“You’re a good deal younger than I imagined,” he said to Mitch, waving at two old characters in a Jeep as they passed by. “When I heard you were a widower I was expecting an older gentleman.”
“Believe me, it came as something of a surprise to me, too.”
“I lost a lot of my friends-and myself-in ’Nam,” Bliss said quietly. “Never did think I’d heal. The hardest part was being patient.” His eyes drifted over to the nearby salt marsh, where an osprey was wafting on the breeze, circling. “This is a good place for it. You picked a good place.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” said Mitch, who was not expecting to have this conversation with this particular stranger.
“Dolly’s an old, old friend, you know.” Bliss kicked at the hard dirt with the toe of his boot. “We grew up together.”
“She seems very nice.”
“She is,” Bliss affirmed, coloring slightly. “She’s about the nicest person I’ve ever known.”
“How well do you know Bud Havenhurst?”
“Quite well,” he replied. “Why?”
“Because I do have a question that you might be able to answer.”
The rugged trooper peered at him intently. “Sure thing.”
“When I was signing the lease, he said he hoped I wouldn’t be sorry. And Dennis at the hardware store said that I was a brave man. Is there something about Big Sister that I should know?”
Bliss took off his big hat and turned it over in his hands, examining it for a long moment before he leveled his eyes at Mitch. “You might want to ask Dolly about this.”
“I’m asking you.”
Bliss puffed out his cheeks. “Very well. Maybe it is better this way. Have you met a fellow named Tuck Weems?”
“Kind of. I said hello, he didn’t.”
Bliss smiled faintly. “That’s Tuck, all right. He grew up on Big Sister. Tuck’s father, Roy, was the caretaker. The two of them and Tuck’s mom, Louisa, lived out there in your little carriage house. Right after we got out of high school, when Tuck and I were serving in ’Nam, well, Roy went over the edge. Blew poor Louisa’s head off with his shotgun. And then did the same thing to himself. It happened right there-in your carriage house. And it was Dolly who found them. A horrible, horrible thing for that lovely seventeen-year-old girl to walk in on… Anyway, the house has been vacant ever since. No one has lived there-until now. You’re the first. I suppose Dolly didn’t say anything to you about it because she doesn’t like to dwell on it. You see, Dolly’s extremely delicate. Fragile, you might say. And these are tough times for her. She got hit pretty hard when her new husband pulled up stakes on her.” The trooper paused, his eyes searching Mitch’s face. “I sure do hope you’ll be considerate of her feelings.”
Mitch cocked his head at him curiously. “How do you mean?”
Bliss swallowed uneasily. “I just would hate to see some fellow come to town and take advantage of her again.”
“Again?”
“Niles.” The trooper spat out the name as if it were a dirty word. “He swooped down on her, flattered her, manipulated her, stole her from Bud. And just look how things turned out. She got her poor heart broken. I don’t want to see that happen again. Can you understand that?”
Mitch understood, all right. The trooper was telling him to stay away from Dolly. Not that he was the least bit interested in her. Hell, she was practically old enough to be his mother. What Mitch didn’t understand was in what capacity Bliss was delivering this warning. Was he speaking to him as Dorset’s resident trooper-a public servant empowered to preserve and protect the family’s interests? Or was he speaking to him as a man who happened to be in love with Dolly himself and wanted no rivals for her affections? Mitch didn’t know. But either way, his answer was the same: “You’re making yourself quite clear.”
The trooper’s face creased into a smile. “That’s good. I’m glad we understand each other, Mr. Berger.” Then he tipped his hat at him and strode back to his cruiser and took off, leaving Mitch there with his head spinning.
His dream cottage was a death shack.
As he headed back across the narrow bridge, the island looked different to him now. It wasn’t a carefree Yankee eden. It was sinister. And his little cottage gave him the creeps. He could feel the death in the air the second he walked inside. The ceiling seemed lower, the walls closer together. The quiet was no longer soothing. It was ominous.
Shaken, Mitch grabbed himself a Bass Ale, went back outside and sat on one of his garden chairs in the late-day sun, wondering if he could still be happy here. Could he forget what had happened? Why not? He was trying to cut himself loose from his own past, wasn’t he? Was this not the same thing? No, it wasn’t, actually. He wasn’t trying to forget that Maisie had ever existed. But he was trying to live in the present, not the past. And that part wasn’t so different, was it?
Mitch didn’t know. He only knew that his feelings about this place would never be the same.
He was still sitting there an hour later when he saw a Ford pickup pull up. Tuck Weems. He had come to mow the lush green expanse of lawn that grew between Dolly’s place and the carriage house. Mitch waved to him. Weems didn’t wave back. Business as usual. As he sat there watching Weems unload his big mower, Mitch saw Dolly coming along the gravel path toward his house, smiling at him shyly. It was not hard for Mitch to picture her as a lovely, light-footed young girl with a tennis racket in her hand and an easy smile on her lips. No, it was not hard at all. She was wearing a pair of trimly tailored gray slacks and a black cashmere sweater with a plunging V-neck. She carried a small jar in one hand, a rusty old horseshoe in the other. As she got nearer, he could smell tart, lemony perfume.
“I’ve brought you a house-warming gift, Mitch,” she said graciously, holding the horseshoe out to him. “It’s an old New England tradition. One hangs it over the front door, pointing upward, and it’s supposed to bring good luck. It’s one of our own shoes-I found it in the barn.”
“Why, thank you,” Mitch said, hefting it in his hand. “Please sit. Can I get you something to drink?”
“Thank you, no,” she said, sliding into his other garden chair. “But you could… That is, I’m having some people in and I simply cannot get these pimientos open.” She pronounced it pim-ee-entos. Mitch had never heard anyone pronounce it that way before. At least not anyone who wasn’t trying to do Noel Coward. “I tried warm water. I tried one of those cursed ergonomically advanced jar openers. Utterly useless. The thing seems cemented shut. Would you please try?”
“I’d be happy to.”
The jar opened for him right away. It wasn’t easy, but wasn’t that hard either.
“Bless you!” she exclaimed gratefully. “It is so nice to have a man around sometimes. I’ve been terribly remiss in not inviting you over for a drink. We must do that some evening.”
They sat there in silence a moment, watching Weems work. He did nothing to acknowledge their presence there.
“You haven’t done much entertaining since you’ve been here,” Dolly mentioned, glancing at Mitch with a raised eyebrow. “That’s not to say I’ve been studying your every move out my window with binoculars, but do you not find yourself terribly lonely?”
“Not terribly, no.”
“But it is hard, is it not?” she persisted. “Adjusting to the absence of joy in one’s life. When one has grown used to it, I mean.”
“Yes, it’s very hard.”
She nodded to herself. “I don’t believe it’s humanly possible to experience joy by oneself. It takes two. I suppose one does come to appreciate the smaller pleasures. And to accept them. But there are so many nights I just cry myself to sleep asking myself why.” She broke off into silence. “You probably understand this better than most people.”
“I’m sorry to say I do.”
Her eyes locked on to his imploringly. There was tremendous strain in hers. She seemed very tightly wound. In fact, she seemed as if she were on the verge of cracking. “No one has ever told me he didn’t want me anymore. I suppose that’s a silly thing for a person my age to say