Luke woke up to Leon licking his face. He pushed him away. “God, Leon.” Wiped Leon’s slobber on the bedsheet and looked at the clock. It was early, 7:15. Luke got up, went downstairs, opened the front door and let Leon out. He saw Jack’s car still parked in the same place and was surprised. His mom said he was staying at a motel in Northport. He didn’t mind Jack showing up if it made his mom happy but didn’t like the idea of him staying over. They were on the couch watching TV when he got home, not even sitting close together.
He heard Leon bark, opened the door and let him in. He went upstairs and checked the other bedrooms-they were both empty. He went to his mom’s room, tried the handle. It was locked. Now he was pissed. He couldn’t believe she’d get together with somebody like this. He felt guilty ’cause his dad wasn’t there, and it made him angry.
Luke walked back down the hall to his room, Leon trailing him, took a shower and got dressed. When he went downstairs again his mom was in the kitchen making breakfast, a whisk in her hand, arm wrapped around a mixing bowl. He could smell bacon cooking. Leon was sitting on the kitchen floor, staring at the skillet on the stovetop, bacon grease popping.
“Morning,” she said. “How was last night, did you have fun?”
He sat at the table his mom once told him came from Normandy, bleached wood with a drawer at one end. “Looks like you had more fun than I did.”
She stopped moving the whisk and gave him a quizzical look.
“What does that mean?”
“Where’s Jack? He still up there sleeping?”
Kate said, “What’re you talking about?”
“I can’t believe you’d have him over. Don’t you care about Dad anymore?” He was angry, couldn’t hold back.
His mom looked stunned. “Of course I do. I don’t know what you think happened, but you’re wrong.”
“Where is he, then?”
“I don’t know,” Kate said. “Maybe he’s out taking a walk.”
She put the bowl down and stared at him, then moved to the stovetop. He could see her flipping slices of bacon in the big cast-iron skillet. She made pancakes and piled them on a platter with the bacon and brought it to the table. Leon came over and sat next to Luke, looking up at the food.
She pushed the platter toward him. “Eat something.”
He could feel the anger building in him, like it was under pressure, like he was about explode.
“What’re you going to do today?”
He stared at the table, couldn’t look at her.
His mom said, “Want to hang out? We could have lunch at the Bluebird.”
He couldn’t sit there any longer. Got up and walked past her out of the breakfast room.
His mom said, “Where’re you going? Talk to me, will you?”
He moved through the lodge to the back door, put on his fleece jacket and a pair boots and went outside. It was cold. He could see his breath as he moved toward the woods.
Teddy smelled bacon cooking and it made him hungry. Could he ever go for a couple eggs sunny-side up, sausage and gravy and grits-with syrup over the top.
He could see Jack’s car still parked in the yard. Spent the night but not with the lady. Maybe he was losing his charm. He watched her get out of bed and stretch her arms over her head and yawn. He watched her set on the toilet, do her business. He watched her look at herself in the mirror and brush her teeth. No bath this morning and Teddy had to admit he was disappointed.
He heard a door bang closed and saw the kid come out the back of the cabin, moving with purpose toward the tree line, then into the woods and not a minute later the kid was standing right below him. Teddy thinking this was the moment of truth. If the kid turned and looked up, their whole plan could come unglued in a split second. But he didn’t and Teddy watched him head deeper into the woods and he took out his cell phone, dialed a number and said, “Let’s do it.”
Kate heard the front door open and close and Jack came in the kitchen, rubbing his hands like he was cold. “Sure smells good in here.”
He took off his jacket and folded it over a chair and sat across from her.
She said, “Where you been?”
“Out in the woods,” Jack said. “I saw a deer.” He sounded excited.
“How about coffee and some breakfast?”
He said, “I like this laid-back up-north life. I could get used to this.”
She got up and poured him a cup and made pancakes and put them on a plate with three slices of bacon and handed it to him. She was worried about what she was going to say to him and decided to just say it. “Listen, I’ve got a problem with Luke. Probably be a good idea if you gave us a little time alone.”
He didn’t react. It either bothered him or it didn’t. She couldn’t tell. He kept his eyes on her and said, “I understand.”
Now, in retrospect, she realized she should’ve been smarter, more aware. Luke was hurting and vulnerable, and having Jack overnight was probably the dumbest thing she could’ve done under the circumstances. Nothing happened, in spite of Jack’s persistent attempts to kiss her. He finally got the message and gave up and when the movie was over-they watched One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest-it was late, and Kate said, “Do you really have a motel room down the road?”
Jack said, “Know where the Red Lion is?”
And Kate said, “That’s on the other side of Suttons Bay, isn’t it? You can stay here, if you want.”
