was actually here.
“Your address is on a lot of stuff at the office. It was easy to look it up online.” He searched for my address? Stop it, I told myself, stop staring at him so intently.
I looked at the window and Maddy waved at me. I pointed. “My daughter. I have to go inside. But we’ll be back. She wants to come out into the snow.”
“She’s signaling to you rather vigorously.”
“She’s not signaling,” I said. “She’s signing. She’s deaf.”
“Oh.”
Inside, I helped my extremely eager and bright-eyed daughter into her snowsuit, wool hat and mittens. I did the same for myself, changing out of my grungy baking sweatshirt and into a nice sweater. Then I bundled up against the cold. The wind out there was still gusty.
Maddy rushed ahead of me out the door, arms spread wide. She immediately jumped into three feet of snow and giggled.
“That’s my daughter, Madison,” I told Mark. “As you can see, she hates winter.”
“Just like me,” he said while he pulled the gray cap more firmly down over his ears. “I was in Florida for three years. Some may call me crazy, but I really missed the winter. Had to come back home.”
I looked at him. “This is home?”
We were standing on the sidewalk where he had started to shovel, while in the driveway Gus was still making passes up and down through the deep snow.
