“Time heals all wounds, even hers,” Liam said and collected his apple as he stood.
Fingers steepled beneath his chin, Emory peered up at him. “I don’t know. I may have shit the bed on this one.”
Liam patted Emory’s shoulder the way his father used to. The gesture bid him to listen hard to the wisdom that followed.
“You and Amelia need a breather. Cool off on her for a few days. She’ll come around.”
FIFTEEN
CAL
Callum Havick stabbed at the potatoes on a paper plate, careful not to poke through the grease-soaked bottom. Funeral potatoes, they were called. Other cultures revered death as life’s only guarantee. Americans made cheesy potato casserole with a morbid name. Damn if they weren’t good, though.
Cal’s roommate from law school and one of his oldest friends, Paul, leaned against the kitchen counter. With a crumpled paper towel, he dabbed the sweat beading his brow and spoke over a box fan buffeting in the corner.
“I see you found your appetite.”
“The start of it, at least,” Cal said between bites.
Grey hair sprouted from Paul’s mostly bald head, and a couple more crow’s feet cracked at his eyes. His infectious laughter was the same, though. Time didn’t wear on that.
Cal hadn’t seen him since last summer when they, along with Richard and a few others, had celebrated their thirty-year Harvard Law reunion with a trip to Monterey.
As the sun set on Big Sur, the men and their spouses had reminisced on their youth, and Cal had fallen in love with his wife all over again. Butterflies had bloomed in his belly, and he’d gone tongue-tied and clammy. He’d decided then to renew their vows the following summer.
This summer,he realized and swallowed down the last bite of casserole.
Paul’s wife, Susan—a plump woman with florid cheeks and Midwestern sensibilities—shuffled into the kitchen with a vase of wilted lilies.
“You can’t exist on potatoes,” she said and set the vase on the counter before clearing away the empty casserole dish.
Says the Kansan.Potatoes were all Cal could stomach. Everything else either sat like a brick in his belly or sent him dashing to the bathroom.
“I’m going to dry the flowers and make the most darling little trinkets with them. Keychains, paper weights, whatever you’d like.”
Paul fanned himself with the newspaper.
“What the hell is Cal gonna do with all that?”
“It’s a memento. It’d be a shame to throw them out.”
There were a dozen more arrangements rotting in Cal’s living room. They’d arrived in droves from colleagues, friends, people whose names didn’t have a face in his memories.
“I’d love that,” Cal said with a smile. It was the least he could do.
When Paul and Susan had heard the awful news, they’d taken the red eye from Chicago and set up camp at the house. The rest of Cal’s Harvard crew had done the same and descended on Portland to make casseroles, arrangements, distractions.
“You two visit,” Susan said and shooed Paul and Cal toward the deck off the kitchen. “Paul, we need to leave in about twenty minutes.”
Paul saluted his wife and followed Cal outside where the evening air was thick and warm, but a hell of a lot cooler than inside. Yesterday, the air conditioner had thumped and bumped and finally given up the ghost, so the house baked in another heat wave.When it rains, it pours.
“You know you’re more than welcome in Chicago,” Paul said and pushed leaves off the deck with the tip of his shoe. “Suze and I wouldn’tmind. Shit, she’d be delighted. It’d give her someone else to fuss over.”
Humbled by the gesture, Cal glanced at the kitchen window. Through the glass, Susan scrubbed the casserole dish in the sink.
“I appreciate it, but I can’t. I need to stay.”
His fingertips swept over his cellphone stowed in a belt clip. For the first few days, it rang off the hook and Cal had answered with his heart lodged in his throat. Amelia was never on the other end, though, only mournful condolences. He collected them graciously gutted and wrecked.
