The Seasons Hereafter by Elisabeth Ogilvie Page A

her. “I only know what I can see for myself. I’ll find Barry.” He was gone, the door shut hard behind him; she heard his boots hit the two steps and then nothing. It was the worst nothing she had ever known. She pulled the door open, and heard herself calling after him, regardless of the Campion house, “What do you mean, what did you see?” But he wasn’t there. She ran back through the house to the front door and saw him already halfway back along the boardwalk and already indistinct, so swiftly had the light begun to go.
    â€œFine evening, ain’t it?” Terence Campion called to her, crossing from his wharf to his front dooryard.
    â€œYes, lovely,” she murmured, and went back inside.
    She hurried to get to bed and to sleep before Barry came in. But it was not possible to sleep. She heard soft sounds from the harbor—an outboard motor running, men’s voices, thumps, the rhythm of oars. He was out there. What did you mean? she asked him, saying that Barry didn’t ever know where I was?
    You know what I mean, he answered. Even when he’s looking at you across the table or lying in bed beside you, he doesn’t know where you are or what you are. Nobody does but me, and I knew it in the first glimpse.
    But how ? she persisted, seeing herself rangy in the jeans and Barry’s shirt, with the thick ginger-colored bangs and the hair tightly skinned back; the angular face, the high cheekbones prominent with windburn, the long jaw. Those were externals. He had to see something else. She knotted herself tightly in the bed, knees to chest and arms clasped around them, a sowbug or caterpillar curling up small when its flat rock was overturned and left it defenseless to ruthless fingers or foot.

CHAPTER 9
    S he awoke at daybreak, aching from her tense sleep, but hungry and energetic. She got up and looked out at the harbor. She could just make out the start of a line of net floats spilling from an orange dory that nuzzled the rocks below the lawn.
    Barry was asleep on the sitting-room couch. She moved quietly around the kitchen, making percolator coffee and oatmeal. Barry liked oatmeal, and she felt an affectionate indulgence toward him this morning. Until now whenever she set the table she had perversely ignored the inexpensive but vivid set of dishes in the cupboard, and used the few mismatched plates and mugs they’d brought with them. This morning she used the matching set. If he should ever come in when they were eating, he would see that she was not slovenly about serving the meals.
    Barry came out rubbing his face hard with both hands, squinting against the sunrise shining in over the sink. “I smelled that coffee while I was dreaming, and thought I was in heaven. Hey, what’s this?”
    â€œI wish I had some brown sugar for it.”
    â€œNever mind, this looks damn good anyway.” He started to sit down and she said, “Wash first. You’re not living aboard a boat.”
    â€œSure, Marm.” He laughed and gave her a slap on the rear as he passed. It was a measure of her new mood that she didn’t spring back at him like an enraged cat. He washed noisily, and when he emerged from the towel he looked clear-eyed and young. “It was so late when I got in I didn’t want to wake you up so I turned in on the couch. We stopped off the harbor last night.”
    â€œYou slept in your clothes, I see. I’m glad you took your boots off.”
    â€œI almost kept ’em on, scales and all. I was some bushed. But we figger we’ve got about twelve hundred bushels out there. Owen’s not going to call up for the carrier to come after this lot; we’ll share it out for bait.”
    She sat down opposite him with a dish of oatmeal. “Who else went after the herring?”
    â€œWell, Owen’s the cap’n. He came over to the store about dusk, trying to raise his crew. That’s Phil, and Rob