Cool Water by Dianne Warren Read Free Book Online Page B

points him in the direction of the house, he thinks about the way she sits in the picture window—Ed’s window—invisible in the dark and watches the movies. He stares at the window, perplexed by his own feelings, without knowing that Marian is staring back.
    Watching this man. Wishing she could speak up, wondering if she ever will. And where would she go if she were to speak up and ruin things, frighten Willard half to death and drown the two of them in awkwardness? Her life would be over if she had to leave. She follows Willard’s dark shadow as he turns another circle like a man who has lost his way and is trying to remember the tricks of navigation. She watches the firefly light of his cigarette, disappearing and then appearing again as he turns, turns in the darkness.
    Crash
    The Dolsons’ yardlight is one of the ones that Willard can see north of town. The Dolson house—which of course Willard can’t see—has the same vinyl siding as his own house. It had galled old Mrs. Dolson to no end when she realized she’d been taken in by a confidence man with coloured brochures and a promise of siding longevity. As the siding began to lift and snap in the wind and her calls to the sales company remained unanswered and finally they wouldn’t go through at all because the phone had been disconnected, Mrs. Dolson’s disappointment at her own gullibility caused her finally to agree to her husband’s retirement plan, and the old couple moved to the West Coast a dozen years ago and left the farming operation to their son, Blaine, and his wife, Vicki. And no sooner had the senior Dolsons settled in a condominium complex in Nanaimo than Mr. Dolson died, and now Mrs. Dolson lives near Blaine’s sister in Vancouver and shows no interest in returning to her former home, even for a visit, because she just can’t bear to see what has become of it in Vicki’s care. It’s convenient to blame Vicki for the siding mistake.
    The Dolsons’ three-bedroom bungalow was built about the same time as Willard’s to replace the original farmhouse that was old and small and did not reflect the prosperity of the times. The new house (not so new any more) sits three hundred yards off the grid road, surrounded on three sides by trees lovingly planted by Blaine’s mother: poplars, Manitoba maples, even a weeping birch that has somehow survived the arid conditions of this part of the country. The house faces the road and from the living room window you can see the barn that is now pretty much unused, a rail corral, and a half-acre pen that is home to Blaine’s horse, the only one he has left. In front of the house is a miraculous plum tree, of which Blaine’s mother was exceedingly proud. South of the house is the vegetable garden, enclosed by chicken wire to protect it from the deer. The fact that it is still bountiful is perhaps more miraculous than the plum tree, since the gardens throughout the district are sparse, even non-existent, thanks to drought and grasshoppers. Vicki’s garden is rich with produce. No one can figure it out. She plants in the spring and then forgets to water and never has time to weed. And the grasshoppers seem to have passed Vicki’s garden by as they devoured everyone else’s. Her own theory is that grasshoppers don’t like weeds. They’ve cruised the country looking for the weed-free gardens, she tells Blaine, which is why it’s a good idea not to weed a garden. “Ha ha,” she says. “It’s a joke.” Blaine—who remembers the neat garden his mother was famous for—doesn’t laugh.
    Blaine’s parents had three children and the house was a perfect size for their family, but it’s a tight fit for Blaine and Vicki, who have six kids. Until today, the boys shared one bedroom and the girls the other. What’s different about today (or technically, yesterday) is that Shiloh, the oldest and