The Bone House - Brian Freeman [88]
He only cared what one person thought. Hilary.
The morning had felt like a turning point between them after a bad, bad night. He'd slept alone, feeling her absence. He hadn't blamed her for doubting him, but he'd worried that doubt was like a genie you couldn't put back in the bottle once it was free. Every day for the rest of their lives, he feared that she would look at him and a single thought would flit through the back of her mind, even if she never said it out loud. Did he?
Then Hilary came home. She arrived on the first ferry to the island in the morning. They didn't say a word. Something shook loose in both of them. Her lips were on his, and his fingers were on her clothes, and they stripped on the new carpet he'd laid in the living room and made frantic love, soundless except for the pace of their breathing. The tenderness of their bruises didn't matter. The graffiti hiding under the fresh paint didn't matter. They were alone and connected for the first time in days, and in the aftermath, as he stroked her bare skin, he felt as if he'd won her faith back.
She was sleeping now. He'd left her a note that he was going to the mainland for a few hours.
At the bakery counter, Mark ordered a loaf of rosemary-garlic bread and a cherry pie, warm from the oven. Everything in Door County was cherries. Fresh cherries, cherry pies, cherry soda, cherry caramels, cherry jam, cherry cider, cherry ice cream, cherry wine. There were cherries in tomato sauce, cherries in cheese, cherries stuffed in peppers, cherries stuffed in olives, cherries stuffed in roast beef. He didn't really even like cherries, but that was like living in Chicago and not rooting for the Bears. He'd become a cherry fan out of sheer necessity, because you couldn't escape them here.
He balanced the pie box on his hand. The tin was hot through the cardboard, and he juggled it. At the end of an aisle, he put down his shopping bag and dipped a pretzel stick in mustard. It was cherry mustard. Of course. He actually liked it. He took a jar and put it in the bag.
Mark heard his phone ringing. He had a special ring tone for Hilary, which was Aerosmith's 'Dude Looks Like a Lady'. She'd got very drunk one night at a bar in downtown Chicago and danced to it solo, and he'd never let her forget it.
'I really needed to sleep,' she said.
'I figured.'
'That was a nice way to come home.'
'Will I get the same treatment tonight?' he asked.
'Come home and see.'
'Soon. I'll swing by the Pig for groceries and get some wine at the liquor store and then head for the ferry. Do you need anything?'
'You.'
'That's a date,' he said.
He hung up the phone and realized he was smiling, because he felt a glimmer of the life they'd enjoyed in their first year. Before Tresa. Before Glory. When they were first living on the island and commuting together to their teaching jobs, he'd wondered what he had done to deserve that kind of happiness. He'd feared in his secret soul that one day fate would want to take it all back and even the score.
Sure enough, fate did.
Even now, he couldn't escape it.
Mark looked up, holding his phone in his hand, still smiling at the thought of going home to Hilary. He found an older man with slicked, jet-black hair standing in front of him. Alcohol wafted from the man's breath. They were nearly the same height, but the man's shoulders were rounded by age, and he held himself at an angle, as if one leg was weaker than the other. The man jabbed a finger in Mark's face.
'I know who you are,' he said.
Mark had no interest in a confrontation with a stranger. He picked up his shopping bag and tried to squeeze past the man in the aisle. 'Excuse me,' he said.
'Do you know who I am?' the man asked sharply.
'I have no idea.'
'My name's Peter Hoffman.'
Mark stopped and took a deep breath. 'OK. All right. I've heard of you. What do you want, Mr Hoffman?'
'I know what kind of man you are,' Hoffman snapped. His voice grew louder and more belligerent. People in the market turned to look at them.
'I'm leaving,' Mark said, but Hoffman blocked his way