It

but Freddie didn’t understand; in the last analysis, nice man or not, all he could think of was what this was going to do to his picture . He had not seen the look in Bill’s eyes . . . or heard him stutter.
‘Good.’ He stood up. ‘Come on over to the Hare and Hounds with me. We can both use a drink.’
She shook her head. ‘A drink’s the last thing I need. I’m going home and think this o ut.’
‘I’ll call for the car,’ he said.
‘No. I’ll take the train.’
He looked at her fixedly, one hand on the telephone. ‘I believe you mean to go after him,’ Freddie said, ‘and I’m telling you that it’s a serious mistake, dear girl. He’s got a be e in his bonnet, but at bottom he’s steady enough. He’ll shake it, and when he does he’ll come back. If he’d wanted you along, he would have said so.’
‘I haven’t decided anything,’ she said, knowing that she had in fact decided everything; had decided even before the car picked her up that morning. ‘Have a care, love,’ Freddie said. ‘Don’t do something you’ll regret later.’ She felt the force of his personality beating on her, demanding that she give in, make the promise, do her job, wait passively for Bill to come back . . . or to disappear again into that hole of the past from which he had come.
She went to him and kissed him lightly on the cheek. ‘I’ll see you, Freddie.’ She went home and called British Airways. She told the clerk she might be interested in reaching a small Maine city called Derry if it was at all possible. There had been silence while the woman consulted her computer terminal . . . and then the news, like a sign from heaven, that BA #23 made a stop in Bangor, which was less than fifty miles away.
‘Shall I book the flight for you, ma’am?’
Audra closed her eyes and saw Freddie’s craggy, mostly kind, very earnest face, heard him saying: Have a care, love. Don’t do something you’ll regret later.
Freddie didn’t want her to go; Bill didn’t want her to go; so why was her heart screaming at her that she had to go? She closed her eyes Jesus, I feel so fucked up —
‘Ma’am? Are you still holding the wire?’
‘Book it,’ Audra said, then hesitated. Have a care love . . . . Maybe she should sleep on it; get some distance between herself and the craziness. She began to rummage in her purse for her American Express card. ‘For tomorrow First class if you have it, but I’ll take anything.’ And if I change my mind I can cancel. Probably will. I’ll wake up sane and everything will be clear.
But nothing had been clear this morning, and her heart clamored just as loudly for her to go. Her sleep had been a crazy tapestry of nightmares. So she had called Freddie, not because she wanted to but because she felt she owed him that. She had not gotten far — she was trying, in some stumbling way, to tell him how much she felt Bill might need her — when there was a soft click at Freddie’s end. He had hung up without saying a word after his init ial hello.
But in a way, Audra thought, that soft click said everything that needed to be said.
7
The plane landed at Bangor at 7:09, EDT. Audra was the only passenger to deplane, and the others looked at her with a kind of thoughtful curiosity, probably wondering why anyone would choose to get off here, in this godforsaken little place. Audra thought of telling them I’m looking for my husband, that’s why. He came back to a little town near here because one of his boyhood chums called him and reminded him of a promise he couldn’t quite remember. The call also reminded him that he hadn’t thought of his dead brother in over twenty years. Oh yes: it also brought back his stutter . . . and some funny white scars on the palms of his hands.
And then, she thought, the customs agent standing by in the jetway would whistle up the men in the white coats.
She collected her single piece of luggage — it looked very lonely riding the carousel all by itself — and approached the rental-car booths as Tom Rogan Would about an hour later. Her luck was better than his would be; National Car Rental had a Datsun.
The