With a heavy heart and no small amount of worry, she said goodbye to both brothers later that summer. The Boston apartment they’d been looking at was still available, so she found someone to share it and went ahead without Wendell. Wendell had promised.
Wendell had been wrong about all of it. Near the end of their service, both brothers were called for active duty: Wesley to Iraq and Wendell to Afghanistan. Nothing would ever be the same.
Ginny had been doomed from the beginning. She’d had the misfortune of finding her soul mate at a young age. The man who’d promised he’d come back to her kept his word; but he was not the same man who returned.
Wendell
He still could not wrap his brain around the fact the Lancasters were gone. He’d just seen them at the gala.
The details of the accident were minimal. They’d apparently gone for a moonlight drive. That part didn’t surprise Wendell too much. Alan was as romantic about his wife as he was about White Pines. And he loved taking out that old car.
Since Alan wasn’t known for recklessness, and since there were tire marks before the car left the road, the findings suggested a deer had simply run across the street, causing them to swerve. It was certainly a common occurrence in their area. But in the end, none of it changed the outcome. Finding out the details wouldn’t change the facts, Wendell tried to tell himself. He would not see them again, a fact that pained him more deeply than he thought possible. In the last fifteen years, Wendell had buried every member of his family; though he’d never admit it to anyone, Alan and Anne had become the closest thing he had to one since.
Now, when he showed up early to work as he had since the accident, Wendell remained alert for signs of the girls. Secretly, he feared seeing them. He would not know what to say or if he should say anything at all. Wendell was no good at this kind of thing. It was better to keep his distance, to stay in the background, taking care of White Pines as Alan would want.
Jerry and Hank arrived shortly after, and the three loaded up the Gator with weed eaters and headed down to the lake. That morning they’d trim along the outer edge of the cattails and natural grasses that grew along the water’s edge. Alan was adamant about keeping the lake in its natural state, and he preferred to leave all vegetation alone for habitat areas. That way the waterfowl could nest and raisetheir young in the protective covering of the reeds and thicket. The mist was thick that morning, rising in cottony strands from the water’s surface. It was the very kind of scene Alan used to love, and often Wendell would see the man strolling along the lake with his dog in early-morning hours. There was so much he owed Alan.
When he’d first come back from Afghanistan, Wendell did not reenter civilian life easily. His father refused to speak of Wesley, and Wendell, who’d been some fourteen hundred miles away the night Wesley’s unit was attacked, could not help but think that there had been some failing on his part to protect his little brother; that his father wondered how one son had come home without the other. It could just as easily have been Wendell. Maybe it should have been.
The moment Wendell’s plane touched down, Ginny was back from Boston. But he could not bring himself to see her. It was too painful; he didn’t expect her to understand that seeing her now was a glaring reminder of all that would never be. Even at the funeral, where Ginny sat in the pew behind him weeping softly between her parents, and later pressed her hand in his during the receiving line, Wendell could barely lift his eyes to meet hers. He couldn’t explain why, but the moment he met her tear-filled gaze a rush of shame filled him. It wasn’t fair that Wendell was home in Saybrook, safe and sound, without his little brother. It didn’t make sense.
For a while, Ginny refused to give up. She left messages, begging Wendell to at least sit down and talk. Several times she drove to the farmhouse and knocked on the door, while Wendell stayed on the other side holding his breath. On her last night before she went back to Boston, Ginny stood below his bedroom and tossed pebbles up at his window. It was agony. She was leavingin the morning, and there was a nearly full moon, and Wendell had to will himself to stay put. Second to coming home without Wesley, it was the hardest thing he’d ever done. But Ginny was so alive, so full of hope; she deserved someone who had the same to offer. He told himself these things as he lay in the dark listening to her stones plink off his bedroom window one after the other. If Wendell could have felt anything at all, he would’ve rushed downstairs and pulled her inside and begged her forgiveness. But he was numb.
