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Authors: Susan Wiggs
Tags: Contemporary
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memory haunted her even now; she could still see the slick black ice of the road and the glare of another car’s headlights in the rearview mirror. She could still hear the whine of tires hydroplaning across the bridge deck. Her ears rang with the explosion of impact, followed by the vicious hiss of the airbag detonating.
With a will, she pushed the past away and tried to relax her grip on the wheel. Painted wooden signs, weathered by the ceaseless battering of sea winds and slashing rain, marked the boundary of the township. Paradise was a true hometown, with sidewalks and tree-lined lanes, snug houses wrapped by porches, a grid of streets leading to the business area of neat shopfronts arranged around a faux-colonial community center. A drive-through donut shop, Gloria’s Shrimp Shack and the Twisted Scissors Barber Shop formed a truncated strip mall near the waterfront.
Slowing to a cautious twenty-five miles per hour, she passed the town commons, an oblong green space with a pond in the middle. In the next block . . . She told herself not to look, but couldn’t help it. She studied the Winslow estate, an eighteenth-century mansion in the middle of a pristine lawn. Less than a mile from that was the handsome but less ostentatious converted carriage house that had been the Winslows’ wedding gift to her and Victor.
All her life, Sandra had looked for a place to belong and finally, in Paradise at Victor’s side, she’d found it. When she lost him, she lost more than a husband. She lost her home, her community, her place in the world. She needed to find that again. The question was, how could she do it without Victor?
They had lived in the eye of the community, an up-and-coming state senator and his quiet new wife. Now the residence housed a small family, and changes were apparent—new lace curtains that, Sandra thought, compromised the clean lines of the upstairs dormer windows. A little red tricycle on the front walk caused her chest to ache with an old, familiar yearning. She had wanted children, but Victor kept putting it off.
Thinking back on those tense, late-night discussions, she realized how skillful he’d been, finding a reason to wait each time she broached the subject. First he had to settle his campaign budget. Attend to his mother, who had suffered—and survived—breast cancer. Win the election and raise funds for the next race. Position himself to climb the ladder to politics at the national level.
Anything but the truth.
She pulled her outdated Plymouth Arrow into a parking space at the church. The tower clock rang half past, and she let out a sigh of relief. She’d wanted to arrive early and approach the Winslows in private. Although it was tempting to make her gesture before the entire congregation, she couldn’t bring herself to do something so manipulative and disingenuous.
It was the sort of thing Victor would have done. But then again, it would have worked for Victor.
Drawing the strap of her purse over her shoulder, she slammed the car door. Self-conscious after her long absence, she recalled her first visit here, when she was the outsider, the unknown quantity, an object of scrutiny. In some ways, that had never changed, but eventually she’d meshed with the intricately woven pattern of church and town; she’d been comfortable here, much the same way she’d been comfortable with Victor.
But even in the most connected moments, she some-times felt like a fraud—she’d never been particularly religious and some aspects of the church scene felt false to a person of her dark imagination. Yet her duties as Victor’s wife had included volunteering in the children’s Sunday school, and secretly she thought leading a chirping chorus of “This Little Light of Mine” offered more grace than her father-in-law’s thundering sermons.
Tucking her coat around her, she headed for the rear of the church and a wide door marked “Pastor’s Office.” She didn’t have long to wait. Within
With a will, she pushed the past away and tried to relax her grip on the wheel. Painted wooden signs, weathered by the ceaseless battering of sea winds and slashing rain, marked the boundary of the township. Paradise was a true hometown, with sidewalks and tree-lined lanes, snug houses wrapped by porches, a grid of streets leading to the business area of neat shopfronts arranged around a faux-colonial community center. A drive-through donut shop, Gloria’s Shrimp Shack and the Twisted Scissors Barber Shop formed a truncated strip mall near the waterfront.
Slowing to a cautious twenty-five miles per hour, she passed the town commons, an oblong green space with a pond in the middle. In the next block . . . She told herself not to look, but couldn’t help it. She studied the Winslow estate, an eighteenth-century mansion in the middle of a pristine lawn. Less than a mile from that was the handsome but less ostentatious converted carriage house that had been the Winslows’ wedding gift to her and Victor.
All her life, Sandra had looked for a place to belong and finally, in Paradise at Victor’s side, she’d found it. When she lost him, she lost more than a husband. She lost her home, her community, her place in the world. She needed to find that again. The question was, how could she do it without Victor?
They had lived in the eye of the community, an up-and-coming state senator and his quiet new wife. Now the residence housed a small family, and changes were apparent—new lace curtains that, Sandra thought, compromised the clean lines of the upstairs dormer windows. A little red tricycle on the front walk caused her chest to ache with an old, familiar yearning. She had wanted children, but Victor kept putting it off.
Thinking back on those tense, late-night discussions, she realized how skillful he’d been, finding a reason to wait each time she broached the subject. First he had to settle his campaign budget. Attend to his mother, who had suffered—and survived—breast cancer. Win the election and raise funds for the next race. Position himself to climb the ladder to politics at the national level.
Anything but the truth.
She pulled her outdated Plymouth Arrow into a parking space at the church. The tower clock rang half past, and she let out a sigh of relief. She’d wanted to arrive early and approach the Winslows in private. Although it was tempting to make her gesture before the entire congregation, she couldn’t bring herself to do something so manipulative and disingenuous.
It was the sort of thing Victor would have done. But then again, it would have worked for Victor.
Drawing the strap of her purse over her shoulder, she slammed the car door. Self-conscious after her long absence, she recalled her first visit here, when she was the outsider, the unknown quantity, an object of scrutiny. In some ways, that had never changed, but eventually she’d meshed with the intricately woven pattern of church and town; she’d been comfortable here, much the same way she’d been comfortable with Victor.
But even in the most connected moments, she some-times felt like a fraud—she’d never been particularly religious and some aspects of the church scene felt false to a person of her dark imagination. Yet her duties as Victor’s wife had included volunteering in the children’s Sunday school, and secretly she thought leading a chirping chorus of “This Little Light of Mine” offered more grace than her father-in-law’s thundering sermons.
Tucking her coat around her, she headed for the rear of the church and a wide door marked “Pastor’s Office.” She didn’t have long to wait. Within
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