Purgatory Ridge by William Kent Krueger

Gooseberry Lane, they could simply pick up where the good part of their lives had left off. But every day, life changed people, and when it hurt them, especially, it changed them a lot and forever. He and Jo never talked about that part of their past, when he’d loved a waitress and Jo had loved a rich man. Both lovers were dead now, yet it was as if their ghosts remained, haunting the silences that often slipped between Cork and Jo. He longed to talk about these things, but always in the back of his mind was the image of his marriage as a wounded, limping thing. What was the use of touching the old hurts? Wasn’t it better simply to let time heal them?
    Normally on his morning run, he followed one of the roads that edged Iron Lake. That morning, however, his feet followed a different route, one that took him to the Aurora Professional Building where Jo had her law office. He went in, dripping sweat. Fran Cooper, Jo’s secretary, looked up from her desk. Cork had known Fran his whole life. She’d been secretary of his senior class, got pregnant (rumor had it) the night of senior prom, and married Andy Cooper the following summer. They were still married and, from all appearances, still happy. The child that had been born to them was a Valentine’s Day baby and was now in her second year of medical school at the University of Minnesota. Fran looked Cork over and smiled.
    “I think you took a wrong turn in the home stretch, Cork.”
    “Looking for Jo,” he replied, a little out of breath.
    “Not here. She’d already come and gone when I got in this morning. She left a note asking me to reschedule her appointments for today. She’s out at the reservation.”
    “Any idea why?”
    “Her note didn’t say. But dollars to doughnuts it’s got something to do with Charlie Warren.” She glanced down where drops of Cork’s perspiration were turning the beige carpet gray. “You want some water or something?”
    “No thanks.”
    “I keep telling Jo to get a cell phone, Cork.” Fran shrugged as if she’d done her best.
    Cork cut across Knudsen Park, heading for the lake. He turned and followed Center Street to the edge of town. He jogged along the Burlington Northern tracks to the access to Sam’s Place and headed in to shower.
    He kept a change of clothes at the Quonset hut, kept the refrigerator plugged in and defrosted, kept fresh linen for the bunk. He’d done these things without thinking about them, but as he showered that morning and put on clean clothes, he wondered if unconsciously he’d been keeping himself prepared in case things on Gooseberry Lane didn’t work out. He was angry when he thought this. He stared at his face in the bathroom mirror.
    “What is it you want, O’Connor? Make up your damn mind.”
    He called home, told Rose to have the girls drive the Bronco out when they came to work. Rose reminded him that she was helping the women’s guild at St. Agnes most of the day and wouldn’t be able to watch Stevie.
    “Have the girls bring him,” he said. “Tell him we’ll catch another mess of sunnies.”
    By the time the children arrived, Cork had the grill fired up, the ice milk machine filled, and the oil in the deep fryer hot.
    “There’s plenty of change in the register,” he told them.
    “You sound like you’re leaving,” Jenny said.
    “I am. Sorry.”
    “Don’t forget,” she cautioned him. “Mom and I are going to the library tonight.”
    “The library?”
    “To hear Grace Fitzgerald read from
Superior Blue
. I won’t be able to close.”
    Annie jumped in. “Me either. I’ve got softball practice.”
    “Stevie and I will close up.” He ran his hand through his son’s hair. “We’ll have a guy’s night out. What do you say, buddy?”
    Stevie shrugged. “Okay. When can I fish?”
    Cork looked to his daughters.
    “Go on, Dad,” Jenny said. “We’ll take care of everything here.”
    “Thanks. Thanks a lot.”
    Cork drove to the Iron Lake Reservation. He tried not