Cool Water by Dianne Warren Page A

inscriptions, but he knows what they say: loving wife and mother for Astrid, to mirror the loving husband and father that she had selected for Lester. Lee had never called Lester “Father.” Always Uncle Lester. Astrid had asked Lee if that would be all right, Loving Father , and he’d said of course, and understood immediately what Astrid wanted for herself.
    The horse knickers and Lee lays his hand on his soft neck. “Just hang on a minute, buddy,” he says. He’s thinking, as he looks at the graves, that he is the only one—the only family, however dubious the blood relationship—who will ever make a trip to the cemetery just to pay respects to Astrid and Lester. Lester was an only child and Astrid’s two sisters both died in infancy. There was no other family in this country, not that Lee knows of, anyway. He looks at the spot that will be his grave someday, if he so chooses. He tries to imagine the stone, separated from Astrid’s and Lester’s. What will it say? lee torgeson, great-nephew of lester and astrid torgeson? But that might be confusing when Astrid and Lester are described as mother and father. He wonders why he hadn’t been encouraged to call them Mother and Father. Perhaps because Astrid clung to the belief that Lee was related by blood and was not like other adopted children. The note he was found with made that claim, but really, he was like Cracker, left where someone knew, or at least hoped, he would be taken care of.
    Although Lee doesn’t know where he came from, he probably knows more about his own arrival into Astrid’s and Lester’s lives than most people know about their births. Astrid tried so hard to be open about his appearance in the porch that she turned the account into a bedtime story and told it often enough that Lee had it memorized. He would even correct her if she left out some detail or tried to rush the story for the sake of saving time. He can still hear her voice, the words, the first line always the same.
    â€œThe wind woke her,” he says out loud to the horse, who is now grazing on the dry August grass, tugging at the reins, then the next line coming into Lee’s head, and the one after that, still vivid even though he was just a child when he decided he was too old for Astrid to coax him to sleep with stories. He can see the luminous hands on Astrid’s bedside clock as she checked the time and saw that it was just after three, can see her move from the bed to her armchair by the window, wrapping herself in the orange and brown crocheted afghan she kept there for just such a purpose.
    She closed her eyes, hoping that she might nod off. Not much chance, she thought, with the wind blowing as it was. ( Listen, she would say to him. Can you hear the wind? That’s just how it sounded. ) The bedroom window rattled in its frame. Tree branches groaned and cracked, and Astrid could hear the slapping of a canvas tarp in the yard. Sand hit the windowpane in gusts and she could well imagine its sting against your face if you were outside, unprotected. And a tom cat was making an awful noise under the window, likely the orange one from the Patterson place (Astrid always winked at Lee when she said this), who came in search of the Torgesons’ barn cat and was responsible for the batches of orange and tortoiseshell kittens that Astrid was always trying to give away. The wind was howling like a banshee and she wondered why even a tomcat would venture out on such a night.
    And Lester was talking in his sleep. This in itself was not unusual; he always talked in his sleep. What was unusual was that Astrid could understand what he was saying: Never underestimate the value of a map. It was clear as a bell, although she had no idea what it could mean. He spoke again, with great authority: Never underestimate the value of a map.
    â€œWhat kind of map?” Astrid asked.
    â€œA road map,” Lester