South of Superior - Ellen Airgood [140]
Paul drew her close and she buried her face in his neck. “Don’t go away again,” he whispered.
“I didn’t go, you did,” she whispered back.
“But still, just don’t.”
Just then footsteps came pounding Up the stairs and Greyson burst into the room, saying, “Madeline, guess what, me and Ben—Paul. Mr. Garceau! It isn’t even spring yet. Cool. What time did you get here, can you eat supper with Us?”
After Greyson was in bed, Paul and Madeline sat as close together as possible on the couch in her attic sitting room while he told her about his plans. He was looking forward to having Tom around; he’d be coming north in a few days. “It’ll be good to have the help, good to have family here. I like him; we get along. And he needs this, I think. Needs something to do, a purpose.”
“That’s good.”
“It is, I think. For both of Us.”
“You won’t go back to the prison?”
“I won’t live like that anymore.”
“Won’t it be hard without that paycheck, though? I mean, it is for me here—”
“It’ll work out. I have to believe things will work out. Not always the way you think, but somehow. Like now I’m glad I have the Fairlane, because it’ll just about cover the cost of a new oven.”
“You’re selling it?”
“Yep. Don’t need it; need the oven.”
Madeline nodded.
“I’ve been thinking maybe I’d give guitar lessons. It’d be a little extra, and I’d love doing it. Garceau’s Pizzeria and Music Studio, how’s that sound?”
“A little goofy. But good.”
“So how about you?” he asked, taking her hand and entwining their fingers. “How’s it been, your first winter?”
“Good. Pretty good.”
He raised his eyebrows, and she confided the truth in a rush. “I’m scared. There’s so much I have no clue about. This hotel is—” She stopped, wooshed out a huge sigh, shook her head. “It might be a pipe dream. Gladys tried to tell me, but I wouldn’t listen. And so far it’s been great. I mean, really amazing. I’ve done the work, I’m here, I’m opened Up, I haven’t run through all my money yet. It’s winter, it’s beautiful, all that’s true. But at the same time, it’s all a crapshoot. What will happen, will I make it?”
Paul was smiling. “Welcome to my world.”
“It’s terrifying.”
“But you’re really doing something. You’re trying anyway.”
“Yes, but—what if I fail?”
“You can’t fail.”
“That’s not true!”
“You’ve already not failed,” he said, his eyes very serious behind his glasses. Madeline wanted to kiss him for that.
“But what if I can’t do it alone? This place, Greyson, everything.”
“You don’t have to.”
Madeline stood at her windows watching the water after Paul had gone downstairs to sleep. She thought she’d make silver dollar pancakes for breakfast, with eggs and bacon. Emmy had always made silver dollar pancakes on the weekends, and Madeline would eat as many as she could hold and then one more.
She closed her eyes and was in the kitchen of the apartment in Chicago. Some nameless windy winter day, somewhere around 1984. She had feathered bangs and was wearing leg warmers and hoping against hope that Tina Petry would invite her to her birthday party. Emmy flipped the tiny pancakes and the aroma of them rose Up, and she turned to smile at Madeline—
Madeline drifted in and out of time. The wind howled and the waves chopped at the shore. How she loved the lake, that strength no one could tame. The sky was somber, forbidding. It would take a lifetime to try to paint it.
She wondered if Walter was awake down in Crosscut, listening to the snow on his window. Mary would be sitting by her stove, warm as toast, and Emil would be hunkered on his bunk, drinking whiskey, Sal on her blanket on the floor beside him. Arbutus and Pete were probably asleep by now, like Greyson, or maybe watching the eleven o’clock news on television. And Gladys—she was looking out a window at the storm, like Madeline. How like they were in some ways. Madeline took a long breath in and let it out slowly. Emmy, Emmy, she thought, as she so often did. A kind of peacefulness filled her.
Epilogue
One Year Later
The bay began to freeze over in the end of February, and by the first week of