drove slower than ever, under a dense network of overarching branches. Houses to the left were fronting the long frozen lake. Caroline’s friend’s place was on the right, where it would overlook a second arm of the lake. The map showed a Y-shaped lake, with the long arm straight, and the other shorter arm curving into it about halfway down.
Her friend’s house had no number in its driveway, but by the numbers before and after it, he deduced that it had to be the one. He turned around in a driveway, idled back up the road.
The place had a short gravel curve of driveway, with no cars in it. At the end of the driveway to the left stood a house, while to the right was a detached garage. Both were dark green with white trim. A car could have been hidden in the garage. Ah; the house number was there on the side of the garage.
He didn’t want to drive into the driveway. On the other hand it must look odd, him idling out on the road, looking in – if there was anyone there to see. He idled down the road farther, back in the direction of the paved road. Then he parked on the side at a wide spot, cursing under his breath. He got out and walked quickly down the road and up the driveway to the house in question.
He stopped between the house and the garage, under a big bare-limbed tree. The snow was crushed down to ice shards on the flagstones between the house and garage, as if someone had walked all over them and then there had been a thaw. No one was visible through the kitchen window. He was afraid to knock on the kitchen door. He stepped around the side of the house, looking in the windows running down that side. Inside was a big room, beyond it a sun porch facing the lake. The lake was down a slope from the house. There was a narrow path down, flanked by stone-walled terraces filled with snow and black weeds. Down on the water at the bottom of the path was a little white dock, anchored by a tiny white boathouse.
The door of the boathouse swung open from inside.
‘Caroline?’ Frank called down.
Silence. Then: ‘Frank?’
She peeked around the edge of the little boathouse, looking up for him with just the startled unhappy expression he had feared he would cause –
Then she almost ran up the path. ‘Frank, what is it?’ she exclaimed as she hurried up. ‘What are you doing here?’
He found he was already halfway down the path. They met between two blueberry bushes, him with a hand up as if in warning, but she crashed through that and embraced him – held him – hugged him. They clung to each other.
Frank had not allowed himself to think of this part (but he had anyway): what it meant to hold her. How much he had wanted to see her.
She pushed back from him, looking past him up to the house. ‘Why are you here? What’s going on? How did you find me?’
‘I needed to warn you about that,’ Frank said. ‘At least I thought I should. My friend at NSF, the one who helped me with the election disk you gave us? He has a friend who was looking into who your ex is, and what he’s doing now, you know, because they wanted to follow up on the election thing. So he wanted to talk to you about that, and my friend told him that you had disappeared, and this guy said that he knew where you probably were.’
‘Oh my God.’ Her hand flew to her mouth. Another body response common to all. She peered around him again up the driveway.
‘So, I wanted to see if he was right,’ Frank continued, ‘and I wanted to warn you if he was. And I wanted to see you, anyway.’
‘Yes.’ They held hands, then hugged again. Squeezed hard. Frank felt the fear and isolation in her.
‘So.’ He pulled back and looked at her. ‘Maybe you should move.’
‘Yeah. I guess so. Possibly. But – well, first tell me everything you can. Especially about how this person found me. Here, come on up. Let’s get inside.’ She led him by the hand, back up the garden path to the house.
She entered it by way of the sun porch door. The sun porch was separated from the living room by diamond-paned windows above a wainscoting. An old vacation home, Frank saw, hand made, scrupulously clean, with old furniture, and paintings on every wall that appeared to be the work of a single enthusiast. The view of the lake seemed the main attraction to Frank.
Caroline gestured around her. ‘I first visited my friend Mary here when we were six.’
‘Man.’
‘But we haven’t been in touch for years, and Ed never knew about her. I never told him. In fact, I can’t quite imagine how your friend’s friend tracked down the association.’
‘He said you called a number of an old roommate, and this was her place.’
She frowned. ‘That’s true.’
‘So, that’s how he tracked this place down. And if he could, so could your ex, presumably. And besides,’ he added sharply, surprising them both, ‘why did you tell me that he was your boss?’
Silence as she stared at him. He explained: ‘My friend’s friend said you were actually your husband’s boss. So I wanted to know.’
She glanced away, mouth tight for just an instant.
‘Come on,’ she said, and led him through the living room to the kitchen.
There she opened the refrigerator and got out a pitcher of iced tea. ‘Have a seat,’ she said, indicating the kitchen table.
‘Maybe I should move my van into the driveway,’ Frank remembered. ‘I didn’t want to shock you by driving in, and I left it out on the road.’
‘That was nice. Yeah, go move it in. At least for now.’
He did so, his mind racing. It was definitely foolish of her to remain exposed like this. Probably they should be leaving immediately.
He re-entered the kitchen to find her sitting at the table before two glasses of iced tea, looking down at the lake. His Caroline. He sat down across from her, took a drink.
She looked at him across the table. ‘I was not Ed’s boss,’ she said. ‘He was reassigned to another program. When I first came to the office, I was part of his team. I was working for him. But when the futures market program was established I was put in charge of it, and I reported to some people outside our office. Ed kept doing his own surveillance, and his group used what we were documenting, when they thought it would help them. That’s the way it was when you and I met. Then he moved again, like I told you, over to Homeland Security.’
She took a sip of her drink, met his eye again. ‘I never lied to you Frank. I never have and I never will. I’ve had enough of that kind of thing. More than you’ll ever know. I can’t stand it anymore.’
‘Good,’ Frank said, feeling awkward. ‘But tell me – I mean, this is another thing I’ve really wondered about, that I’ve never remembered to ask you – what were you doing on that boat during the big flood, on the Potomac?’
Surprised, she said, ‘That’s Ed’s boat. I was going up to get him off Roosevelt Island.’
‘That was quite a time to be out on the river.’
‘Yes, it was. But he was helping some folks at the marina get their boats off, and we had already taken a few down to below Alexandria, and on one of the trips he stayed behind to help free up a boat, while I ferried one of the groups downstream. So it was kind of back and forth.’
‘Ah.’ Frank put a hand onto the table, reaching toward her. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I didn’t know what to think. You know – we never have had much time. Whenever we’ve gotten together, there’s been more to say than time to say it.’
She smiled. ‘Too busy with other stuff.’ And she put her hand on his.
He turned his palm up, and they intertwined fingers, squeezed hands. This was a whole different category of questions and answers. Do you still love me? Yes, I still love you. Do you still want me? Yes, I still