The Deepest Water by Kate Wilhelm

with. I couldn’t reconcile the three images of one man. He came to a show at the museum once, long before I met him, and someone pointed him out to me and said who he was, the world-famous writer, hermit, and reincarnation of Don Juan, all in one pretty package. He was handsome, and with a woman, of course. Then there was the father you talked about a lot, loving, warm, funny, capable of anything and everything, a perfect godlike father. And the man I grew to know and to love. I wouldn’t say naive exactly, but tentative, shy, sort of hesitant. Afraid of me. That was it, he was afraid of me in a curious way, and so careful with me, as if one wrong word, one wrong act would send me flying away. I was having a lot of trouble trying to sort things out the day you spoke your mind. I knew I loved him, and I had accepted that I might be dumped, as you so elegantly put it, and I had decided I would risk that. I had to risk that. But then I realized that he was just as afraid as I was. In spite of what we had been through, both of us, we were like two kids trying out being in love for the first time.”
    When she became silent, and the silence stretched out to where it would have been awkward to refer back to that time, Abby told her about the lieutenant and the detective, about going to the cabin with them, everything. “Did he ever mention the cashier’s checks to you?”
    Willa shook her head. “One hundred forty-five thousand! He told me he had mortgaged the cabin years ago and had given Matthew Petrie fifteen thousand dollars, but that much money! No. Could he have been giving Matthew money all these years?”
    “What for?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “Friday night, it had to have been someone he knew well,” Abby said after a moment. “That’s the only way I can see someone being in the cabin in the middle of the night. Someone got stranded there, or planned to stay until dark, something like that.” She looked at the ground. “I thought it was a woman,” she mumbled.
    “I would have thought the same thing a few years ago.”
    After a moment, Abby asked, “Did he say why he gave Matthew that money, fifteen thousand dollars?”
    “To pay off debts. Your ex-husband was going to skip and leave you with a mountain of debts, creditors. Jud said you were so determined not to be a burden, so independent, that he didn’t think you would let him pay them off if you knew he had mortgaged the cabin to raise the money. He made your ex go with him and pay people in person, with him watching. He wanted you to be free to go back to school, not feel obligated to work as a waitress and pay Matthew’s bills.”
    “He never told me,” Abby whispered. The money for the divorce lawyer must have come from the mortgage, too, she realized. As recently as eight years ago, Jud had still been poverty-stricken, just as she had been.
    Spook ran back to them, and this time lay at their feet panting, her tongue hanging out, sides heaving. She looked very happy.
    Clouds had moved in and the air was degrees colder and smelled of approaching rain. Above them the fir trees rustled in a rising wind, as if in anticipation.
    “We should start back,” Abby said.
    They began to retrace their way down the mountain, this time with the dog staying close by, as if she had had enough exploring for one outing.
    Close to the valley floor, Abby put the leash back on Spook, and during the brief stop, Willa said, “You know no one’s going to believe he actually proposed, that we were going to be married.”
    Abby looked at her, startled, then slowly nodded. It was true. Who would believe it? They hadn’t told anyone.
    “It’s made me feel awkward,” Willa said quietly. “That’s why I didn’t want to come around when your relatives were there. They would have looked on me as the new conquest, something like that, not as his fiancée.” She ducked her head and started to walk.
    “How did you find out?” Abby asked. “Who told you?”
    “The