Street are changing. It isnât just that the hundred-year-old hardware store, diner, and bait-and-tackle shop have received much-needed face-lifts.
Peking Panda has sprouted a kimono-clad hostess and a sushi bar. The new menu at Pizza Village is printed on leather-bound ivory parchment rather than laminated card stock, and includes Tuscan appetizers starting at $7.95. Belizziâs coffee shop has been replaced with an upscale cafeâalbeit not a Starbucks. Not yet, anyway. But there isnât a doughnut to be found in the new place, much to Leoâs chagrin. He isnât big on hazelnut biscotti.
She glances into the rearview mirror as she brakes to let a dog-walking stranger cross the street, doing her best to ignore her own haggard reflection: the off-center, crooked part in her long, bark-colored hair, the brown eyes free of makeup and underscored by dark hollows, the wide mouth that would benefit from a soothing layer of lip balm.
Gazing into the back seat in the mirror, she sees that her son is sound asleep in his car seat. Poor little guy. A full eight hours of day care is rough on him, especially when he hasnât been sleeping well at night.
Guilt seeps in, as always . . . along with weary rationale.
She has no choice about working full-time at the bookstore. Samâs meager insurance policy barely covers the essentials. Without her salary, she would have to sell the house.
Theyâre driving toward the outskirts of town now. The speed limit has risen to forty-five miles an hour. She stops at the last traffic light in Laurel Bay. Almost home now.
Waiting for it to change, she tells herself, as she always does, that selling the house is out of the question.
Forty-eight Shorewood Lane is all she has left of Sam, and that fleeting, happy time.
No. That isnât true. You have the kids.
And after all theyâve been through, the kids need a safe harbor even more than she does.
Lifting her foot from the brake, Rose pulls the car forward, driving another half mile or so before slowing gradually. The roads are well salted, but lately this corner has been especially slick. Must be some kind of water leak someplace. Ice.
Her hands clench the steering wheel.
The tires grip the icy pavement as she makes the turn.
Sheâs not sliding through the intersection.
But the thought that it could happen upsets her every time she drives through here when the temperature is below freezing.
The truth is, Rose knows itâs not just the threat of a fender-bender that sends waves of trepidation through her in cold weather.
Ice makes her think of that night. Of Samâs death.
Filled with longing for spring, yet cognizant that even its arrival canât possibly banish the constant reminders of the freak accident that robbed her of her husband, Rose heads south down Shorewood Lane.
The block is lined with unremarkable Victorian-era homes, most of them shingled in brownish-red cedar, with white trim. The houses are small, some little more than cottages, others angled by recent, tacked-on additions whose much darker or much lighter shingles sharply contrast the mellow, salt-burnished tone of the original exteriors.
Itâs been nearly a decade since she and Sam bought the small Queen Anneâstyle home on a quiet side street only blocks from the bay. They had such big plans for the place. Sam, after all, was a contractor. But business was booming; he was so busy with the city people renovating local homes that he never got around to much more than replacing the sagging front steps and starting the built-in floor-to-ceiling bookcases she always craved for the tiny nook off the living room.
The outer shells are thereâeight-foot rectangular wooden alcoves standing against two walls. Sam promised he would get to Home Depot for the brackets and wood for the shelves that weekend . . .
That weekend.
Itâs been more than a year, and still, there are times when she
Peking Panda has sprouted a kimono-clad hostess and a sushi bar. The new menu at Pizza Village is printed on leather-bound ivory parchment rather than laminated card stock, and includes Tuscan appetizers starting at $7.95. Belizziâs coffee shop has been replaced with an upscale cafeâalbeit not a Starbucks. Not yet, anyway. But there isnât a doughnut to be found in the new place, much to Leoâs chagrin. He isnât big on hazelnut biscotti.
She glances into the rearview mirror as she brakes to let a dog-walking stranger cross the street, doing her best to ignore her own haggard reflection: the off-center, crooked part in her long, bark-colored hair, the brown eyes free of makeup and underscored by dark hollows, the wide mouth that would benefit from a soothing layer of lip balm.
Gazing into the back seat in the mirror, she sees that her son is sound asleep in his car seat. Poor little guy. A full eight hours of day care is rough on him, especially when he hasnât been sleeping well at night.
Guilt seeps in, as always . . . along with weary rationale.
She has no choice about working full-time at the bookstore. Samâs meager insurance policy barely covers the essentials. Without her salary, she would have to sell the house.
Theyâre driving toward the outskirts of town now. The speed limit has risen to forty-five miles an hour. She stops at the last traffic light in Laurel Bay. Almost home now.
Waiting for it to change, she tells herself, as she always does, that selling the house is out of the question.
Forty-eight Shorewood Lane is all she has left of Sam, and that fleeting, happy time.
No. That isnât true. You have the kids.
And after all theyâve been through, the kids need a safe harbor even more than she does.
Lifting her foot from the brake, Rose pulls the car forward, driving another half mile or so before slowing gradually. The roads are well salted, but lately this corner has been especially slick. Must be some kind of water leak someplace. Ice.
Her hands clench the steering wheel.
The tires grip the icy pavement as she makes the turn.
Sheâs not sliding through the intersection.
But the thought that it could happen upsets her every time she drives through here when the temperature is below freezing.
The truth is, Rose knows itâs not just the threat of a fender-bender that sends waves of trepidation through her in cold weather.
Ice makes her think of that night. Of Samâs death.
Filled with longing for spring, yet cognizant that even its arrival canât possibly banish the constant reminders of the freak accident that robbed her of her husband, Rose heads south down Shorewood Lane.
The block is lined with unremarkable Victorian-era homes, most of them shingled in brownish-red cedar, with white trim. The houses are small, some little more than cottages, others angled by recent, tacked-on additions whose much darker or much lighter shingles sharply contrast the mellow, salt-burnished tone of the original exteriors.
Itâs been nearly a decade since she and Sam bought the small Queen Anneâstyle home on a quiet side street only blocks from the bay. They had such big plans for the place. Sam, after all, was a contractor. But business was booming; he was so busy with the city people renovating local homes that he never got around to much more than replacing the sagging front steps and starting the built-in floor-to-ceiling bookcases she always craved for the tiny nook off the living room.
The outer shells are thereâeight-foot rectangular wooden alcoves standing against two walls. Sam promised he would get to Home Depot for the brackets and wood for the shelves that weekend . . .
That weekend.
Itâs been more than a year, and still, there are times when she
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