She took him up to the guest room and he put his arms around her and tried to kiss her again. She pushed him away. “Come on.”
“I can’t help myself,” Jack said.
“Luke’s right across the hall. That’s all he’d need-open his door and see his mother making out with somebody.”
Kate went to her room and locked the door, thinking that, in his current state of mind, Jack might sneak down and try to visit her in the middle of the night. What made it more difficult-she wanted him too-knew she was interested in him again. Maybe this time it would work. It was the third time their paths had crossed in twenty-some years, and wasn’t the third time a charm?
When he finished his breakfast, she walked him outside and they stood looking at each other. “You all right?” she said.
“Fine. Why?”
“I don’t know,” Kate said. “You seem like you’re somewhere else.”
“Maybe I’m tired,” Jack said.
“I can understand-all your effort trying to get me in bed. That can tire a guy out.”
“Now, you know what you do to me and always have,” Jack said. “I can’t control myself around you.”
Kate said, “I guess it’s my fault, huh?”
He flashed his famous grin.
Kate said, “Where’re you going?”
Jack said, “Back to Tucson.”
“You sure?”
“That’s what I’m thinking,” Jack said. “But you never know.”
With him you sure didn’t. She put her arms around him and kissed him.
“Be careful,” he said, “I’m in a weak physical state.”
“You’ll be all right,” Kate said. “Call me, will you? Let me know what you’re doing.”
Jack stopped at the market in Omena to get something for lunch. He was paying for a sandwich and a Coke when a deputy sheriff came in and looked around. He saw Jack and stepped over to the counter. He had his hands on his hips, showing off his arms, staring at Jack, sizing him up. He wore the brim of his hat low over his eyes. Jack assuming this was his intimidation pose.
The cop said, “That your Lexus out front?”
Jack said, “Yeah.”
In that stupid uniform, he reminded Jack of the two Tucson cops who’d arrested him at a picnic table outside Guero’s Taco Bar. He was taking a bite of a soft chicken taco when he saw two nine-millimeter Glocks aimed at his face.
Jack saying at the time, “You mind if I eat this? I’m starving.”
They must’ve,’ cause they put him flat on the patio stones and cuffed his hands behind his back. He hadn’t eaten in twelve hours. He thought about that taco for three and a half years, and it was the first place he went when he was paroled.
Jack met the deputy’s gaze and said, “What can I do for you?” Jack thinking he was going to say, “You’re under arrest for driving a stolen vehicle.”
“You’re a friend of Mrs. McCall’s, aren’t you?”
“I am,” Jack said.
“You staying there?”
Jack couldn’t figure out where he was going with this. “I was.”
“Where you headed now?”
“Is there a point to all this,” Jack said, “or you just making conversation?” He resented this yokel getting in his face.
The deputy stiffened up. “You’ve got a broken taillight,” he said. “That enough of a point for you?”
Jack regretted what he said. Had always had trouble keeping his mouth shut in certain situations.
“Have your license and registration with you? I’m going to have to issue you a citation.”
He took a pen out of his shirt pocket and opened his ticket book.
Jack said, “I got tagged last night in a restaurant parking lot in Suttons Bay. Dealership isn’t open till Monday. Think you could cut me a little slack?”
“I’ll give you forty-eight hours,” the deputy said. “After that, I’m going to give you a ticket. We understand each other?”
Jack just stared at him.
“I didn’t hear you,” the deputy said with a grin.
“Yeah,” Jack said. But, no, Jack was thinking, we don’t. He didn’t get why the deputy was being such a hard-ass. It didn’t make any sense. But in his experience, it didn’t have to-cops could fuck with you anytime they wanted.
Kate had to give Luke time to cool down, come to his senses. At eleven o’clock when he still wasn’t back, she drove into town. Stopped at Tom’s and bought cold cuts and Italian bread for lunch and a whole chicken for dinner. She’d fill the cavity with onions and lemons and thyme and roast it in the oven.
She expected to see Luke playing a video game on the big TV when she walked in the door. But it was quiet. She called his name. Nothing. Leon was stretched out on one of the leather chairs, eyes following her into the kitchen. He heard her putting groceries away and came in wagging his tail.
Kate squatted and held Leon’s face in her hands and said, “Where’s Luke? Have you seen him?”
Leon stared at her with sad eyes and an expression that said, I don’t have a clue.
Kate went upstairs and checked Luke’s room. No sign of him. She went back down and checked the garage. The Corvette was there. She opened the door to the storage room and saw Owen’s bloodstained jacket hanging on a hook, and the memory of his death came flooding back, her adrenaline pumping now as she put a leash on Leon and went into the woods looking for Luke. They followed a trail for a while till it disappeared, Leon going crazy, sniffing and pulling her. They went up a slope to a ridgetop and down the other side. Kate yelling, “Luke,” her voice sounding strange in the dense silence of the woods.
