The Noel Stranger Read online

  Watching him work reminded me of my father. He was good with his hands and was always repairing things—something Clive never did. The truth was, Clive was domestically challenged. When we first got married, he’d call a plumber if the toilet got clogged. I had to show him how to use a plunger.

  “May I get you some coffee?” I asked.

  “That would be nice. Just black, please. Or maybe a couple spoonfuls of milk if you have it.”

  A few minutes later, when I brought out his coffee, my quilt was neatly folded on the couch and he had already taped the sides of the plastic to the window.

  “This plastic is good material. I got it twelve years ago when I was remodeling the basement. It’s hard to find plastic this thick anymore. It’s nearly twenty mils.”

  I had no idea what that meant but I nodded appreciatively. Then he precariously climbed up on a chair to seal the top of the window.

  “You sure I can’t do that?” I said.

  “I’ve got it.”

  When he finished sealing the plastic, there was no more cold air coming through. I set down his coffee, then took his hand and helped him down from the chair.

  “I’ll take that coffee now.”

  “You’ve earned it,” I said, handing him the cup. He sat down on the couch and sipped it. “This is good coffee.”

  “Thank you. It’s a local roaster.”

  “I put your blanket right here.” He patted the quilt.

  “Thank you,” I said. “You even folded it.”

  He took a few more sips, then looked at the window. “Yes, that’s some quality Visqueen there. Like I said, it’s good thick stuff. It’s got an R-factor close to window glass, maybe even a four.”

  Again, I had no idea what he was talking about.

  “Thank you,” I said. “You’re very kind.”

  “That’s what neighbors are for,” he replied. He took another sip of coffee. “Yes, that’s a fine brew. You’ll have to tell Leisa what kind it is when she brings your plates back. Those cookies you baked for us sure were tasty.”

  “I’m glad you liked them,” I said. “I was so sorry to learn about your son.”

  His expression fell. He set down his coffee and said, “That tape should hold a few weeks, but I wouldn’t put off replacing the window too long.” He stood. “I best get back to Leisa. She gets worried if I stay too long at a pretty girl’s house. And she’s got her own honey-do list I need to get started on.” He put his hand through the roll of duct tape, lifted the roll of plastic, and walked to the door. “Have a good day,” he said. “And have a happy holiday.”

  “To you too,” I said. “And your wife.”

  “I’ll pass on your sentiments.”

  I watched him carefully make his way down my icy walk. Then I shut the door behind him. What a kind, broken man, I thought.

  CHAPTER

  Thirty-Four

  Once again, my life needs a reset button.

  —Maggie Walther’s Diary

  I spent the rest of the day in bed reading, doing my best to escape the new reality I’d been tossed headlong into. I didn’t know if I could go through this all over again. I didn’t want to isolate myself anymore; I just wanted to run as far away as possible. I started thinking about moving out of state. Maybe I should have thought of it before; I just didn’t know where I’d go. At first, all I could think of was Cabo, which only made me feel worse.

  I considered going back to Ashland. I knew Ashland might be hell, but it was, at least, a hell I was familiar with. And, right now, it couldn’t be as bad as Salt Lake. At least strangers in Ashland wouldn’t pass any judgment on my life.

  I hadn’t seen my father for nine years—not since my wedding. I wondered what he was like now. I’ve seen men mellow as they age. I’m sure a psychiatrist would have had a field day with this, but I suppose some part of me still wanted to earn his approval. Or maybe the idea of going back was just another form of self-flagellation for all my poor decisions.

  I wondered what my father would say if I came back. Most likely it would be some type of “I told you so.” He wouldn’t even have to say it: it would just shine from his eyes. He loved being proved right. He used to say, “I’m never wrong. It’s the facts that get mixed up.”

  He had never liked Clive, though that didn’t surprise me. Clive wasn’t his type of man. In fact, he didn’t consider him a man. My father called him “a slick-boy politician with a pretty mouth,” which I’m sure was one of the worst insults Dad could think of. The morning of my wedding he said to me, “That pretty boy of yours needs to spend a week on the side of a mountain with me hunting bear. That’ll grow him some chest hair.”

  My father was big on chest hair. When I was younger—before I physically matured—he was always saying things would “grow me chest hair.” When I told him I didn’t want chest hair, he just laughed. “Why not, you ain’t got nothing else on it.”

  Was I really considering going back to that? Was I that desperate? It was like most of my life: my plans weren’t about where I was going but about what I was running from. The cycle just continued. I was ready to give it all up—my home, my business, my life in Utah—just to escape the daily reminders of pain, reminders which had started with Clive but had since moved on to another man.

  Andrew. Or Aaron, or whatever his name was. I couldn’t stop thinking about him. It’s easy to say that the pain of losing him was disproportionate to the time I had known him, but hearts don’t always work like that. I have seen people walk away from fifty-year-old marriages without looking back, and I’ve seen hearts broken over week-long affairs. I had only known him for three weeks and my heart felt truly in peril. I had fallen in deep. Still, it was better to lose him now than later. I once heard it said that “It’s best to dismiss bad love at the door, instead of after it has moved into the heart and unpacked all its suitcases.” Why couldn’t he just have been who I thought he was?

