her heart was far away with her son, Mike Talbot, her seventeen-year-old dropout, the person Sarah loved more than her own life, the boy who was single-handedly planning to carry on the family traditions of quilt making and farm saving under the wing of her father, the wrathful George Talbot, of Elk Island, Maine.
It was at moments such as this that Sarah, writing a sales ticket for a three-hundred-dollar quilt, wished that she had just let the old farm die.
In the air with the mapmaker for the second day, Will criss-crossed Algonquin County eleven times. They plotted the Setauket River, the Robertson wilderness, Lake Cromwell, Eagle Peak, and the foothills of the Arrowhead Mountains. Will flew him over small towns and Wilsonia, the county seat. They counted windmills and silos, surveyed the patchwork of farms, fields dotted orange with pumpkins. He had climbed to six thousand feet, but on their way back to the airport, he flew one low circle over Fort Cromwell.
It looked like a toy town, like the miniature buildings that had come with Fred’s model railroad. Will almost never thought of Fred’s train, but with the mapmaker paying such close attention to track beds and crossing signals, he couldn’t get it out of his mind. Fred’s set-up had looked just like Fort Cromwell: pristine town green, red-brick buildings, railroad tracks winding through the low hills. Will had been stationed in Newport then, and navy housing didn’t leave much room for toys. Fred’s railroad was super deluxe, from F.A.O. Schwarz in New York, the kind of railroad Will had wanted when he was a boy. It had taken up the entire dining alcove.
Alice had been a sport. Her mother had given them a nice cherry table, and he remembered how they had just pushed it off to one side. Susan’s playhouse and Fred’s railroad had been the main deals back then, and that was just fine. With Will out at sea so much, he didn’t suppose Alice had much use for a fine dining table anyway.
But she used that table now. Will saw Julian’s estate nestled in the trees on the top of Windemere Hill. Stone mansion, clay tennis court, circular drive, security gates worthy of a movie star or a corporate mogul. That’s where they live, Will thought. While the mapmaker updated his notes, Will banked left. His port wing pointed straight down at the stone house, like a finger of God. Blessing his daughter, Will thought, but also cursing Julian. For being in the right place at the right time, for stealing Will’s family when they were all weakened – broken really – after losing Fred.
Catching sight of his daughter parking her bike against the fieldstone garage was too much for him. Feeling like he’d swallowed a fishhook, he gunned the engine and wheeled through the sky. The mapmaker gave him a terrified look.
‘Sorry,’ Will said.
‘Is the plane okay?’
Tine, sir. Just a little turbulence.’
‘Ah,’ the mapmaker said, a deep line across his brow.
Flying home, Will wondered why his heart was pumping so hard. He could feel it pounding in his chest, as if he had just swum a hundred yards in a Force 10 sea. That had been his first job in the navy: rescue swimmer aboard the L. P. James. He could slice through twenty-foot waves, weighed down with a two-hundred-and-fifty-pound man, and barely notice his breathing change.
Maybe it’s all this freshwater, he thought, surveying the lakes, the river. Made him feel nervous, like something was missing. No ocean, no coastline in sight. Just like Sarah Talbot had said yesterday: It’s not the Atlantic.
Then something strange happened. Thinking of Sarah Talbot, the whole thing went away. The speeding heart, the saltwater anxiety. Memories of life as a rescue swimmer, all the good and terrible reasons for leaving the ocean he loved so much. Will started to breathe easier. He pictured Sarah, kind and wise as a beautiful owl with her wide-open eyes and feathery hair, her way of staring at the sky with unblinking gratitude, and Will Burke felt calm. Like he could breathe again without cracking his chest wide open.
Secret rode her bike through town. The air was freezing cold and her fingers felt stiff in her new blue gloves. Sticking out her tongue, she caught the first snowflakes of the year. Her nose and cheeks stung. Halloween had barely passed, and clear ice had already started to form on the lake. Nowhere on earth was colder than Fort Cromwell. Newport had been tropical by comparison.
All the shops looked cozy. It got dark around five these days, practically before she got out of school, so everywhere glowed with that orange warmth she associated with England. She didn’t know why; she had never been to England, but she had an extremely good imagination. When she was very small, her mother had read her books by Rumer Godden. Secret had loved the sound of scones and tea, and she wished she had some that very minute.
She had baby-sat for the Neumanns after school. On her way home now, she was in no particular hurry; her mother and Julian were having cocktails at Dean Sherry’s house. Pedaling slower, she looked into the shops. A few still had jack-o’-lanterns in the window. Others had jumped the gun, entwined white lights with evergreen roping, getting ready for Christmas. The down shop looked especially inviting, with no holiday decorations whatsoever. The sign was enough: a magical cloud and a golden ‘9.’ Brass lamps glowed, the quilts appeared thick and enveloping. Wanting to warm up, Secret parked her bike and walked in.
‘Hi,’ the lady called from the back.
‘Hi,’ Secret said. Trying to look real, like a genuine shopper who might actually be in the market for pillows, Secret frowned and began looking at price tags.
‘Just let me know if you need any help.’
‘I will,’ Secret said, flattening her voice and earnestly rifling through a bin of small silk-velvet pillows. She had accompanied her mother and Julian to the Antiques Corner, so she knew how people who spent money looked. Spiced cider was brewing somewhere in back. What she wanted was to sink into this soft pile of velvet-covered down. She found herself relaxing, forgetting to concentrate, leisurely browsing through the beautiful things.
‘Would you like some hot cider?’ the voice asked.
‘Well, I shouldn’t,’ Secret said, feeling guilty for defrauding the lady. She had absolutely no intention of buying a single thing.
‘Are you sure? It’s pretty cold out there.’
‘You can say that again,’ Secret said.
‘Are you sure? It’s pretty cold out there.’
Secret chuckled. She glanced up, and for the first time she actually saw the shop owner. It was Sarah Talbot, the sick lady, Mimi Ferguson’s friend.
‘Oh, hi,’ Secret said.
‘Hi,’ Sarah said. ‘I know you. You were in the airport office the day I took my birthday flight.’
‘Yes. My father’s the pilot.’
‘An excellent pilot,’ Sarah said. ‘I’ve had some terrible ones, believe me.’
‘You have?’
‘Absolutely. Small-plane pilots are the worst. I’ve had guys who taxi down the runway like bucking broncos. I know one pilot who flies under bridges, just for fun. When I was younger, I lived on an island, and some of them would fly when the fog was thicker than these quilts. Those pilots were the cowboys of the air.’
‘Half
