to my friends. “Is Gerard Butler single?”
“Setting your sights a bit high,” Fleur murmured. Hmmph.
“How about Kevin Youkilis?” Freddie suggested, joining us. “Then we could get Sox tickets.”
“Nah,” Annie said. “He has a lightbulb head. Consider your nieces and nephews, Freddie. Oh! How about the center-fielder, the cute one. Ellsbury? Now he’s hot!”
As my friends and brother suggested increasingly ridiculous choices for my new boyfriend, my brain was busy. Annie was right. I had to get over Mark. For months now, a stone had been sitting on my heart. I’d shed a lot of tears over Mark Rousseau, lost a lot of sleep, eaten a lot of cake batter. Somehow, I had to move on. Work would be hell if I didn’t shake loose from the grip he had on my heart. I most definitely didn’t want to keep feeling this way, alone in a love affair meant for two.
Even if he’d felt like The One. Even if I’d always thought we’d end up together. Even if he still had a choke chain on my heart.
CHAPTER THREE
UPON RETURNING HOME that night, I tripped over an appendage, an all too common experience for me. “Noah,” I called out, “if you don’t start picking up your legs, I’m going to bludgeon you with one of them.”
My grandfather’s rusty voice came from the living room. “That’s right. Pick on the poor cripple.”
“You think I’m kidding, old man?” I asked.
Bowie, my husky mutt, came leaping into the kitchen, singing with joy and canine love, his tail whacking me, great clumps of fur falling to the ground. “Hello, Bowie,” I crooned back at him in my special dog voice. “Yes, I love you, too! Yes, I do! I love you, handsome!” When Bowie had licked me, nipped my chin and turned in a dozen or so frenzied circles, he raced back into the living room. I picked up Noah’s leg and followed my faithful dog.
“The doctor said you need to wear this,” I said, bending to kiss my grandfather’s bearded cheek.
“Fuck the doctor,” Noah said amiably. His stump was propped on some pillows.
“Watch your language, Grumpy,” I said. “Is your leg giving you trouble?”
“My lack of leg is giving me trouble,” he retorted. “But no more than usual.” He rubbed the stump idly, not taking his eyes from the television screen.
Noah was a boat builder, the founder and sole operator of Noah’s Arks (a name I’d thought up when I was four and something I was still pretty proud of). His boats were the stuff of legend—beautiful wooden rowboats, kayaks and canoes, each one made from Noah’s design, by Noah’s hand, selling for thousands of dollars apiece. Up here in the Northeast Kingdom, where the rivers ran wild, he was pretty much a god.
Unfortunately, he’d suffered a small stroke two years ago. Even more unfortunately, he’d been holding a running radial saw at the time, and the result was a cut so bad that his leg had to be amputated just above the knee. At a family meeting, the doctor had recommended an assisted living facility for seniors. Noah, who’d lived alone since my grandmother had died years ago, had gone white. Without forethought, I found myself offering to live with him for a while ‘til he got used to his new situation. And though the curmudgeonly old bastard would never say so, I liked to think he appreciated it.
Noah was watching a Deadliest Catch rerun. We both loved reality TV, but this one was our favorite. As the hardy Alaskans battled it out on the Bering Sea, I sat on the couch, Bowie leaping neatly up beside me and laying his beautiful gray and white head in my lap, blinking up at me in adoration. My dog had one brown eye, one blue, which I found very appealing. I made a kissing noise at him, and his ridiculously cute triangle ears swiveled toward me, as if I were about to tell him the most important news ever. “You,” I said, “are a very good dog.” Because really, what message could be more important than that?
Glancing around, I saw that Noah, as usual, had ignored my pleas to keep our place tidy. Newspapers were strewn around his chair, as well as a bowl filled with a puddle of melted ice cream and an empty beer bottle. Yummy.
Noah and I lived in an old mill building, half of which was his workshop, the other half our living quarters. The downstairs housed the kitchen, a den and a huge great room with forty-foot ceilings and massive rafters. The great room was circled by a second-floor catwalk, off which were two bedrooms. My own was quite big and sunny, with plenty of space for my bed, a desk and my rocking chair, which was set in front of two wide windows that overlooked the Trout River. I also had a gorgeous bathroom, complete with Jacuzzi and separate shower. Noah was down the hall from me and mercifully had his own bathroom. There’s only so much a granddaughter will put up with.
At the commercial break, Noah hit Mute. “So? You have a good time?”
I hesitated. “Um … well, the party was at the funeral home. Mom and Dad were there. It was fine.”
“Sounds like a shit bath to me,” he said.
“You were right to stay home,” I confirmed. Noah avoided family get-togethers as if they were hotbeds of ebola. He wasn’t exactly close with my father, his son. Dad’s brother, Remy, had died in a car accident at age twenty, and I gathered from the little Dad said that Remy was the type of son Noah had expected: rugged, quiet, good with his hands. My father, on the other hand, had spent his life schmoozing people as a drug sales rep. And, of course, there was my parents’ divorce. Noah, who had adored my grandmother and nursed her through the horrors of pancreatic cancer, fiercely disapproved. “I brought you some cake, though,” I added.
“Knew I kept you around for a reason,” he said. “Here.” He reached into his shirt pocket and withdrew a little hand-carved animal … a dog. A husky.
“Oh! Thank you, Noah!” I gave him a kiss, which he tolerated with a mere grumble. He’d been making his grandchildren—and great-grandchildren—these little animals all our lives. I had quite a collection.
“You seem down,” Noah observed. This was deep in Dr. Phil territory from a man who didn’t spend a whole lot of time navel-gazing … in fact, Noah was the least sentimental person I’d ever met. He never spoke of my uncle Remy, but there was a picture of him in Noah’s room, the one thing that never needed dusting. When Gran died—I was six at the time—Noah didn’t shed a single tear, but his sorrow was palpable. I’d drawn him a card every week for months to try to cheer him up. Even when the bandages came off his leg for the first time, his only comment was, “Fuckin’ foolish.” No self-pity, no maudlin mourning of his limb. To comment on my emotional state … shocking.
I stared at him, but he didn’t look away from the muted television set. “Um … no. I’m fine.” I glanced at my wrist. Still wearing Mark’s gift, loser that I was. “Noah, I’m thinking I should probably find a …” the word boyfriend sounded so lame “… a special someone.” Ooh. Not much better. Far worse, in fact. “Care to share the wisdom of your long life?”
“Don’t do it,” he said. “Nothing but heartache and misery.” Underneath his white beard (Noah looked like a malnourished, possibly homeless Santa), his mouth twitched. “You can live here forever and take care of me.”
“And I do so love taking care of you,” I said. “How about a nice enema before bed?”
“Watch