  Around midnight, I made plans to return to Oregon. I had no idea how long I would stay. Maybe a day, maybe forever. The drive was a little over seven hundred miles, which I could do in twelve hours. If I left at eight a.m., I would get there a few hours after dark. I decided I would leave on Sunday morning.

  CHAPTER

  Thirty-Five

  I’ve made a big mistake. Again. I’m getting good at it.

  —Maggie Walther’s Diary

  I called Carina the next morning to tell her I was leaving.

  “How long will you be gone?” she asked.

  “I don’t know yet.”

  “You’re not talking about a permanent move . . .”

  “I don’t know yet.”

  “I don’t want to talk about this. You can’t leave.”

  “There’s no reason for me to stay.”

  “No reason? Your home is here.”

  “It doesn’t feel like home anymore.”

  “You have your business.”

  “You’re already handling that.”

  She sounded exasperated. “What about your friends?”

  “There’s just you,” I said.

  “Just?” she repeated. “That was hurtful.”

  “You know I didn’t mean it like that.”

  There was a long pause, then Carina’s voice came in pained realization. “When are you leaving?”

  “Sunday morning,” I said.

  “You’re not even going to say good-bye?”

  “I’ll see you before I go. And I’ll be back,” I said. “There are things I’d need to do before I left for good. Business things. We’ll have time together.”

  We were both silent for a moment, then Carina said, “I don’t know what else to say. I understand why you want to leave. I couldn’t go through what you’re going through. I just think it’s so wrong that you have to bear this.”

  “Life happens,” I said. “By the way, I called Scott and told him to give you a Christmas bonus of all of November and December’s profits.”

  “That’s too mu
ch,” Carina said.

  “No. You earned it.”

  “Maggie?”

  “Yes?”

  “I hope you’re not serious about staying in Oregon. You’re not the only one short on friends.”

  We said good-bye and I went to shower. I was drying my hair when someone knocked on my door. (I don’t know why almost no one used the doorbell. I’m not really complaining; it’s just a mystery to me.) I quickly pulled on my jeans and sweater and walked out to the foyer, hoping it wasn’t another reporter. I unbolted the door and opened it.

  It was Andrew. He was wearing a leather jacket with a tweed scarf, his hands in his pockets. For a moment we just looked at each other.

  “Hi,” he said, his breath clouding before him.

  “Hi,” I returned softly.

  He nervously cleared his throat. “I read about Clive in the paper. I just wanted to make sure you were all right.”

  I nodded. “I’m okay.”

  He sniffed. “Good. I just wanted to make sure.”

  “Do you want to come in?” I asked.

  He looked at me cautiously. “You sure you want that?”

  “No,” I said. “Do you want to come in?”

  He hesitated a moment, then stepped inside. Noticeably, he didn’t hug or even touch me. I shut the door behind him. He looked over at my bandaged window. “The paper said someone threw a brick through your window.”

  I nodded. “Yeah. That was a nice addition to yesterday morning.”

  “You weren’t hurt, were you?”

  “No. Just frightened.”

  “I’m sorry. People are crazy.”

  “Would you like some coffee?” I asked.

  “No, I was just dropping by on the way to work.”

  “I’ve missed you.”

  He looked like he didn’t know how to respond. After our last encounter I’m certain he was confused.

  “I’ve missed you too.”

  “I’ll make us some coffee.”

  We went into the kitchen. Andrew sat down at the table. “Did they catch who threw the brick?”

  “No. I doubt they will.”

  “Whoever did it must have thought that Clive was still living here.”

  “I assume so. I don’t know why anyone would want to throw a brick at me.” I looked at him. “Except you. You probably want to throw a brick at me.”

  He didn’t smile.

  “That was a joke,” I said.

  He still didn’t smile. I brought our coffee over and sat down. “The police asked me if I had an upset ex-husband or ex-boyfriend. I told him I had both. I wouldn’t give him your name.”

  “Is that who I am? Your ex-boyfriend?”

  I didn’t know how to answer that. “I forgot your sugar.” I got up, got the sugar tin, and carried it over to the table, then sat back down.

  “Thank you,” he said without looking at me. He took out two of my homemade sugar cubes and dropped them into his coffee. He drank for a moment in silence, then said, “What happened, Maggie? I don’t know what’s going on. I mean, you told me you loved me and now you won’t talk to me.”

  “I know,” I said softly. “It’s complicated.”

  “I can do complicated. What I can’t do is not knowing what I did wrong.”

  “You didn’t do anything wrong,” I said. I breathed out slowly. “I was afraid.” I looked back up into his eyes. “I was afraid of getting hurt again. I’ve been hurt too much.”

  He gazed at me with a confused expression. “What made you think I would hurt you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  He leaned forward. “You can tell me.”

  I swallowed. “I’m afraid to tell you.”

  “What are you afraid of? Losing me? Because as things are, you already have.”

  Tears came to my eyes. Then I said, “Okay. I’ll tell you.”

  He sat back in his chair.

