Coming in from the Cold (16 page)

“Well that is something to look forward to,” he said. “In the meantime, I’ll check on his lordship.”

She couldn’t help it. Willow laughed.

Coach winked at her on his way out the door.

* * *

When he tapped on the door again, Willow was just removing the first batch of rolls from the oven. “Come in,” she called.

“Lordy, it smells good in here,” Coach said.

“Toss your laundry in the dryer, and I’ll butter one for you,” she offered.

When he reappeared, she pushed a plate toward him, the roll steaming and butter oozing across the torn surface. “Coffee?” she asked.

“I don’t want to be any trouble,” he said.

She waved a hand. “I’m having one.”

“I’d love one.” Coach sat down on a stool and beamed at her. He had a very kind face, and the sort of demeanor that made it easy to feel comfortable in his presence.

Willow turned toward the espresso machine and began to tamp down a shot. She would make herself a tiny coffee with a lot of milk in it. It was strange, but lately she’d found herself behaving like a pregnant lady. She’d cut down her coffee consumption to almost nothing. And she didn’t take anything for the headache she’d had over the weekend. Her mind might run in an endless loop of indecision, but she took good care of her pregnant body. Her subconscious clearly wanted in on the decision.

“So, what is it about Mondays in Vermont?” Coach asked, chewing. “Everything is closed. Driving up to the shuttered Laundromat felt like the last straw.”

“Tell me about it,” Willow smiled. “It’s restaurants, too. It took me a while to figure that out after I moved here. Don’t get hungry on a Monday. I think it’s because they cater to the tourists from Connecticut, so closing Sundays is a bad idea.”

“Ah,” Coach bit into his roll. “Wow,” he said, chewing. “This is amazing.”

“There’s nothing like warm bread to lift your spirits,” Willow agreed. And hers could really use a lift.

“So you’re not a native Vermonter?” Coach asked.

Willow laughed. “Far from. I grew up in Philadelphia.”

“You still have family there?” he asked.

It was an innocent enough question. He had no way of knowing how difficult the topic really was. “No family,” she said, without elaborating. Technically, Willow couldn’t be sure this was actually true. But after the state stepped in after neighbors had leveled charges of neglect, Willow had never seen her parents again. She had only the shakiest memory of their faces.

Coach was studying her. “Another member of the club, then,” he said.

“What club?” Willow transferred the rest of the hot rolls onto a rack to cool.

“Dane has no family—that’s how I became his nursemaid.” He put another bite into his mouth. “For me, there was a wife. But she died.”

“I’m so sorry to hear that.”

“Thanks, it happened years ago. So how did you get to Vermont, then?”

Willow was happy to hear a change in the subject, even to this one. “There was a man. He left. It happens.”

“It does.” He sipped his coffee.

“So…” Willow had a question that had been bothering her. “The knee. Will it heal properly?” She didn’t really want to start a conversation about Dane, but she’d hate to think his career was over, all because of one nasty fall. And, vain as it was, she still felt culpable.

“It will heal,” Coach said. “There’s no reason to think he won’t be training for the Olympics by the fall. It just wasn’t that bad a break.”

“Well, that’s good news,” Willow said.

“It is,” Coach agreed. “Most definitely.”

Willow pulled her truck into the gas station and hopped out with her credit card. She began her transaction only to look up and see that the man filling up his pickup truck in front of her was Travis. She felt her face flush as she locked the nozzle in place. Travis had left her two messages inviting her out to dinner. And she had ignored both of them. She’d been feeling too overwhelmed to be social, especially with someone who might be attracted to her.

“Hi,” he said mildly. “How are you doing, Willow?”

“Good, Trav,” she smiled, hoping for a neutral topic of conversation to spring forth into her mind. “I’m doing well.”

Now
there
was a big fat lie.

“I heard about your injured tenant,” Travis chuckled.

“Did you?” Willow asked, hoping to sound impassive. She fiddled with her gloves so she wouldn’t have to look him in the eye.

“Sure. The lifties always talk about him. What’s it like having a world-renowned asshole living on your property?”

“It’s fine, because I never see him,” Willow dodged. And it was true.

