windows on the third floor shimmer like silvery wings.
Maybe there was a little bit of magic in the old house yet.
Allison’s heart ached looking at the house that had once been her home. She wanted to drive away right then and never look back. She’d told no one she was coming for that very reason. And yet she got back behind the steering wheel and drove down, down, down the winding road to the house. She parked the car where Dr. Capello had always parked his. No cars were there today. She got out and walked the flagstone path to the side door, which was the family’s entrance. She took a breath and rang the doorbell. When there was no answer, she knocked. When there was no answer again, she walked out onto the deck. The house was as close to the beach as it could be without being on the beach itself. The beach that day was deserted. It seemed no one was at home.
Allison didn’t know what to do. Roland had said someone was always at the house, but it seemed she’d come at the one time no one was there. Maybe she was too late. Maybe Dr. Capello was already gone. Regret tasted like copper in her mouth and she almost wept with disappointment. She’d tried so hard to tell herself she’d made this trip to clear her conscience, but the tear she shed was proof she’d come here wanting more than to do her duty to a nice man who’d taken care of her a long time ago.
She’d really wanted to hug her Dr. Capello one more time.
A sound echoed from the side of the house and Allison spun around, suddenly alert and afraid. It was a sharp loud sound followed by a soft sort of grunting noise. Then she heard it again. Then again.
She walked around the deck to an arched wooden door that, if she remembered correctly, led to Dr. Capello’s wildflower garden, something her aunt Frankie had always called an “oxymoron,” like “bad children.”
Quietly and carefully Allison unlatched the gate and pushed through the door. Ten yards away, a man stood with his back to her, chopping firewood. He wore a yellow-and-black-checkered shirt and he was tall and broad-shouldered with blond hair pulled into a short ponytail at the nape of his neck. He lifted the ax with ease and brought it down with precision. Another log was sundered and the two pieces fell on each side of the tree stump.
The man went for another log to split but stopped. He stood up straight and turned around. He must have seen her out of the corner of his eye. He let the ax blade fall into the stump and it stayed there embedded in the wood even as he walked away from it and toward her.
He took one step forward into a shadow cast by the tree, and when he stepped out of it again, the man had turned into a twelve-year-old boy. Gone were the jeans and flannels, the big shoulders and strong forearms, and in their place stood a lanky boy of twelve wearing black basketball shorts and a T-shirt with cut-off sleeves.
Allison remembered...
She remembered the first moment she saw him on the deck, Mr. In-Charge-Because-Dad’s-Gone. She and Dr. Capello stood under his big black umbrella. The hard rain had turned into a light drizzle. She remembered thinking how funny it was that the boy was on the deck lounging in a chair like he was sunbathing in the rain. Rainbathing?
“Roland?” Dr. Capello had said. “Come meet Allison. Allison, this is my son Roland.”
The boy with the stick legs so long she wondered if he could even see his feet slowly rose from his deck chair and walked over to her. Roland wore sunglasses with water droplets on the lenses. He shoved them up on his head to hold his damp hair out of his face. The boy looked at her for a very long time and then at his father.
“It’s all right,” Dr. Capello had said, and she wasn’t sure if he was speaking to his son or to her. “Go on. Say hello to Allison.”
“Hey, Al,” he said, smiling. Allison stepped back away from him so far she’d bumped into Dr. Capello’s legs. She had no idea who these people were, where this house was. She wanted her mother or Miss Whitney. She wanted to be anywhere but here.
“Hey, hey,” the boy had said. He had his elbows on his knees as he squatted, and even in her panic she admired his balance. “Don’t be scared.”
“She’s tired,” Dr. Capello had said. “And probably hungry.”
“Are you hungry?” Roland had asked. “I make a good grilled cheese.”
She shook her head no.
Roland had glanced up at his father as if looking for guidance, but Dr. Capello hadn’t done or said anything. He simply waited like he was watching a TV show, but she wasn’t sure what the show was—The Roland Show or The Allison Show.
“Will you help me with something?” Roland had asked her then. “I’m supposed to read the bedtime story tonight. I need someone to help me turn the pages. Can you do that for me?”
Bedtime story? She hadn’t had a bedtime story since her mother died. Slowly, Allison had nodded. She could definitely turn pages in a book.
He held out his hand, and it was a nice hand, not the sort of hand that she could ever see slapping a little girl for sitting in the wrong chair. She put her hand in his, and before she knew it, he’d stood straight up and swooped her into his arms. It was so sudden, she’d been shocked into laughing. And he’d smiled at her and carried her into the house. She’d clung to him tightly the whole way, pressing her nose to his hair. He’d smelled like the rain. After that, Allison didn’t remember ever crying for her mother or Miss Whitney again.
Allison took a step forward and Roland, the man, not the boy, caught her up in his arms. She felt the warm flannel of his shirt against her cheek and the hardness of his broad chest against her breasts. She was seven again in his arms, and safe again in his arms, and home again in his arms. And when was the last time she’d felt all three? Here. With him. Thirteen years ago.
“I knew you’d come back,” he said.
She looked up at him. “I came back.”
Still holding her by the shoulders, he stepped back and looked at her face, and she wondered if he was trying to see the girl in the woman or the woman in the girl.
“You’re beautiful. When did that happen?”
She blushed. “I didn’t realize it had.”
“It did.” She made a horrible face at him. “Stop that,” he said. He nodded. “Better.”
“What’s this?” She lightly tugged on the chin hairs of his almost-beard. “You going full hipster on me?”
“Not trying to grow a beard, I swear,” he said. “This is what happens when I go two days without shaving.”
“God, you’re old.”
He sighed heavily. “Remind me why I invited you here again?”
Allison grinned. “What are you doing out here? Who needs firewood in September?”
“Ah, you know how it is. We get about one month a year when the trees dry out enough to collect and chop firewood,” he said.
“I heard grunting sounds. I’m glad it wasn’t what I thought it was.”
“Nah,” Roland said. “Now if it had been Deacon...”
“I didn’t need to hear that,” Allison said.
“You and me both.”
Roland smiled and it was a smile she’d never seen before. She remembered all his smiles. As a little girl a little bit in love with him, she’d counted up his smiles and cataloged them. He’d had six smiles. One—that laid-back, lazy, too-cool-for-school smile.
Two—the half smile, bottom lip out in casual agreement, and a knowing nod.
Three—the full smile with the wink of gentle “Dad’ll never catch us in the cookie jar” mischief.
Four—the sudden and slightly insane smile given the second Dr. Capello’s back was turned, the one to trick her into laughing and trick Dr. Capello