Love Is a Canoe: A Novel by Ben Schrank Page A

of mown grass. Beyond that, behind Maddie’s car, there was the longish driveway, lined on both sides with sugar maples. His blue painted-steel mailbox was just visible at the point where the driveway met Lakeview Road.
    She met him on the brick path to the house and he reached out to kiss her. She smelled mostly of lemon and her hair was shiny and black, cut above her shoulders so it bounced as she walked. She smiled and jutted her sharp chin up at him.
    “It was a good trip. Anjulee is so beautiful and glowing that I could not keep myself from crying. When the baby comes it will be very healthy.”
    “I’m glad. I would love to meet her someday. And your house is okay?”
    She raised an eyebrow at him. She had come from her house outside Hudson, thirty-five minutes away.
    “Yes, of course. Why would it not be?”
    “It’s just—a neglected house…”
    “Peter. Please.”
    He wrapped his arms around her. She was soft in the belly and shorter than him, but her black hair was splayed out, and when she stared up at him he did find that he loved looking into her familiar black eyes.
    “I’m ready,” he said. “Why don’t you tell me about the wonders of the city of San Francisco?”
    “Now that really is a terrific place,” she said. She held his shoulders and continued to look up at him without blinking.
    He loved how sharp she was, this proper, middle-aged woman who never contracted a word. So sharp and proper! He knew that wasn’t right, though. To love how a person was, rather than to just love the person. He’d written an essay and lectured on it a few times a quarter century ago. But he quickly discovered that people didn’t like the idea, because it was too honest and therefore, too brutal. So he stopped talking about it. When he was questioned about the essay, he admitted the underlying truth within the concept eluded him. Then he’d wait a beat and say, “Put another way: I know I wrote it, but I’m not so sure I understood what I meant when I was done.” That always got a laugh.
    “Wait,” he said now. On a chair on the porch were a bunch of poppies and cornflowers he’d bought from Jo at Country Gardeners Florist in town. He held them up to her.
    “See?” he asked, and kissed her again.
    She said, “My favorites.”
    “I hope they’ll brighten your neglected house. Let’s go on the back porch.”
    She followed him through the front rooms but then stopped in his kitchen. He looked back at her. It was bad, this thing he did where he was appraising and cold and distanced himself from people. And Maddie could make him happy. She was always smart in conversation and she liked to rub up against him. She could be funny, too. She was even able to be self-effacing about her proper ways.
    “I will make tea,” she said. “It will take a few minutes.”
    He went out to the back porch, turned on the sconces on either side of the kitchen door and leaned on the porch rail. He looked in at Maddie. They were near enough to speak, but they didn’t. She hadn’t known Lisa well, though they had met when Lisa got sick, when they needed an adviser. Maddie had been a financial administrator who worked for different museums in New York. But she had moved up to her country house when she split with her husband, James, who was North American CFO of an India-based steel company, the sort of hard-nosed man Peter sometimes saw on television, in the first-row seats at Yankees games. He had left her for a very young woman, a McKinsey consultant. Maddie had taken money and their Hudson Valley country house. He remained in their apartment on Riverside Drive. Their divorce was nearly final.
    “Will you sit with me?” Maddie asked, after she’d come out with a tray.
    She settled herself in a wicker chair and put the tray on a low table between them. She sat back. She had a habit of drawing her arms inside her shawl if she wasn’t using her hands. Peter liked that—its economy charmed him.
    “I am only back