“Do you?” said Bill. He reached over and brushed his fingertips across the back of my left hand. “I promise you, it won’t happen again.”
Between the rush of the rain and the pounding of my heart, I scarcely heard Doug’s voice from the doorway. “I’ve tossed the salad,” he announced. “And Meg says that if we don’t eat pronto, she’s going to chew a leg off the kitchen table.”
*
For the rest of the evening, Bill behaved like a normal human being. He bantered with Meg, discussed the art market with Doug, played cat games with Van Gogh, and stopped treating me like visiting royalty. He even went to bed early so that my friends and I could have some time to ourselves. When we left the next day, he went so far as to let me forget my bag. Meg came puffing out to the car with it at the last minute. “Look, Shepherd,” she said, “I know you don’t want to sully your gorgeous vehicle with this crummy piece of canvas, but I don’t want it cluttering up my immaculate domain, either.” She dumped it in the backseat behind Bill as Doug ran down the stairs.
“You be sure to write to us from England,” he said.
“Waste of time,” said Meg.
Doug and I looked at her in surprise.
“With your expense account,” she explained, “you can afford to call.”
I hugged the two of them, climbed into the car, and began the drive home.
*
It wasn’t until we were stuck in a long line of cars waiting for a truckload of fertilizer to be cleared from the interstate—which Bill had taken to avoid the tortuous scenic route—that I began to consider what Meg had hinted at. Was I riled up over nothing? I could see that I had been a bit defensive with Bill, but defense mechanisms hadn’t evolved because it had been a slow Thursday afternoon. Fear was essential to self-preservation. It had worked for our caveman ancestors, and who was I to argue with history?
Still, it was possible that Bill’s intentions had been good all along, and it did seem odd to be afraid of kindness. It was definitely not a survival trait.
As we crawled past the aromatic accident scene, Bill touched a button on the dashboard and my window hummed shut. I glanced at him, then closed my eyes and leaned back, feigning sleep. I had some serious thinking to do and I wanted no distractions.
*
Willis, Sr.’s map was waiting for me in the guest suite when I got back. It had been well padded and securely wrapped in brown paper, and a note from Trevor Douglas had been placed beside it on the coffee table. I dropped my bag on the floor and picked up the note, expecting it to contain the usual polite business phrases. Instead, Mr. Douglas had written:
Please thank Bill for directing me to that woodcarver friend of his. The man is a genius. I’ll be sure to send more work his way.
Woodcarver friend? I put the note back on the table. Worried, I propped the package on the couch, tore off the wrapping paper, removed the padding, and stood back to see what Bill had done now. I stood there for a long time.
Trevor Douglas had not spoken lightly. Whoever had done this work was a genius. In almost no time at all, he had created a frame that was as subtle and intricate as the map itself: a two-inch band of polished wood carved with a frieze of animals—beavers, squirrels, raccoons, and other small creatures of the North American woods—linked by oak leaves and acorns, pine cones and needles. When I ran my fingers over the surface I could feel the care that had gone into its creation.
The phone rang.
“Hello,” said Bill. “Thought I’d call to let you know that Father has planned a farewell luncheon for us tomorrow at two, in the small dining room. ‘Fortification,’ he called it, ‘against the trials of airline fare.’ Can you make it?”
“Sure, I can make it,” I said. “And, uh, Bill—the map has arrived.”
“Has it?”
“I’m looking at it right now,” I said. “The frame is… it’s beautiful, Bill. It’s perfect. I’m…”
“I’ve come up with a scheme for giving it to Father. I can put it on his desk in the office tomorrow while you’re saying good-bye, so he’ll find it after we’ve gone. I think he’d prefer it that way. He’s not fond of public displays of affection, you know.”
“Then that’s what we’ll do,” I agreed. “And Bill, I… I just want to say that…” I took a deep breath, then chickened out completely. “Trevor Douglas asked me to thank you for telling him about the woodcarver.”
There was a prolonged silence on the line.
“Thanks for the message, Lori,” Bill said at last. “I’ll see you at lunch.” And he hung up.