Evvie Drake Starts Over(84)

“What?”

Stuart speared a piece of chicken. “You’re remembering that wrong, pal.”

   “How? What’s your version?”

“You brought home that brochure, said you’d been invited, but it was pretty clear it was going to be hard work with a lot of guys you didn’t know. It seemed like it spooked you. You told me and Mom you didn’t want to do it. We said, ‘Are you sure?’ You said yes. Next day, that brochure’s on the table again. We ask you again, ‘Well, now, do you want to do this, Dean-o?’ ‘No, no, I don’t want to.’?”

“You were adamant,” Angie added.

“But the thing keeps showing up. Every time you walk off with it saying you don’t want to go, it shows up again. I told your mother, ‘Angie, either Dean wants to go to this or we’ve got a ghost that wants him to.’?”

Angie laughed. “You did, I forgot that.”

“So the next day, you come home and you say, ‘You know what I found out today, Dad? I found out Teddy’s going to that All-Star Camp.’ And that’s when I said, you know, ‘Go. You’re going.’ ‘Badgered’ you, for goodness’ sake.”

Dean frowned. “That’s bizarre. I don’t remember doing that at all.”

“You know I’d tell you if your dad was fantasizing,” Angie said. “But that’s the way I remember it, too. You dropped hints. And more hints. And even more hints. I think we were invited to badger you.”

“What,” Stuart said, “did you leave a bunch of brochures lying around for Evvie, too?”

Dean was quiet for a minute. “Dammit.”





ON THE LAST FRIDAY IN March, just before eleven in the morning, Evvie took the quick drive into Calcasset with a white box next to her on the passenger seat, addressed to Dean in New York. She pulled up to the curb near the post office and climbed out with the box in her arms. The sun was not fully out, but it was trying, and a gull soared over her, cawing. Just as she neared the doors, they swung open, and Dr. Paul Schramm came through them, with a huge pile of mail rubber-banded together. He’d finally retired, and now and then, Evvie’s dad would tell her something he’d heard about where the Schramms were, where their postcards back to friends were coming from. “Eveleth, hello!” he said.

“Hi, Dr. Schramm.” She shifted the package under her arm. “That’s a lot of letters you’ve got there.”

“Hey, I keep telling you to call me Paul,” he said. He looked down at the stack. “Helen and I were in Nova Scotia for a couple of weeks, so they held it for us. I’m sure it’s mostly junk. How are you? I heard you sold the house.”

“I did, I did.” She nodded. “A very nice guy who has a printing business in Augusta bought it. I’m sure you’ll meet him in the next few weeks.”

   “Must have been hard to part with.”

“It was. It was a beautiful house, but much too big now that it’s only me.” And just like that, Tim floated briefly between them like a stream of blown bubbles.

Dr. Schramm nodded gently. “I can imagine. And you’re living out on KBI now, right? Nice as your old house was, I’ve always loved those cottages. My aunt lived out there for years. I used to sit on her deck and look at the boats.”

“I do a lot of that myself. I still have work to do on it,” she said. “I’ll tell you what: once I get it in shape, I’ll have you and Helen out for dinner, okay? We’ll eat on the deck.”

“I’m going to take you up on that,” he said with a nod. “You take care, honey.”

“You, too, Paul.” She pulled the heavy door open and went up to the counter. She set the box down.

“First class mail?” said the clerk, without looking at her.

Evvie smoothed her hand over the address label, and closed her eyes for a second. Please, please, please. Then she opened them and said, “Yes. Please.”



* * *



—

A few days after she mailed the package, Evvie woke up when the light started to brighten the bedroom, and the minute she opened her eyes, she was confronted by a plaintive, damp-eyed stare.

“Oh, hello there, pup,” she said to Webster, reaching down to scratch him behind the ear. He closed his eyes blissfully but briefly, then resumed staring sadness daggers from his position sitting on the floor next to the bed. “Are you hungry?” she asked. His ears twitched. “Should we get food?” He hopped up and stood, and she threw back the covers. “Let’s go get breakfast!” She heard Webster gallop around the corner, through the living room, and into the kitchen, where she heard his claws skid across the floor as he tried in vain to stop.

   In the kitchen, she emptied a cup of food into Webster’s dish, then put the coffee on. It was nine in the morning. Maybe Dean would be having breakfast. Maybe he was with someone. She should have asked Andy if he was seeing anyone before she sent that package. She should have asked him if he was. She put on sweatpants and her fleece jacket to take Webster for a walk along the lane that led from her house out to the main road.

She and Webster walked out the lane every day, through a thick swath of evergreens, and every day, she thought consciously about smiling and trying to meet the neighbors. This house was about twenty minutes from her old one, still near her dad, still near Andy and his kids. But it was a new neighborhood, to the degree it was any neighborhood at all, and one where the houses were so far apart that it was too easy to feel like she lived all alone.