“Yeah, interesting. There’s a lot to her. She’s her mother’s daughter, isn’t she?”
Kathleen waves her hand at him and goes on loading the dishwasher. And after that, they are quiet for a long while, returning to the rhythms of their winter Sundays on the lake. They read the newspaper and drink coffee. Kathleen watches a gardening show while knitting, the quiet tapping of her knitting needles a comfort that Marc recognizes stretches back into childhood, when his own mother used to knit Christmas scarves for him and his sisters. Marc looks through a magazine for a new boat he might buy when the lake thaws, makes a soup for them that afternoon, and splits a little wood for exercise, though they have plenty to last them through the cool nights of spring, and he stops anyway after fifteen minutes because of the ache in his shoulder. He watches the birds at the feeder, and again thinks about taking up sketching, especially for the stark contrasts of the whites and blues and blacks of trees and houses and ice in the winter. The later afternoon feels warmer, damp, and still, and he thinks for a while that Claire’s presence has gone away with Joline and the baby, but as the sky dims with sunset he feels that chill again.
Because of his restlessness, he tells Kathleen, “I’m going for a little walk out on the ice.”
“Wow. Twice in two days. I don’t think you were out there at all before this weekend.”
“You might be right.”
“You want me to come with you?”
“No, that’s okay. You look comfortable where you are.” She is sitting in her chair with a book, her legs folded up in a way that makes her look young.
“It seems like it’s nicer out there today.”
“Yep. Warmer. Spring’s almost here.”
His footprints from yesterday alongside Tom’s have deepened with the slight melting that had occurred in the afternoon, though the thin crust of brittle snow has returned now that it is almost nightfall and colder. He listens to the pleasant and familiar crunch of his boots on the ice as he makes his way to the place he and Tom had stood. His conversation with Tom at the car had unsettled him—he wondered what Tom may have overheard last night. Marc looks up at the sky, and it is the same cobalt blue as yesterday, though lingering from the sunset is a shade of warm orange. He glances back at his home and sees the windows lit. He touches his fingers to his lips and remembers Joline’s kiss. Her mouth had been so warm. He still can’t understand why she’d given it to him.
He remembers a time, years ago, when he’d walked out onto the ice to watch the sunset. He’d learned from all his seasons here to watch for cloud formations that would lead to bright colors, and that evening the sun had turned the sky a brilliant blood orange, and the ice and the snow and even the cottages along the shoreline were drenched in it. Alone out on the lake, he’d wanted to call out to someone to come and look, come and see, but the only other person on the ice was a fisherman at least fifty yards away, and they’d given each other a brief, awestruck wave and together watched the sun descend. At the time, he had seen the orange sky as perhaps a sign, construed for him alone, and he’d remembered Claire, thought then that soon he might hear from her. But he’d been wrong.
This time of the evening, it’s easy to imagine the lake before any home had been built on it, and he squints so as to obscure the cottages with the trees. Now he stretches his arms out and spins once as Tom had last night. Even that single circle makes him slightly dizzy, and he has to catch himself with a half step to stay on his feet.
When he walks back into the house, he hears Kathleen in the next room on the phone. He assumes she’s talking to Joline, or perhaps she’d called her son, Jon. Marc settles into his chair, and warms his hands by the stove. He’s reading a book when Kathleen’s phone call abruptly ends, and she comes into the living room and stands in front of him.
“What is it?” he asks. She doesn’t look angry, but her eyes are narrowed, as if she’s trying to see into him.
“Joline told me she kissed you last night. On the mouth.”
He feels his stomach drop.
“She did. She kissed me. She asked me to close my eyes.”
He has no idea why he offers that detail, but he can’t bear Kathleen’s gaze.
“She told me you have a daughter.”
For a moment, he’s petrified.
“Marc, look at me. She said her name is Claire.”
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