Free East Hope by Katharine Davis Page A

worry. He knew his mother had longed to travel. She had come from a more affluent home and had spent her junior year of college in Paris. Will remembered arguments over his brother, Rusty, who was not a strong student and prone to falling in with a rough crowd in high school. His parents didn’t always agree on how to handle their older son. Still, they had stuck by each other.
    When Will had had his back problem in the tenth grade, his dad had told him not to give up. “Son, you can’t play football like Rusty, but there are other sports.” Following in his brother’s footsteps, varsity quarterback, might have been impossible anyway, but Will had discovered running, a sport he enjoyed to this day. “Look on the bright side.” “Don’t give up.” “Try harder.” These were the maxims of his growing up.
    He and Mary Beth had been so happy in Maine. The details of their honeymoon were sharp and real in his mind; he could still see it like a movie running in his head: mornings spent with Mary Beth, cuddled in bed, no hurry to get up, the thick fog that settled over them. He never forgot that place.
    Mary Beth and Will had married over Labor Day weekend, a small family affair at Mary Beth’s home in New Jersey. She and her mother had planned the entire wedding, and he had been happy to leave it to them. He said he’d take charge of the weeklong honeymoon, before he started his teaching job in Pennsylvania. When he told Mary Beth about his idea for Maine, he thought he saw the slightest flicker of disappointment in her face. She had been hinting for Bermuda or the Bahamas. She grew more enthusiastic when he described the cottage on the cove, lobster suppers, and cozy nights by the fire. They’d driven up the New England coast to the small home owned by his college roommate’s family.
    One morning three or four days into the trip, the fog that had stayed all week remained draped over them; the dampness seemed to seep through the walls. Will got up first and pulled on jeans and a flannel shirt.
    â€œI’ll go light the fire.”
    â€œUmm.” Mary Beth didn’t move. He pulled the covers up around her pale skin, loving the way her body almost disappeared into the white sheets and the contrast of her hair, a shock of darkness on the rumpled bed. She had a neat, well-proportioned figure, though her breasts were large for her small frame. Will had stared down at her. He could barely pull himself away.
    The living room of the cottage was plain, almost austere. The owners of these old summer cottages were secure in the knowledge that they had far grander houses elsewhere; this simplicity was part of the message—the occupants had no need to show off to the world. The living room had a sensible clutter of mismatched furniture, two butterfly chairs, a wicker love seat that creaked when you sat, and a collection of wooden side chairs, two pulled up to a card table next to a shelf of jigsaw puzzles. Floor-to-ceiling shelves loaded with books gave the room a papery, library-like smell. The book covers were muted and looked like novels from the fifties or earlier. Will had finished reading the books he had brought with him and planned to take some time today to see what was there.
    He knelt and made balls of newspaper from a stack on the floor, then layered three logs on top. He found matches on the mantel and the paper easily ignited. Watching to see if the logs would catch fire, he shivered and listened to the soft hiss of burning newsprint and was gratified a few minutes later by a cat’s tail of smoke curling up the chimney.
    Next he went to run a bath for Mary Beth. The only bathroom, a large square room at the top of the stairs, had no shower, only a claw-foot tub sitting under the window like a genial animal.
    â€œThe tub’s ready,” he called out. This had become their morning routine.
    Mary Beth shuffled into the bathroom and Will pulled off