wrong.
“Hank,” Lindsey called from the kitchen, “are you hearing this?”
Hank roused himself from the couch, lurching forward as if he had been caught sleeping. He spilled a little coffee on his pants. “Look at this!” he said, holding the cup out in front of him.
Lindsey said, “Did you get any on the couch?”
Kate went to the sink for a dishrag. “It’s not a problem.” She wetted the towel and tossed it to Hank.
Hank said, “Couch survived,” and dabbed at his pants with the dishrag. Keith watched, mildly interested for a moment before returning to his puzzle. “Hearing what?” Hank said and went about emptying his coffee cup and refilling it from what was left in the decanter.
Lindsey said, “Corinne De Haven is going after Dave Price.”
“Really? What’s Lucille think of that?”
Kate said, “They’re split up.”
Hank took a seat between Kate and his wife. He held a black mug wrapped in his hands, as if he were trying to absorb its warmth. His wife was not yet thirty and Kate was forty-five, but as far as he could see, they might have been sisters, only a few years between them, Kate with just the slight hint of wrinkles around her eyes radiating out into her temples to give away her age. They talked with the same energy, were interested in the same things, had the same womanly air about them—that proficiency at the domestic that Hank associated with women, or at least women in his small circle, in his piece of the world, Salem, Virginia, the outer edge of the South. He had a momentary urge to take hold of both their hands, as if they were a religious family about to say grace, only he wanted to bow his head and ask God for forgiveness and maybe just a small piece of illumination, since at that instant he had a profound sense of not knowing who he was or what he thought he was doing.
Lindsey said, “Hello? Anybody home?”
“I don’t know,” Hank said. “What am I supposed to say?”
“Just grunt,” she said and rolled her eyes.
Kate put her hand on Hank’s forearm. “Corinne’s going to Dave’s tomorrow night with a bottle of wine. You know where that’s going to lead, and he’s only split with Lucille not even a month.”
“So,” he ventured, “you think Corinne’s being a bitch? She should give him more time?”
Lindsey said, “Duh.”
Kate said, “Don’t you think so?”
“I guess,” Hank said. “But, hell, they’re both grown-ups.”
“Oh, please,” Lindsey said. To Kate she added, “Typical male point of view.”
Kate said to Hank, “I think Corinne should respect the place he’s in right now, which has to be confused and emotionally vulnerable.”
Hank gave Kate a look. “Men are not children,” he said, and he lifted his cup to his lips. “They know what they’re doing.” He sipped his coffee and made a show of savoring it.
Lindsey said, “Since when are men not children?”
Kate laughed, and Lindsey looked as though she were about to say something else when the tinny opening notes of Beethoven’s Fifth issued from someplace in the back of the house, interrupting her.
“It’s Grandpa,” Keith said without looking away from his puzzle.
Lindsey said, “I left my pocketbook in the bathroom.” She had her cell phone programmed with different rings for her principal callers. Her father was Beethoven’s Fifth. Hank was the theme song from Gilligan’s Island. As she got up from the table, she looked at her wristwatch. “I’ve got a couple of hours before I’m supposed to be over there.”
Hank said, “He likely got the time confused.”
“Probably hit the wrong speed dial,” she said, mostly to herself, and then disappeared down the hallway between the kitchen and living room.
Once Lindsey was out of the room, Kate got up from the table and went to the sink with her saucer and cup in hand, then stood quietly looking out the kitchen window. With his back to Kate, Hank watched her nonetheless, her reflection mirrored in the protective glass of a framed photograph hanging on the kitchen wall. The picture was a dramatic early-morning image of mist rising off a stream that cut through a lush pine forest. The atmosphere of the picture was serene and primeval, as if the photographer had found the last place on earth untouched by time or civilization. For a long moment, the house was silent. Lindsey had exchanged a few sentences with someone obviously not her father and then gone quiet, though Hank could hear her footsteps as she paced the hall. In the living room, Keith was entirely lost in his puzzle, and at the kitchen window, Kate appeared to be lost in thought.
Hank and Lindsey were seniors at VCU when he proposed to her. He was thirty-two and Lindsey had just turned twenty-one. Lindsey had gone to college straight from high school, while he had spent ten years after high school working in the family business. During that time he had learned enough about landscaping construction to be convinced that he would never find the work fully satisfying, so he had gone to VCU to pursue a new career and get some distance from Salem and his family, which had roots in Salem going back three generations. Once at VCU, he fell in love with the first girl he met from Salem, married her upon graduation, got her pregnant on their honeymoon, and found himself back where he’d started, only now with a family. Sometimes all this amazed him.
When Lindsey appeared in the kitchen doorway, she was clutching the cell phone to her heart. “Ronnie’s being airlifted somewhere,” she said. “He’s been wounded. Jake Jr. called Friendship looking—”
“Goddamn it,” Hank said, and he surprised himself by how loudly he said it. “Do they know how bad?” He turned to Lindsey and leaned forward but didn’t get up. “Who were you talking to? Your father?”
Kate was at Lindsey’s side immediately, touching her arm, looking ready to embrace her. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “My God.”
Lindsey said, “Somebody called from Friendship. One of the nurses took the information. She had Dad’s phone.”
“Does your father know?” Kate asked.
“They didn’t tell him. They wanted to tell me first, and then—” Lindsey’s thoughts seemed to shift suddenly, and she stopped speaking.
“Honey,” Hank said. He went to Lindsey and touched her shoulder. “Did they say how badly he was wounded?”
“Just that he was being airlifted and he’d undergo surgery—and then they’re supposed to call again after . . .”
“Surgery,” Hank said, the worry clear in his voice. “Was there any mention of where he was airlifted?”
“Yes,” she said. “It didn’t register, though. I need to call back.” She started pressing buttons on her cell phone. “For God’s sake,” she said, “what are we supposed to do, just sit around and wait for someone to call? That’s crazy.”
“Lindsey,” Kate said, “sit down, honey. Let me make you some tea.”
As if she hadn’t heard, Lindsey walked to the front door with the cell phone to her ear. When she stepped outside, Hank tried to follow, but she held him at arm’s length. “I want to be alone,” she said. “Let me try to figure out—” When someone answered the call, she started asking questions and walked out into the front yard. Hank watched her from the steps as she paced the lawn. A minute later, she disappeared around the corner, walking away from him as if she didn’t want him even looking at her. He went back inside. The kitchen was empty and Keith was sitting up beside his puzzle with his hands folded in his lap. He watched Hank carefully, with wide eyes, in silence.
Hank said, “Buddy, it’ll be all right.”
Keith opened his