Hide and Seek (22 page)

I tried to explain that to Kim.

"You've got a second chance, "she said. "Me too. So do I." Then she shook her head. "Steve and Casey they were both so good at the end."

A year ago last December I drove by the Crouch place and there was smoke coming out of the chimney. Someone was living there. I wondered if they knew. I asked Rafferty.

"Sure, they know. Everybody does. But the guy living there is just a caretaker. He'll be there two or three months, tops, while the surveyors and execs do their work. You know who owns the property now?

Central Maine Power. The town bought it from the bank just like everybody wanted them to do for Ben and Mary. Then CMP bought it from the town. Scuttlebutt is that what we're going to have there is a waste dump from the nuclear plant in Wiscassett. Ain't that a killer?

Nobody knows for sure, of course. But god knows it

would be just like the town fathers. Bring some industry into town.

Some jobs. And of course, ten years down the road you kill the fish."

He paid some serious attention to his beer.

"That house is well over a hundred years old, you know."

I'm thirtyfive this coming November. Basically, college paid off pretty well for me. I'm employed.

I think of Casey.

I can't say I've been in love that way since. Not once. But then I never really expected to be. I think of her often, and sometimes it seems that everything I do is just a substitute for having her there.

Sometimes.

Because the woman I live with I'm close to.

She is switching careers at thirty-seven. And I'm writing this. It's no big thing, but both of us have our little risks.