Adam, Jake, Greg, and Lisa got together for breakfast at the Channel Stop the next morning. It was good to see Greg again. He had been sort of a college friend, close enough to have invited him along on the boat delivery trip ages ago when he’d met Brittany. Lisa had been a good friend of Brittany at the time, and as far as he knew they still got along with each other. Possibly he could get some fresh news about her.

Adam knew that Greg was in a very similar situation to his, at least as far as his work went. He was chief financial officer for Ferguson-Eagle, an auto parts supplier a little larger than Caldwell-Deerfield, and also largely family owned. “So,” Greg asked, “you think you want to get into sailing, huh?”

“I’ve started to develop an interest in it,” Adam told him. “I guess I want to experience a little of what Matt experienced. I don’t think I’d be interested in heading out on an ocean crossing in a twenty-five foot boat, but I’ve been a little at loose ends on weekends for a long time, and it seems to be something that would help take up the time.”

“It’ll sure do that,” Greg replied. “The only reason we manage to get along with the boat at this distance from home is that Jake takes care of most of the major maintenance in the winter. Of course, we help him out with some cash for his time. I don’t want to say boat ownership is a pain in the butt, but it’s nice for us to be able to get out once in a while. I’m not sure how much you’d like it if you were doing it by yourself.”

“That’s one of those things I haven’t worked out for myself,” Adam admitted. “For now, I just want to get a little experience. What happens next, well, there’s a lot of other factors involved, and what happens with Brittany is among them.”

“I know she hasn’t recovered from losing Matthew very well,” Lisa said. “I don’t talk to her much, but I do some. She seems desperate to see her grandson, and she’s very frustrated that you won’t help.”

“I won’t,” Adam admitted, glancing at Jake in hopes of sending him the message to keep his mouth shut on the issue, although he expected Jake would. “And there are good reasons why. I don’t want to get into the details, but Brittany seems determined to snatch the boy right out of Mary’s arms so she can care for him by herself. She doesn’t seem to realize that Mary is the boy’s mother, and that it wouldn’t be right for her to do it.”

“The last time I talked to Brittany, she seems to think that the boy’s mother is incapable of caring for him very well.”

“Which shows how much she doesn’t know or understand about the situation,” Adam said. “You have to remember, everything else aside, Brittany is not very capable of caring for an infant herself. You know that Brittany had to have a financial conservator named for her, don’t you?”

“Yes, but she didn’t say very much about it.”

“Basically, it was because she’s incapable of handling her own financial affairs,” he explained. “I don’t know the details, but she was close to getting her power and other utilities shut off, and who knows about other stuff. She’s getting enough money to handle those, along with everything else, but she was spending money on other things and not paying her living expenses.”

“Maybe it was because she’d never had to do anything like that before,” Lisa suggested.

“Well, could be, but it’s not that complicated. I personally think she needs to be hospitalized again, although it’s not a decision I can make since the divorce got under way. But if she can’t care for herself, how in hell does she think she could take care of a child? I mean, even if the boy’s mother were agreeable, which as far as I know, she isn’t ever likely to be. Brittany went a long way out of her way to piss the boy’s mother off. From what I know, the boy’s mother seems able to do an adequate job, has adequate funds, and I have no doubts about her competency. Brittany couldn’t care less about the fact that the boy has a mother at all.”

“Well, when you put it that way, I suppose you’re right, but I don’t know if you could ever make Brittany understand it.”

“It’s beyond my skill,” Adam sighed. “Making sense to Brittany was always difficult, and it got considerably worse after Matt sailed off a little over three years ago. I mean, I tried, but I finally had all I could take.”

Lisa shook her head. “It’s kind of a shame. Brittany seems lonely, and she seems bored. About the only thing she has to do is to sit around and obsess about the boy.”

“It would be nice if she had something else to do, but I don’t have any bright ideas. And right now I’d be reluctant to suggest anything directly since she might take it wrong if it came from me. Don’t get me wrong, I still care about her to some degree. Rattling around alone in that big house with nothing to do doesn’t seem like a good idea to me.”

“I thought maybe it would be a good idea if she moved back home to take care of her parents. They’re neighbors of my folks, and from what I hear they’re not in good shape.”

“I’ve heard dumber ideas,” Adam admitted. “She hasn’t gotten along too well with them in recent years, but from what I know they could use the help. But again, it’s something I can’t suggest. Maybe you could bring it up the next time you talk to her, but leave me out of it.”

