For the umpteenth time, Ethan’s thoughts circle back to the Knit-Wits. Any of those ladies could’ve given Tova a lift to Bellingham. Surely they’re aware of her reluctance to drive on the freeway. But she asked him.
This morning, he awoke an hour early so he’d have time to shower and trim up his beard, get himself sharp and tidy. Everyone knows how much Tova likes things neat and clean. Because he was up at the crack of dawn, he consumed an extra mug of tea, and maybe that’s why he can’t stop his fingers from thrumming on the steering wheel like he’s jamming on a piano.
“Are you all right?” Tova asks, again, from the passenger seat. She drops her crossword pencil onto the newspaper resting on her lap and brushes a speck of lint from the upholstered seat. He should’ve hauled his arse out of bed at five this morning instead of six. Then he would’ve had time to tidy up his truck as well as himself.
“Aye, I’m all right. Why do you ask?”
A pretty smile spreads over her face. “Honeybee hands.” “Honeybee what?
“Honeybee hands. You know . . . busy. That’s what I used to say when Erik couldn’t keep his fingers still.”
Startled at the mention of that name, Ethan takes a deep breath and wills the jitters out of his limbs. “Honeybee hands. Clever.” In his mind, he assembles an explanation about too much caffeine this morning, but when he glances over a moment later, she’s reabsorbed in her puzzle,
tapping the eraser on her chin as she studies the fold of newspaper.
Scrap that one, then. He scans for any of the other conversation starters he’d spent half the night rehearsing, but he somehow comes up blank. The only topics that surface are off-limits: dead brother, dead husband, dead son. Sheesh. He’s still in shock she brought Erik up a moment ago, but clearly that moment has passed.
Instead, what comes out is: “What’s that you’re working on?” Which is a ridiculous question. Anyone can see it’s a crossword.
She frowns. “Yesterday’s puzzle. I’m afraid I’ve fallen behind.”
“Behind?” He chuckles. “You mean you do that thing every day?”
“Of course. It’s the daily crossword. I complete it daily.” “And if you miss a day? You . . . catch up?”
Her pencil scratches as she fills in a set of boxes. “Naturally.”
THE CHARTER VILLAGE Long-Term Care Center is tucked into a series of rolling green hills sliced through by a long winding driveway. As they motor through the campus, smaller parkways splinter off the main one, each with a signpost. MEMORY CENTER. TENNIS COMPLEX. ACUTE CARE. CLUBHOUSE. This place
has it all. Finally, a signpost points toward RECEPTION and Ethan leans on the accelerator. He lets out a low whistle as he pulls around the circular drive, past a pair of maroon- brick columns dressed in ivy. Downright posh. It looks like a fancy prep school or university, not a wretched place where old folks come to play tennis before eventually withering away.
“This is it, love?”
Tova’s face is stone. “Yes, it seems so.”
Ethan cuts the ignition and gives her a puzzled look. “You’ve never been here before?”
“I have not.”
He resists the urge to unleash another low whistle. Tova had said Lars lived here for a decade. Had she really not visited even once?
She gathers her purse, tucking the newspaper inside. “Shall we?”
“Aye.” Ethan scrambles out and hurries around the truck, hoping to reach the passenger side in time to open her door for her, but by the time he gets there, she’s already striding toward the stately building.
For the first half hour, Ethan waits in the reception area, and the minutes drag. The leather chairs are remarkably plush, but the reading material is absolute shit. National Geographic, AARP The Magazine, and a handful of dry Wall Street rags. Couldn’t they spring for something halfway interesting, like Rolling Stone, or even People? Celebrity gossip has always been Ethan’s guilty pleasure. His honeybee hands come back, drumming impatiently on the low coffee table. He rises and inspects the refreshment table in the corner of the lobby, which, inexplicably, offers coffee, but not tea. All of this leather and ivy, and they can’t even furnish a spot of Earl Grey? What rubbish!
He plucks a disposable cup from the stack and pours a
cup of decaf anyway, because it’s free. He doesn’t particularly enjoy coffee. When Ethan was nineteen, he worked for a stint at the kiddie zoo down in Glasgow, shoveling the elephant pen. Once, as a joke, two of the other blokes that worked there collected feces and ran it through a juice press. What came out looked remarkably like
. . . coffee. Never been the same since, coffee hasn’t.
When Tova had whisked off toward the inside of the facility, he insisted she take her time going through her brother’s things, but now he realizes he has no context for how long such an activity might take. Will he be waiting here all day? He should have brought a book.
From the front desk, there’s a gaggle of voices. Some folks assembling for a tour of the facility, looks like.
The woman leading the group, wearing a gray suit and a sleek amber ponytail, addresses the small cluster in a clear, confident voice. “Welcome to Charter Village, where happy endings are our specialty.”
Ethan nearly spits out his coffee. Happy endings? Who came up with that one?
Gray Suit frowns at him. “Sir?”
“Aye?” Ethan wipes dribbled coffee from his chin with his sleeve.
“Are you joining us?”
“Me?” He looks over his shoulder, as if there might be another “sir” behind him. Then he shrugs. “Sure, why not?” Something to pass the time, anyway.
“This way, then.” With a polite smile, she motions him toward the group.
ETHAN MUST ADMIT: the residents do seem happy. Maybe that ridiculous slogan isn’t off base.
There’s a billiard room, a cafeteria with a mile-long buffet, even a pool and Jacuzzi. Residents can get room service, and the beds are made up daily with six-hundred- thread-count sheets. By the time the tour starts to wrap up, Ethan finds himself half-convinced to move in. As if he could afford it. His union pension wouldn’t go far in a place like this.
WHEN TOVA SURFACES an hour later clutching a box, Ethan springs from the plush reception leather chair.
“All right, then, love?”
“Certainly.” Tova looks so little in her purple cardigan, and the box makes her frame seem even more slight.
This time, he beats her to the car door. Chivalrously, he opens it and steps aside for her to enter, for which she thanks him politely. Then he takes the box and finds a space
for it behind the passenger seat. But there’s something else, too. A glossy page with an image of the community center and tennis courts. Some bloke with a full head of silver hair and white shorts swinging a racket.
As Tova is fiddling with her seat belt, he steals a longer peek.
It’s not just a slick brochure. It’s a whole packet. A sleek Charter Village folder with that terrible motto: “We Specialize in Happy Endings!”
There’s one page not neatly aligned in the folder. An application.
