“Absolutely. I have some real work to do before she looks as good as she did years ago, but we’ll get there.”
Lance smiled and waved as he walked toward the Land Rover waiting near the garage. He watched the old man turn and hobble back into the house and shut the door behind him. The sight pulled at Lance’s heart. He wondered if that would be him someday, alone with only nights of solitary drinking to look forward to. A voice that spoke only when he wished it wouldn’t chimed in as he turned the vehicle around and headed down the dark driveway. It will be if you don’t let someone in.
Lance flicked the radio on and turned it up close to full volume to drown out any more words of wisdom, should the voice find it prudent to share its opinion again. He could see a light still on in the house behind him, and his mind replayed the evening once again. He could find no fault in John’s words, only honesty and deep sadness.
Before pulling onto the highway, he threw a final look back in the rearview mirror. The light had gone out in the house and only a black nebulousness floated behind the car, as if the world ended just past his bumper and fell away into nothingness.
Chapter 8
“This isn’t coincidence, there’s no such thing.”
—Brandon Boyd
The next two weeks passed by easily, as a routine became established in the large house overlooking the cooling September waters of Superior. Since the night Lance arrived home from John’s, there hadn’t been a single nightmare or invasion. The shotgun, which he’d forgotten in the back of the SUV until the evening of their dinner, remained unused but in an easy-to-reach position a few feet from Lance’s bedside. When he uncased it in the living room to admire its flawless shine of blued metal, he wondered if he was being rash in keeping a weapon on the premises. He had never felt the need to own one before, but after remembering the sight of the face floating in the darkness of his room, he decided that he wasn’t. With a flourish, he’d raised the shotgun in one hand over his head and yelled to the empty house.
“This is my BOOM stick!” He’d then laughed until tears leaked from his eyes.
Each day that dawned on the lake held the warmth and promise of a summer that refused to end. After waking, Lance sat at his post in the alcove each morning until lunch drove him to the kitchen to appease his hunger. The afternoons were normally spent writing until John’s truck made its appearance in the front yard. The two men would gab, normally over beer that Lance now kept cold for just this occasion, and then John would announce that he should get to work. Gradually, the yard became not just tidy but well-groomed, and Lance began to see how truly gifted John was with his shears and mower. The evenings, Lance spent alone. He would sometimes walk the shore to the far points of the bay that had spawned not only the town’s name but, in all reality, the town itself. John had filled him in on the local history one particularly hot afternoon after finishing his second beer of the day.
“Whole town was built on shipping, did you know that?” Lance shook his head, smiling at how John’s eyes lit up when telling a story. “That bay right out there was a major shipping port a hundred years ago. You wouldn’t think so, but the water gets real deep, real quick out there. Don’t go wadin’ in ’less you want to take a swim.”