After the Fire Read Online Free Page A

tall and thin and erect, in a proper town hat and good winter coat.
    “Mrs. Hawkins is going to give you a lift into town,” Karen shouted.
    “Thank you, child,” Miss James replied. She called everyone under forty “child,” everyone over forty “my good man” or “my good woman,” her solution to her failing memory for names.
    When the passengers had crossed the car deck to the stairs that would lead them up into the lounges, Karen switched the light to green and waved the cars aboard, one last time wishing her travelers well.
    The only difficulty about a prompt ferry was that it meant Karen had to kill a little time before she could have morning coffee at the store and then pick up her mail. There was a kettle in the booth, but coffee was an excuse to be with people. When she had first taken the job with its odd hours, she thought what a virtue it would be to have most mornings to herself, but, if she didn’t have a specific chore, the laundry or the cleaning, she hated going back to her beach cottage and its silence. She didn’t even like to watch the birds, as she did when she was out here on the dock with so much else to do.
    Walking back down the dock, Karen wondered if she would ever get used to being alone. She had lived with Peggy for eight years. Would it take her eight more years to get over it? And if she did get over it, would she be so set in her ways that she could never live with anyone else again?
    If Peggy could see her on a morning like this or in the pub at night, she wouldn’t recognize her. For Karen had never had a job in those eight years. Peggy had wanted her to be at home. “I want to be entirely looked after,” Peggy had said. Eventually, for reasons Karen still didn’t really understand, Peggy had felt she was doing the looking after because she paid all the bills. When Karen finally asked, “What is really wrong?” Peggy had answered bluntly, “You’re boring.” It was that accusation Karen couldn’t face in her empty house, for surely that about her hadn’t changed, however busy she had kept herself. In her blank misery, she bored herself.
    Often Henrietta stayed in her car for the fifty-minute ride across the strait, sparing herself the long climb up the stairs and the negative social demands of people who wanted to kill time in chatter. How few people could simply watch the sea for a breaking killer whale, the sky for an eagle, the horizon for weather shaping over the mountains. How few people could simply think or read a book. This morning, however, she had to speak to Riley and then find Miss James to offer her a ride.
    She found Riley in the cafeteria, head bowed over a large plate of greasy eggs, bacon, and chips. He had not bothered to shave or comb his hair, and he might as well have had a sign hanging around his neck saying Do Not Disturb.
    “I’m sorry to interrupt your breakfast, Riley,” Henrietta said, taking a seat across from him.
    He looked at her and sighed.
    “It won’t take long,” Henrietta reassured him. “I wondered if you had anything you’d like to say at Dickie’s funeral tomorrow.”
    “Me?” Riley asked, incredulous.
    “It’s very hard on a community to lose someone as young as Dickie.”
    “I should think most of you old people would be glad to see the last of him,” Riley said with sullen anger.
    “Riley, most of us have known Dickie all his life, saw him lose his father, saw him drop out of school and then gradually pull himself together, building himself that house, getting himself the truck and working hard for it all. He was still a boy to most of us, still figuring out how to live.”
    Again Riley sighed, but Henrietta could read an opening vulnerability in his dark eyes.
    “You were his friend,” she coaxed.
    “I bought him his last drink,” Riley said softly.
    “Oh, Riley, I’m sorry,” Henrietta said, and she put a hand on his arm.
    After a moment, Riley said, “Yeah, well, I guess maybe I could do something.