David Gates: Preston Falls

It's almost three in the morning, and she's wide awake. Nothing downstairs to drink, she's pretty sure. That's one thing she'll definitely have to fix. She goes into the bedroom, rearranges the pillows and gets under the covers with her clothes still on, cardigan and all, and picks up Emma. She reads a couple of pages, but the words just move through without leaving anything. She's worried about Willis: like what if his useless brother didn't wait? Well, so he could walk to the train station. Earliest train to New York was what, five-thirty or something? If they ran that early on Sunday. It wouldn't kill him to spend a few hours on a bench in the waiting room. If the waiting room's open. But this is not her responsibility. As of half an hour ago. She throws off the covers, peels off the wool socks and puts on her running shoes.

She checks the kids again — both sound asleep — goes downstairs, puts on her jacket and pats the pockets to make sure she's got car keys and house keys. She makes sure the front door's locked. Rathbone's still lying on the kitchen floor; he raises his head about that far when she opens the back door, then lets it sink down again. She closes the door behind her, sticks in her key and turns the deadbolt. She's never left the kids asleep alone before, but they should be okay for just a few minutes. She stands the garbage can back up and puts the lid on. Tomorrow, without fail: bungee cords. She opens the garage doors, starts the Cherokee and backs out into the street. It's stopped snowing, that's one thing.

At the stop sign she turns right, scanning both sidewalks ahead. Nobody out at this hour. She turns left onto Route 9 and drives the mile and a half south to Main Street without meeting a single car. Hangs a right on Main, completely deserted under the pink streetlights, and follows it down to the train station. He couldn't possibly have walked this far already, could he? So maybe his brother was waiting. She gets out of the car and climbs the steps up to the platform. Not a soul. The waiting room is locked. She looks down at the commuter parking lot. Only three cars, randomly placed among the fish spines of white paint.

She drives back up Main and makes a left onto Route 9. The head-

PRESTON FALLS

lights pick up more flakes of snow. She gets in the right-hand lane and signals for the turn onto Stebbins; then she remembers Dunkin' Donuts stays open all night. She's starving. She flicks the blinker off and keeps going, over the crest of the rise. As she pulls into the Entrance Only, she notices a man far ahead on the sidewalk, walking north past Midas Muffler. Even at this distance she thinks she can tell that little limp nobody else would even notice, from when he broke his leg playing baseball and God knows what kind of a doctor that mother of his took him to. Where on earth could he be going? Well, it's none of her business anymore, he's made that clear. And, in fairness, she's made it clear too. She's not his business, he's not her business. As if they were back to being any two people. Isn't that the meaning of this? But look at him, walking away: that's Willis, absolutely.