Carla Neggers - The Widow

“Grace, Grace.” Ellis stood next to her, leaning on his walking stick. He didn’t look at his niece but out at the sound, the kayaker, the seagulls, the mountains, as if he were trying to absorb their beauty through his skin. Finally, he sighed. “I don’t care about Abigail or the FBI. Neither does your father. We’re worried about you. About what’s best for you.”

She blinked back tears. “I know. I’m sorry.”

“Listen to me.” He touched her elbow through her heavy cable sweater, too warm for the conditions. “Please, Grace. Listen carefully.”

He waited for her reaction. She nodded. “All right. I’m listening.”

“Abigail only cares about finding her husband’s killer. Her only interest in any of us is related to that desire-that commitment. She wants closure.”

“And justice. Don’t you think she also wants justice?”

Ellis seemed untroubled by her sharp tone. “Right now, I would say justice isn’t on the top of her list of concerns. I’ve no doubt she tells herself it is. Do you believe it’s any coincidence this drama with Mattie is going on this week? It’s the seventh anniversary-”

“I know what week it is.”

“Yes,” he said, without inflection. “I know you do. Grace, Abigail is stirring up people, and she’s doing it on purpose. You saw her last night at the house, when she realized Mattie had been in my garden shed. She has no boundaries.”

“She’s a detective, for heaven’s sake.”

“And that makes what difference?” This time, he didn’t wait for an answer. “I like Abigail. We all do. That doesn’t mean I can’t see the dangers her obsession poses.”

“What if she finds Chris’s killer?” Grace turned into a sudden gust of wind that burst up the sound and hoped Ellis would blame it if he saw any tears. “As far as I’m concerned, then all her pushing will have been worth the aggravation.”

“Even if you suffer needlessly?”

“I don’t think any suffering of mine matters-or is needless.”

“Grace,” her uncle said, and now she could feel his eyes on her, probing, knowing. His style was different than his much older half brother’s, but he could be as ruthless when he wanted to be. “It’s time to get over Chris.”

She gulped in a breath. “Don’t.”

“Someone has to say to you what you already know in your heart. Chris was never real to you. He was always a fantasy. It’s time to break free of him.”

“He’s dead. Don’t you think I know that?”

“Intellectually, yes. Emotionally…I don’t know, Grace.” He didn’t relent. “Do you? In a way, his death makes it easier for you to hold on to him.”

She dropped her arms to her sides and spun around at him, the wind blowing at the back of her head, sending her hair every which way. “Ellis. Stop. I’m not some weak-kneed, lovesick nitwit. I refuse-”

“You refuse what, Grace? To face the reality that you’re thirty-eight years old-seven years older than Chris was when he died-and unmarried? To face the reality that with him gone, you don’t have to deal with the fact that he was in love with another woman?”

“He married that other woman.”

“You can pretend he didn’t, or that it wouldn’t have worked. You don’t have to see him and Abigail have children. You don’t have to watch their children grow up, learn to drop lobster buoys, climb on the rocks, hike-”

“I was over Chris before he was married.” She tried to sound convincing, mature, not as if she was churning inside. “I was well over him before he was killed.”

“No, Grace, you weren’t. You aren’t over him now.”

She couldn’t stand Ellis’s scrutiny any longer and took off down a narrow path between the roses, their prickly branches slapping at her hips and thighs, soaking them with dew. A thorn scratched the top of one hand. The bank was short, fairly steep, but that didn’t deter her; she’d walked this path since she was a child. She and Doe Garrison would play dolls on the shore and wave to Chris and his grandfather as they puttered by in their lobster boat.

She’d loved Chris then, even as a girl.

To her relief, her uncle didn’t follow her down to the water. She looked up the hill and saw him heading back to the house, and she wondered if he regretted his bluntness. He was wise and understanding, in part, she thought, because he’d never married and had children of his own. She’d come to rely on his advice, his keen observations of other people. His patience. Who else could watch his own brother sell his beloved Maine house out from under him and not complain?

Yet Ellis had always lived in his brother’s shadow-just as Linc was living in her shadow. And as much as she adored her uncle, Grace didn’t want her brother to end up like him.

Owen walked up a sandy path through the junipers and low-lying blueberry bushes below the remains of his family’s original Mt. Desert house, pine and spruce saplings popping up here and there in the thin soil. He’d caught a movement up at the foundation and was off to check it out. He wasn’t practicing any measure of stealth. He was just tramping up the path.

Linc Cooper stood up from the spot where Mattie Young had drunk beer and smoked cigarettes, unwittingly terrorizing two young boys.

When he saw Owen, Linc gasped audibly and bolted, climbing over the chunk of foundation and scrambling for the woods behind it.

Owen shot out after him. He knew the kid’s capabilities-he wasn’t worried about catching up with him.

A few yards into the woods, on a rough path, Linc tripped on an exposed tree root and fell onto one knee, crying out in pain as he picked himself up and continued running.

Owen thought he heard the twenty-year-old sob.

“Linc-hold up,” he called.

But he ran faster, unimpeded by his bruised knee, grunting as he gasped for air.

Since he had to know who was after him and still didn’t slow down, Owen decided he was through with niceties. He barreled in behind Linc and knocked his feet out from under him, buckling him with one well-placed kick.

Owen pounced, pinning his wannabe protégé facedown on the ground, so that he couldn’t kick, thrash, bite or otherwise move. “Be still. I’m not going to hurt you. I just need you to calm down. Understood?”

“Let me go. I’ll press charges.”

“Fine. The police are at Abigail’s house right now. I’ll take you to them.”

Linc’s body went slack, and he squeezed his eyes shut, tears leaking out the corners. “Just leave me alone,” he said.

Owen eased up on his hold. “Don’t bolt. I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night.” He didn’t explain why. “I don’t want to chase you.”

“You ran like a maniac.” Linc sniffled, sitting up, pine needles in his fair hair. “I thought you were going to kill me. I forgot you were in the military.”

“Why did you take off?”

“You scared the hell out of me.”

“I’m walking out here on my land. How did that scare you?”

He picked a bit of bark off his lip, his natural arrogance returning fast. “I don’t know. I’m jumpy.”

“You were looking for Mattie, weren’t you?”

“I don’t have to tell you anything.”

“You saw him out here Sunday night, didn’t you? Did you meet him, or did you just follow him here?”

It was like all the air went out of him. His shoulders slumped. Snot and tears ran into his mouth. “Shit. Owen.”

“You’re in over your head, Linc. The only way out is to tell the truth.”

“You don’t know what my life is like. My father. My sister. Even my uncle. I’m the low man on the totem pole around here. If I screw things up for them, I’m screwed.”

“You have to do what you believe is right and let the rest of it fall into place.”