Love in Maine (27 page)

Hank pulled the car up in front of a small general store when they pulled into Wellfleet.
They filled a hand basket with some vegetables, milk, coffee, a bottle of wine, and
some pasta. A few minutes later, they were back in the car, and Hank turned it down
an unpaved lane that ended at a quintessential shake-shingle Cape Cod home, with the
sea extending beyond it in every direction. The trim around the windows and doors
was a bright white against the patina of age that the salt air had imparted to the
cedar shingles over the passage of time.

They grabbed their luggage and the groceries, and walked into the house.

“No key?” Maddie asked.

“No. My friend has someone who lives nearby and checks on the place and opened it
for us.”

“You were pretty confident I would just fall into your arms, huh?” They were unpacking
the groceries in the old farm kitchen. The red countertops looked cheerful and enduring,
like someone had thought they would be a really good idea in 1960.

“Either that or I’d need to drown my sorrows in a lost weekend of blackout drinking.
So, I figured I’d need this place either way.” He was joking, but Maddie felt the
idea of Hank at that level of misery lance through her. She walked up behind him where
he was setting the fruit and vegetables into a large wooden bowl on the counter.

“Let’s forget the blackout drinking part and have our own lost weekend.” She began
to unbutton his pants, reaching around from behind and undoing the belt buckle. He
stopped organizing the produce and put his hands flat on the counter and his forehead
against the wood kitchen cabinet.

“Maddie . . .”

“
Mmm-hmmm
.” She had her hips pressed against his ass and her eyes closed, the better to feel
the metal of his belt buckle against her trembling fingertips as she unfastened it.

“Maddie . . .” he whispered, strained.

“
Mmmmmm
.” She turned and rested her cheek against his back.

He whipped around, buttoned his pants quickly, and lifted her up into his arms. “Let
the weekend begin!” He strode out of the kitchen and into the living room. “We’re
not going to make it to the bedroom.” He tossed her down on the huge sofa and undid
his pants. “We’re not even going to make it to getting-our-clothes-off.”

Maddie laughed at his blind enthusiasm. “I love you like this,” she said, breathless.

He got onto the couch and poised himself above her. “I love you all the time,” he
said quietly.

Hank leaned down and kissed her, driving them both higher and higher, and finally,
home.

When she recovered from the onslaught of their lovemaking, she turned to see Hank
kneeling on the floor next to the sofa. He was holding a very old-looking gold ring
in his hand, moving it around and around like he always did with his keys.

“What is that?” Maddie asked softly.

His eyes flew up. He looked so disheveled and gorgeous. Maddie felt languid and beautiful
when he looked at her like that.

“I had imagined this on the beach at sunset, with me on my knees or something stupid
like that, but I just can’t wait another minute.” He shrugged and looked down at his
mussed-up self, as if it couldn’t be helped.

Maddie started crying before he even finished talking. “You look okay,” she choked
out.

“Madison Post, will you marry me?”

She threw her arms around his neck and pulled him back on top of her. “You know I
will . . . Yes-yes-yes-yes-yes . . .” She kissed him and pulled him onto her, loving
the weight of his body pressing her deeper into the sofa.

His smile was so grand. She wanted to make him smile like that every chance she got.
Forever. He laughed and slipped the wide gold band onto her ring finger.

“It’s kind of clunky, and it’s not really an engagement ring . . .”

She looked confused. “I mean, there’s not going to be a second ring, so it’s sort
of a combination engagement and wedding ring.”

She looked down at the ancient gold ring, trying to focus on the tiny inscriptions
that swirled around the rounded gold.

“Why does this look familiar?”

“Because it’s from the Getty collection—”

She looked up horrified. “I can’t wear this—it’s too much, it’s priceless—”

Hank held her fluttering hands together to still her. “It’s a reproduction, but thanks
for thinking I could have pulled that off.”

She smiled and breathed a huge sigh. “Thank god. After the coin, I don’t know what
to think anymore . . .”

