"Good car, the Mustang," he said, nodding to himself, and again there was that intense sibilance on the S sound, like water dropped on a hot stove. "Me and the Mustang, we got a lot in common."

He moved closer to me, as if to share some deep, darkly funny secret. I could smell his breath on me, sweet and overripe as late-summer fruit.

"We both went to hell after nineteen seventy."

And then he laughed, a low hissing sound like gas escaping from a corpse. "Better take care of that car, make sure nothing happens to it," he said. "A man's got to look out for what's his. He should take care of his own business, and keep his nose out of other people's." He walked around the back of the car before entering the Cadillac, so I had to turn to watch him.

"Be seeing you again, Mr. Parker," he said. Then the Caddy started with a low, confident rumble and the car made an illegal left onto Congress and headed in the direction of downtown Portland.

CHAPTER FIVE

Roger didn't look too happy about being kept waiting for his food, because the permanent frown lines on his forehead had dipped by about half an inch by the time I got back.

"You were a coon's age," he muttered as he took the food. It was one of the longest sentences I had ever heard him speak.

I picked at my chicken and rice, but my appetite was gone. I was bothered by the appearance of the fat, bald man on Congress, although I couldn't tell why, exactly, apart from the fact that he knew my name and made my skin crawl.

Roger and I returned to the roof, a chill wind now forcing the pace a little so that we finished just as the light was starting to fade. I paid Roger and he nodded his thanks, then headed back to town. My fingers were numb from working on the roof but the job had to be done before the heavy snows came, or else I'd be living in an ice castle. I took a hot shower to remove the grit from my hair and fingers, and was just making a pot of coffee when I heard a car pull up outside.

For a moment, I didn't recognize her as she stepped from the Honda Civic. She had grown since I last saw her, and her hair was lighter, tinted with some kind of coloring. She had a woman's body, large-breasted and generous at the hips. I felt a little embarrassed noticing the changes in her. After all, Ellen Cole was barely into her twenties, and Walter Cole's daughter to boot.

"Ellen?" I stepped from the porch and opened my arms to her as she hugged me.

"It's good to see you, Bird," she said softly, and I hugged her tightly in response. Ellen Cole: I had watched her grow up. I could remember dancing with her at my wedding, the shy grin she threw back at her younger sister, Lauren, her tongue stuck out teasingly between her lips at Susan in her bridal gown. I remembered, too, sitting on the steps of Walter's porch with a beer, and Ellen beside me, her hands clasped around her knees, as I tried to explain why boys sometimes behaved like assholes to even the most beautiful of girls. I liked to think that was one area in which my expertise was beyond doubt.

She had been a friend to Susan, and Jennifer had loved her. My daughter never cried out when Susan and I left her for an evening, as long as Ellen was there to baby-sit her. The child would sit in the older girl's arms, toying with her fingers, eventually falling asleep with her head on her lap. Ellen had about her a kind of strength that had its roots in an immense store of kindness and compassion, a strength that inspired trust in those smaller and weaker than she.

Two days after Susan and Jennifer had died, I found her waiting for me alone at the funeral home as I arrived to make arrangements for the bodies. Others had offered to accompany me, but I didn't want them there. I think I was already retreating into my own strange world of loss at that point. I didn't know how long she had been waiting for me there, her little Honda parked in the lot, but she came to me, and she held me for a long, long time, and then she stood beside me as I looked at pictures of caskets and cars, never letting go of my hand. In her eyes, I saw the depths of my own pain reflected and I knew that, like me, she felt the loss of Jennifer as an absence in her arms, and the loss of Susan as a silence in her heart.

And when we left, the strangest thing happened. I sat with her in her car, and for the first time in days, I cried. That deep, still, placid thing inside Ellen drew the pain and hurt and grief from me, like the lancing of a wound. She held me again, and for a time, the clouds cleared, and I was able to go on.

Behind Ellen, a young man stepped from the driver's side of the car. He had dark skin and long black hair that hung lankly to his shoulders. His dress code was slacker chic, apart from his Zamberlan hiking boots: jeans, T-shirt loose over the top of his jeans, denim shirt hanging open over everything else. He shivered a little as he watched me with suspicious eyes.

"This is Ricky," said Ellen. "Ricardo," she added, with a vaguely Spanish inflection on the word. "Ricky, come meet Bird."

He shook hands firmly, then put one arm protectively around Ellen's shoulders. It seemed to me that Ricky was territorial and insecure, a bad combination. I kept an eye on him as we went into the house, just in case he decided to make his mark by taking a leak against my door.

We sat in my kitchen and drank coffee from big blue mugs. Ricky didn't say a whole lot, not even "Thanks." I wondered if he'd ever met Roger. Put the two of them together and you'd have the world's shortest conversation.

"What are you doing here?" I asked Ellen.

She shrugged. "We're heading north. I've never been far north before. We're going to make for Moosehead Lake, see Mount Katahdin, whatever. Maybe we'll rent some Ski-Doos."

Ricky stood up and asked where the john was. I directed him and he sloped off, slouching from side to side as he walked like a man with his feet in parallel ditches.

"Where did you find the Latin lover?" I asked.

"He's a psychology major," she replied.

"Really?" I tried to keep the cynicism out of my voice. Maybe Ricky was trying to kill two birds with one stone by taking psychology so he could analyze himself.

"He's really nice, Bird. He's just a little shy with strangers."

"You make him sound like a dog."

She stuck her tongue out at me in response.

"School finished?"

She dodged the question. "I have some study time coming."

"Hmm. What are you planning on studying? Biology?"

"Ha-ha." She didn't smile. I guessed that Ricky had pushed thoughts of semester exams from her mind.

"How's your mom?"

"Good."

She stayed silent for a moment.

"She worries about you and Dad. He told her you were at the funeral in Queens yesterday, but that you didn't have much to say to each other. I think she feels that you should sort out whatever happened between you."

"It's not that easy."

She nodded. "I've heard them talking," she said softly. "Is what he says about you true?"

"Some of it, yes."

She bit down on her lip, then seemed to reach a decision. "You should talk to him. You were his friend, and he doesn't have many of those."

"Most of us don't," I replied. "And I've tried talking to him, Ellen, but he's judged me and found me wanting. Your father's a good man, but not everything good fits his definition."

Ricky came back into the room and the conversation sort of died. I offered them my bed for the night but was kind of glad when Ellen declined. I'd probably never be able to sleep there again if I had visions of Ricky humping in it. They decided to spend the night in Portland instead of Augusta, with the intention of heading straight for the Great North Woods the next morning. I suggested the Inn at St. John, and told them to say that I had sent them. Apart from that, I left them to it, although I was pretty sure I didn't want to know what "it" was. Somehow, I didn't imagine Walter Cole would want to know either.