Lineage(79)

Lance turned and moved toward his car. He made a promise to himself before reaching the SUV. He would make a conscious effort to really try with Mary. He would let her in and not hold her at arm’s length. He would reveal himself to her, even if she turned away and fled.

A new sensation blossomed within him as he started the Land Rover and backed out of the parking space. It was unfamiliar and took him almost two miles of driving before he recognized it. It was hope, and he liked how it felt.



The afternoon stretched out like a desert road—straight, narrow, and immeasurably long. He tried to write, but the sentences would begin and then stall as his thoughts slipped to the evening ahead of him. Mary’s face kept appearing in front of the words on the screen, and after an hour of start-and-stop progression, he flipped the monitor off in exasperation. He looked out at the lake and watched the waves roll into the shore for a while, the rhythm beckoning him to retire to a nap upstairs. Instead he decided to get a workout in, the whole time telling himself he wasn’t exercising for the sake of the date he was about to go on.

An hour and a half later he strode into the downstairs bath, sweaty and blood flooding the muscles he’d punished with pushups, squats, and crunches. The shower helped wash away the perspiration he had accumulated but did nothing for the nervousness brewing in the pit of his stomach like a noxious stew.

As he dried off, he looked at his reflection in the fogged mirror, his outline smudged by the condensation on the glass. “Calm … the f*ck … down,” he said to the mirror, as he leaned on the counter and stared into his distorted eyes.

His eagerness for 6:00 p.m. to arrive became irritating. His ego cried out to him from the small corner it resided in, telling him there wasn’t a need to be nervous or excited. It’s just another date, the voice said, and this time he tried to agree with it.

He lay down in his bed after dressing in a pair of shorts and a T-shirt, the softness of it welcoming him like an old friend. He set an alarm on his phone for six o’clock and set it on the table beside his bed. His breaths were deep and calming, the fatigue of the night before catching up and enveloping him. He tried to think of nothing, to clear his head of all concerns, while he imagined a field before him. It was an old exercise Dr. Tyler had taught him. The field unfurled, the grass a perfect length and absent of weeds. A patch of flowers grew on one edge, but besides that, the open ground was empty. A deer walked out of the forest on the perimeter of the clearing and began to feed. Lance could see every hair on its back, each fiber outlined in the bright light of the day. He focused on the hairs and began to count them. He reached thirty-one before he fell asleep.



The intermittent vibrating and squawking of his phone ceased as he stabbed it with a pointed finger. Excitement poured through him. It was time to go.

He dressed in a pair of trendy jeans and a black button-up shirt. His hair remained mediocre; no matter what he did, it seemed to return to its natural disarray. A spray from an almost-full bottle of cologne and he left the house in silence.



The Lighthouse was the restaurant he had observed his first day in town. It sat at the northern end of the street on the right side, facing the lake. The parking lot of the low, modern building wasn’t crowded as Lance pulled in a few minutes before six thirty. He inspected each vehicle, wondering which belonged to Mary, but couldn’t identify any of the models with her forthright personality.

A high ceiling in the entryway met him with light stained wood floors and rock layered into the walls in every available space. The restaurant opened up into a comfortable seating area that faced an expanse of windows, allowing for a brilliant view of Superior. Thick rock pillars shot up out of the wood floor sporadically, adding to the semi-modern rustic setting. Lance could see a few couples lounging at the bar at the far end of the room, but couldn’t make out Mary’s petite form among them. He started to walk farther into the restaurant, past the podium that said Please Wait To Be Seated, when a young man in a black vest appeared from behind a nearby counter.

“Just one, sir?” the host asked, grabbing a menu from a holder on the side of the podium.

“No, actually I’m meeting someone.”

“Ah, right this way, sir.”

Without another word, Lance followed the boy in the uniform. The restaurant became darker as they wound their way between mostly empty tables. At the far corner, closest to the windows, Lance spied Mary seated at a small table by herself. Her hair was pulled back, leaving two delicate strands hanging over her face. She wore a modest skirt and a blouse that hugged her frame, and Lance could see a diamond pendant flash at her throat in the light from the single candle on the table.