Chapter 16: Three Winters

By the third November, I had a life that fit in my hands.

I ran Greet's four-room guesthouse, and the marina's winter boat storage, and the register at the shop when she was out on the water.

My hair had grown to my shoulders, still dark from the bottle.

Nobody in Pentwater called me anything but Fem.

My son sat on a stool behind the counter that morning with a fistful of crayons, drawing a fish with too many legs.

He was three years and five months old, and he talked all day.

"Mama, it's a catfish," he said.

"It's a good one."

"It has to eat the other fish."

"Then it needs the legs."

Greet came in through the back door with a coffee can of worms and a face I did not like.

"Man at the diner," she said. "Fifties, gray overcoat, nice shoes."

"What did he want?"

"He asked the woman behind the counter who runs the guesthouse, and whether she has a little boy."

My hand stopped on the register.

"What did the waitress say?"

"She said you're a busy woman who doesn't give out other people's business."

Greet set the can down.

"He left a ten-dollar tip on a four-dollar coffee."

"Gray overcoat."

"That's what I said."

I thought of Truus's letter and the lawyer who smiled and said, not yet.

Three years had gone by, and he had not forgotten.

"Take him to the back," Greet said quietly. "I'll lock the front."

"It's ten in the morning."

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