“At least the rent checks won’t bounce.” Travis took the nozzle from his truck and hung it back up on the pump.

“Hey, Travis?” Willow asked.

“Yeah?”

“What did you mean that night when you said his family was crazy?”

“Ah,” Travis said, folding his arms. “I don’t think he’s dangerous, exactly.” Then his face split into a grin. “In spite of his name, right?” He slapped his leg. “Anyway, his mother was always lurching around town when we were growing up. She was kind of out of it all the time. And then his brother, too. They’re just a family of drunks. It turns you into an asshole.”

Willow’s pump stopped, and she put the nozzle back in its holder. “I’m pretty sure I come from a family of drunks,” she said, giving Travis a sideways glance. She capped her fuel tank. It was one of the only things she’d gleaned from her childhood file with the state. She knew almost nothing about her parents, except for the fact that alcoholism had been one of the causes of her removal from their home. “Does that make me an asshole?”

Travis lifted up both hands, like a busted perp. “Willow, come on. I was just running my mouth.” His face was red.

Willow knew she was being ridiculous. She had no reason to defend Dane, and Travis had only been good to her. “I’m sorry,” she said quickly.

“I’d better get back,” Travis sighed. “I’ll see you around.” He hopped into his truck and started the engine.

She slid behind the steering wheel of the truck, her misery closing in around her.

* * *

Willow and Callie dined together the next day on hospital cafeteria fare. “So, now I have an appointment for an adoption counselor and a baby-care class on the same afternoon. And ten days to decide which appointments to keep.”

“I bet that doesn’t happen often,” Callie said.

“Actually, I bet it does,” Willow said. “I can’t be the only person who has teetered this long on the fence.”

Callie put down her sandwich. “You’re right, of course. I didn’t mean to be flip.”

“It’s all right. I know I have to decide soon.”

“You’re really considering every option, aren’t you?”

“Every last one,” Willow said.

They were silent a moment, and Callie finished half her sandwich. She brushed the crumbs off her fingers. “Can I ask you a psych question?”

“Sure.”

“Suppose there’s a prisoner, and he’s serving life with no chance for parole.” Callie fiddled with the straw in her drink.

“No, you should not get involved with him,” Willow laughed.

Callie rolled her eyes. “Very funny. But listen, okay? So, this prisoner has already served a decade, maybe two. Then one day, the warden walks in and says, ‘Whoops. We made a big mistake, you’re free to go.’ My question is this: how does the guy react?”

Willow swallowed a bite of salad. “Well, in the movies, he kisses his lawyer and dances out of prison, to the sound of trumpets and violins,” Willow said. “But in real life, probably the opposite would happen.”

“What does the opposite look like?” Callie asked.

“People are ruled by their expectations. And if the unexpected happens, even good things, we find it hard to adapt. In real life, the prisoner probably has a total breakdown. He’d punch his lawyer, scream at his mom. Drink himself into a stupor. He might never get over it.”

“That’s what I was afraid you’d say.” The look on her face was far away.

“Callie? Are you letting someone out of prison?”

Her friend looked thoughtful. “Probably not,” she said. “But of course, I can’t really talk about it.” She picked up the other half of her sandwich.

Dane had never felt so trapped and alone.

Coach was always nearby, of course. He went to junior races in Vermont and New Hampshire on the weekend, looking at the up-and-comers. But Dane led an impossibly claustrophobic life in the apartment. Save the occasional follow-up doctor’s appointment, there was nowhere to go. He and Coach had tried going out to eat a few times, but it was such a hassle getting in and out of the Jeep, pushing the passenger seat as far back as it would go. And then sitting there in the restaurant feeling like a man with a black cloud hanging over him.

The only thing that brought Dane any pleasure at all was the thing that was causing him so much pain. In the afternoons, after she came home from work, Willow would always visit with her chickens. From one of the two windows in Coach’s little living room, he could see an oblique slice of Willow’s yard, including the barn door. Dane would stand there waiting, leaning on his crutches until she came out, swinging her egg basket, heading for the door.

