Justin Cronin - The Summer Guest

“You’re doing it,” Joe said from the table, startling me.

“What do you mean?”

“That thing. You know,” he said. “Where you look at it and sort of disappear.” He was leaning forward over the table on his elbows. “It’s all right. I get it.”

The kettle whistled; I made the tea and brought it back to the table with the sugar bowl for Joe, who liked his extra sweet.

“How did Jordan take the news?” I asked.

Joe bobbed his bag in the steaming water. I could still smell the Scotch on him. When he was satisfied with the color of his tea, he spooned in three tablespoons of sugar, squeezed out the bag, and placed it neatly on his spoon. How he slept with all that sugar in him I never could figure out.

“To tell you the truth, I’m not sure he really knew how. How would anyone feel? It’s going to be a big change for him. Guide to owner, in two minutes flat.”

“Think he can handle it?”

Joe blew the steam over his tea. “If anyone could, it’s Jordan.”

For a while we sat without talking, letting the tea warm us. I wondered what Joe was thinking. I knew he didn’t regret selling the camp, not really-we had been over the deal carefully, considering every angle, and knew it was the right move. All that money in the bank was persuasive: you see those extra zeros on your statement, lined up like eggs in a carton, and it knocks the breath right out of any worries you had about being sorry. Now there would be money for Kate, for her college loans and medical school-Dartmouth Hitchcock was the current fave; her trip out West had more or less convinced her of that, too congested and nothing you could honestly call weather and nobody serious about anything, she said-and money for Florida, Joe’s new gangster boat and his plans for the business; as well as money for things we hadn’t really figured out yet, having never had enough money to begin with: pleasures, like travel and good restaurants, and sensible items like furniture or a new truck when the old one died and maybe a car besides, a nice sedan or one of those big things with four-wheel everyone was driving. So I knew he wasn’t sorry, not exactly, but I also knew that the most obvious course is not always an easy one; and Joe was feeling some of that. It was a chilly night, and the kitchen windows were open, filling the room with the coppery smell of the lake and the small noises it made at night: the dark water bulging against the shoreline; the sighing air currents that swished like smoke over its face; the random splashes here and there that I should have expected but somehow always startled me, the way that Kate, when she was a baby, could yank me from the deepest sleep with a single cry from her crib. We listened together, Joe and I, and eventually we heard voices, too: a man’s voice, Jordan’s or Hal’s or maybe one of the other guest’s, and then the sounds of footsteps on one of the cabins’ old porches and screen doors squeaking open and slamming closed on their springs.

And then we heard something else, the sound muffled a bit by windows and walls, but there it was: somebody was coughing. Not just coughing-think of a dark room without doors and a person trapped inside, trying to fight his way out. It went on and on, a full minute at least, and when it finally ended, the silence felt permanently shattered, like the eerie quiet after somebody breaks a glass.

“Jesus Christ almighty.” Joe shuddered, his face gone a little gray. He rose to place his empty mug in the sink. “If I ever sound like that…” He rubbed the back of his head. “He shouldn’t even be here. What was Hal thinking?”

“Where else should he be?”

Joe braced his back against the sink. “The hospital, for instance? Someplace near a hospital?” The coughing started up again, and once again we held fast; there wasn’t anything else you could do but ride it out, which only made me feel worse-sorry for Harry, sorry for myself, sorry for Joe, and guilty as hell besides.

“God, listen to that. He may actually die here, you know. Right in that cabin, tonight.”

“Maybe that’s what he wants.”

Joe folded his arms over his chest. “Probably it is. Actually, no. I have no idea what he wants. The great Harry Wainwright. How should I know what a guy like that wants?”

“He’s dying, Joe. He’s sick and he’s dying. What does it matter?”

The question caught him off guard; I wished I hadn’t asked it, or at least asked it the way I had, so impatiently, as if everything were simple. Joe turned his back to me and began to wash out the mugs.

“Joe, I’m sorry. Let me do that.”

He put the mugs in the drying rack and pointed his eyes out the window. Was he doing it too, sending his mind out there to say good-bye?

“Forget it,” he said finally. “It’s all done.” He turned then and dried his hands on a towel. “You know, it’s actually a good thing he owns the place. At least that way we’re not responsible if anything does happen.”

“I know you, and that’s not what you’re thinking.” I stood and went to him. “Know something else? You’re a good man, for doing this. You were before, you always have been, and you are now.” He wasn’t looking at me, so I made him do this, with a kiss that tasted of tea and Scotch. “Now off to bed with you. It’ll be a big day tomorrow.”

“You coming?”

“In a bit. I thought I’d fix a basket and take it over to their cabin.”

His eyes tightened on my face. “Luce-”

“A basket, Joe. What’s the harm?”

“That’s not what I was talking about.” His voice was soft. He gingerly brushed my cheek with his thumb and showed me: it came away wet. I couldn’t have said how long I’d been crying or even why.

“Mystery tears,” I said. “For this place. For Harry. For all of us, really. Not bad tears.” I tried to smile and found I could. “Just the tears of a tired wife.”

He brushed some strands of hair from my face. “Hal knows where the kitchen is. Let them fend for themselves. Come to bed.”

I leaned my head into his chest. His shirt smelled like fish, and smoke, and the antiperspirant he’d always used, lime and something cinnamony-what Joe smelled like, after a day.

“You know, I think Jordan and Kate…” I said, and didn’t finish.

I felt his back and shoulders tense a little: a bear keeping watch on his cub, I thought, and loved this about him, as I always had. “Did Kats say something to you?”

“No.” I breathed into his shirt. Maybe this was what I’d really been thinking about, all along. “It’s just a feeling, really. Mother’s intuition. Kind of a vibe she’s giving off, you know?”

“A vibe, huh.”

I poked a finger into his chest. “Don’t laugh.”

“Who’s laughing?” He nodded above me. “Jordan and Kate. I guess I’ll have to think awhile on that. Or not. Their business, I guess.”

“She’s still our Kats. It’s okay to take an interest.” I leaned in a little more. “Does the age thing bother you?”

“We don’t even know if there’s anything going on, Luce.”

“Supposing there was. He’s thirty. I checked.”

“You checked.”

I heard myself sigh. “The employment files, Joe.”

“You’re kidding. We actually pay him?”

“Yes, and frankly I can’t believe how little. That boy is long overdue for a raise. Though I guess that’s a moot point now. Quit fooling around.”

“Okay.” He gave my shoulders a bit of a squeeze. “No, it doesn’t bother me.”

“Good. It shouldn’t. It’s Jordan we’re talking about here. And we love Jordan, do we not?”

He thought another moment. “I have to say I’m a bit surprised, though. I never really saw her with someone like that. You know, somebody from up here.”