The picture Margy was holding in the magazine photo was hanging just below. Clare unhooked it from its nail and held it up. It showed a tall, too-thin young man, tan and shirtless, hair bleached blond from the sun, set off against exotic palms in the background. He could have been a late-sixties surfer, if not for the dog tags and the fatigues, and the M16 slung over his shoulder. She ran a finger over the glass. She had never imagined him that young. She would have been six or seven when this picture was taken, learning to read Dick and Jane books while he slept in mud and fought off intestinal parasites and tried to keep from getting killed every day. Their difference in age, which had never meant anything to her before, suddenly yawned wide, a vast chasm filled with events he had lived through as an adult that were nothing but stories and history and vague childhood memories to her.
Margy Van Alstyne would probably love to tell her stories about Russ as a young man. She could come out for a visit and hear about his childhood, and what he was like in high school, and where he went while he was in the service. Maybe she could find out more about his wife. Her grandmother’s voice broke in. If you don’t want to go to Atlanta, missy, you’d best not get on that train. She took a deep breath. Or, she could mind her own business and leave the Van Alstynes alone. She rehung the photograph carefully in its spot, squaring it just so with its neighbors. Then she retreated to the kitchen before she could yield to temptation again.
The ride back to Millers Kill took even longer than the ride out, in part due to the heavy end-of-the-day traffic and in part due to the necessity of driving slowly when the car was filled to capacity with dogs. It didn’t help that she felt irritated at her foray into Mrs. Van Alstyne’s living room. She was asked to do a simple favor for someone who had helped her out immeasurably by taking the dogs in the first place, and she had used it as an excuse to moon over the woman’s married son. It was just plain tacky, that’s what it was.
Everyone in the seminary had heard of some priest who had crossed the line between compassion and passion and broken up a marriage or two in the process. Nine times out of ten, it was a parishioner who had been in counseling, or the church secretary. Well, most of her counseling these days was with young engaged couples, and Lois was certainly no threat to her virtue. If she just showed a little more self-control, she wouldn’t have a problem.
There had been a time, when she was a lieutenant, that she had developed a terrific crush on an out-of-bounds man. He was a captain, directly above her in the chain of command, and if anything had happened between them, it could have meant both their jobs. Handling her feelings, she had discovered, meant never lingering over the thought of him, never daydreaming, never fantasizing. Eventually, her tour of duty finished, she left, and within a year she couldn’t recall what it was that had gotten her so hot and bothered in the first place.
By the time she pulled into the rectory driveway, her little car shimmying from Gal and Bob’s excited wriggling, she felt better. Self-discipline was something she knew how to do. As if in reward for her good thoughts, there was a message on her answering machine.
“Clare? Hi, it’s Paul. I hope you can hear this okay, I’m using the pay phone in the lobby and the thing dates back to the Eisenhower administration. Great news! Emil has woken up and is responding to speech! He’s having trouble talking, but the neurologist says that’s normal at this point, that it doesn’t mean anything. He recognized me, and his kids, and he managed to squeeze our hands a little. I feel so grateful, I can’t tell you. I hope Bob and Gal are doing okay”—the dogs both barked sharply when they heard their names—“and that they’re not wearing you out. I’ll try to reach you again as soon as I know something new. Thanks again for everything, Clare.”
“You see?” she said to the Berns. “Doing good is its own reward. Let’s go make some dinner.”
Two plates of linguini later, stretched out on the sofa with a glass of Chianti, watching the Boston Pops Esplanade concert, Clare was beginning to think she ought to look into getting a dog. It was fun having someone to talk to in the kitchen, even if neither Gal nor Bob was a great conversationalist. And seeing them stretched out on the hardwood floor was deeply satisfying. It made her feel English. The Vicar of Dibley crossed with a James Herriot story. Maybe she could get herself one of those canvas coats, and a walking stick. She yawned.
Gal and Bob got up, shook themselves, and walked into the foyer.
“What is it? Do you two want to go out?”
At the word out, both dogs barked. Clare groaned. As she rolled off the sofa, they began to whine and pant, and by the time she joined them in the foyer, their nails were clicking madly on the wooden floor as they jostled each other to be first out the door.
She opened the door to the damp and cold and the dogs bounded out, ran straight to the edge of the sidewalk, turned to look at her, and began barking.
“Shhh! Shhh!” She wrestled on her sneakers and pulled a running shell with reflective stripes over her head. Where had she tossed those leashes? In the kitchen? When she finally stepped out onto the front porch, the Berns ran to her, leaping joyously and barking even louder. “Sssh! It’s nine o’clock, for heaven’s sake. This isn’t the country! I’ve got neighbors.” The dogs promptly sat, tails thumping, looking at her expectantly. “I get the feeling that, unlike me, you two didn’t get enough exercise today. Am I right? C’mon, then, we can walk down to the park. If they haven’t canceled because of the weather, we might even see some fireworks.”
Each wrought-iron lamp along Church Street had its own halo, its light a soft glow in the mist. The usually strident sodium orange looked like gaslight, shading the red-white-and-blue bunting, flickering over the slick leaves rustling in nearby trees. The dogs had fallen silent as soon as Clare had led them out on the leashes, and she could hear far-off noises amplified in the developing fog. There were few people on the sidewalks at this hour. Clare would hear footsteps clicking and someone would emerge from the mist, smile or look startled, and then vanish behind her. It might have been unnerving if she had been alone, but walking behind two large and well-behaved dogs made it a genteel adventure, like strolling through Victorian London. She added Sherlock Holmes to her list of English images.
They crossed Main Street, turned down Mill, and continued toward Riverside Park. As they got closer, she could hear distant voices in a current of many conversations. A flicker of excitement made her smile. The fireworks must still be on. She picked up her pace, hurrying past shabby shops and mill offices whose brick facades were the color of old blood in the dark.
From the abandoned textile mill on its left to the decrepit pulping mill on its right, the park was set off from the street by almost half a mile of high iron-rail fencing. The central entrance, which had marked the start of the race this afternoon, had a wide ornate gate overtopped by a wrought-iron arch, the whole fixture a monument to the prosperity that had vanished from the area after World War II. It was that gate she was shooting for, but she had scarcely passed the textile mill when the first muffled thud sounded somewhere over the river and she saw a dazzle of green light. A chorus of oohs and aahs came from inside the park.