Beside him, Shelby shifted position and spoke for the first time in nearly half an hour. “I knew it,” she said. “I knew this was a bad idea.”
“It’s only a light drizzle.”
“Followed by heavier rain, followed by a storm with high winds, followed by unsettled weather that probably means another storm by New Year’s Eve.”
“The forecasters aren’t always right.”
“Want to bet they’re not this time?”
Macklin glanced over at her. She was huddled low on the seat, her arms folded under her breasts as if she were cold despite the cranked-up heater. In the shadowy glow of the dash lights she looked younger than thirty-five, the same effect as soft room lights and candlelight. It was only in bright light, harsh light, that the age, worry, and stress lines were evident. The years she’d spent on the ambulance, all the carnage and death she’d seen and had to deal with, were partly responsible. But mainly he was to blame. Twelve years of marriage to him had sucked the youth out of her. And he hated himself for it, even though he’d had damn little control over the process.
“We should have left earlier,” she said. “Driving in wet weather in daylight is bad enough. Why didn’t you wake me sooner?”
“Three straight night shifts. You needed the rest.”
“Five whole days off. I could’ve slept in the car.”
“Okay, I’m sorry. You’re right, we should’ve left earlier.”
Silence for a time. Then, “I still think this is a bad idea. I don’t see why you’re so set on it.”
You will soon enough, he thought. “We needed to get away.”
“Oh, we did?”
“Just the two of us. We haven’t been anywhere alone together in almost two years.”
“We’re alone together at home. A four-hundred-mile round-trip in the dead of winter just to spend four days in an isolated seaside cottage—it just doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.”
“Four days free of charge, don’t forget that.”
“Holiday charity from good old Ben Coulter.”
“You know Ben’s not that way. He’s only owned the cottage a year and a half and he likes having people stay there when he’s not using it.”
“Must be nice to be rich,” Shelby said.
“Ben’s not rich, not by today’s standards.”
“A successful software business, a house in Los Altos Hills, a second home on the Mendocino coast, a daughter in a private school—that’s rich by my standards.”
“Well, anyway, we’ll have these next few days to ourselves. At home … distractions, interruptions, another dull New Year’s party somewhere, friends showing up unannounced—”
“What friends, besides Mary Ellen and John, Ben and Kate?”
“Come on, we have more than that.”
“Acquaintances, yes, not what I call friends.”
The distinction wasn’t worth arguing. “Besides,” he said, “we didn’t really enjoy Christmas.”
“It was all right.”
“But not very festive.”
“How could it be, the way things have gone this year?”
It wasn’t meant as a jab at him, but it might as well have been. The way things had gone this year. Losing his office manager’s job when the recession forced Conray Foods to downsize. Not being able to find another, even something blue collar that paid decent wages, because he was overqualified—six months now and counting. Even Ben couldn’t help him; he knew nothing about software technology and there were no office staff openings at Coulter, Inc. And now this other thing … what would Shelby say if he just blurted it out, right here in the dark car? But he wouldn’t. Couldn’t. That was why this time alone together was so important, to help soften the blow. Maybe soften it, if the next four days went better than this one had so far.
He said, trying to sound cheerful, “Even if the weather’s bad, it’ll be nice at the cottage.”
“Will it?”
“You’ve seen the photos. Oceanfront, all the amenities.”
“In the middle of nowhere.”
“Three miles to the nearest town—hardly the middle of nowhere.”
“Town, Jay? With a population of ninety-seven? That’s not even a hamlet.”
“Remember the driving trip to Oregon? We came back down the coast and you liked the area then, you said it was beautiful up here.”
“That was ten years ago. And in the summer, with the sun shining.”
He didn’t want to argue; that was the last thing he wanted. Best to keep his mouth shut. Shelby’s mood was prickly enough as it was.
“You’d better turn the wipers on full,” she said. “Your drizzle is turning into a downpour.”
The wind-driven rain pelted down with increasing velocity the farther north they traveled. The serpentine coast highway grew slick, runoff puddles forming in low-lying areas along its verges. Macklin lowered his speed to fifty, to half that on some of the sharper curves. The road remained deserted for long intervals; the few cars he saw seemed to be mostly highway patrol and county sheriff’s cruisers.
His neck and shoulders had begun to ache a bit. Once he thought of asking Shelby to take over; she was a better driver than him, not so overly cautious in conditions like these. But he didn’t do it. He felt all right, not too fatigued. Nothing to be gained in shifting the burden to her.
They passed through a handful of widely spaced little towns and villages, all of which had an abandoned aspect like illuminated ghosts. Hardly any tourists this time of year, on a Sunday in weather like this, and the residents forted up for the night. Most of the roadside businesses were closed, taverns and a few restaurants and lodging places the only ones open. Night-lights, neon signs, leftover Christmas decorations—all shone fuzzy and remote through the curtain of rain.
Macklin checked the odometer again. Not much farther now—another ten miles to Seacrest, the nearest village, and another three beyond that to the cottage. He’d memorized the landmarks and mileage distances Ben had given him, but when they got to Seacrest he’d go through the mental checklist again to make sure he had them all.
Shelby hadn’t said a word since their conversation after the rain started. He glanced over at her again. She was sitting motionless, hands resting palms up on her thighs. Asleep? No. Her head moved slightly and in the dash lights he could see the faint gleam of one opened eye. Brooding, maybe, about some of the same things that had been on his mind lately. About the coming New Year, their financial problems, their life together and all that had gone wrong with it.
It wasn’t that she was easy to read—everybody had depths that no one else could fathom—but after twelve years he was familiar with her moods and the way her mind worked. Until recently she’d been more or less open about herself, her feelings, her needs and concerns. The exact opposite of him. All his life he’d been a closed book, not only to her and others but to himself. Not by conscious choice; it was as if the pages in the Jay Macklin book were glued down and he couldn’t pry them loose no matter how hard he tried.
Part of the reason was his childhood—his weak-willed mother, his coldly indifferent father, the fact that he hadn’t made friends easily and wasn’t popular, at least not until his high school peers found out just how good a baseball player he was; and even then he’d remained the kind of kid who mostly hangs in the background, noticed by a few but ignored by most.
But there was more to it than that, a part of himself he’d never been able to understand or control—an almost pathological need to keep essential pieces of himself hidden away, even from the woman he loved. It wasn’t a matter of privacy, or a safety mechanism, or fear of revealing too much or too little of himself. It wasn’t anything that he could define. A genetic quirk, a birth defect. Bad wiring. Every time he tried to put meaningful thoughts or feelings into words, it was as if his brain short-circuited and rendered him mute.