Page 101 of The Woman By the Lake

I didn’t move but watched as he locked the storm door, closed the main one, locked it, then turned to me.

“Ledger?” he asked.

“He’s up in bed,” I told him. “I’ve checked three times. He was edgy, trying to read, but the last time I went up, he was out. I took the book out of his hand and turned out the light. I hope that was right.”

“It was right,” he replied and walked to the kitchen.

I spun on the stool to follow his progress.

He went to the fridge and got a beer. He opened it. He took a long pull from it.

Then he came to the bar on the other side of me, not catching my eyes, which I found alarming, and put the beer on the counter without uncurling his fingers from around it.

He pulled his phone out and ran his thumb over the screen.

Then he put it to his ear.

“Yeah, it’s me.” Pause, then, “I know it’s late. Shut up and listen.” Another pause, then, “If you ever, ever, Angelica, threaten me again with taking my boy away from me, you won’t see him again. Listen closely because I. Am not. Fucking with you. You might not see Viggo either. That’s Storm’s call. But he’s gonna know the shit you pulled on him because I’m gonna pay him a visit.” Pause then, “Woman, you don’t start to play this right after getting it so fucking wrong, and find you fucked with the wrong men, that is not on me. Consequences.”

He then disconnected, tossed the phone on the bar and put the beer to his lips.

He drank a good third of it before he put it to the counter again.

Finally, he looked at me.

“You didn’t have to wait up.”

“Yes, I did.”

“It’s late.”

“Really, Riggs?” I asked gently.

He dipped his chin, then let the beer go, and I rotated on my stool again, further this time, as he rounded the bar twice, once on each end, and disappeared into the stairwell.

I sat there for a long time not knowing what to do.

So long, I thought he probably went to bed.

Maybe he was embarrassed. By what I saw. By my being there when he learned it. By me hearing him talk to his son’s mother that way (in a way she deserved, but he didn’t give me the opportunity to share my opinion).

Maybe he was still feeling so much, he needed to keep processing it (though, he’d been out in the woods for four hours, but what he just learned after what had happened earlier that day was a lot, truthfully, just learning the most recent stuff would be a lot).

So I got up and went to the bank of switches that operated Riggs’s plethora of outside lights and flipped all five of them (he’d been out there, it got late, I was worried, it was dark as all hell, so I needed to light his way home).

I was down in the living room, turning off the lamps when he came back.

“He’s out,” he confirmed.

Right.

Of course.

He was checking on his son.

And, I noted, taking off his damp boots.

He went right to his beer.

---