  I took a deep breath to compose myself. “It started the last day in Cabo when you sent me to get the passports. In that drawer, there was an electric bill with your name on it. I couldn’t figure out why it was in your name. Then I wondered if it really was your condo and it made me think you were lying to me.” I looked down. “It made me wonder what else you were hiding from me.”

  He thought for a moment. “And then I forgot to tell you about my flight to Denver.” He took another swallow of coffee, then looked up at me and said, “The condo was part mine, once. Now it belongs to my brother.”

  “I should have just asked.”

  His expression didn’t change. “There’s more, isn’t there?”

  “Yes.”

  “Just tell me.”

  I felt like he was asking me to take a step off a very high cliff. I knew that once I was over the edge there was no turning back.

  “Please,” he said. “Give me a chance to explain.”

  I got up and walked to my room and retrieved the newspaper article that Carina had given me. I came back to the table and set it down in front of him.

  He lifted the paper. He read through it, then set it back down. “I guess that explains it.” He looked at me, his eyes dark and pained. “You think this is me?”

  “It’s your picture.”

  “Did you read the whole article?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you read the part that said his first chance at parole was in two years?” He pushed the article to me. “Look at the date of the article. It hasn’t been two years yet. The man in the picture is still in prison.” He sighed. “That’s my brother. We’re identical twins. He’s being paroled in eight days. On the ninth.”

  For a moment I was speechless. “You’re a twin?”

  “Identical twins,” he said.

  How could I have been so stupid?

  “Five years ago my brother and I started a business together. Hill Brothers Management. We were venture capitalists. We raised money for start-ups—risky, blue-sky opportunities. We were good at it, but Aaron was the brains behind it all. He had a sixth sense.

  “Our first year in business we backed an investment that our investors weren’t especially excited about—a little plastic gizmo that separates the wires on phone chargers. It did better than anyone expected. A lot better. Our client sold millions of them online at five dollars each. By the time everyone else started marketing their own version, he had sold more than twenty million units.”

  “I have one of those,” I said.

  “I know, I noticed it that night I brought your tree,” he said. He settled a little in his chair. “We were riding pretty high. Everyone involved was making money. But some people can’t leave well enough alone. Our investors got greedy, and since Aaron was making the most profit on these deals, they staged a coup and pushed him out of his own firm. Not both of us, just him.”

  “How could they do that?”

  “It’s complex,” he said. “But the bottom line is, he was too trusting. It had never occurred to him that the people he had done the most for would be the first to turn on him.”

  His words made my stomach hurt. He could have been describing me.

  “As if that wasn’t bad enough, a week later he found out that his wife had been having an affair with one of the investors. Everyone he trusted had turned against him. Everyone.

  “He was hurt, but he didn’t quit. He started his own firm. Just him. With his record, investors threw money at him. But that’s when things started to go wrong. Large amounts of money and a broken soul don’t go well together. Things began to unravel. He started drinking heavily. Then, when his new projects weren’t panning out, he started siphoning money to offshore accounts. He had moved over thirty million before he was caught.”

  “How was he caught?” I asked.

  “He turned himself in. He didn’t have the heart of a crook.” He breathed out slowly. “His original company went under. That was no surprise. Aaron had always been the brains behind it. It had already started floundering soon after he left. Then, with a
ll the media his trial generated, the Hill name wasn’t just tarnished, it was poisoned. That’s why I left the state. There was nothing I could do there.”

  I sat quietly processing it all. “How is your brother doing?”

  “About as well as you would expect for someone in prison. Thankfully it’s not the usual correctional facility filled with violent offenders, but it’s still prison . . .” He suddenly got emotional. “I’m all the family he has. The only time I’m allowed to see him is visiting hours Saturday morning. That’s why I go back to Denver every week.”

  I looked at him. “I didn’t know.”

  “You just needed to ask,” he said quietly.

  “I was just so afraid that I was being lied to. I was so stupid.”

  Andrew sat quietly thinking, then he said, “No. You’re not stupid. You were right to protect yourself. You deserve the truth.” He abruptly stood. “You were right, Maggie. This never could have worked.” He walked to the door.

  I was stunned. I got up and went after him, stopping him as he opened the door. “Andrew, I’m sorry. I know I screwed up. Please give me another chance. Please. I love you.”

  “You don’t really know me.”

  “I do know you. I’ve seen your heart.”

  He looked at me with sad, vacant eyes, then took a deep breath. “What if I had been the one who stole the money? Knowing who I am now, would you have given me another chance? Could you have forgiven me?”

  I thought for a moment, then said, “I don’t know. But it wasn’t you. It’s not important.”

  His frown deepened. “It’s more important than you think.” He kissed me on the cheek, then turned and walked out the door. Now I was the one in the dark. Something told me I would never see him again.

  CHAPTER

  Thirty-Six

  I wish I wasn’t so good at getting in the way of my own happiness.

  —Maggie Walther’s Diary

  Late afternoon the following day, Carina sat quietly at the kitchen table across from me. She had come directly to my home from catering a wedding rehearsal lunch and was still wearing her black serving tunic. The newspaper article lay on the table between us.