Caron Todd - Her Favorite Husband

“Yes, it is. For a while. A short, but delightful while. You’re not the first to think we have winter year-round.” The clerk didn’t seem to mind Sarah’s ignorance. She had a grandmotherly manner. Sarah could imagine her curling up with a child, getting comfortable to read a story. “Feel free to browse and if you see something you’d like to buy, I’ll be happy to send it to wherever you’re staying.”

Sarah thanked her, and turned to see the display on the closest table. It was a collection of children’s books. J. K. Rowling, C. S. Lewis, Enid Blyton…and Elizabeth Robb.

The familiar covers jumped out at her. There was an early story about a boy and a space pirate, a more recent book about warring fairies—Liz had written that one while falling in love with Jack—and a third, Sarah’s favorite, a nature book, all lush paintings and no text, done in memory of Liz’s first husband.

She began to leaf through it. Andy was on every page, a boy discovering the variety of life in a forest.

The clerk must have noticed her interest. “That one is by a Manitoba author. Very popular. What’s the age of the child in question?”

“Oh, about thirty,” Sarah said, with a laugh. “But I already have these three. I’m enjoying remembering the first time I read them.”

“They’re lovely books, aren’t they? So colorful, and full of warmth, I always think. Robb has another book coming out in the spring. We’ve started a sign-up sheet.”

“You need a sign-up sheet?”

“It saves disappointment. I wouldn’t say the response compares to Harry Potter, but we do get a stream of parents and children coming in the month of an Elizabeth Robb release.”

That was good news and bad news. “I’ll keep an eye out for it.” A desperate, anxious eye.

Sarah chose some books—biographies of northern explorers and prospectors—and carried them to the checkout counter. As if the reminder of Liz’s problem wasn’t enough, taped to the wall behind the cash register she saw a clipping of Ian’s column. His black-and-white photo stared back at her.

I didn’t, she wanted to tell it. I didn’t drop anything.

ALL RIGHT, SO SHE had been a little careless where Liz was concerned. That don’t-bug-me tone had merited closer attention. Oliver could lecture her about it if he wanted, but not Ian.

With heavy bags digging into her fingers and banging against her legs, she finally came to the lake. On a map or from the air its shape made her think of a goose in flight. From the ground, it was like an ocean. The water went on and on, all the way to the horizon, clear and blue and sparkling.

Brightly painted houseboats—blue, red, yellow—were tethered on the north side. Farther out, sailboats and windsurfers glided across the waves. A few hardy people were swimming. In spite of the sun, the nearly twenty-four-hour sun, she couldn’t believe it was warm enough for that.

It reminded her of the Whiteshell, where her family had a cottage. Huge sheets of weathered granite sloped up from the lake. Along the shore, rocks had long ago broken off and tumbled into the water. A stab of homesickness struck her.

“Kinda pretty, a’nit?”

Sarah turned with a start to see an old man nearly at her elbow. She stepped back, more comfortable having a few feet between them, even though he seemed too frail to do any harm. He wasn’t a hundred percent clean. As soon as she noticed that she felt guilty.

“I didn’t hear you,” she told him.

He raised his voice. “Pretty, a’nit?”

She smiled, not sure if he was joking. “I meant I didn’t hear you coming.”

“Ah.” He nodded. “You was off in your own world. From away, are ya?”

“Vancouver. And you’re from here?”

He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “From the Flats.”

He must mean Willow Flats, part of the Old Town. Sarah wondered if he was one of the prospectors who’d built there during the Depression. That would make him, what, ninety-five? Couldn’t be. Maybe he’d come during the second wave of gold mining. That would put him in his seventies or eighties. From the look of him he hadn’t had much luck, whatever brought him here.

“I’m taking my walk,” he told her. “Up to the caf for a beer.”

“In the morning?” She couldn’t help asking.

“Be noon once I’m there.”

The café, looking out over the water from the other side of the narrow peninsula, was a long walk for a slow-moving old man. Sarah wondered if she should offer him a few dollars. She didn’t want to offend him, but here she stood with bags and bags of souvenirs, and there he wobbled in his dusty clothes.

“I don’t suppose you’d let me buy you that beer?” She felt in her pocket and brought out a few five dollar bills, enough for a meal, as well. “To thank you for stopping to make me feel welcome?”

“Well, ya know, I did that for free.” He nodded in farewell and started away, leaving her with her hand and the bills outstretched.

Embarrassed, she put the money back in her pocket. She didn’t seem to be doing much right lately.

Not far along the shoreline was a place where the stones were terraced like stairs. They led to a flat rock shelf big enough for a few people to sunbathe. She tucked her purchases into a dry, shaded nook, put her shoes on top, rolled up her slacks and waded into the lake.

Cold, clear water lapped over her toes, then over her ankles. It chilled her through, an odd sensation when she was so hot, like chills and fever. Minnows and water bugs darted to her feet, then away. She stopped to watch a small plane take off, slapping against the water before it lifted to the air and headed north, its loud engine fading to a drone.

She reached the stone steps and she climbed onto the shelf. There was one just like it at her family’s cottage. She and her brothers had fished from it, dived from it, had campfires on it. She and Ian had made love on it, late at night when there was a new moon, so nothing but stars lit their bodies.

The good memories were the ones that gave her the most trouble. Better memories than she had with anyone else.

Right from day one.

First class, first day of university, Old English lit, two rows ahead and three seats over. The cutest guy on the face of the earth.

Of course, at that point she hadn’t seen many guys yet.

Beowulf, as fascinating as he was, had receded. Her world, in that moment, was composed only of herself and this unknown boy. She was sorry for everyone else, everyone who wasn’t her, about to fall in love with him.

They had nearly all their classes together. That first week, she didn’t learn a thing. Didn’t take a single note. Didn’t turn a page. She watched Ian.

He was different from anyone she’d met before. Quiet, still, but not from shyness. She could tell it was from listening and thinking so intently.

One day they went for coffee and he talked about Shakespeare the way other guys talked about video games—like something vivid and fun, full of muscled, sweaty men with swords, not English actors in tights.

She couldn’t concentrate on what he said, though. All she could think was that she wanted to kiss him. She watched his face and his eyes, watched them change as his thoughts changed, noticed the way his mouth tightened when he stopped to think, and the way his lips parted and softened when he spoke. She thought of the way her lips would feel on his.

One day she did it. Kissed him. Right there in the coffee shop. What she hadn’t imagined was the heat, the current, sparked by that touch. It propelled them, no questions asked, into his dorm room and onto his bed.

They spent days in his room. Shakespeare was still in the mix. With Ian, Shakespeare was always part of it. Of course, Sarah was a fan, too. After seeing an old video of the Olivia Hussey Romeo and Juliet, how could she not be? But for Ian the Complete Works was like a self-help book. Shakespeare, Ian had claimed, understood everything, all human yearnings, all the mistakes and all the dreams.