As Adam headed back to the city it looked like it was going to be a long winter. He couldn’t see much to do until late March, when the boats would go back in the water at Winchester Harbor.

Oh, he could think of a few things he needed to do. It was clear, for example, that he was going to need more boat gear and other things if he intended to live more or less full time on the Moonshadow, and he needed to think some more about what that was and make some lists. Some of it he already had from the Knick-Knack, and a few things could come from the apartment, but there would obviously be things to buy. But that would only eat up a few days at best.

The first day he was back he went into Caldwell-Deerfield, of course, but this time he wore jeans and a flannel shirt, if for no more reason than to remind himself that he wasn’t really working there anymore. As expected, there wasn’t much for him to do but to review things that had already been done.

While he’d been gone the new plant in Meridian had been finished, and was up and running. There were only three lines in it at the moment, but Bob thought there was a very good chance of a new GM job coming along about the first of the year that would put several more lines into the place. That meant that the decision to do the expansion was already paying off; the new job would have crowded them right out of the plants they’d had previously.

By dint of great laziness, Adam managed to stretch out his time at Caldwell-Deerfield for a whole two days before he decided to get out of everyone’s hair. Everything was going well without him and there was no point in upsetting a smoothly running team.

After a couple of lonely days being bored, with nothing much to do but read sailing books and study charts, Adam decided to give Beverly a call, just for something to do. It turned out she was moderately busy with another large sale, but she was willing to get together for dinner. They wound up at a nice place partway across town, where she bored him with the details of the sale she was working on, and he probably bored her about as badly talking about the Moonshadow, which didn’t impress her all that much since it wasn’t a power boat. In spite of everything, somehow they wound back up at her condo for a couple pleasurable hours. It was good enough that they agreed they wanted to do it again sometime.

Really, nothing much had changed with her. She was still very involved with her work, and had no intention of giving it up, which probably was a good thing. She was a good person to spend an evening with, even if she drank a little too much for Adam’s taste, but even if she were willing he didn’t think he’d enjoy living with her on the Moonshadow; it would get very tiring in a hurry.

The next morning Deke called him at home. “Boy,” he said, “you’re not at the office much anymore, are you?”

“I try not to be. I still have some responsibilities there, but they’re not eating up much of my time. That’s what I set out to accomplish.”

“Nice work if you can get it. Hell, I don’t know what I’d do if I was retired. Go nuts, probably.”

“It takes some getting used to, that’s for sure. So what can I do for you today?”

“It’s on the CPS suit. They just surprised the hell out of me by offering a settlement, and not a bad one. I guess they finally figured out we had them by the short hairs.” He discussed the details of the settlement, which included a large cash award and no further investigation of the complaints about Matty unless they came from a different, credible source, plus discipline for the people who had overstepped their authority.

“So what do you recommend?”

“Might as well take it,” Deke replied. “It’ll more than cover my fees, which is the main thing I was concerned with. Hell, it was only supposed to be a harassment suit anyway, something to divert their attention. I can’t complain about the details.”

“Well, then we might as well take it,” he said. “It really hasn’t been an issue for a while, anyway. I suppose you’re going to need me to sign some paperwork.”

“Yeah, drop by here sometime in the next few days and we’ll take care of it. So any new word on what Brittany has been up to?”

“Not really. I talked to her back last summer, but not since then. As far as I know she was supposed to move down to somewhere around her parents’ place, but I haven’t heard if it came off, or what. I probably ought to look into that.”

After the call was over with, Adam was surprised to reflect that he hadn’t recently thought much about Brittany and the whole situation with Mary and Matty. It just hadn’t been like the first few months after the divorce process began, when he had been pretty paranoid about it. Realistically he’d had good reason for it, since he’d been sure she’d had detectives snooping around him, although how much of that came from her and how much had come from the Balch woman at Children’s Protective Services was still open to question. In any case, while he still took precautions, he hadn’t picked up a hint of detectives for months.

As far as things went with her, if something were brewing, he’d figured that he’d hear something about it through the grapevine with Lisa and Carolyn, but the grapevine had been quiet. But then he’d spent much of the fall up at Jake’s. Carolyn had known he was planning on staying up there and working on the Moonshadow, so it wasn’t like he couldn’t have been reached if he’d needed to be. But still, he decided to check in with the two of them, just to be sure.

