but she wouldn’t let Danny see it until he was older. For weeks after watching
Old Yeller
at a friend’s house, he’d jumped in and out of bed for fear a rabid animal was hiding underneath, waiting to bite his feet if he got too close. He hadn’t even wanted Badger to sleep in his room.
All at once, as if in response to her thoughts, Danny frowned. “Mommy, do crocodiles climb stairs?”
“No, they don’t,” Hannah assured, though she couldn’t be positive one way or the other. On the other hand, she was quite certain there weren’t any crocodiles in Mahalaton Lake.
Thankfully, the start of the movie kept Danny from asking anything else. She’d sat in the middle so Brendan wouldn’t be in range of spilled soda pop or chocolate fingerprints, but it was nerve-racking to sit between them. Brendan wanted to hold her hand, which was sweet but inconvenient, and Danny had trouble juggling his bucket of popcorn, candy and soda. By the time the final credits rolled on the movie, she just wanted to crawl into bed,
alone,
though Brendan had hinted often enough that he’d welcome an invitation to join her there.
She missed sex, but life was a lot more complicated with her son in the next bedroom.
* * *
J AKE SPENT THE evening reading another book on the Cascade Range. He was impressed by the private library in Huckleberry Lodge. It contained a wide array of fiction and nonfiction, including dozens of books on the geology, fauna and plant life of the Cascades. Surely there would be something in one of them that would give him a flash of inspiration. Reading about the mountains wasn’t the same as experiencing them, but his leg wasn’t up to extended hiking yet, even around a place as tame as Washington.
This particular volume was about the volcanic history of the range. The eruption of Mount St. Helens in 1980 was well-known. And there had to be a million pictures of Mount Rainier—which according to his brother’s wife was no longer considered a dormant volcano. Layne was a fount of information as a researcher for the regional magazine
The Puget Sound Babbitt,
though she was going on maternity leave any day now. Matt had laughed about it, saying that the pregnancy had been the only thing to convince her to take time off since their honeymoon.
Marriage, fatherhood
...
end of career,
Jake thought dismally. But it probably wouldn’t have as big of an impact on Matt, since he’d quit the party circuit a couple of years before getting married. Instead he was running a multibillion-dollar charitable foundation for his maternal grandfather.
Jake turned a page and saw a photo of Mount Rainier. It was part of the Seattle city skyline, and close enough that anyone there could visit for a day’s outing. Maybe one of his own photo captions could be “America’s Mount Vesuvius.” But he dismissed it immediately. Somebody must have used that already, and he didn’t like comparing one part of the world to another.
Jake looked out at the lake, calm now that the recreational boaters had quit for the day. Evergreens grew down to the shoreline, and a lone heron stood in the shallows, hunting for its dinner. Making a face at the pretty sight, he pulled a piece of pizza from the box on the coffee table. It was cold, yet his sour mood faded as he recalled the exchange between Barbi and Brendan Townsend. They were an incongruous pair—Barbi in her sassy clothes and Townsend with his buttoned-down mentality.
Barbi had visited Hannah several times over the past week, staying for an hour or two in the evening before leaving, so she obviously wasn’t delivering meals from Luigi’s. Maybe if she came out to Huckleberry Lodge often enough, there might be more opportunities to watch her and Brendan striking sparks off each other.
Jake rubbed his aching leg. The doctors had told him he was lucky not to have severed one of the major nerves, but it was badly bruised. Enough sensation had returned to show it should heal, but Dr.
Old Yeller
at a friend’s house, he’d jumped in and out of bed for fear a rabid animal was hiding underneath, waiting to bite his feet if he got too close. He hadn’t even wanted Badger to sleep in his room.
All at once, as if in response to her thoughts, Danny frowned. “Mommy, do crocodiles climb stairs?”
“No, they don’t,” Hannah assured, though she couldn’t be positive one way or the other. On the other hand, she was quite certain there weren’t any crocodiles in Mahalaton Lake.
Thankfully, the start of the movie kept Danny from asking anything else. She’d sat in the middle so Brendan wouldn’t be in range of spilled soda pop or chocolate fingerprints, but it was nerve-racking to sit between them. Brendan wanted to hold her hand, which was sweet but inconvenient, and Danny had trouble juggling his bucket of popcorn, candy and soda. By the time the final credits rolled on the movie, she just wanted to crawl into bed,
alone,
though Brendan had hinted often enough that he’d welcome an invitation to join her there.
She missed sex, but life was a lot more complicated with her son in the next bedroom.
* * *
J AKE SPENT THE evening reading another book on the Cascade Range. He was impressed by the private library in Huckleberry Lodge. It contained a wide array of fiction and nonfiction, including dozens of books on the geology, fauna and plant life of the Cascades. Surely there would be something in one of them that would give him a flash of inspiration. Reading about the mountains wasn’t the same as experiencing them, but his leg wasn’t up to extended hiking yet, even around a place as tame as Washington.
This particular volume was about the volcanic history of the range. The eruption of Mount St. Helens in 1980 was well-known. And there had to be a million pictures of Mount Rainier—which according to his brother’s wife was no longer considered a dormant volcano. Layne was a fount of information as a researcher for the regional magazine
The Puget Sound Babbitt,
though she was going on maternity leave any day now. Matt had laughed about it, saying that the pregnancy had been the only thing to convince her to take time off since their honeymoon.
Marriage, fatherhood
...
end of career,
Jake thought dismally. But it probably wouldn’t have as big of an impact on Matt, since he’d quit the party circuit a couple of years before getting married. Instead he was running a multibillion-dollar charitable foundation for his maternal grandfather.
Jake turned a page and saw a photo of Mount Rainier. It was part of the Seattle city skyline, and close enough that anyone there could visit for a day’s outing. Maybe one of his own photo captions could be “America’s Mount Vesuvius.” But he dismissed it immediately. Somebody must have used that already, and he didn’t like comparing one part of the world to another.
Jake looked out at the lake, calm now that the recreational boaters had quit for the day. Evergreens grew down to the shoreline, and a lone heron stood in the shallows, hunting for its dinner. Making a face at the pretty sight, he pulled a piece of pizza from the box on the coffee table. It was cold, yet his sour mood faded as he recalled the exchange between Barbi and Brendan Townsend. They were an incongruous pair—Barbi in her sassy clothes and Townsend with his buttoned-down mentality.
Barbi had visited Hannah several times over the past week, staying for an hour or two in the evening before leaving, so she obviously wasn’t delivering meals from Luigi’s. Maybe if she came out to Huckleberry Lodge often enough, there might be more opportunities to watch her and Brendan striking sparks off each other.
Jake rubbed his aching leg. The doctors had told him he was lucky not to have severed one of the major nerves, but it was badly bruised. Enough sensation had returned to show it should heal, but Dr.
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