Carla Neggers: The Cabin

“I shipped Iris and her pals up a gallon of chili,” he said. “How do you like that? Even your eighty-two-year-old grandmother’s having more fun on New Year’s than you are.”

“They’re playing mahjong until five minutes after midnight. Then they’re calling it quits and going to bed.”

Jim eyed her again, less critically. He was a big, powerfully built man in his early sixties who treated Susanna like an honorary niece, if a wayward one. “You went home last New Year’s,” he pointed out softly.

And she’d meant for her and Jack to settle whatever was going on between them, but the one time they were alone, on New Year’s Eve, they’d ended up in bed together. They hadn’t settled anything.

Exactly one year ago, she’d been making love to her husband.

Two margaritas weren’t going to do the trick. She could get herself rip-roaring drunk, but it wouldn’t stop her from thinking about where she’d been last year at this time and where she was now. Nothing had changed. Not one damn thing.

Fourteen months and counting, and she and Jack were still in limbo, a kind of marital paralysis that she knew couldn’t last. Maggie and Ellen were seniors in high school now, applying to colleges, almost grown up. They’d called a couple of hours ago, and Susanna had assured them she was ringing in the New Year in style. No mahjong with Gran and her pals. She didn’t want her daughters thinking she was pitiful.

She hadn’t talked to Jack.

“There’s nobody here, Jim,” she said. “Why don’t you close up the place? We can go up on the roof and catch the fireworks.”

He looked up from the margarita he was reluctantly fixing for her. His movements were careful, deliberate. And his blue eyes were serious. “Susanna, what’s wrong?”

“I bought a cabin in the Adirondacks,” she blurted. “But that’s good. It’s a great cabin. It’s in a gorgeous spot. Three bedrooms, stone fireplace, seven acres right on Blackwater Lake.”

“The Adirondacks are way the hell up in New York.”

She nodded. “The largest wilderness area in the lower forty-eight states. Six million acres. Gran grew up on Blackwater Lake, you know. Her family used to own the local inn—”

“Susanna. For God’s sake.” Jim Haviland shook his head heavily, as if this new development—a cabin in the Adirondacks—was beyond his comprehension. “You should buy a place in Texas, not in the boonies of upstate New York. What were you thinking? Jesus, when did this happen?”

“Last week. I went up to Lake Placid for a few days on my own—I don’t know, it seemed like a positive thing to do. I needed to clear my head. I saw this cabin. It’s not all that far from my parents’ summer place on Lake Champlain. I couldn’t resist. I figured if not now, when?”

“You and clearing your head. I’ve been listening to that line for months. The only thing that’s going to clear your damn head is marching your ass back to Texas and sorting things out with your husband. Not buying cabins in the freaking woods.”

Susanna pretended not to hear him. “Gran’s practically a legend in the Adirondacks, did you know that? She was a guide in her teens and early twenties, before she and my dad moved to Boston. He was just a little tyke—I’m sure he doesn’t remember. Gran seemed a little shocked when I told her I’d bought a place right on Blackwater Lake.”

Jim shoved the fresh margarita in front of her, his jaw set hard. He didn’t say a word.

She picked up the heavy glass, picturing herself standing on the porch of the cabin, staring out at the ice and snow on the lakes and surrounding mountains. “Something happened to me when I was up there—I don’t know if I can explain it. It’s as if this cabin was just meant to be. As if I was supposed to buy it.”

“Moved by invisible forces?”

She ignored his sarcasm. “Yes.” She sipped her drink, which she noticed was not as strong as her first one. “My roots are there.”

“Roots, my ass. Iris and your dad haven’t lived in the Adirondacks in, what, sixty years?”

He shook his head, plainly mystified by this latest move of hers. He hadn’t liked it when she’d set up her office in Boston with Tess, his daughter who was a graphic artist, then stayed on her own after Tess had moved up to her nineteenth-century carriage house on the north shore with her new family. Office space implied a permanence Jim Haviland didn’t want Susanna to establish in Boston. He wanted her back with her husband. It was the way his world worked.

Hers, too, but life wasn’t always that simple.

Plus, she knew Jim liked Lieutenant Jack Galway, Texas Ranger. No surprise there. They were both men who saw most things in terms of black and white.

Jim wiped down the bar with his white towel, putting muscle into the effort, as if somehow it might relieve his frustrations with her and make him understand why she’d bought a cabin. “The Adirondacks are what, a five, six-hour drive?”

“About that.” Susanna drank more of her margarita. “I got my pilot’s license this fall. Jack doesn’t know. Maybe I’ll buy a plane. There’s a nice little airport in Lake Placid.”

Jim stared at her, assessing. “A cabin in the mountains, a plane, black cashmere—how much damn money do you have?”

Her stomach twisted into an instantaneous knot.

She had ten million as of the first of October. It was a milestone. People knew she was doing well, but few had any idea how well—not even her own husband. She just didn’t talk about it. She didn’t want money clouding anyone’s opinion of her. Of themselves. She didn’t want it to change her life, except maybe it already had. “I’ve made some lucky investments,” she told Jim.

“Ha. I’ll bet luck had nothing to do with it. You’re smart, Susanna Dunning Galway. You’re smart, and you’re tough, and—” He paused for air, which he sucked in, then heaved out in a despairing sigh. “Damn it, Susanna, you have no goddamn business buying a cabin in the Adirondacks. Jack doesn’t know?”

“You don’t give up, do you?”

“That means, no, Jack doesn’t know. What are you doing, trying to piss him off to the point he gives up on you—or comes up here to fetch you?”

“He’s not coming up here to fetch me.”

“Don’t count on it.”

A young couple wandered in and sat at one of the tables, hanging on to each other, not bothering with First Night festivities, Susanna thought, for very different reasons than hers. Jim greeted them warmly and went around the bar to take their order, but he stopped to glower back at her. “Did you tell Iris you were buying a place in her old stomping grounds, give her a chance to weigh in?” He didn’t wait for her to answer. “No, you didn’t, because you’re bullheaded and do what you damn well want to do.”

“I’m not selfish—”

“I didn’t say you were selfish. You’re one of the kindest, most generous people I know. I said you’re bullheaded.”

Her head spun. Maybe she should have consulted Jack. His name wasn’t on the deed but they were still married. She planned to get around to telling him—it wasn’t like her cabin was a secret. Not really. When she was on Blackwater Lake, her husband and her marriage weren’t the issue. The cabin was about her, her life, her roots. She couldn’t explain. She’d almost felt as if she’d been destined to go up there, see the lake on her own, that somehow it would help her make sense of the past fourteen months.

Jim took the couple’s order and headed back behind the bar. Before she said another word, he dipped her up a bowl of steaming chili and set it in front of her. “You need something in your stomach.”

“I really want another margarita.”