John lifted his chin in acknowledgement. “You gonna buy the old place?”
“The thought crossed my mind.” John nodded again. A lone seagull coasted overhead, the wind fueling its flight without the beat of its wings. It looked down on them for a moment, its black beady eyes there and gone as it glided away in search of food.
“You’re a writer.” The words were a statement, not a question.
“Yeah, have you read my books?”
“No, knew your name, though. You’re alongside Patterson sometimes when I buy his latest. I like Patterson.” Lance smiled and looked back out across the expanse of water. “What’s a writer want with a place like this?”
Lance pulled a strand of grass from the ground beside him and began to tie it in knots. “It seems like a good place to think. Calm, quiet.”
John finally turned his head and examined Lance. He could feel the caretaker’s eyes running over the surface of his face like the fingers of a blind person. Eventually, John turned back to the lake and sighed. If Lance hadn’t been listening closely it could have been misconstrued as the breath of the wind.
“Don’t buy this place. There’s nothing for you here.”
Without another word, John rose and retreated to the driveway, where he climbed into the rusted Ranger, gunned the engine to life, and left dual plumes of dust behind in the wake of the truck.
Lance watched as the vehicle disappeared behind the thick row of trees lining the driveway before turning back to the choppy lake. Instead of trying to interpret the old man’s cryptic words, Lance brushed them off as sentimental remnants from a time before him. No matter how promising or bright the future sometimes seemed to be, the past had its own way of holding onto people, at times letting out some slack for them to run, but always making sure they knew that they were tethered.
Lance gazed at the horizon and tried to make out the distant shore he knew was there but couldn’t see. Words began to form in his mind and a corner of the veil was lifted slightly. A shape beneath tried to show itself. It was as if the story wanted him to find it but was limited, chained just beyond the reach of his imagination. Nonetheless, he seized the moment and formed the words into a sentence.
His eyes searched for them, but his heart knew better. The waking hours were the worst, the moments when he would drift up from sleep and reach for her or listen for the sounds of laughter. Instead, there was silence, a vacuum, and then the crashing slam of reality settling down on him.
“They’re dead, but he’s still there,” Lance said to the water. It lapped at the shore but said nothing back. Lance stood, his back cracking as he turned and walked across the yard to where Carrie waited near the rear end of her Tahoe. Lance noticed that she was smiling her too-large smile again, but in spite of himself, he felt his own face reflect her expression as he stopped a few feet away.
“I’ll take it.”
Chapter 7
“What need I fear of thee?
But yet I’ll make assurance double sure,
And take a bond of fate: thou shalt not live;
That I may tell pale-hearted fear it lies,
And sleep in spite of thunder.”
—William Shakespeare
“Where the hell is the tinfoil?” Lance said to the empty kitchen. He tore through the last grocery bag on the floor, and when the oblong box didn’t present itself, he stood up in exasperation. He knew he had purchased it earlier on his trip into town. He remembered putting it in the cart. Hell, he remembered seeing it in the back of the car when he loaded the groceries. So where was it?