need your driver’s license,” she said instead.
He reached for his wallet, only feeling slightly relieved. He didn’t remember much about the curly-haired brunette other than that she was a few years older than he was and that her family had always owned the place. She clearly remembered him, though. Or, at least, judging from the chill that was definitely more censure than natural reserve, she remembered his family.
Cooking smells, the low drone of a television and children’s voices drifted in from the open door behind her.
“New York,” she said, writing down his address. “I thought your family moved to Maine.”
“They did.” He handed over a credit card, wondering at the length of some people’s memories. “I’m the only one in New York.”
Looking as if she couldn’t imagine why he would have wanted to come back, she pushed his license across the shiny wood surface. “Long drive.”
It had been a long drive, he thought. A little over six hours, actually. Three of those on snow-packed roads. But driving made more sense than flying or taking the train. There were no direct flights from JFK or LaGuardia to the nearest airport in Montpelier, so it took as much time to drive as it did to fly. At least behind the wheel of his car, he felt as if he were constantly making progress.
There wasn’t much that frustrated him more than hanging around airports accomplishing nothing. Except, possibly, accomplishing nothing while being stuck overnight in a place he didn’t want to be.
Feeling that the less he said the better, Jack’s only response was a faint, acknowledging smile as the woman handed his card back.
The proprietress of the little mom-and-pop motel didn’t seem to expect a comment, anyway.
“There’s a potluck at the community center tonight, so Dora’s is closed,” she informed him, speaking of the diner down the road. “My family’s headin’ over there now. Since there’s nowhere else to get a meal, I suppose I can bring you somethin’ for supper from there.”
She seemed to know that he wouldn’t want to eat at a community dinner himself. Or maybe she was thinking more that he wouldn’t be welcome there. From Emmy’s flat tone when she’d said everyone knew he’d bought the acreage next to hers, he’d be willing to bet everyone at that dinner would have an opinion about that acquisition, too. No Travers had been able to do anything right by the time they’d moved. He was getting the distinct feeling from this woman that no Travers could do anything right now, either.
What bothered him even more was the surprising depth of her apparent disapproval of him. He’d barely known the woman. Yet, her censure felt as fresh as what he’d felt from others when his family had left.
“I appreciate the offer, but I’ll get something on my own.” The burger he’d grabbed at a drive-through five hours ago had long since worn off, but he wasn’t about to put her out. “What about the burger place?” A little repetition wouldn’t kill him. “Is it still here?”
“Closed for the winter. Most everything around here is.”
Hunger seemed to increase in direction proportion to his diminishing culinary options. “How about the general store?” He’d seen the lights on inside when he’d driven past it a few minutes ago. “How late is it open?”
A child’s voice grew louder. Another matched it, insisting on the return of the video game controls. After aiming a weary glance toward the doorway, she shifted it to the old-fashioned cuckoo clock near the antlers. “’Bout another five minutes.”
“One last thing.” Not wanting to keep her any longer, he picked up the room key she’d set on the counter, stuffed it into his coat pocket. “Do you know Emmy Larkin?”
Quick curiosity narrowed the woman’s eyes. “Of course I do.”
“You wouldn’t happen to know her full name, would you?”
With a Travers asking after a Larkin, curiosity turned to distrust.
“Why would you want to know that?”
“There’s something I need to take her.”
“Then, I suppose you can ask her yourself when you see her.”
Faced with that protective and practical New England logic, Jack picked up his receipt, slid it into his pocket. With a resigned nod, he lifted his hand as he backed toward the door. He wouldn’t be getting any information here. “I suppose I can. Thanks for the room.”
“She’ll be sugarin’, so I wouldn’t think she’d have time for you tonight.”
“I’m not going until morning.”
“She won’t be there then. Tomorrow’s Sunday. Services don’t get out until eleven.”
He couldn’t tell if the woman was trying to discourage him or be helpful. “Thanks,” he said again, leaning heavily toward the former.
“Checkout’s at noon.”
“Got it,” he replied, and escaped into the cold before he had to deal with any more of her “friendliness.”
The gray of dusk was rapidly giving way to the darkness of night. There were no streetlights in Maple Mountain to illuminate the narrow two-lane road that served as its only thoroughfare. Rather unoriginally called Main, the road curved on its way through the sleepy little community, a ribbon of white lined by four-foot banks of snow left behind by a plow.
It was barely six o’clock on a Saturday night, yet the dozen businesses and buildings that comprised the core of the community were closed and as dark as the hills above them. The only lights came from the general store down near the curve of the road and the headlamps of two cars that turned onto the short street that ended at the white clapboard community center.
Hunching his shoulders against the evening’s deepening chill, he crossed the packed snow of the motel’s parking lot and headed to the store. He could grab something there to take back to his room for dinner and breakfast. With any luck, he could also get Emmy’s full name. He would have asked at the post office, had it not been closed.
When he finally stepped inside the store, he could see that the place had hardly changed. It smelled as it always had, faintly of must and burning wood from the potbellied stove in the middle of the room. A wooden pickle barrel topped by a checkerboard sat a comfortable distance from that radiating warmth.
The dairy cooler still occupied the back wall. Rows of groceries filled the four short aisles to his left. The walls themselves still held the same eclectic mix of sundries. Snowshoes competed for space with frying pans. Spark-plugs were stacked above empty gas cans and saw blades.
The only staple missing from his memories of the place were the old men who’d routinely congregated around the game board to discuss local politics, play checkers and lie to each other about the size of the fish they caught in their fishing shacks on the frozen lake. Either they’d all died or they’d gone home to supper.
The short, squat owner hadn’t changed much, either. Agnes Waters’s short brown curls were now half-silver, and the laugh lines around her eyes looked deeper than they’d been when he’d
