“Well,” said Claudia. “Thank you so much.”
She was about to go out on a limb and ask Wanda what it was that Claudia must know all about it. But the other woman had already hung up. A hit and run; Claudia was exhausted. She’d always had an inability to protect herself against other people’s negativity. She was fighting back the creep of anxiety and self-doubt when she saw him emerge from the trees, silent as a wraith as if he’d melted out from the color around him.
He was large, with a tawny coat, and long bushy tail, a regal, thoughtful face. She moved to the window, and he stood, watchful, looking at the house. She wasn’t sure if he could see her, but she felt as if he could, as if he was looking right at her, wondering at her as she was at him. The first time she saw him, she’d thought he was a coyote. But a quick bit of research on the internet and she’d determined that he was a coywolf, a coyote-wolf hybrid. They were bigger than coyotes, less skittish of humans, with bigger heads, and longer, fuller tails. She’d given him a name, Scout, and she liked the sight of him, always felt a flush of excitement at his arrival, even though she didn’t go out when he was around. There’d only been one human fatality involving a coywolf, a young girl killed in Canada by a coyote-wolf pack. Mainly, they were unseen by humans in their environments, which were increasingly urban. They were smart, adaptable, and good at hiding in plain sight.
Scout took a seat and lifted his nose toward the air. As Claudia watched him, a kind of calm came over her. She took and released a breath. She heard on the local news that a male coywolf had been killed a couple of towns over. Police claimed that his behavior was aggressive. Only afterward was it discovered that the coywolf was protecting the den where his pups and his mate were hiding. Coywolves mated for life; Claudia had spent an unreasonable amount of time worrying about the female and her pups. Would they be all right on their own? How did animals process loss? Would the mate just pull herself together and do what needed doing, leaving her cubs behind in the den as she went out to find food, returning later with her kill? Would she bay at the moon, mourning her lost love? Sometimes at night, you could hear them—yipping, talking, howling. It was a sad sound, lonely and distant.
Scout stood up abruptly, his reverie interrupted by something, then quickly turned and disappeared into the trees. Claudia always had a moment of disappointment when he went on his way. She turned to see that blue Toyota pulling up the drive, and she watched as Josh Beckham climbed out. For a second, she thought there was someone in the car with him, but he got out of the car alone. He stood a moment, looking at the barn door, shaking his head, running a hand through his unruly head of blond hair.
Wanda Crabb’s words were still echoing, even though they had nothing to do with Josh really. It was his brother that was the problem. So why couldn’t Claudia shake it? That worried feeling. Trauma and its aftermath were tricky, even so many years later. Even though, emotionally, she had healed more or less, meaning she could function, love, trust, meet people, make friends, connect. Sometimes it was as if her body still remembered; she still jumped at shadows, was attuned to strange noises and even scents.
When he knocked, she hesitated a moment, then opened the door.
“So it came down after all,” Josh said, stepping into the foyer. “I had a feeling.”
He filled the room with the scent of sawdust and soap, something else—paint. It took her a second to remember what he was talking about.
“Oh, the door,” she said. She glanced down at her watch. “They should be here soon, too. The guys from Just Old Doors.”
She was happy they would all be here at the same time.
He nodded. “They’re good guys,” he said. “I’ll talk to them and make sure they take care of you on the price.”
“Thanks,” she said. “Hopefully, some promotion on the blog will help, too.”
“I liked your picture shelves,” he said. “You did a good job—using the laser level and that digital stud finder and everything.”
She laughed a little, pleased at his praise even though she didn’t want to be. She’d filmed her mistakes, as well as the final success, just so people could see that home repair and renovation wasn’t as easy as they made it look on television. When you did it yourself, there was a learning curve. You made mistakes and tried again, hopefully finally getting it or maybe admitting defeat and calling a professional. She put it all up there. Luckily, when it came to home repair, there was almost always a fix—even if you had to bring in the drywall guy.
“I messed it up a couple of times before I got it right,” she said.
“I like how you show your mistakes,” he said. “That’s how we learn.”
Something about the way he said it had more weight than she thought he intended. He dug his hands deep into his pockets and glanced down at the floor, then around the foyer—up at the ceiling (water stain from leaky plumbing in the bathroom), at the wainscoting along the stairs (still big sections in need of refinishing), the banister (still loose).
“Want to walk through the house with me and talk about my punch list?” she said. “I thought we’d start with one project and see how it goes. Does that work?”
He gave her a nod. He had a nice smile, warm and open, that caused his eyes to squint a little. In his jeans and work boots, another long-sleeve tee, this one fresh white, he had a disarming boyishness about him. As they walked through the house, talking about the endless number of projects, she forgot all about Wanda Crabb’s negative energy and the unpleasant things she had to say about Josh’s brother, who was—lucky for them all, she guessed—long gone.
ten
There’s no one in there. It was just the dog.
I logged miles that night after sparring with Mike, walking from the dim desertion of residential Twenty-Seventh, up the constant melee of Broadway to Ninety-Sixth Street. Then I cut west and moved though the shadows of Riverside Park, heading north slowly, a watcher, gliding through the quiet streets. Often I roam, no destination in mind, until I am tired enough to think I might sleep.
After a while, fatigue finally tugging at me, I headed back downtown. As I moved from neighborhood to neighborhood—the eternal crush of Midtown, the sleepy West Village—my brain churned. I thought about what I knew, what I’d done, what I had yet to do. I thought about Paul and how angry he’d been with me. I thought about Seth’s question and Mike’s warning. I’d imagined I’d feel better after the plan was in play. But I didn’t. No, there was something else now. A buzz, a white noise of anxiety.
What now? Paul had asked. Have you thought about that?