“I’ll do that. I don’t talk to her very often, but I could make a point of calling her up after we get back from this trip. Maybe I could suggest it to her. Things have to have changed at least a little since you’re not around any longer.”

“Like I said, leave me out of it. Don’t even hint that you’ve seen me, or she’s likely to go negative on you. But I would be glad if she would do it. It could solve a lot of problems all at once.”

Adam didn’t think there was much chance of it actually working, but then, stranger things had happened. It might not help with the Mary and Matty problem, but at least would give Brittany something else to think about if it did.

Sailing with Greg and Lisa was fun that day. It was a warm, bright July day, and since they knew Adam was trying to learn about sailing, they were glad to let him do most of the work. Lisa spent much of the day laying on the cabin top or the foredeck in a bikini – not quite as radical as he remembered her wearing almost a quarter-century before when he’d made the boat delivery trip with them, but in her mid-forties she still looked good in it. Adam was of the opinion back then that Lisa had looked better in a bikini than Brittany had, and it was certainly true now. But then, unless something had changed radically in the past year, it had been decades since Brittany had worn a bikini at all. It was, he admitted ruefully to himself, something else he’d missed out on. It wouldn’t take much thought to come up with quite a list of those items.

The breeze that day was brisk, and the Pixie was lively. He learned a lot about handling the boat under those conditions, and found that he actually enjoyed the ride, even though it had sometimes been rough and rolling, with the boat bouncing around more than a little. More and more, he was feeling that this was something he could enjoy on an ongoing basis, although it seemed like it would be a lot more fun to have someone with him rather than doing it alone.

In the middle of the afternoon they happened to be heading downwind for a while, and it was quiet, relatively speaking. Adam and Greg were sitting back in the cockpit, cans of beer in their hands, while Lisa was on the foredeck, soaking up the rays – she couldn’t seem to get enough of that. “Hey, Adam,” Greg piped up. “I’ve been wanting to talk to you. Your father still owns Caldwell-Deerfield, doesn’t he?”

“Most of it, not all. I have some token shares, so do a few other people, but it’s still his baby.”

“I know he’s getting on up there. Has he given any thought to selling out?”

“Not to my knowledge,” Adam admitted, his ears perking up a little. “I strongly suspect the undertaker is going to have to pry it out of his fingers.”

“It’s not quite that bad with Ferguson-Eagle. Close to it, but not quite. But we’ve been talking around the idea of buying into some other outfits, maybe even buying them out. It couldn’t be a strict cash deal, there’d have to be some stock involved. This isn’t an offer, just snooping around, but I was wondering if something could be worked out with Caldwell-Deerfield.”

“Not right now. Dad is not going to let it go in the near future, and that’s that. But he’s no spring chicken anymore, and as far as I know I’m ultimately going to wind up with most of the company. If and when that happens, well, I’ll be honest enough to say that I’ve given some thought to putting it on the market so I could go do something else, although I don’t know what it would be. At one time, years ago, I more or less had the idea of holding onto it so it could eventually be passed along to Matt. Now that he’s gone, that’s no longer a concern, of course. I can tell you this much: I don’t plan on holding onto the company until I’m in my eighties, like Dad has done.”

“I hear you on that, Adam. We have a slightly different setup in Ferguson-Eagle. I may wind up running the company in a few years, and I might not. To tell you the truth, I’m not sure I want to stay with it for an extended period.”

“For practical purposes I’m running Caldwell-Deerfield myself right now, and while things are going fairly well, a lot of my interest in it has faded since Matt died, and since I’ve had other issues to deal with. The divorce probably has something to do with it, along with some other things, but to be perfectly honest, I envy Matt a little for getting out and doing something with his life, rather than just being sucked into the company. So I suppose that has my feet itching a little.”

“I can’t blame you on that,” Greg nodded. “Is that tied in with you wanting to learn something about sailing?”

“Maybe a little. I’m not in a position like Matt was, where I can just buy a boat and head for the horizon. A time could come when it could be possible, but it isn’t here yet. For now, it’s just about expanding my horizons a little and giving me something different to try and see if it’s something I might like to spend more time doing.”

