“Oh, now you want me to divulge all the details of my next book after the jokes you’ve made at my expense?” Lance said. “Hmm, I don’t know if you can be trusted.” He leaned back in his chair, pretending to appraise her. Mary batted her eyes playfully, and although she was kidding, he still felt a faint fluttering within his chest.
Lance sipped his wine once more before relenting. “It’s about a man who vacations to a small town with his family and is run off the road one night by a car swerving into their lane. His wife and daughter are killed in the crash, and the man who ran them off the road drops a bottle of liquor into the car, making it look like the father was the one drinking. It turns out that the real culprit is the mayor of the town. When the father figures out who he is, he kidnaps him and keeps him in his basement. He tortures the mayor every day, and is actually planning to kill him eventually, but the mayor’s brother is the town cop, and he’s on to the father. The father isn’t really evil, but he’s battling with himself and his loss and the hatred he has for the man who robbed him of his family, his future.” Lance took a breath and shook his head as he looked out across the flat blue of the lake. “Sorry, I get caught up sometimes …” he trailed off.
“No, it sounds great. How far are you?”
“About two-thirds, maybe?”
“How’s it going to end?” Mary asked, her wide green eyes flashing in the last light of the day as it slanted through the restaurant.
Lance felt the familiar effort of trying to dredge up the conclusion of the story that he underwent whenever he ventured from the house. He could remember what he had written so far, but the rest remained clouded and would stay that way until he stepped back through the threshold. The phenomenon hadn’t lessened in the weeks since his permanent arrival. If anything, it had gained strength, shutting off his creativity faster whenever he departed.
“I’m not really sure yet,” he finally managed. He noticed the man at the table behind the rock pillar leaning out again, seemingly to eavesdrop or stare at them. When Lance looked, he just saw a shoulder receding out of sight. He frowned, wondering which resident of the small town couldn’t resist learning whom the local bookstore owner was on a date with.
“You kept calling him a father. Why?” Mary said.
Lance shifted his attention back to her and frowned. “What?”
“You kept referring to the main character as the father, not the husband or anything else. Why is he the father to you?”
Lance regarded her for a moment. She stared at him, unwavering, a sublime smile playing at the corners of her lips, which could become something beautiful or heart-achingly cold and impassive. In that tick of the clock’s hand, Lance felt himself slip. Something inside him shifted, an immense wall mortared with layers of doubt, fear, and guilt shuddered. He had always imagined he would be the one to chip away at the edifice of stone within him, and perhaps someday be able to carve out a door for someone else to pass through and join him on the other side. He never guessed another person would be able to disturb the foundations of the wall, but the woman across from him at that moment, in a flash of insight deeper than she knew, had done just that.
Lance gazed across the table and steadied himself before he spoke. “I guess it’s because I’ve never really known one, not a good one. And that’s something I’ve always admired.”
Mary nodded and the smile on her lips became whole. Lance noticed the waitress weaving her way through the tables from the other side of the room, and at the same time he saw the man at the next table lean out again to gawk at them. That’s enough, Lance thought, his anger flaring white-hot. He didn’t care who it turned out to be at the table behind Mary; if he was still ogling them when Lance looked, he would give the guy a piece of his mind. Lance swung his head around and glared at the man leaning out from behind the pillar.