They lay there quietly for a few more minutes. “It’s perfect, Hank.” Maddie looked
up at the ring, where it sat on the hand she was extending behind his head. Solid
and enduring, like Hank. “Just perfect. You give really good present.”

He smiled and pulled the cuff of his shirt back to reveal the Blancpain Fifty Fathoms
watch. “I learned from a master.”

Maddie’s eyes lit up. “Oh my god, do you like it? Let me see it on you!” She grabbed
his hand and looked at the beautiful old watch against his strong forearm. She leaned
in and kissed the pulse point of his wrist. “I knew it would be perfect for you.”

They spent the rest of the afternoon and all day Sunday out on the beach and upstairs
in the big bed, with views to eternity across the tumultuous ocean and the windswept
dunes. Gradually, Hank told her in bits and pieces about the time he’d spent in the
military.

He told her what it felt like to walk into the Army recruiter’s office on his eighteenth
birthday and sign away the next three years of his life. And how he thought he was
doing something really valorous and philanthropic, but how he also hoped to get as
much out of that experience as he possibly could, to wring the meaning out of it.
He told her about boot camp and how much he loved the order and regulation of everything.
Actions had consequences that actually related to those actions.

They were walking on the beach, the crisp Sunday morning breeze whipping around them.

“Unlike growing up in my house, where there were always consequences, but I never
knew where they came from. People got hurt. My father died. I could never do anything
to make it happen or stop it from happening. Then I was deployed, in Iraq the first
time, for two years. And again, I’d love to tell you it was miserable and hideous
and awful, but it wasn’t. I felt like I was really a part of something meaningful
for the first time in my life.”

Maddie squeezed his hand. “I know what you mean, I think. It’s how I feel when I’m
hitting my stroke in the quad scull. You’re a part of a machine, in the best possible
way.”

Hank smiled. “Exactly. And I was good at it. My commanding officer pulled me aside
toward the end of my deployment and asked if I had ever considered staying in the
Army and going to West Point to earn my college degree, to become an officer.”

Maddie smiled and squeezed his hand.

Hank turned to her quickly. “Yeah, chicks dig that part.”

“You are horrible,” Maddie said, trying to pull her hand away, but he held her to
him. “Just tell the story. I get it. You were hot shit and you couldn’t keep the babes
away with a stick.”

He shrugged, implying the truth was unassailable.

“Just go on already, hot stuff.”

“Okay. So, I didn’t want to deal with my mom’s constant pride-and-joy crap so I just
. . . never told her. And then the compartmentalizing got to be sort of second nature.
I was at West Point. I was writing letters to Mom, pretending I had gotten another
deployment in Bahrain. It wasn’t the end of the world. I told her I’d been sent to
do a desk job, and she was more relaxed that I was out of the line of fire and all
that.”

Maddie looked out to the sea. Away from him. She hated this part almost more than
whatever horrible military situation he was leading up to. How could he lie to his
mother? She tried to remember all the years he had suffered during Janet’s active
alcoholism and to sympathize with that level of mistrust and vulnerability. But it
was hard.

“I told her,” he said a few minutes later, into the silence.

“What?” Maddie turned back to face him.

“I told my mom about West Point last September, after I started seeing the therapist.
Keeping it from her was just juvenile and self-centered. She cried and then admitted
it was mostly because she would have done anything to see me in all my finery when
I graduated.”

Maddie smiled up at him. “I’m glad.”

“She was fine with it, Mad. I promise.”

Maddie looked into his eyes and realized it was all part of him, and he was moving
forward. She couldn’t expect any more than that without being the worst hypocrite
on the planet.

“I’m sorry I judged you.”

“Oh, cut it out. I was a tool. You’re not judging me unfairly.”

She smiled and shook her head. “So you’re all shiny and smart and a graduate of West
Point, and then what?”

His face clouded again, and she could tell it was hard. But, honestly, if he wasn’t
ready to tell her, in even the loosest, sketchiest language, where he had been for
those intervening years, he probably wasn’t ready to get married—

“My final year at West Point I got into diving. I had already studied engineering,
and that was when I worked on that project that was sold to your friend, Mr. Lodge’s,
company. It seemed like such a cool combination of physical and mental and . . . well,
anyway, it seemed like everything was coming together. So they ended up sending me
to Bahrain, which was ironic since I had made that up to tell my mom before I went
to West Point.”