“Well, all I can say is if the time comes when you might be interested in selling the company, give me a call. I can’t say now if we’ll still be interested when the time comes, but there’s a chance we could be. We’ve really been only thinking about smaller operations, and Caldwell-Deerfield might be a little big for us to swallow, anyway. But I can’t say at this point, since I haven’t even thought about looking at the numbers.”

“Obviously, I can’t make any promises, since I don’t know when the opportunity might come along or what the situation might be, and as far as that goes, I don’t have any idea of the numbers, either. But if the chance should arise, we can look at it a little more thoroughly. I probably wouldn’t be in any rush anyway, but we might be able to work something out.”

“Can’t ask for much more than that. But keep it in mind when the time comes.”

They sailed back into Winchester Harbor late in the afternoon and tied the Pixie to the dock. Afterward they went over to Dot’s Bar, one of the few other businesses besides the Channel Stop in the little village. There they had a dinner of really good bar burgers, big fat French fries, and beer, along with listening to Greg and Lisa tell sailing stories going clear back into college days. Adam didn’t want to say it, not even hint it, but he was more than a little envious of Greg. Starting from pretty close to the same place, their lives had taken off in vastly different directions, and it was clear that Greg had enjoyed a lot more fun and satisfaction in life than he’d had. It was just something else to remind him of how badly he’d missed the boat. Maybe there was time left in his life to do something else, and maybe not.

Greg and Lisa invited him out sailing the next day, and of course he accepted; it was good to get out with them, good to renew a friendship that, while never strong, had faded badly. The wind was even stronger that day, and while nowhere near storm conditions, it gave Adam a thrilling ride and a chance to see what some of the excitement was really all about. He felt he was learning something, and gaining competence. After the sailing was over with for the day, they wound it up at Dot’s again; Adam took a pass on the beer since he had to drive back downstate.

On his drive southward, Adam reflected on the weekend. Watching Lisa and watching Greg and Lisa together had revealed an uncomfortable truth to him: he was lonely. Not that his life with Brittany had been any bowl of cherries, especially the past few years, but in a way he missed her, missed having her around. Not that he had any desire to get back with her; in fact, whenever the idea crossed his mind as an option, it seemed more and more repugnant. But someone . . . well, it wasn’t an idea to be ruled out in the long run. There was nothing that could be done about it anytime soon; he didn’t even want to think about it until the divorce was final, and perhaps until the Matty situation could be stabilized a bit. And, as far as that went, he didn’t have any idea of where he might find a companion, anyway; there were no prospects, unless maybe Marcia’s husband dropped dead without warning.

But, like the prospect of getting seriously into sailing, it would involve reaching beyond his rather limited horizons into something new, something he hadn’t done very often before. Really, when he got right down to it, it had been an accident how he’d wound up with Brittany in the first place. Had he had a chance for sober reflection way back then, he thought he probably would have given her a pass. In fact, he’d been moving in that direction when she announced she was pregnant. It had seemed to him that he’d had no other possible course, and maybe he hadn’t; DNA testing back in the mid-eighties wasn’t what it was today. In any case, he’d never even considered that there might be a problem.

It had never escaped his attention that when Brittany had gotten pregnant, she might have grabbed for the brass ring. After all, he had the opportunity of a well-paid job, while in those days Jake had been a low-paid deckhand and dockhand with few prospects. Putting himself into her shoes for a moment, he could understand why she’d made the choice she had, and in a way he couldn’t blame her.

But she had given him Matt, and while Adam admitted to himself that he could have been a lot better father than he had managed, that part of his life had worked out well, at least as long as it had lasted. If he could have gone back and lived his life over, he was sure he would do something different, but that was nothing more than wishful thinking.

What it came down to is that he’d always been pretty shy about women, and when Brittany came along, pretty, willing, and anxious to marry him, he hadn’t given it a second thought. While at some time in the future he might go looking to get involved with another woman, he’d already made up his mind to be a little more careful about it this time. After all, he’d had a quarter century to learn his lesson and pay for his mistake.

But there as no telling what would happen, or how quickly. After all, Matt had stopped at a fuel dock in St. John’s, Newfoundland and met Mary there. Adam was still unsure how lightning had struck, but an hour later the two of them were setting off across the Atlantic in the Mary Sue. The total time they’d spent apart until Matt died could have been measured in hours without getting near triple digits, and much of that had been while he’d been in the hospital in Boston. There was no doubt that Matt had been lucky as hell in the process, and who could say what luck might still do for him?

