The Winter People

It was the quintessential New England small town: a downtown with three church steeples, a granite library, a town green with a gazebo in the middle. Beyond the town green, she passed by the West Hall Union School, where small children in winter coats and hats were out on the playground tossing balls and climbing on an elaborate, brightly colored play structure. She thought of Austin—how much he loved to climb and showed no fear, going up to the top of any structure and hollering, “I’m King of the Mountain!” For half a second, she almost believed she could see him there, the wiry boy with the curly hair perched on top. Then she blinked, and it was someone else’s child.

 

She followed the road, which took her past the Cranberry Meadow Cemetery—full of old, leaning stones and enclosed with a rusted wrought-iron fence. She looped back around toward the downtown area and found Lou Lou’s Café on Main Street, tucked between a bookstore and a bank, all of them sharing the same big brick building. She went in, ordered a coffee, and looked out the large plate-glass window at the street, thinking, This was what Gary looked at while he ate his last meal.

 

She had a clear view of the town green. It was a bright, cloudless November day. The trees that lined the green were bare now, but back when Gary was here, they might have been glowing red and orange, leaves falling as storm clouds gathered.

 

“But what were you doing here?” she asked out loud.

 

Glancing at the prices on the menu, she decided he must have met someone. The entrées were no higher than twelve dollars—even if he’d ordered a beer, he couldn’t have eaten a thirty-one-dollar meal here by himself.

 

“Excuse me,” Katherine called as the waitress passed by. “I’m wondering if you can help.” She pulled out the little photo of Gary she kept in her wallet. “I wonder if you might recognize him. He was in here last month.”

 

The waitress, a young woman with dyed-blue bangs and a yin-yang tattoo on the back of her hand, shook her head. “You should ask Lou Lou,” she said, nodding in the direction of the woman behind the counter. “She remembers customers real well.”

 

Katherine thanked her, got up, and approached the owner—Lou Lou herself, who was dripping with silver-and-turquoise jewelry and had short bright-red hair.

 

Lou Lou recognized Gary immediately. “Yeah, he was here, can’t say when, but not all that long ago.”

 

“Did he meet someone?”

 

Lou Lou gave her a quizzical look, and Katherine thought of breaking down, explaining everything: He was my husband, he was killed in an accident only hours after he sat in here eating a sandwich and soup or whatever, I’ve never even heard of this place, why was he here, please, I need to know.

 

Instead, she stood up straight, said only, “Please. It’s important.”

 

Lou Lou nodded. “He was with a woman. I don’t know her name, but she’s local. I’ve seen her around, but can’t place where.”

 

“What did she look like?”

 

Was she pretty? Prettier than me?

 

Lou Lou thought a minute. “Older. Long salt-and-pepper hair in a braid. Like I said, I’ve seen her around. I know her from somewhere. I don’t forget faces.”

 

Katherine spent nearly two hours in Lou Lou’s, having coffee, then soup and a sandwich, then a slice of red-velvet cake. All the while, she wondered what Gary had eaten, which table he’d sat at. She felt close to him, like he was right there beside her, sharing a secret in between bites of cake.

 

Who was she, Gary? Who was the woman with the braid?

 

She watched the people coming and going along the sidewalk: people in fleece jackets and wool sweaters, a couple of men in red plaid hunting jackets, two kids with hoodies on skateboards. She didn’t see one person in a suit, or even a tie or high heels. So different from Boston. People actually smiled and said hello to each other on the street. Gary must have loved it.

 

They used to talk about leaving the city, moving to a small town like this, how it would be so much better for Austin. Gary had grown up in a small town in Idaho and said it was kid heaven—there was room to breathe, to explore, you knew your neighbors, and your parents didn’t mind if you were out late because bad things never happened there. You were safe.

 

Katherine stopped at a bulletin board in the hall on the way out of Lou Lou’s Café. She glanced at the notices on it: Trek mountain bike for sale, Bikram yoga classes, a flyer announcing that the farmers’ market would be in the high-school gymnasium during the winter months, a poster looking for fellow believers to join a UFO-hunting group. And there, right in the middle, a no-nonsense sign: Apartment for rent. Downtown in renovated Victorian. One bedroom. No pets. $700 includes heat. There were little tabs at the bottom with the phone number to call.

 

Then she felt it again: Gary standing beside her, putting his arm around her, whispering, Go ahead and take one. Without thinking, she tore off one of the phone numbers and tucked it in the pocket of her jeans.

 

Good girl, Gary whispered, a gentle hiss in her right ear.