Page 22

“And yet here you are.”
Kinnick laughed. “Here I am.”
“And the last seven years?” Lucy asked. “You’ve just been up there pouting?”
He laughed again. “No. I concentrated on living simply. It felt like I was repairing my soul or something. I spent a lot of time fixing up the house. I patched the roof. Rebuilt the pump house. Dug a garage for that old, shitty car of mine. Cut a lot of firewood. Tried to rebuild the barn. Failed at rebuilding the barn. Took the barn down. Got into solar power and converting batteries, tried to make my own compost toilet, which is still a work in progress. Walked in the woods a lot. Filled a lot of journals and notebooks. Quit drinking for a few years. Started drinking again. Went fishing. Made some friends. Lost them. Quit drinking again. Read nine hundred books.”
“Nine hundred?”
“Nine hundred and fourteen. So far. Classics. History. Philosophy. Novels. Got them at rummage sales. Libraries. Nothing contemporary. I didn’t want to accidentally bump into Brexit or Harvey Weinstein or superfund sites or any of the bullshit I’d left behind.”
“Let me say, as part of the bullshit you left behind—”
“I didn’t mean it that way—”
“—I’m curious: in seven years of reading, what did you learn?”
He thought about telling Lucy about the book he wanted to write, rethinking philosophy and ethics through a naturalist’s lens, a book he thought of asThe Atlas of Wisdom. But he wasn’t sure he couldsurvive the teasing she would administer. Instead, a line fromTo the Lighthouseflashed in his head: “?‘Little daily miracles, illuminations, matches struck unexpectedly in the dark.’?”
“Anything that wasn’t written by someone else?”
Kinnick smiled: Oh, this tart, intelligent, beautiful woman. Was it any wonder he’d fallen for her? “Let’s see. What did I learn? That raccoons are assholes. That water is the most valuable thing in the world. That the sky at night should look like a river of stars.” He sighed deeply. “And then, today—”
The bartender interrupted, asking if they wanted another drink. They both shook their heads at the same time.
“Today—” Lucy said.
“Today, I looked outside, and saw two strange kids on my porch. I didn’t even recognize my own grandchildren! Can you imagine?” He shook his head. “And now...” Kinnick cleared his throat. “I just want to get them back. And find Bethany. Do what I can to help them.”
It was quiet. The bartender set out a bill that Lucy quickly covered with a credit card. When Kinnick glanced over he could see her watching him with a pained look on her face.
“What?” he asked.
“Nothing.”
“Come on. The way you just looked at me. What is it?”
Lucy sighed. “When I came to work here, you were like a superhero. The stories you worked. The way you’d just dig and dig and dig. I’d come ask you about some federal judge, and you’d tell me where he went to college, what his wife did for a living, what booze he drank at Charley My Boys. You knew everything, and if you didn’t know, you’d find out.”
Kinnick wished she would stop there. “And now?”
“Now?” She sighed. “Now you tell me that you’re trying to find your grandchildren and your daughter, but you don’t have a computer or a phone or any basic awareness of the world. Nothing but a broken-downold car and a busted-up face. A ten-year-old would have a better chance of finding them.”
“Are you done cheering me up?”
“And if you do find your grandkids, what are you going to do, Rhys? Seriously? They’re Shane’s kids. Without your daughter, I don’t see that you have any rights here.”
Kinnick felt his shoulders slump. She was right, of course. “I don’t know, Lucy. I just... I have to try. Don’t I?”
“Trywhat?” He didn’t answer and she repeated, “Try what, Rhys?”
***
He woke on Lucy’s couch, sat up and saw her son watching him from the dining room table, where he sat eating a mixing bowl of cereal. Kelvin Park-Davis was, of course,biggerthan Rhys remembered, but then he’d have been only nine or ten the last time Kinnick saw him. He was tall and thin, with dark eyes, shaggy black hair bleached blond at the tips, and more than a trace of his mother’s fine part-Korean features. Half-inked tattoos ran from his short sleeves to his wrists.
“So, you’re the guy who broke up my parents’ marriage?”
“I guess. Sorry about that.”