Carla Neggers: The Widow

“Swimming uses up your body’s heat faster. You want to conserve heat.”

Ian frowned. “Why?”

“So you don’t get hypothermia. That’s when your body temperature drops. At first you get blue lips and start shivering. But it gets worse-you get confused, you slur your words, your muscles get weak. You end up in a world of hurt.”

“Oh, right.” Sean nodded knowledgeably. “Mom told us. She says people don’t dress right on a hike, and they end up dying of the cold. Even in summer.”

“And in water, your body loses heat even faster. Try to keep as much of your body out of water as you can. If you can reach an overturned boat, hang on to it. If you can’t, keep your head out of water and stay as still as possible. Tread water if you’re in a life vest, get into the ‘heat escape lessening position’ or H.E.L.P.-you cross your arms high up on your chest and draw your legs up toward your groin. Huddle with other people in the water.”

“Have you ever been stuck in cold water?” Sean asked.

“No.”

“Have you ever rescued anyone who had hypo-” Ian frowned. “What is it?”

“Hypothermia. Yes. I’ve rescued lots of people with hypothermia.”

And he’d recovered bodies of people who’d died of it, too.

Both boys’ color had improved, and they’d stopped shivering. Owen knew they’d warm up fast, but he probably shouldn’t have let them stay out in the chilly Maine water that long. Their father, though, wouldn’t care-Doyle had grown up on Mt. Desert Island and had a healthy respect for the elements, but he wasn’t afraid of them. And he wouldn’t want his boys to be afraid.

Sean and Ian pulled on sweatshirts and sweatpants but balked at wearing shoes because of the sand stuck between their toes. They ran ahead of Owen up to the parking lot and his truck. He wrapped the extra stuff in the blanket-untouched chocolate bars and water, sunscreen, bug spray, shoes, extra towels-and followed the boys. He could still feel the adrenaline that had sustained him through the past two weeks of nonstop work. It’d be a while before he could relax.

This had been a long year of disasters. He knew he needed to rest.

He tossed the blanket in the back of his truck. He had a full range of emergency supplies and equipment there. If anything had happened down on the beach, he’d have been prepared.

He liked being back on Mt. Desert. A third of the island’s 82,000 acres formed the bulk of Acadia National Park, protecting its glacial landscape of pink granite mountains, finger-shaped ponds, evergreen forests and rockbound coast. Owen was a part-time resident, often away for long stretches, but he knew a part of his soul would always remain there.

The boys had fallen asleep by the time Owen reached the private drive off Route 3 where his great-grandfather, a visionary and an eccentric, had built a stunning “cottage” in 1919 that burned in the great fires of 1947. The mammoth conflagration consumed thousands of acres and hundreds of summer mansions, its path still marked by younger deciduous forests. After the fire, Owen’s grandparents built a smaller house on the ledge behind the original site, above the Atlantic. Now it was eccentric Ellis Cooper’s summer home. But when his family sold their Mt. Desert property after Doe’s death, Owen had talked his grandmother into saving a chunk of waterfront for him. It was where he’d built his own Maine place, working on it on and off over the past ten years.

He turned down the narrow gravel road that led to his house and, up the headland, the Browning house. Will Browning had often helped Owen work on his house. When he was home, Chris would pitch in. He’d lost his parents to the sea as a toddler, and his grandfather, a solitary man, had raised him.

Originally, the Browning house had been a guest cottage, but Owen’s great-grandfather had sold it to Will after he’d worked tirelessly, for days, trying to save the island during the great fires.

Now, the house belonged to Chris’s widow.

Abigail.

Owen pushed her out of his mind and parked at his house. The boys, re-energized from their car nap, ran down to the rocks to investigate what the outgoing tide had left behind in the quiet pools of periwinkles, mussels, lichens and seaweed. But the temperature was even cooler out on his granite point, and Owen filled up the woodbox and rummaged in the cupboards for something hot for the boys to have for dinner.

No one believed he’d last the summer in Maine. If a disaster didn’t call him away, Owen would usually find something that did.

Doyle Alden arrived at dusk to collect his sons. A big, fair-haired man, he and Owen had become friends as boys, when they’d go off hiking and fishing together, when where they were from and who their families were didn’t matter. Sometimes, Chris Browning would join him and Doyle. Chris had always been driven, determined not to live the life his father and grandfather had. As much as Owen knew he respected his family, Chris didn’t want to be a lobsterman or a handyman, and he’d worked hard to have a different future. He’d gone to law school and become an FBI agent, and he’d married the daughter of a man everyone had known would become the next director of the FBI.

And if Chris had chosen another spot for their honeymoon, he might still be alive. Instead, he’d taken his bride home to Mt. Desert Island.

Doyle had been Chris’s best man. Sean had been the ring-bearer.

Owen had arrived in Maine on a two-week leave from the army three days after the wedding.

In time to find Chris’s body.

Doyle’s voice brought Owen back to the present.

“Katie e-mailed me,” Doyle said, staring out the French doors at the water. The boys, finished with dinner, had gone back out. “She says she’s settling in. Says the flowers in England are beautiful right now.”

“She’d notice,” Owen said.

“The six weeks will be up before we know it.”

Owen could hear the struggle in Doyle’s tone to hide his resentment. He’d put the decision to do this training in Katie’s hands, saying it was hers, not his, to make. She’d pleaded with him to discuss his feelings with her, but he’d refused. And now he was irritated, because deep down he’d wanted her to stay.

It was all more complicated than Owen could get his head around, but Doyle and Katie had been together since they were teenagers. As ornery as Doyle could be, he would know that if his wife didn’t need his permission to go to England, she at least deserved his support.

“Summer’s my busiest season,” he said. “Katie could have picked a better time to learn how to save the world.”

“She didn’t pick the time. I did.”

Doyle gave him a faint smile. “Yeah? Well, screw you.”

The boys pounded onto the deck and burst inside with a frenzied energy that seemed to lift their father’s mood. Ian’s fingers were blue-red, a sign he’d been into the tide pools. He had his mother’s curiosity and affection for living things. Sean got more pleasure from scrambling over granite boulders.

“What’s going on?” Doyle asked at their obvious excitement.

“Nothing,” Sean said, his cheeks reddening as he warmed his hands in front of the woodstove, the fire glowing behind the screen.

“Nothing’s got you all excited, huh?”

Ian started to speak, but Sean shot him a warning look. “Dad, can we stay here tonight?”

“Not tonight. Let’s wait until a night I have a meeting, if that’s okay with Owen.”

Owen shrugged. “That’d be fine.” But he could see that Sean and Ian had something they were keeping from their father. “Did you notice the fog on the horizon?”

“Uh-huh.” Ian nodded, but he was watching his older brother, presumably for another warning look if he strayed too close to spilling whatever it was they were hiding. “It’s coming closer. Sean calls it The Blob. We pretend it’s a monster.”