“I’m looking at the stars,” Harry lied.
There were no stars to look at. Although the rain had finally stopped, the sky was black and the air had turned much colder. The storm had blown out to sea, but the northwest wind was sharp; whatever weather the wind was bringing, the sky was still overcast. It was a dreary night, by anyone’s standards. The faint glow on the northern horizon was caused by the headlights of those cars carrying the few New Yorkers who’d not already returned to New York; the Montauk Highway, even in the westbound lane, had remarkably little traffic for any Sunday night. The foul weather had sent everyone home early. Rain is the best policeman, Harry remembered.
And then the train whistle made its mournful sound. It was the whistle for the eastbound 11:17, the last train of the night. Harry shivered and went back inside the house.
It was because of the eastbound 11:17 that Eddie O’Hare had not gone to bed; he’d waited up because he couldn’t stand to be lying awake in his trembling bed when the train arrived and then departed. Eddie always went to bed after the eastbound 11:17.
Since the rain had stopped, Eddie had dressed himself warmly and stood outside on his porch. The arrival of the 11:17 attracted the cacophonous attention of the neighborhood dogs, but not a single car passed. Who would be taking an eastbound train to the Hamptons at the end of the Thanksgiving weekend? Nobody, Eddie thought, although he heard one car leave the parking area at the west end of Maple Lane; it drove off in the direction of Butter Lane—it didn’t pass Eddie’s house.
Eddie continued to stand in the cold on his porch, listening to the departing train. After the dogs stopped barking and the train could no longer be heard, he tried to enjoy the brief tranquillity, the unusual quietude.
The northwest wind was definitely bringing the winter with it. The cold air blew over the warmer water in the puddles that dotted Maple Lane. Out of the resultant fog, Eddie suddenly heard the sound of wheels, but they were like the wheels on a child’s toy truck—they gave off a barely audible sound, although by now the sound of the wheels had got the attention of a dog or two.
A woman was making her way through the fog. Behind her, she was pulling one of those suitcases you see most frequently in airports—a suitcase on little wheels. Given the broken surface of the street—the cracked pavement, the gravelly verge, not to mention the puddles— the woman was struggling with her suitcase, which was better equipped for airports than the wrong end of Maple Lane.
In the darkness and the fog, the woman appeared to be of no specific age. She was of above-average height—quite thin, but not exactly frail; yet even in her shapeless raincoat, which she’d gathered tightly around her in the cold, her body was still shapely. It was not like an elderly woman’s body at all, although Eddie could now discern that she was an older woman—albeit a beautiful one.
Not knowing if the woman saw him standing in the darkness of his porch—and being, therefore, as careful as he could be not to startle her—Eddie said: “Excuse me. May I help you?”
“Hello, Eddie,” Marion said. “Yes, you certainly may help me. I’ve been thinking about how much I would like you to help me for what seems like the longest time.”
What did they talk about, after thirty-seven years? (If it had happened to you, what would you have talked about first ?)
“Grief can be contagious, Eddie,” Marion told him, as he took her raincoat and hung it in his front-hall closet. It was only a two-bedroom house. The single guest room was small and airless, and at the top of the stairs—near the equally small room that Eddie used for his office. The master bedroom was downstairs; one could look into it from the living room, where Marion now sat on the couch.
As Eddie started upstairs with her suitcase, Marion stopped him by saying: “I’ll sleep with you, Eddie—if it’s all right. I’m not terribly good on stairs.”
“Of course it’s all right,” Eddie told her, taking her suitcase into his bedroom.
“Grief is contagious,” Marion began again. “I didn’t want you to catch my grief, Eddie. I really didn’t want Ruth to catch it.”
Had there been other young men in her life? One can’t blame Eddie for asking her. Younger men had always been attracted to Marion. But who among them could ever have matched her memory of those two young men she lost? There hadn’t been one younger man who’d even matched her memory of Eddie ! What Marion had begun with Eddie had ended with him.
One can’t blame Eddie for then asking her if she had known older men. (After all, he was more familiar with that kind of attraction.) But when Marion had accepted the companionship of older men— widowers primarily, but divorcés and intrepid bachelors as well— she’d discovered that even older men found mere “companionship” insufficient; naturally they’d wanted sex, too. And Marion didn’t want sex—after Eddie, she honestly hadn’t
wanted it.
“I’m not saying sixty times was enough,” she told him, “but you did set a standard.”
At first Eddie thought it must have been the happy news of Ruth’s second wedding that had finally drawn Marion out of Canada, but although Marion was pleased to learn of her daughter’s good fortune, she confessed to Eddie that she’d not heard a word about Harry Hoekstra until Eddie told her.
Naturally it then occurred to Eddie to ask Marion why she’d come back to the Hamptons now . When Eddie considered all the times that he and Ruth had half-expected Marion to make an appearance . . . well, why now ?
“I heard the house was for sale,” Marion told him. “It was never the house I had to get away from—it was never you, either, Eddie.”
She’d kicked off her shoes, which were wet, and through her sleek pantyhose, which were tinted a pale-tan color, her toenails were painted the fiery pink of the beach roses that grew wild behind the dreaded Mrs. Vaughn’s Southampton estate.
“Your former house is an expensive house, nowadays,” Eddie ventured to say. He couldn’t bring himself to mention the exact amount that Ruth wanted.
As always, he loved what Marion was wearing. She had on a long skirt, which was a dark charcoal-gray, and a crewneck cashmere sweater of salamandrine-orange, an almost tropical pastel color, similar to that pink cashmere cardigan she’d been wearing when Eddie first met her— the sweater that he’d been so obsessed with, until his mother gave it away to some faculty wife.
“How much is the house?” Marion asked him.
When Eddie told her, Marion sighed. She’d been away from the Hamptons too long; she had no idea how the real estate market had flourished. “I’ve made a fair amount of money,” Marion said. “I’ve done better than I deserve to have done, considering what I’ve written. But I haven’t made that much money.”
“I haven’t made very much money from my writing at all,” Eddie admitted, “but I can sell this house anytime I want to.” Marion had politely made a point of not looking at her somewhat shabby surroundings. (Maple Lane was Maple Lane, and the years of Eddie’s summer rentals had taken their toll inside the house, too.)
Marion’s long, still-shapely legs were crossed; she sat almost primly on the couch. Her pretty scarf, which was the pearl-gray color of an oyster, perfectly separated her breasts, which Eddie could see were enduringly well formed. (Perhaps it was her bra.)