the face.
I turn on the water, flush the toilets, make sure the hot water heater fills up, and make sure everything that is supposed to come on does. When I see that everything is okay, I walk out the front door. The duck is still there, patiently waiting for me, and it follows me off the porch as I leave.
I get almost to the bend in the road when I hear the crunch of tires on gravel, and a small blue sedan comes around the corner. It turns into the drive at number twenty-four, and my heart starts to beat a little faster. It’s stupid, I know. It has been almost twenty years since I’ve seen Abigail. We’re both different people now. And she’s married.
He’s a lucky bastard, whoever he is.
I watch from the bend in the road as Abigail gets out of the car, stretches, and retrieves a few bags of what looks like groceries, which she must have bought at the local tackle shop. Everyone who lives at the lake shops at the tackle shop, if they want to avoid running all the way to town for necessities.
She’s wearing a pair of blue scrubs, like someone might wear at a hospital. I wonder what she does for a living. I smile when I see that her hair is still a riot of curls that bounce around her face. When we were younger, she used to spend hours trying to straighten it so she could look like the other girls. But Abigail wasn’t meant to be like the other girls. She was made to stand out. And stand out she did. And still does, apparently.
Abigail bumps her hip against the car door to close it, and then she walks up the steps and lets herself inside. I watch, thinking that she will certainly have to come out to get her suitcase, but she never does.
“The Marshall girl is here?” a deep voice asks from behind me, and I nearly jump out of my skin. I get clammy when I realize Mr. Jacobson has been standing still behind me and I wasn’t even aware of it.
“Looks like it,” I reply.
“You going to go talk to her or just stand here staring like a stalker?” he asks. He pulls a toothpick from his pocket and sticks it in his mouth.
“I wasn’t stalking her,” I protest.
But I realize by the playful glint in the old man’s eye that he’s giving me shit, and he’s enjoying it, too.
“How old is she now?” he asks.
“Around thirty-five, I’d guess.” Because I’m about to turn thirty-six, and her birthday is exactly one month after mine.
“Ancient,” he says.
It does feel ancient, some days. But mostly it just feels like time has marched on and swept me along with it. After seeing Abigail today, it feels almost like I missed a few steps along the way.
“She’s married?” he asks.
I shrug. “I know she got married. There’s a wedding picture on the wall.”
“Hmm.” He twists the toothpick between his lips.
“I had better get back, see if Jake needs me to do anything else.” I start to walk off.
“You stay away from her, you hear?” he says, his voice harsh, his words clipped with impatience.
I stop. “Beg your pardon?”
“She doesn’t need your brand of trouble,” he tells me. “So I’ll expect you to stay away from her.”
I nod my head. “Yes, sir.”
I can’t put this job in jeopardy by doing anything he doesn’t want me to do. No one else in town would hire me, not after what happened. Jake really did me a favor when he let me come work here.
“I won’t mess it up,” I add.
“See that you don’t.” And then he walks away like he’d never been there.
I stand there for a few more minutes and look at the old Marshall place, silently willing Abigail to both come out and to never come out at the same time. I’m desperate to go say hello to her, and I’m desperate that she not know I’m here at all, all at once.
My life is a mess, and I’d be ashamed if she found out exactly how it got that way. That’s what I know to be true.
So even though Mr. Jacobson has warned me, I make a pledge to myself that I’ll stay away from Abigail used-to-be-Marshall. It’ll be better for everyone that way.
4
Ethan
When it’s almost dark, I grab my shampoo, a cake of soap, and a towel, and I head down to the lake. When I was younger,