Chasing the Wind (9 page)

They drove down Broadway until Amalise said "There!" and pointed to his left, across the street. Jude slowed the car in front of a house with a
For Sale
sign standing in the yard. A car was parked on the street, with a woman sitting at the wheel, waiting. The real estate agent, he supposed.

After making a U-turn, he looked at the small green clapboard cottage with a porch across the front, half-hidden by a neat sidewalk hedge, and his heart sank because he knew she would buy it. The yard was small, and there was a driveway on the right, leading to a garage in the back. He parked on the street behind the agent's car.

Inside, sunshine streamed in through a row of windows on the left of a long narrow hallway. Green morning glory vines crept around the edges of the windows. Amalise walked slowly down the hall in silence, stopping to examine the rooms to her right. The living room had a fireplace and ceiling-to-floor windows that opened onto the front porch. The bedroom had a set of built-in bookcases that looked like they'd been custom built for her.

The old Amalise would have spun around, eyes shining, Jude thought. She'd have been eager, would have spilled the beans to the real estate agent about how she loved the house, how she would buy it immediately and pay the asking price.

But the widow of Phillip Sharp was cooler now. Her eyes swept everything at random as they walked through the house. She strolled, finger to her lips, inspecting everything with élan, and only Jude knew that already she was imagining her furniture in this place, her books on the shelves, measuring for pictures on the walls.

At the end of the hallway they entered an octangular dining room, and beyond that was a second bedroom on the right and an outdated kitchen to the left. Another porch crossed the back of the house, the right side enclosed by a wooden lattice covered in vines.

"Good shade on a hot summer day," the agent said.

"Yes, it can get hot all right," Amalise replied in her new, distant tone.

Jude stood back as she walked casually down the steps into the back yard, a square of lush green grass enclosed by a wooden fence. She said she liked the yard without cracking a smile, and the agent gave her a nervous look. Jude watched, astounded by Amalise's aplomb.

"The asking price is sixty thousand," the agent said as they turned back to the house.

"I'll offer fifty," Amalise said, cool as you please. "Cash."

"I'll get back to you," the agent said, smiling.

By the end of the day the deal was done. They met at fifty-four. Still, Jude knew the price was high given the market downturn. She could have offered less. But when Amalise wanted something, she went for it with everything she had.

Amalise sat at her desk late that afternoon after Jude had dropped her off, thinking. Jude had offered the empty apartment in his house, rent free. He thought she was being stubborn about buying the house on Broadway, she knew. But he was wrong. Despite this love she'd finally recognized for Jude, the years with Phillip had left her with an almost physical longing for a place of her own, a place set apart from the world. The new house would be her fortress for a while. She was sick of psychological turmoil, the kind she'd endured in her marriage with Phillip. The house she'd seen on Kerlerec Street in Marigny had made up her mind about having a home of her own.

From her desk she picked up the memorandum of transaction terms—the Black Diamond term sheet—that she should be reading, and saw instead the family in that house on Kerlerec. Everything in that scene had roots—the kind she'd had while growing up in Marianus. The children playing in the yard. The mother on the porch, calling them inside when night fell. And the father? She imagined him coming home after dark, swinging one of the boys up onto his shoulders.

Project Black Diamond would destroy all of that.

She told herself it wouldn't be so bad. As Jude had said, cities constantly grow and expand and change. That was the nature of progress.

Put things in perspective, Amalise. Prioritize. Be practical.
This second chance at life was a gift of grace she couldn't waste. She told herself that Abba would lead her through this maze, even when, as now, she didn't fully understand.

Jude was right.

Jude . . .

Still holding onto the term sheet, she dropped her head into her hands. She'd seen the look in Rebecca's eyes when she'd spotted Jude's picture moved to the place of honor behind Amalise's desk on her first day back at work. And since she'd returned from Marianus, Amalise had to admit that Jude mentioned Rebecca frequently in their conversations. Were they really just friends, or had she just been deliberately blind?

Seconds passed and at last she put the term sheet down and turned to face the window. Since the accident, during her recovery, she'd convinced herself that Jude's constant attention was a sign that he preferred to spend time with her instead of Rebecca. But now . . .

Gripping the seat of the chair, she swiveled it from side to side, sensing there was something she'd missed. And then it struck her all at once: Jude was kind. He was thoughtful. But the accident had been partly his fault. That's what she hadn't seen before.

Of course that was it. The car that hit her was his own. Jude had merely done what he thought was right. His conscience had driven him to spend all that time with her over the past few months.

A hollow feeling grew inside. She stared out the window, seeing nothing. Why hadn't she realized it before?

Shaking her head at her own stupidity, she sat there turning this new thought over in her mind for a very long time. She'd been so self-absorbed, engrossed in her own little world for the past few months. And taking Jude for granted.

As the sun went down, reflections on the windows across the street turned to gold, but today she didn't care. Was Jude really in love with Rebecca? Even as she asked herself the question, she realized that she already knew the answer. Forced to imagine a future without him, she found that she couldn't. That was impossible. Shadows moved in an office across the way, and then the lights switched off and the shadows disappeared.

At last she straightened and turned back to her desk. She looked down at the term sheet. This is what she should be focusing on right now. This was her work, her future. She didn't have time right now to think about Jude and Rebecca. Hands flat, she smoothed the first of the stapled pages. Inside were complicated issues and ideas that would take time to understand, the agreed-upon terms for Project Black Diamond. This was the work she loved. Thoughts of Jude and Rebecca could wait.

Prioritize, Amalise.

She picked up the term sheet and began to read.

Focus.

Amalise paid cash and moved in right away, pending the closing. Jude had helped her move.

On the first night in her new home, she sat quietly alone in the living room. Sounds from outside—the whoosh of the Broadway bus, cars rolling by, crickets, and night birds—all seemed to surround and protect her, creating a solitary calm, a sense of starting over on her own terms. She turned her head toward the fireplace. She had no firewood, but the fireplace worked and it was hers. She studied the pictures of Mama and Dad that she'd hung on the walls, and one of Jude lifting her from the skiff. The skiff had been tied at Dad's pier in Marianus, and in the photo she was laughing as Jude swung her through the air.

There it was, that swell of emotion again.

The porch windows were open, and the long, sheer white curtains that Jude had hung for her moved in the soft night breeze. She worried her lower lip.

Abruptly she rose from the couch. The transaction at work was gearing up, gaining speed like a runaway train. She would grab something to eat from the kitchen and go back to the office for a few hours. That was one thing about being free—there was no one around to object to an unreasonable work schedule. And that's what it would take to succeed at the firm, that extra push.

She wanted to be in the engine, helping to drive the train at Mangen & Morris one day, not riding in the caboose.