Lisa was easy to reach; she’d given up working when she and Greg started to have kids, and now that they were grown she just hadn’t bothered with going back to work, spending part of her time working on volunteer projects. That wasn’t the case this day; she was at home. “I talk with Brittany about every couple of weeks,” she reported. “I just don’t see her like I used to before she moved down to Wychbold, but as far as I know she’s getting along pretty well there. I know she comes back up here every now and then to see her psychiatrist, but really not a lot more.”

It turned into a nice discussion, and finally an invitation to have dinner with Lisa and Greg later in the week; Lisa wanted to hear about the Moonshadow, of course, and sailing around in Georgian Bay. Once again, Adam made a note that somehow he was going to have to tell that story without mentioning Carolyn.

He couldn’t get hold of Carolyn until that evening; she was wrapped up in her teaching, of course. She really couldn’t add much information about Brittany to what Adam had already heard from Lisa, but they agreed they were going to have to get together sometime – and someplace very separated from Amherst and Wychbold. They didn’t pin it down much more than that, though.

After the calls Adam still felt like he didn’t know what he should know about Brittany. He thought several times about calling her up, but in the end decided it would be best if he saw her face to face. It had been a while; he hadn’t seen her since his father’s funeral months before. He might see things he wouldn’t pick up on the phone, after all.

Figuring it would be best not to drop in on her unexpectedly, he decided to call her up. “Adam!” she said when she heard his voice. “What a surprise! What’s going on with you?”

“Same old same old,” he told her. “How do you like your new place?”

“It’s all right,” she said. “A little small compared to the house, but since I’m by myself and don’t have a housekeeper, I’m comfortable with it. It’s not quite as lonely, since there are still a couple friends from the old days around town.”

“I wouldn’t mind seeing it, if you don’t mind,” he said, and added a little fib. “I’ve got to take a run over and do some things at the plant in Meridian in the next few days, and I figured it’s not far out of the way to swing by Wychbold. Would Friday morning be a good time to see you?”

“Sure, that’ll be fine,” she told him. “I hear from the Lewises that you bought a boat.”

“That’s a long story, and too long to get into on the phone,” he said, figuring that the news must have come through Jake, or maybe Carolyn. In any case, it wasn’t something he was trying to keep from her anyway. Well, maybe a few details, but he guessed she probably wouldn’t be that interested.

“Good,” he replied. “I probably won’t be able to stay long, since I still have things to do in Meridian.” He really did want to see how the new plant was working out, and made a mental note to call Bob and let him know he was going to take a look at it; he still had that much responsibility to the company.

After he hung up the phone, he thought about it for a few minutes; as long as he was going that way, he figured he might as well drop by and see Carolyn while he was in the neighborhood. It had been a while with her, too, and they had some things to share other than information. So that evening he called her to bring her up to date. It turned out that she was willing, although if they did it next weekend it’d have to be limited to Friday night since she had a school function she had to attend Saturday afternoon. After some kicking it around, they decided he wouldn’t come by her house at all, but that they could spend a pleasant evening at the casino in Battle Creek. “It’s still pretty close to Amherst,” she said, “but I don’t do slot machines anyway.”

“I’ll arrange for adjoining rooms for Friday night,” he told her. “No one has to be the wiser.”

Adam decided that he’d better look businesslike for the trip on Friday, more for Brittany’s sake than anything else; she probably wouldn’t understand the changes that had come over him in the past couple years, not that he always understood them himself when he stopped to think about it. She certainly wouldn’t take well to him dropping by in what had become his usual, jeans and flannel shirt; she’d been ouchy about him wearing those kinds of clothes around the house, even if he’d been working on something. There was no point in stirring the pot unnecessarily, after all.

It had been some years since he’d been to Wychbold, but Brittany’s house wasn’t hard to find, and he thought he remembered seeing it during visits in years past. It was a small house, as he had been told, and it was only a block or so up the street from her parents’ house, which was only a couple of doors away from the Lewis house. The place seemed to be in good repair, but it was considerably less ostentatious than the big house he’d hated so much.

