The Cabin - Jasinda Wilder Page 0,53

her shoulders. A purse hangs from her left elbow; sunglasses perched up on the top of her head.

You know how sometimes, even though you can’t make out someone’s features, you can tell just by seeing them from a distance that they’re good-looking? I get that feeling with her. She’s gonna be beautiful.

It’s weird to even think that. I haven’t really noticed women, not for years. I tried, too. But it just went…nowhere. I couldn’t make my heart less of an ice block, couldn’t make my brain interested, nor my body. It’s like I just shut down when Lisa died, and not all the systems came up online again.

So to even think about a woman as being beautiful, worth noticing, is in itself weird.

She just stands on the porch, staring at something in her hand—a key, I imagine. Something about the way she’s just standing there feels familiar. Like she’s getting up the nerve to go in. Like I did, the first time.

Whoever she is, she was given that key by Adrian. Or this is whoever he sold the other part of the property to. But somehow, my gut tells me he didn’t sell it. He bought it at the end of his life, with a particular purpose in mind.

Maybe it’s his wife.

Nadine? No, I always think it’s that, but it’s not. Nadia? I think that’s her name. Maybe it’s her.

I just sit on my porch, the sweating bottle cold in my hands, and watch. Eventually, I see her sigh. Even from here, it feels heavy, that sigh. She unlocks the door, and vanishes inside.

She’s in there a while. An hour, maybe. When it’s clear she’s not coming back out right away, I go back to reading, but now my mind is on her. Wondering who she is, if my—not assumption, nor a guess; my feeling, I suppose it is—if my feeling that the woman is Adrian’s widow, is correct.

It feels right. Who else would it be? Showing up now, on the anniversary of his death. When I was in town getting library books, I looked up the obituaries around the time I know he died, and today is the one year anniversary; the funeral was immediate family only, so I wasn’t there, and I was out of town for work anyway. So…yeah. Who the hell else would show up, here, today, and stand there as if summoning the nerve to go in?

What does it mean for me?

In light of the note and the letter he left me, the book I have yet to read…what does it mean that she’s here?

The math of Adrian’s arrangements seems obvious. But…I recoil mentally from going down that road. I haven’t even met the woman. She’s grieving. Hell, I’m grieving—and I’m realizing I never did that. I just shut down, and then went about shuffling zombie-like through a muddy, miserable half-life.

I keep reading.

When she comes out again, it’s to unload her suitcases. I count five, and a duffel bag, plus her purse. Looks like she’s planning on staying a while. But so am I; on my last trip into town I brought a few of my carvings, showed them to the owner of the little shop that sells knickknacks and local art, and he agreed to try to sell them, for a few bucks off the top. I don’t need the money, but if I’m going to be sitting around carving, and the pieces don’t go anywhere, I’ll be up to my neck in them in a month.

Once all her suitcases are inside, she’s in there again for another hour, closer to two. I’m getting hungry, but my dinner isn’t ready yet. I found a second-hand crockpot in town the other day, and I’ve been playing around with pot roasts and such. Ain’t much for cooking, but you gotta learn sometime, right? Out here, living off fast food and pizza delivery ain’t an option. Which is probably a good thing for the diameter of my midsection.

She comes back out, a third time. This time, with a glass of wine in one hand, and the bottle in the other. It’s sunset, and a marvelous one. Lots of purple and crimson and orange reflected in the gently rippling lake. She sits in the Adirondack, sips her wine. Sighs, now and then.

I have no impulse to go over there. Not yet.

I go back to Louis L’Amour. Johannes Vern is talking to a giant—one of my favorite parts.

But really, I’m watching her. She’s uncomfortable just sitting there, doing nothing.