The Storm King(3)

He tried to think of exactly what he’d say, but they’d not yet invented the right words for this.

Nate got his first unfettered view of the lake once he neared the base of the hill. It glittered in the sunlight, though its serenity didn’t fool Nate. There was a well-known saying in the little town along the shore: The lake returns what it takes. This applied to fishing nets as well as drowned bodies, jetsam as well as secrets.

While here, Nate planned to push this gem of lore to its limit.

In his pocket, his phone vibrated with a text message.



MEG: YOU HOME SWEET HOME?

A host of adjectives could describe the town along the shore, but “sweet” wasn’t among them. Just got here, Nate typed back. You in NJ yet?

The bus was an atrocious way to travel here, but with a Category 3 edging past the Carolinas, stranding Meg without the car hadn’t been an option. Two days ago, it had looked like the hurricane would pinwheel into the Atlantic, but high pressure had kinked the jet stream from its usual course. Medea would strike inland, and when it did it would be the worst storm the Northeast had seen in years.

He’d been updating Meg regularly with the notifications pinged to him by his weather apps: wind-speed stats, pics from obliterated beach towns, the inevitable comparisons to Katrina and Sandy. When it came to such things, he had an abundance of caution that his wife rarely shared. Nate believed he’d successfully convinced Meg to take Livvy out of the city to weather Medea at her parents’ home in the suburbs, but he wouldn’t relax until he got confirmation that they’d arrived safely. According to Google Earth, his in-laws’ house was 134 feet above sea level and two miles from any river likely to flood.

Even without Medea, this trek to the northern hinterlands was poorly timed. Meg felt she was on the brink of making partner at her law firm. Livvy had another ear infection. Things were busier than usual at the hospital. The schedule of their lives was like a chess match in three dimensions, but right now the Lake was where Nate had to be.

He could have rented a car for the trip north, but there was something in the monotony of the bus that appealed to him. The jolt of its acceleration, the lurch of its brakes, and its faithful pauses at each waypoint of its rambling route. More than a drive, taking the bus felt like a journey. A necessary transit between the world he’d made and the world that had made him. He’d worked more than he’d meant to during the ride, but Nate knew those long hours had helped him adjust to the idea of returning home. Even under the best circumstances it would be jarring to see the lake’s silver skin lap the shore, hear the wash of traffic along the wet asphalt of the Strand, and smell this tree-spiced wind.



His grandmother had called him three weeks ago, as soon as they’d found the body in the headlands. This was before any official identification had been made, but Nate hadn’t needed to wait for dental records or DNA.

Grams’s pub, Union Points, was across a cobblestone street from the Wharf. The establishment and the tidy brick building that housed it had been in Nate’s family for more than a century. Generations of McHales had manned its taps and swept its floors. Nate no longer knew where he fit into his family’s legacy in this town, but he still felt a swell of warmth at the sight of the place.

Other than a plastic tarp fixed where a plate glass window should have been, the old pub looked good. Inside, its black wood surfaces had been polished, and its exposed brick walls hung with stylish photographs of the town and the lake. The place was empty except for a trio of college guys at the counter and a boat crew occupying a booth in the back. A girl with shoulder-length black hair pressed at a flat-screen register behind the bar.

The bartender had a smile on her face, but when she turned to Nate, her body went rigid. Her open expression closed like a flower on the brink of night.

“She’s in the back,” the bartender finally said after an uncomfortable pause. She barely looked old enough to tend the bar. “Want me to get her?”

“Sure,” Nate said.

In this town there was no point in wondering how a girl this young knew him by sight.

The college guys paid no attention as Nate settled in a few stools away, but the locals in the back got quiet. Their curiosity pulled on his shoulders, a familiar weight.

He heard Grams’s sure stride before she burst through the kitchen doors. He Skyped with her every Sunday but hadn’t seen her in person since her last visit to the city back in July. She’d been spindle tall and steely gray for as long as he’d known her, and she looked only a little more stooped than he remembered.



“My beautiful boy,” she said.

Nate bent to kiss her on the cheek and she pulled him tight.

“I’d have met you at the green,” she said.

“And abandon the place to this crowd?” His gesture encompassed the empty tables and half dozen patrons. “Can’t trigger a riot in my first ten minutes home. Got to pace myself.”

She cuffed him on the shoulder. “Be good, you devil.”

“What happened to the window?” he asked.

“Oh.” She glanced at the front of the bar. The plastic sheet tensed with the breeze like an inflating lung. “That last thunderstorm. Fella keeps bringing the wrong size pane. We’ll need to plank it good and tight for the hurricane. You’re so thin, boy.” She poked him in the ribs. “I’ll bring you something.”