Leaving Haven by Kathleen McCleary Read Free Book Online Page A

her. He was a private and still man, Duncan, and now that she had burst through the fog of ennui and restlessness that had held her for so long, she could see that still man again, in all his sweetness.
    On their second date, he had taken her to Arlington National Cemetery, of all places. It was late May, long after the peak of the cherry blossoms, and the white headstones stood bright against the vivid green of the spring grass. Alice, ever the good student, studied the map and looked for every point of interest as they walked up the long hill toward the Lee mansion.
    â€œJoe Louis is buried here,” Alice said. She had grown up in Dearborn, where her mother worked at the Eppinger factory, applying coats of white lacquer to polished brass fishing lures. Every time her mother took her to downtown Detroit, Alice was thrilled and a little bit terrified by the eight-thousand-pound sculpture of Louis’s arm that hung from bronze poles in Hart Plaza. It was so strange, that enormous arm with the clenched fist.
    Duncan took her by the elbow. “I didn’t bring you here to look at the graves,” he said. “Look up.”
    â€œUp?” She glanced at the towering trees arcing overhead, the steel-gray sky. “At what?”
    â€œThe trees,” he said. “This is the finest collection of old trees you’ll find in any urban area. Some of them are more than two hundred years old; they’ve been here since the Lee family lived here, in the eighteen fifties.”
    They strolled under a giant empress tree with leaves the size of dinner plates; by the massive, two-hundred-something-year-old oak shading the Kennedy graves; and finally over to a huge American yellowwood dripping with foot-long white blossoms.
    â€œLook at that,” Duncan said, his voice full of wonder. “Yellowwoods only bloom every two to four years. That’s really something to see.”
    Alice looked at Duncan with fresh eyes. She had immediately been drawn to the precision and order of the cemetery, the rows upon rows of matching white headstones, laid out in such perfect symmetry. And here was Duncan, looking upward, showing her something she never would have noticed. He was eager to share his knowledge, to guide her, to watch out for her—all the things she had wanted but never had. She decided right there that she wanted to marry him. She was nineteen years old.
    H E DIDN’T WANT to talk, so she didn’t push him. He didn’t want to see a counselor, at least not yet, so she let that go, too. She waited, wondering if she should be looking for a full-time job so that she could support herself if— Don’t go there. Don’t think about it.
    She tried to make things seem normal, for Wren’s sake. The household ran as it always had, with Alice teaching and driving Wren to her various practices and social events and cooking dinner. Duncan came home late, often at nine or ten, and would go upstairs to chat with Wren and ask her about her day before coming downstairs to eat dinner alone at the kitchen counter, responding to anything Alice said with a polite nod. Often Alice would step outside onto the back deck after Duncan ate to feel the cool evening air against her face and breathe.
    Sometimes she saw Duncan looking at her, or looking at Wren, with an odd expression on his face, but she could not tell what he was thinking.
    One evening he came home from work and walked into the kitchen and said, “I have something for you.”
    Her heart leaped in fear as he reached into his briefcase. Was it a separation agreement? Divorce papers?
    â€œHere.” He held out a book, a blue book with a picture of a castle on the cover. She took it from him. Frommer’s guide to Scotland. Back at Christmas they had talked about taking a family trip to the UK next summer, to retrace Duncan’s roots.
    â€œMaybe you can plan our trip for next summer,” he said. “You know, check things