The House on Hancock Hill (25 page)

It was time. I called Denny. I can’t say he was pleased with my plans, but even he could tell there would be no changing my mind. As I flew back to Michigan, Denny set everything in motion.

Chapter 16

T
HE
BOOKSTORE
owner jumped at the chance to buy the building. He told me all about his plans to move in upstairs like he’d been waiting for me to pack up and leave all these years. Watching a bunch of guys empty out my apartment filled me with some sadness, I’ll admit, and it felt by no means like the right thing to do. Swinging from elation to abstract terror seemed as regular as even days following uneven ones. It was too late to back out now, though. Most of my things were on their way to storage, a furnished house had been rented in my name, a contractor hired. With the promise that Denny’d always welcome me back, I swapped my Charger for a Chevy Silverado, filled up my travel mug with a dirty chai for the last time, and on the fifteenth of June, I began my seven-hour drive. Stopping to refuel and take in the Mackinac Bridge before I crossed it, I bought a beef pasty for lunch. Dad had taken me to Mackinac Island when I was nine. Nothing more than a patch of land in Lake Huron, it was only accessible by ferry, airplane, or in winter, by snowmobile on an ice path. We’d cycled around the carless road that hugged the shoreline before I’d eaten myself sick on caramel sea salt fudge. I couldn’t stand the stuff to this day.

It was dark by the time I arrived in Houghton. My new street was a quiet one, even though it was close to the center of town. The house was a semidetached with no garage. Come winter, I’d most likely regret that, but it wasn’t as if I’d never had to dig my car out of a pile of snow in Traverse City. A lovely hanging basket full of violas filled the porch with a subtly sweet fragrance, and two large planters with herbs stood guard beside the door. My new landlady had left my key in the mouth of a little frog statue, and I stepped into the cool, dim hallway with a sense of great relief. My rather urgent hunt for a bathroom revealed a small but neat place with an old-fashioned layout downstairs and two bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs. The two bedrooms would’ve been identical if it weren’t for a beautiful bay window in one of them, a bench tucked cozily underneath the windowsill. I wasn’t prone to romantic daydreaming, but I could picture myself reading there in winter, the little wood fire blazing away opposite the bed. It would do me nicely.

An odd sort of pride rushed through me when I finally fell into the small double bed and its crisp sheets, as if I’d gone out on my own for the first time. It made no sense since I’d basically been doing that since Dad died, but there was no denying it felt good.

Michigan in summer is a sweltering stretch of forest infested by mosquitos and flies, and the Upper Peninsula was no different. Still, when I drove across the Portage Canal lift bridge for the first time to check out the builder’s progress on the farm the next day, tension drained from my neck and shoulders. I had no idea what the future would bring. This whole thing might bankrupt me and, who knew? Come winter, I might be back in Traverse City with my tail between my legs. But in the now, with the windows down and the air rushing through the cabin of my truck, I knew a perfect moment of elated freedom.

T
OURISTS
REGULARLY
held up traffic by taking pictures of the canal. My new neighbor was a near-deaf old man who liked to watch football at full volume. And from the moment I stepped out of the shower, I had to spray so much insect repellent, I could taste it. In less than four months, I’d be several feet deep in snow again, missing these boiling temperatures already, and still I didn’t want to be anywhere else. Not in France with Guillaume and his bakery, not in Traverse City in my own bakery, not in Boston with Tom, and certainly not in Florida with Mom.

Several times during those early days in Houghton, I almost picked up the phone. I wanted to tell Henry how I felt so badly it ached. But the truth was, when I thought about how it looked from the outside, how I had cheated on him with Tom just like Dad had done to Mom, I felt a bone-crushing shame. And if that wasn’t enough, I had then proceeded to run away, just like Mom had, only much farther, to France. I thought Henry must loathe me, and I could live a long time without seeing that confirmed. It became easier to cling to the possible
maybe someday
than an irreversible rejection.