If it was a sunny day, the barn would already be open. The chickens always came running like a pack of puppies, swarming Willow’s ankles. She always set the basket down and scooped one of them up. The chicken would sit in the crook of her arm while Willow stroked its back. Then she would invariably pull some raisins out of her pocket, and the girls would flap themselves into a frenzy while she doled out these treats, talking to them.

He watched because of the look on her face, which was always peaceful. There was no way to imagine that she wasn’t having a really hard time right now. Callie had said as much. But at the same time, at least for the moments when he spied her out the window, she wasn’t totally broken.

That made one of them.

* * *

After dark was when Dane had the most trouble. It made the apartment—and his life—feel impossibly small, with nothing to see out the window except for his own ugly reflection looking back at him. On this particular evening—barely distinguishable from all the others—Dane had been channel surfing for half an hour, nothing holding his attention for more than a few minutes.

Coach was beginning to fidget in his chair. “So what’s the deal with Willow?” he said.

“What do you mean?” Dane kept his eyes on the screen.

“What do you mean, what do I mean? What’s the goddamned problem?” Coached grabbed the remote out of Dane’s hand and turned the power off. “I see you watching for her in the backyard. I can only guess why you do that. But when she brings the mail to our door, you won’t even glance in her direction. There are twelve-year-old boys with more game than you.”

Dane began the difficult chore of getting off the couch. Leaving his legs propped onto the chair, he crab-walked his upper body onto the floor. “I know you’re bored, Coach. A few more weeks and we’ll be out of here. You can go find some teenage prodigy to do you proud in case I blow up again before the Olympics.” With his hips suspended in the air, Dane pressed up on his fingertips and began a series of dips, working his chest and arms.

Coach looked into his beer bottle. “You’re acting like a sorry asshole, Dane. Even for you, this is extreme. I just want to know—what did that nice girl do to you?”

Dane finished a set of thirty before resting his butt on the floor. “You wouldn’t be asking if you didn’t mean it the other way around. What did I do to
her?
”

Coach leaned on his elbows and looked Dane in the eye. “Fine. What did you do to her?”

“If you want to know so bad, I got her pregnant.”

“Fuck.” Coach put his head in his hands. “You poor kids.”

“Why do you feel sorry for me? She’s the one who’s knocked up.”

The look on Coach’s face was the hardest one he’d ever seen there. “Don’t
ever
talk to me like I’m stupid, Dane. Just because you don’t talk about your problems doesn’t mean I don’t know what they are.”

“You
don’t
know what they are.”

Coach’s stare was unrelenting. “If that’s the line you want to take, fine.”

“Leave me alone, Coach.”

“I leave you alone too much. If you won’t talk to me, I think you need to get some help.”

Dane snorted. He lifted his hips off the floor again and began another set.

“I have one question, and if you answer it, I won’t bring it up again.”

Dane lifted his eyes.

“When you look out that window at Willow, what do you see?”

Dane’s tightened his abs and decided to press the set to forty reps. “I see someone who punched me in the gut,” he ground out.

“That’s what love feels like, kid.”

Dane adjusted his balance so that he could dip himself with only one arm. Then he reached up and lunged for the remote, snatching it out of Coach’s hand. “If you’re so wise, what are you doing sitting alone in this shit hole with me?”

Callie was disappointed to see Willow’s truck in the garage when she pulled up the farmhouse driveway. Her friend came smiling to the kitchen door when she opened her car door.

“Callie?” Willow called. “This is a pleasant surprise.”

Callie took care to bring both her purse and the calmest face she could muster from the car. “Willow, how come you’re not at yoga?”

Willow shrugged. “Didn’t feel like it. And you said you couldn’t be there.”

Callie flinched. “Willow, I need to talk to Dane. But I don’t want you to come.”

“Why?” she whispered.

“Doctor-patient privilege,” Callie whispered.

Willow’s mouth fell open. “You’re scaring me, Callie.”

“Don’t be afraid,” she said. “No matter what,
you
are going to be fine. Stay here, and put on a kettle for tea?”

“All right,” Willow said, her face reluctant.

Callie squeezed her friend’s hand, and then forced herself to turn away from Willow’s frightened eyes. She continued toward the apartment door, feeling around in her purse for the things she’d brought with her.