By four it was getting dark, difficult to see under the canopy, and she realized there was no way she was going to find him. She took Leon back to the lodge and fed him. Then she sat in a leather chair and warmed her hands by the fire, wondering what to do. She got up once and called Luke’s cell phone and got his voice message. She looked at her watch-it was 4:45. He’d been gone for almost eight hours.
There was one more place she hadn’t looked. She grabbed a flashlight from a kitchen drawer and walked out to the shed behind the lodge, opened the door, and went in. It smelled like aged wood. There was a worktable with tools on it and more tools hanging from a pegboard on the wall. It was a place where Luke liked to spend time. She hoped she’d see him sitting there, tired, ready to come in for dinner. But he wasn’t there. He wasn’t on the beach either, where Kate stood, facing directly into the wind. The sky overcast, lake water dark and heavy, wind turning up whitecaps that rolled in, pounding the shore. It was cold and the air was clean, smelling of pine trees.
Bill Wink had given her his cell number and she tried it now and got his voice mail and left a message.
Luke knew the woods, she told herself-knew how to survive. Owen had made sure of that. Even if he was hurt he could make a fire and be okay till morning. Still, she felt guilty. Should’ve done something earlier and now there was nothing she could do.
Kate stoked the fire and thought about being pregnant with Luke. He was ten days late when her water broke, and then labor-eighteen hours of contractions before he popped out and the pain was gone, and then complete elation, Owen by her side to help, but it was all Kate and Luke.
She thought about chasing him after his bath when he was four or five, running through the upstairs of their first house, saying, “I’m going to get your fanny,” and Luke laughing and saying, “No, Mommy.”
She thought about telling him the facts of life when he was eleven. He was going to have a sex education class at school the next day and she wanted to prepare him. They were in his bedroom. He was at his desk doing homework. Kate sat on the bed. She said, “Do you know how babies are born?”
He turned and looked at her and said, “They grow in your stomach.”
Kate said, “Dads are part of it, too. God gives moms and dads the power to make babies.”
Luke said, “You mean like a robot?”
He got up and came over and stood in front of her.
“The dad’s penis goes into the mom,” Kate said, “and that’s how babies are conceived.”
He gave her a puzzled, innocent look.
“Does he take it off and give it to you?”
Kate had to bite her lip to keep from smiling. “No, he lies down next to me.”
“Why haven’t I ever seen this?” His voice and expression full of surprise.
Kate said, “It’s a private thing between a mom and a dad.”
She could see Luke trying to grasp the concept, and when he did, fell on the floor and said, “I’m never growing up and I’m not going to school tomorrow.”
She remembered telling Owen when he got home that night and laughed about it for weeks.
She thought about the time Luke climbed the maple tree in their backyard, spying on the dinner party she and Owen were having. Luke fell out of the tree and landed on the brick patio. He cracked his head open and Kate took him to Beaumont emergency, head wrapped in blue and white dish towels that were blotted with blood. She dozed off, thinking about spending the night in his hospital room, sleeping in a chair next to his bed, and woke up for real to the sound of someone knocking on the door.
Bill Wink’s shift ended at midnight. He checked his messages and-he couldn’t believe it-there was one from Kate McCall, but it sounded like she was in trouble. Bill decided not to call, just drive out there and see her. His heart was thumping he was so excited. He’d been thinking about her his entire shift. Bill saw himself with her, pictures in his head like snapshots: sitting at a table having a romantic dinner at Windows; cruising the bay in his Boston Whaler, snuggling on the couch in the big room at her place, watching a movie. Bill’d show her what a fun guy he was. He wished he could change, get out of the uniform, put on some Levi’s and a comfortable shirt, but it would take too long. His place was in the opposite direction and it was already late.
There was no one on the road so he pressed it, doing seventy most of the way, and pulled up in front of the McCalls’ fifteen minutes later. He got out and left his hat on the seat. He was off duty. He knocked on the door, waited, and Kate opened it, rubbing sleep from her eyes. She invited him in and offered him a beer. They sat at the kitchen table and she told him Luke had taken off that morning. He walked in the woods and never came back. To Bill it sounded strange any way he looked at it. How’s a kid who knows the woods disappear? Bill thought the likely explanation was the kid ran away. Isn’t that what Luke did when he came up north? Of course, Bill could be wrong. He’d try to get a couple experienced trackers and come back before sunup. He finished his beer and Kate walked him to the door. There was no point hanging around. He could see she wasn’t in any mood to have a conversation.