When I arrived, I had planned on visiting Annie, but the truth was, time slipped away from me. Tearing down the farm and its outbuildings, and resurrecting a house from scratch exactly the way I wanted it, took a lot more out of me than I thought it would. Adding to that, I accidentally dropped the ball at the grocery store around the corner and told an old lady I was a pastry chef. Ten days later, I found myself teaching Cake Decorating at the community hall twice a week. Tuesdays for beginners and Thursdays for the (not so) advanced. Through this, I received more requests for birthday cupcakes, cookies, wedding cakes, and funeral confections than I ever had in Traverse City. My kitchen quickly became too small, and I had to expand my baking into the living room by acquiring another kitchen table and pushing the couches against the walls.

On a Thursday at the end of July, Annie turned up for Advanced Meringue Making, and I guiltily put up with the stink eye she kept giving me while I stuttered over instructions like, “Don’t use plastic bowls,” and “Don’t attempt this on humid days, which is basically all summer here.” Her sour looks rubbed off on all the other women and the two men, because no one laughed. Not one of my best jokes, I admit.

“So,” she said, cornering me before I could flee out the back door and down the deck that spanned the community hall. “I have to hear from my good friend, Amanda, during my monthly Stitch ’n Bitch meeting there is a Jason Wood teaching a baking class in Houghton.” I opened my mouth, though I had no idea what sound might come out. It didn’t matter. Annie wasn’t done. “At first I think, that’s a coincidence. My Jason has moved to Boston with an old lover, and he’d never be in the neighborhood for
weeks
without saying hello to the woman who provided him with a roof over his head in his hour of
greatest need
.”

Old lover?
I wanted to ask, but a nasty look from Annie had me snap my mouth shut again. “For weeks, they’ve been working at the Johnson farm, and while everyone thought the land had been sold last winter after that awful business with the girl, no one knew who it’d been sold
to
. There’s rumors about it being a hotel or a bed-and-breakfast. And then I’m thinking, this is all too much of a coincidence, but my Jason would
never
. Until I come here and see that my Jason
would
.”

As I opened my mouth again to start a torrent of apologies, a woman only slightly younger than Annie came up to us. “Don’t bother, Amanda, he’s gay,” Annie said before Amanda had even said a word. Amanda’s white bushy eyebrows rose, she looked me up and down, smiled, and walked away. Horrified, I turned to Annie for an explanation. “She has a granddaughter living in she’s trying to fob off on everyone. Don’t mind her.”

“Thank God for that,” I said, and, like hearing my voice awoke Annie from a trance, she looked me in the eye and smiled.

“Jason, dear, it’s so good to see you.”

“It is?” I said doubtfully.

“Yes, well, apart from all the things I just said. Yes, of course it is. You look good. Much better than last time.”

“Well, last time I was pretty banged up.”

“You were, but you were also very overworked and stressed out.” She took my arm and guided me out the door, barely giving me time to snatch my bag off the table. She gave me a considering side-eyed glance. “You still are, I think, but you’re getting there. The main question is,” she went on as we reached the doors to the outside, “have you seen Henry yet?”

“Ah.” And maybe there was the reason why I’d used every excuse I could think of not to visit Annie. “No, I haven’t.”

“Hm.” Annie pressed her lips together and nodded, searching for her car keys. She said, “I see,” which was good, because that meant at least one of us did.

Opening her car door for her, I leaned down to give her a quick hug, and Annie patted me on the back. “You owe me lunch, but after that, you’ll be forgiven. It’s good to have you here. You’re home now.”

“Thank you,” I said and waved her off. If Annie knew about me being here, and given the fact that Henry heard every piece of gossip from every pet owner that passed through his clinic, I had to conclude he knew I was in town and had made no effort to contact me, either. It made me feel slightly less like a coward, but at the same time, it tore at me like my heart was giving out. For all I knew, Henry had met someone and was happy. It wouldn’t be long before I ran into him, and then what? Could I be friends with him and nothing more? Time, I guessed, would tell.