“What was it like?”

“It was better than Iraq—I wasn’t getting shot at like the guys in Afghanistan, that
was for sure. So I worked on a lot of structural ordnance kind of stuff. Sounds boring
to a regular person, but you’d probably love it. Bridges and whatever. Anyway . . .”
He took another one of those really deep breaths followed by the really long exhale,
and turned to face Maddie.

She said, “Let’s go sit over by the dunes. You don’t have to tell me.”

“I want to.”

She smiled and situated herself between his thighs, reminded of Harvard Yard and telling
him she loved him. She shimmied her back up against his hard stomach and chest and
settled into him. She reached around to pull his arms around her.

It was still early afternoon, and the spring weather felt good against her skin. She
felt like she’d been in a tomb since the day she walked away from him at the Ritz
in September. They were both coming back to life.

They sat there on the beach for two hours while Hank held her and told her about the
bombs he’d planted on the bottom of the ship, and the words seemed to float up and
away from both of them, losing their power while Hank shared the misery and guilt
and conflicting emotions that went along with those actions. He talked a little bit
more about what it had been like for him in September and October, when he had finally
gone to the VA hospital in Augusta and talked to the therapist about how it was destroying
him. And how hard it was for him to be around people.

Mostly they breathed into each other and let all the words drift and hover in the
air around them. Eventually, he started to come around to the present, telling Maddie
about the research he was doing and how it was within an international military operation,
and that that was why he wasn’t able to tell her the details. He was working on a
nuclear submarine, so communication with the outside world was infrequent and difficult.

“At least I’m not handling any explosives,” he said finally.

“Would you tell me if you were?”

He laughed. “After everything I just told you, you think I wouldn’t tell you that?
It’s all strategic consulting at this point. And it’ll be finished in a few months.
I’ll be back August thirty-first. We’ll be together.” He squeezed her tighter against
him.

Over dinner Sunday night, they talked about long-term plans and where they wanted
to be.

“Where do you want to live when you get back?” Maddie asked, then put a bite of salad
into her mouth while she waited for him to answer. They were sitting in the kitchen,
Maddie in one of Hank’s gray T-shirts and Hank in a pair of loose athletic shorts.
They had pretty much given up getting dressed while they were indoors.

Hank looked out at the dark sea. “I don’t think I want to live in Maine. I think my
mom is good now, especially with Phil. What do you think? Where do you want to live?”

“I think, if I get this grant, I really want to go to Cyprus for the year. Would you
want to do that? Together, I mean?”

He smiled again. “I meant what I said in the car. I want to go where you are. We’ll
figure it out.”

After dinner, they curled up in the living room and pretended to read while they distracted
each other with light teasing caresses.

“What time do you have to be in class tomorrow?” Hank asked.

“Oh, not until the afternoon. I meet with my thesis advisor at four, but other than
that my schedule is clear. What about you? When do you have to go?”

“I need to be in Boston for a three o’clock flight. I was thinking . . .”

“
Mm-hmm
.” Maddie was half-listening and half-enjoying the feel of Hank’s lazy touch along
her forearm.

“I really want to meet your parents.”

Maddie turned to look into his eyes. “You do?”

“Yeah. I do. Can we stop by and see them tomorrow morning? Are they in Weston? Available
for lunch or something . . . ?”

Maddie kissed him. “They’ll make themselves available!” She jumped up and got her
cell phone. “You are practically famous. The coin was like the best calling card you
could have possibly presented. My father is dying to meet you,
the numismatist
, he calls you.”

“And the soon-to-be son-in-law . . .”

“Yes, there’s that.” Maddie smiled and talked while she hit the button for her parents’
phone number and then kept talking while she waited for them to pick up. “And my mom
is all aflutter because Lila Lodge told her how dreamy you were—Hey, Mom!” Maddie
smiled and widened her eyes at Hank.