As the miles rolled by, Adam found himself coming to a conclusion. As much as he was coming to like sailing, he knew he’d like it more if he had someone along with him. Maybe the memory of Lisa in her bikini was clouding his thought processes a little, but it would be so much more rewarding to share the experience with someone rather than do it by himself. Whatever else happened, he knew he wasn’t going to be buying a boat this year; he needed more experience, and that was that. Maybe not next year, either; it was something he was going to have to talk about with Jake, but there was no rush about it.

In any case, in many ways his life seemed to be in a bit of a stasis, not going anywhere, and he was getting increasingly uncomfortable about it. He felt it wasn’t something he had to do anything about right away, although the need seemed to be growing greater. Only time would tell.

Once again, he had to go out of his way to do the car shuffle at the airport, wishing now that he’d put a little more thought into the problem of the tracker. Right now, it seemed irritating that he had to deal with it at all, especially since the threat of detectives hired by Brittany seemed reduced. But he didn’t want to just crawl under the car, pull it out, and trash it, so the best thing to do seemed to be to call Deke, and maybe James.

It was a couple days before he was able to get hold of Deke. “Boy, I don’t know what to tell you to do,” Deke told him. “Probably the smart thing to do is to get hold of James and have him check the car out. If it’s still active, that’s one thing. If it’s gone or not working, that’s another.”

“It’s not a problem when I’m driving around town, but it’s a pain in the neck when I don’t want to let anyone know where I’m going for the weekend.”

“Well, better safe than sorry, I guess.”

Adam went ahead and gave a call to Reuben James, who showed up in the evening the next day. “I hate to have to tell you this, but it’s still working,” the surveillance detection man said. “And after this long, it shouldn’t be. The batteries in those things don’t last that long, so it had to be replaced at least once, maybe three or four times. Your car is just too easy to tag out in the open like this.”

“So, if the thing were to get trashed, whoever put it there would know we’re on to them.”

“That’s about the size of it. I don’t know if that’s a good or bad thing. There’s too many ways the game can be played. I would think that sooner or later they’re going to realize they’re just not getting anything and give up. On the other hand, all you have to do is screw up one time and they have the information they need.”

“The heck of it is, if the thing is actually there for the reason I think it is, they’re not getting any leads out of it.”

“Actually, so long as you’re aware of it, I guess I’d say to just leave it there and be careful about where you’re going with this vehicle. It would be nice to have some surveillance on your parking area to tell when it’s being changed, but that could be more trouble than it’s worth. If I check it now and then, and it comes up missing, at least you’ll know you’re not being watched.”

“Well, there’s that, I suppose, but this is getting to be a pain in the neck.”

After James left, Adam went back inside and called Deke to pass along the news. “I really thought Brittany wouldn’t have the cash to keep detectives on me that much,” he told his attorney.

“Sounds good, but she’s not exactly destitute,” Deke told him. “She’s still got money, just not as much. And it might not be Brittany at all. It could be those bozos from Children’s Protective Services, especially if they think Mary and the kid are somewhere in the metro area. Or, it could be someone else. We don’t know, and I’m not sure how we find out. But maybe if they’re satisfied with what they’re getting the way it is, they won’t push in other ways.”

“I’ll tell you what, I’m starting to get pretty darn tired of this stuff. I mean, it’s not like I’m some damn drug dealer or something.”

“Well, I guess there isn’t much that can be done about it right now, other than to wait and see if it goes away. Have you heard anything from Talbot? Maybe that could give you a hint.”

“Not since we had that meeting about the conservatorship. I’d sort of hoped he’d work on getting Brittany readmitted to Brookview, since I think it would be good for her. But I don’t want to press him on it, and I don’t think it would be a good idea to ask.”

“So you don’t actually know what Brittany has been up to?”

“Not really. A friend of a friend told me she’s lonely and bored, and still pretty obsessive about Matty. That information isn’t really new, though, and it’s not very surprising.”

“Maybe no news is good news. I don’t know what to say beyond that, but maybe you ought to call her up sometime and ask how things are going for her.”

“I thought about that but she’s most likely just going to want to bug me about Matty again. I’m reluctant to do it, partly because I might let something slip, and partly because I don’t want to get her fired up again if she’s giving up a little.”

“There’s the possibility you might be right in doing that. You’d probably know better about it than I would. I guess I don’t know what to tell you, other than to wait and see.”

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