Once Ginny left, Wendell stuck to his pattern of self-isolation. He hung his National Guard uniform in the closet, stopped shaving, and spent his days rattling around the house. Eventually, old friends stopped calling. Neighbors stopped dropping off casseroles. Upon Wesley’s death, his father had retired from his first selectman position, and the two fell into an unspoken agreement of seclusion. It felt as if the farmhouse was holding its breath as he and his father coexisted in silence. Just when Wendell thought he’d lose his mind, he ran into Alan outside the market. Wesley wasn’t the only one who’d died while Wendell was overseas. Alan’s father, whom Wendell had worked for during the summers, had passed away while he was gone.
Alan was standing in front of the community bulletin board outside the market entrance, and when he saw Wendell, he did a double take. “Wendell, welcome home!” Then, “I was very sorry to hear about your brother.”
“As was I about your father,” Wendell replied. “He was a good man to work for.”
Alan nodded sadly. “Well, it’s not the same, is it? He lived to be an old man.” Then, “The whole town was very proud of both you boys.”
When Wendell didn’t say anything, Alan looked down at the flyer in his hand. “Hard to find good help these days.” He turnedto the community bulletin board outside the market entrance and pinned it up. It was a help-wanted sign. “It was good to see you, Wendell. Please let us know if there’s anything we can do for you.”
Alan was halfway to his car when Wendell tore the flyer off the bulletin board. “Alan.” He held it aloft. “There is something you can do.”
The work was draining and the days long, but White Pines was quiet and secluded. Alan liked the idea of a strong young veteran soldier managing the estate. Wendell was quiet, and Alan respected that. Wendell could pour himself into the job and work until near collapse, returning home merely to eat dinner and then fall into bed before rising the next morning to start again. For a while it quieted the dark thoughts in his head.
Eventually, Wendell needed more, and since he wasn’t allowing himself the comfort of Ginny or his friends, he found it at the Spigot. It started with Friday-night happy hours at the local watering hole, where he found a dark corner stool at the bar. Sometimes he bumped into locals who offered him a beer or, worse, toasted the memory of Wesley. But the beers were cheap and cold and helped to pass the time. Before long, Wendell became a regular. Most nights after work he’d come in, starting with a bottle of beer and some wings. Ending with a glass of bourbon, neat, and a warm numbness that got him through the night.
At first he was able to keep his growing nighttime habit out of the daylight, but after a while Wendell began to slip. A few times he showed up late and other times hungover. Alan didn’t say anything at first. But then Wendell missed a day’s work, and once, when Alan came to oversee him cutting a tree that had fallen during a storm, Wendell’s hands began to shake so badly that he felt the blade slip. Quickly, he drew it back and set the saw down in the grass between them.
“Take the rest of the day off,” Alan said, relieving him of the chain saw.
Wendell sat back on his haunches, trying to compose himself. “I’m just tired.”
Alan glared at him. “You almost cut off your goddamn hand. Go home.”
That night, Alan pushed the Spigot’s front door open. Wendell didn’t see him right away. The usual customers were saddled up at the bar when Alan tapped roughly on Wendell’s shoulder. “This stool taken?” He pointed to the empty seat.
Wendell gave him a sharp look. This wasn’t Alan’s place, and he didn’t appreciate Alan tracking him down.
“So, what are we drinking?” Alan asked, picking up Wendell’s glass and taking a sniff. “Ah. The good stuff.”
“Hey.” Wendell took his glass back and the two exchanged a look.
When the bartender came over, Alan pointed to the empty spot in front of him. “One for me, too, please.”
Wendell was too angry to speak, but Alan didn’t seem to mind. Glass by glass, Alan kept silent pace. After his second, he started talking. He talked about growing up as the son of Alan Lancaster Sr., and how hard it was. “He was a great man in town but a tough bastard to live with. My sister never could get the hang of him.” It was the only time Wendell had heard him talk about his sister, Candace, and how she’d long hated White Pines. How she’d felt their father favored Alan, as a son, and how that distanced her from the family to the point where she moved overseas and kept little contact. “She’s never even met my daughters,” Alan lamented, now emptying his third glass. He set it down on the bar and turned to Wendell. “Your turn.”
