Well Met(26)

So after dropping off April, finally returning Marjorie’s casserole dish (and fending off her politely probing questions about April’s recovery), and picking up the dry cleaning, I headed for Read It & Weep. I deserved a book for my birthday, at the very least. Not to mention Caitlin and I had finished Twelfth Night a week or two before. We’d had a lot of fun reading it out loud together, pausing every so often if she needed something explained. I wanted to keep the momentum going with a copy of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. If she was picking up my Shakespeare nerd gene I wanted to encourage that as much as possible.

I strolled the stacks for a little while before Chris realized I was there, and by the time she waved me over to make me a coffee I’d picked out three new books I couldn’t live without. Screw it, you only turned twenty-five once, right? I headed for the back of the shop, where she had coffee waiting for me, with half-and-half the way I liked it, as well as one for herself. I reached for my wallet to pay, but she waved it off.

“My treat,” she said. “Books too. Happy birthday.”

My jaw dropped. “How did you . . .”

“It was on the audition form, remember?”

I didn’t, but she did. A few months ago I might have muttered something about “goddamn small towns,” but now I thanked her with a grateful smile and shoved the books into my messenger bag.

“How’s April?” She pushed my coffee cup toward me as she picked up her own.

“Good. She’s good.” I took a tentative sip; it was still hot. “The doctors all seem to be impressed with her progress, and with how fast she’s healing. But they don’t know her. She’s pretty determined.” I tried not to wince, both from the hot drink and from my own mouth. Was I talking too much? Giving away too much of April’s private information?

“So what does that mean for you?”

“For me?” I tilted my head.

“Well, sure. You’ve been her caretaker for, what, about four months now? If she’s mobile again, what does that mean for you? Are you heading home?”

“Oh . . .” I took a long sip of coffee to avoid answering right away. Mostly because I had no idea what I’d say. Or where home was. “I haven’t thought that far ahead yet. I’m here for the next six weeks at least, since Faire starts in two days.”

“Two days. Finally.” She shook her head. “Every year I think we should make the rehearsal period shorter. I worry about the kids burning out, you know? What do you think?”

I had to laugh. “Caitlin couldn’t be more excited. Especially now that it’s all coming together and we’re spending more time out in the woods.” We’d been back a second weekend for more painting and more exploring. It still looked pretty bare-bones out there, but Stacey assured me that I’d be amazed this coming Saturday. I took her word for it.

Talking about the woods reminded me of something else I wanted to ask her. “I didn’t realize Sean was . . .” I didn’t know how to finish that sentence. “Dead” sounded too heavy, like the word would flop on the counter between us and lie there, staring at us. I started over. “I saw his memorial. At the site.”

“Oh. Yes. Poor Sean.” Her smile grew sad as she took a sip of coffee. “Of course you wouldn’t have known about him, but Sean Graham was an institution around here. It was such a shock when he . . .” She pressed her lips together and didn’t finish the sentence. We both had the same problem with finding the right words.

“I’ve never met anyone like Sean. He was good at everything. One of those boys in high school who was both the star quarterback and the lead in the spring musical. Basically the opposite of his brother.”

I choked on a laugh. “Yeah. I don’t see Simon on the football team.”

“Definitely not.” Her expression turned thoughtful. “I don’t think Simon did any sports in school. He didn’t crave the spotlight like Sean did. Sean loved the attention; he soaked it up like sunshine. And that boy could sell a cheeseburger to a vegan. He had a gift for getting people to do what he wanted.” She shrugged. “Like dress up like Queen Elizabeth every summer.”

“So this Faire wasn’t your idea?”

She laughed. “Oh, no! That was all Sean. His high school class went to the Maryland Renaissance Festival on a school trip one October, and that was it. He had to put one together himself, even though he had no idea how to do it. He got the school on board by pitching it as a fund-raiser. No one could say no to him and he knew it. We had a couple summers on the football field until his ideas got too big for it. Then he talked someone into letting us use those woods, and it became what it is now. Even when he got sick, he was part of things, telling us all what to do, bossing his little brother around.”

My mouth curved up at that; I couldn’t imagine Simon being bossed around. But the picture of Sean started to come together in my head, and the saddest part stood out. “He was sick?”

She nodded. “Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Simon moved back home after Sean’s diagnosis to help with things, and he hung on for a couple years. We were all sure he was going to beat it, and then . . .” Her light blue eyes shone with unshed tears. “That last summer, he was too sick to be part of things. Simon and I took over everything in the spring, though Sean still had some good ideas that we implemented. The joust was all his doing; he’d hired a touring company and planned out where the joust field would go. By that point, Simon and Mitch worked so well together that Sean talked them into putting together a full-on show, which became the human chess match. But by the time Faire opened that summer . . .” Her words thickened and she cleared her throat hard. “Simon shot some video with his phone. Showed it to Sean in the hospital. But three weeks into Faire he was gone.”