Brittany came to the door dressed a little more casually that she had usually been in the city; he thought that she must have figured out that it was probably not the best idea to be overdressed in a small town like Wychbold. Still, she looked pretty good, and better than she’d seemed at his father’s funeral, the last time he’d actually laid eyes on her. “Adam,” she said as she let him in, “you’re looking good, but I can see from the hang of your clothes you must have lost some weight.”

“Maybe a few pounds,” he admitted, thinking that the relatively hard work he’d been doing in Winchester Harbor must have done some good for him. “I’ve been trying to shape up a little,” he fibbed. “You’re looking good yourself.”

“Being back here has been good for me. I get out and around a lot more than I did when I was in the city, and I think it’s been doing some good for me. Come out to the kitchen, I just made a fresh pot of coffee. Now, what’s this I hear about your buying a boat?”

He decided there was little to hide about that, except where it involved Newfoundland. “Actually, I’ve bought two boats,” he said. “I guess I have to admit that the idea came from Matt, and I wanted to learn a bit more about it. Back last spring I bought a small sailboat, and spent some time sailing it around, mostly on Lake Erie. I decided I liked it so well that a couple months ago I bought a bigger one so I can live on board it comfortably. I’m going to take some time off and sail it around a little farther from home.”

“I’m sure it wouldn’t interest me, but if you like it, it’s for the best,” she replied. “I’m sure you must need something to do. Have you heard anything more from Mary and Matty?”

That was a first, he thought, at least a first since the divorce. She actually mentioned Mary without prompting, and not referring to her as “that red-headed bitch” or something like that. She had to be making progress!

“Actually, not much recently,” he told her; another fib, she’d called Jake a month ago while he was there, and there had been a nice conversation. “Not since back in the summer. Matty is getting along fine. He’s almost two, so you know what that means.”

“Yes, I remember those days,” she sighed. “It’s so long ago I can barely believe it was the same life. Did you talk to her about my possibly meeting them?”

“A little. I told her you were getting better, but she’s still, well, suspicious, and of course she has every right to be. You know about that, and we don’t need to get into it again. But I think we’re getting closer. I thought the best thing to do would be to let another few months go by, and then try again. My guess is that she’ll probably call around Christmas, so maybe I can make a little more progress with her then.”

“I sure hope you can. I worry about Matty so! I’d like to be a good grandparent to him, but this is so frustrating! I’d really like to have a good relationship with him, but I want to just see him. He is my grandson, you know. I’d just like to see him, and find out how he is, and if he’s being properly cared for. Things like that. I’d like to, well, be more involved with him. I mean, what good is it being a grandmother if I can’t spoil my grandson?”

“I wouldn’t mind seeing him myself. While I’m comfortable with what I hear about him, I agree, hearing is not the same as being there.”

“Too well I know. I’ve already missed him being a baby. I’m missing out entirely. I’d really like it if you could work out some way I could see him.”

This was sounding promising; Brittany was not being hyper and demanding about it, but sounded like she had a reasonable concern – and might even be willing to be reasonable about it, even if she did sound a little anxious. But it was hard to tell what to read into that. More and more, though, the idea of a brief meeting in a neutral location seemed to have merit.

“Brittany, it’s like I said last summer, I can’t promise anything. It’s not my decision to make. It’s Mary’s. About all I can do is raise the idea with her when she gets in touch with me again, and that might not be for a while. But I have to tell you again: if I can talk her into letting you meet the boy and the meeting doesn’t go well, I probably won’t be able to talk her into it again. That means you’re going to have some making up to her to do, and don’t expect it to be easy.”

“I’d be really grateful if you could at least arrange for me to see him once. I want to at least see him and touch him and know he’s real. I know there’s been some bad blood between Mary and I, and I hope she’d be willing to overlook it. I think I can.”

“Like I said, all I can do is ask.”

When he’d set up the meeting with Brittany, Adam had said he wouldn’t be able to stay long; it had been an excuse to leave if things had gone badly. Realistically, they hadn’t; he managed to sit and talk with Brittany and have a pleasant conversation, mostly about what she had been doing – and it had been the most relaxed time he’d had with her in years. He would have been willing to stay longer, but now his cover story had turned around to bite him and he knew he had to go. A little hesitantly he told her goodbye, got in his car and got on the road for Meridian.