T
HAT
S
UNDAY
,
I broke my own rule and made Guillaume’s brioche for Annie.

“How is Henry?” I asked over tea.

“Remember last time you asked me something you ought to have been asking him?”

“Yes,” I said ducking my head, and Annie sighed.

“He’s all right, although for the life of me I don’t… anyway. The clinic is doing very well, and Susie’s full partner now, so he’s not supervising her anymore. He’s still smarting from when Pat passed, won’t take on another puppy, heaven knows why, there’s enough at the pound, but—” and here she gave me a meaningful look. “Some things can’t be rushed. And that’s all you’re getting out of me,” she said, only to pick at another barely healed wound. “I heard about your father, and I know you don’t want to talk about it, but I just want to tell you that it changes nothing.”

“It changes
everything
,” I said, realizing how bitter I sounded but unable to do anything about it.

“No,” Annie answered with great patience while she waited for me to look at her. “It changes
nothing
. He still cared for you more than anything; he still did the right thing divorcing your mother after how she treated her own child. Everyone is allowed to make mistakes as long as they take responsibility. And he did.”

“What? How?”

“I met Taylor’s mother.” Of course she did. Nothing happened in this town without going through Annie. “She stayed in my B and B. Your father offered to pay child support, but she didn’t want it. Ms. Burton is a very educated woman who wasn’t in need of any assistance from any man then or now. It was Taylor who came here. She’d been backpacking around Canada, and Ms. Burton hadn’t known she was heading back this way. The blizzard took her by surprise; it was all a tragic accident. When she heard where Taylor died, she felt it was your right to know. It happened, but it doesn’t make your father a terrible person. Your mother would’ve lost Alex no matter what, Jason. That was no one but nature’s doing.”

“Right,” I croaked. I wished she’d stop talking.

“Brian loved you,” she insisted, oblivious to my internal pleas. “So much so that when he heard about that Neville boy and his bullies beating Henry within an inch of his life that fall, he decided not to come back here.”

My head snapped up so fast, I heard my neck crack. “
What
?”

Her eyes narrowed. “Henry didn’t tell you?”

“No,” I managed. I’d been reaching for my tea cup, but I had to retract my hand and wedge it between my knees because it had begun to shake. “No, he said Johnny had cut all ties, not that he—” I couldn’t even say it.

“Oh, yes.” Annie sat back in her chair and looked grim. “Henry admitted to Johnny Neville he was in love with… a boy. Johnny nearly killed him, went completely off his rocker. Nearly went to jail for it too, but in the end, Dr. McCavanaugh didn’t press charges. I’m guessing that was mostly Henry’s doing. That boy was too good for this world even then. And people, well, most forgot why it happened, but not that it
had
.”

“Oh my God, Annie.” I felt sick. My eye sockets were throbbing. “That was the fall I told Dad I’m—” When I didn’t finish, Annie put a dry hand on my arm, and I looked up. Her kind eyes were twinkling underneath those white eyebrows. It struck me she must’ve been very beautiful in her youth. And fun to be around.

“I know,” she said. “He told me when he called to say you wouldn’t be back. And I’ll say one more thing, Jason. I’ve never seen Henry McCavanaugh look at another boy the way he used to look at you.” I covered my face with my hands.

I had come out to Dad, who’d heard about Henry being gay-bashed, and in an attempt to protect me, he kept me away from danger. All this time, and this was the secret Henry’d been keeping. I didn’t quite understand why he had chosen not to tell me, unless it was to hide how long he’d harbored feelings for me. And I’d managed to royally fuck things up without even letting him know it was mutual.

Annie switched subjects and talked about her nephew Ron, giving me a chance to pull myself together. Deputy Ron apparently had an ill-advised and deeply unrequited crush on straight and married Sheriff Curtis.