Free Simple Riches by Mary Campisi Page B

open, bleeding? Probably not. How could there be? He’d mourned her more when she was alive than when she was dead. He’d lost his wife long before the smoke from the fire sucked out her last breath. And that’s where the guilt crept in, housed itself in the corner of his conscience and tortured him.
    A good husband would have been able to keep his wife happy. A better husband would have kept her safe. Obviously, Nick had been neither.
    “Who’s the woman with Chuck and Edna?” he asked, curious once again about the mystery woman.
    “Woman?” His mother lifted a ladle, spooned sauce over the lasagna. “Oh. Edna called and asked if she could bring her new tenant with her.”
    “Relative of hers? Niece?”
    She shook her head. “No, just someone passing through. Doing some kind of research on the town or something like that.”
    The last time someone came under the guise of research, two years ago, Nick had booted him out when he discovered the man was only interested in gathering data to try and undermine the lumber company. “She better not be another one of those ‘Save the trees’ people.” Every year, Androvich Lumber received letters from different factions, protesting the cutting of trees. And every year, the company issued a statement regarding their conservation of natural resources policy—how they selected sites to be cut, the need to thin areas to permit maximum growth, alternating sites, re-planting programs and a general education pamphlet. Last year, three people showed up with signs that read, “We Are The Trees”, “Save Mother Tree”, “Treed No More”, and camped in front of Androvich Lumber for three days. The whole town talked about them, two men and a woman, with ponytails and white robes, carrying signs and chanting. Nick tried to talk with them, get them to understand the company’s position on supporting conservation. Michael was less diplomatic—he threatened to drag them by their ponytails out of Restalline. In the end, their own indiscretions got them booted out of town with the threat of jail if they ever came back—rolling joints, offering them to fifteen-and sixteen-year-old girls, trying to persuade the same girls to “explore the group’s bodies and get in touch with their emotions.” In other words, sex. Nick and Michael had intervened and the trio was gone in forty-five minutes; tent dismantled, pulled up by the stakes and tossed into a beat-up Ford, “Save the Trees” posters broken and thrown into the fire, weed confiscated and burned, girls delivered to their homes. Nice, neat, complete, without raising a voice. Michael, being Michael, couldn’t let them leave without what he considered a proper farewell, fitting the occasion—he punched the leader in the jaw and bloodied the other man’s nose. Take that you sonofabitchin’ pervert .
    That was last summer. Nothing since. There had only been one other time when an outsider threatened the quiet existence of Restalline. Her name was Deborah. She just showed up one day, about a year after Caroline’s death, said she was looking to unwind from the frantic life in the city. Her hair was the same pale gold as Caroline’s and her eyes the same blue. But she wasn’t interested in relaxing or anything else, except a story of how the wife of a medical student burned to death in her home while her husband put in yet another shift at the hospital. The questions were subtle at first, casual. I heard your wife died last year. How tragic that you have a baby son to raise, alone. And then, Do you want to talk about it? I’m a great listener. Was it an accident? Do you think— just the right amount of hesitancy here— it could have been prevented? It wasn’t intentional… was it? At this point, the real Deborah surfaced and he knew she hadn’t picked Restalline by coincidence. You worked so many hours. Maybe she was depressed, with being alone so much of the time. Doctors are never home, are they? Maybe it was too