Free The Northwoods Chronicles by Elizabeth Engstrom

to bed.
    “Make love to me,” Sadie Katherine said, and
tugged gently on his T-shirt.
    “I don’t know that I can,” he said.
    She kissed him gently. “Please?”
    He snorted a sigh that sounded part frustration,
part resignation, part inadequacy of words, but she ran her fingers
up his strong, hairy arm and lightly skidded them over the tough
beard on his jawline. “I know you’re—”
    “Shhh,” she said, and lifted up on an elbow to
kiss him.
    One of those big hands, those marvelous hands,
slid around her waist and pulled her to him as he turned over on
his side. He kissed the hollow of her throat, and she closed her
eyes and luxuriated in every sensation.
    Pay attention, she thought to herself. Be
present every moment and listen to the music.
    And as symphonies have moved people to tears for
as long as there have been symphonies, Sadie Katherine was crying
by the time Doc entered her and she felt that completing fullness
only a woman can experience. She let the tears flow, and they moved
together in rhythm and harmony. When it was over, she mourned for
the loss of it, but all good things eventually come to an end.
    All good things eventually come to an end.
    She would have talked with Doc about it then,
when they had disengaged and disentangled, but he cupped one of her
breasts in his big hand and began to softly snore.
    Remember this, she thought, not only the
physical sensation, but the feeling of warmth, and safety, and
love.
    But then, all good things eventually come to an
end.
    When the gibbous moon shone through the bedroom
window, Doc turned away from her, snoring the deep sleep of the
unencumbered.
    Sadie Katherine slipped out of bed and into
jeans and a sweater. She carried her shoes to the front porch,
where Cane thumped his big tail in greeting. She tangled her
fingers in his thick fur and smelled deeply of the salty scent of
him, then put on her shoes. “C’mon, boy, let’s go for a walk,” she
whispered.
    They walked together through the silent town,
shrouded in a light low fog and overseen by millions of stars. They
walked past the diner, and Sadie Katherine felt a twinge for
Margie. They walked past the motel, and she felt a sadness for Mort
and Natasha, and for Kenneth Cale, their guest.
    This was a community filled to the brim with
longing and grief.
    Was that a fact of the human condition?
    She and Cane got to the boat launch, and Sadie
Katherine swept mayflies from the picnic table in front of the
fish-cleaning shed, sat down on it and looked out over the water,
silvery in the moonlight. Cane jumped up and sat next to her. She
stroked his soft foot.
    “The longing is back,” she whispered to him. “I
thought I had escaped it. I yearned for so many years to touch the
blue of the sky that I actually did it. I’ve been doing it, Cane,
for years now, and it has been wonderful, but now it’s not enough.
It’s back, that horrible longing. It’s the blue in his eyes.
They’re the same color as the sky, and I can’t stand that.”
    Cane lay down and put his head on her knee as if
he understood. She scratched the top of his head and fingered the
soft fur of his thick, standup ears.
    “I can’t live with this longing and I can’t hurt
Doc.” With the words came the emotion, full-bodied and forceful.
Sobs shuddered through her, and in the middle of the horrible pain,
she managed to remember to feel it completely.
    She even heard the echoes of her pain as it flew
across the water and back again.
    “I don’t even know what I’m longing for,” she
cried, and buried her face in the dog’s fur. He stayed still and
calm as if he understood her need. When the sobbing subsided, she
wiped the tears from her face with the back of her hand, wiped them
across her lips and tasted the saltiness. Remember that, she
thought. “I just know that when the longing starts, it doesn’t
stop. If I have to live with it, I’ll have to do it where I won’t
hurt anybody else. I certainly can’t make Doc