Strange mixed emotions were going through his mind. Despite all the tensions and troubles, he had a lot of history with her; they shared things that no one else could share with him, and he hoped things were going as well with her as she stated. Still, he had no desire to get back with her; his life had finally moved off in a different direction, and there was no point in digging up the bad times, either. There had been plenty of them.

But as to the question of setting up a meeting between Brittany, Mary, and Matty: for the first time it seemed like there was a possibility that it could be a good idea. He could have easily been misreading her, of course; he’d done that often enough in the past, he knew. But still, she had acted nothing like the hysterical batshit nutcase she’d been two years before. It probably wouldn’t hurt to let a little more time go by, and in any case he’d want to run it past Dr. Preble again before he set up a meeting like that, but for the first time it seemed to be a real possibility.

Maybe it was time to run it by Mary again, he thought. He could arrange for a phone call easily – but maybe he could go up there again, too. After all, it wasn’t like he had anything else to do with his time. It was something to think about.

The plant tour in Meridian accomplished just exactly what he’d intended for it: absolutely nothing except for an excuse to drive by Brittany’s house in the first place. The place was in good shape and everything seemed to be running smoothly, which was about what he could have expected. It really wouldn’t be any of his business unless something went severely wrong, and Bob brought his attention to it.

It was good to see Carolyn again; it had been a couple months, right after he’d bought the Moonshadow. They didn’t go out for dinner again, but kept things right in her room at the casino. They were both a little uncomfortable with it, saying it made them feel like they were having a cheap affair, and they decided that while it was all right for tonight, they wouldn’t do it like that again.

But spending the evening together meant that they had some chance to catch up on a few things. “You heard about Amanda buying that boat, didn’t you?” she asked.

“I was there when she got the word about it,” he smiled. “Let me tell you, there was one excited kid. I haven’t heard much about it, other than the boat is going to need a lot of work, and I know Jake went down right after the first of the month to have a look at it. I haven’t talked to him since, though.”

“He’s back now,” she told him. “I don’t know the details, but you’re right, the boat is going to need a lot of work and Jake doesn’t think she can get through all of it this winter. Ron and a couple of his pals are going to help her with it when they can, but she’s going to find herself doing a lot of it. Jake said he has a few things he needs to do around Winchester Harbor before he can devote a lot of time to it, but he’ll probably head back down there sometime after Christmas and spend a month or two on it.”

“I hope that getting through the work he has to do on the Moonshadow is part of his list.”

“He mentioned that specifically,” she replied. “He said you had plans to get going with it first thing in the spring.”

“Well, maybe not first thing, but early in the season. If it winds up that I decide to sail it to Newfoundland next summer, I’ll have to get an early start, since I’ll have to be able to leave there early enough that I can be at least pretty far south before fall sets in. But there’s at least a chance that I’ll just keep the boat on the Great Lakes this summer, too. I haven’t made my mind up yet and don’t intend to for a while. One of the deciding factors is how close the boat is to being ready to go when spring gets here.”

“That sounds like a heck of a trip,” she sighed. “There’s a part of me that would really like to go with you, you know. But I can’t see taking off with you for a whole summer. I mean, I’d like to, but I’d have a hell of a time explaining it to my family, and to Brittany, for that matter.”

“I know you don’t want to hear this, but you’re pretty close to being able to retire, aren’t you? You could come with me and stay with me after the summer is over with.”

“I don’t think so,” she sighed. “Yes, I could take an early buyout and retire next spring, but I don’t want to. I’ve told you before I like what I’m doing too much and like the way my life is now. Adam, you and I get along pretty well for a weekend or a week or two, but I have my doubts about how well it would work permanently. I mean, there’s a chance it would work just fine, but I’ve thought that before and had things go bad with the guy I was with. I guess I’m in a position of, ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.’ If you wind up making that trip, I’d love to join you for a week or two somewhere along the way, but I don’t think either of us should push our luck much further than that.”

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