Sam stared at the spot where the woman had been, recreating her presence on the empty sidewalk. He tried to visualize her looking at the house. The way she brushed the side of her face had been so like Sarah. He looked one more time up and down the street, then went indoors. Soaked through even to his bandage he was supposed to keep dry, he stripped off his wet clothes, patted the bandage with a towel and put on his bathrobe. In the kitchen he made a cup of tea and took it to the sofa. Gazing out into the storm he searched for a plausible explanation for what he’d seen..

Could she actually have been Sarah? Maybe she’d come back and wanted to reconnoiter before committing herself to a face to face meeting. She’d stayed away for long periods before and always returned. Of course, never as long as two years. If she wasn’t Sarah, why would someone else stop on the sidewalk in the driving rain and stare at the house?

Or had he imagined it. Had he wanted so much to see her again on this day, their wedding anniversary, that he only imagined the woman? Through the rain smeared window pane everything had been a blur. Sam shivered at the thought that his imagination could so twist reality.

A flash of lightening in the dark sky illuminated the weeping beech as it flung its branches like the skirt of a dancer. Again Sam was worried about the window pane, but strangely, none of the branches now reached the house. Thunder following the lightening only by seconds rattling Sam’s mind. For an instant he let himself contemplate the impossible; Sarah reaching out to him from another place through the weeping beech. It had beat against the window until he looked out and saw the woman. This thought was beyond tolerable, and he gave his head a vigorous shake to clear his mind.

“Get a hold of yourself,” he said taking a deep breath. “It’s our wedding anniversary, you miss her, you’re lonely, you hurt and you want her so much your mind’s playing tricks on you.” He nodded his head satisfied with this rationalization and took a sip of tea. But a moment later he was shaking his head. “No,” he said, “hearing her in the kitchen or smelling her perfume is one thing, but thinking I see her standing in the rain is something else. It’s delusional.”

Sam was scared.

He picked up the phone to call Art, but set it down, too embarrassed to call.
“Come on Langley. If there was ever a time you needed a friend, it’s now. Call him up. Tell what happened, make a joke about it. Tell him you’re getting old and senile.”

The rain had stopped when Art arrived at Sam’s house. He opened the screen door and called, “Anybody home?”

“Come on in,” Sam yelled from the sofa.

Art was carrying a white paper bag in his right hand. “Thought you might be hungry so I got us a large roast beef sub at Muchies. We can split it.” He produced another brown bag from his other hand. “And two cold bottles of Wicked Ale from Shubie’s.”

Sam was going through the ritual of getting up: rolling onto his left side, grimacing, then gripping the coffee table and pushing himself into a sitting position. “Thanks for coming. I thought about driving to your house, but I’m still too slow on the draw.” He eyed the two sacks. “Roast beef and beer. Good choice. Let’s take it to the kitchen.”

“First time I’ve been in your house. I like it.” Art followed Sam through a living room cluttered with piles of newspapers from the last week, and into the dining room. It was furnished with the same modest furniture that Sam and Sarah had bought years before when they moved in. In the kitchen the appliances were somewhat newer but the cabinets were the same vintage as the house, about 1955.

The men sat at the kitchen table and Art popped the bottle caps. “Twice in one day, Sam. We’ve got to stop meeting like this.” He glanced at Sam and noticed he wasn’t up to joking, so he added, “What’s up? Why’d you call?”

“The damnest thing . . this morning . . after you dropped me off.” He stared across the top of his beer bottle struggling to establish a jocular tone.
After a moment, Art asked, “Yeah?”

Keep it light, Sam warned himself. “After you dropped me off this morning, I feel asleep on the sofa. Musta been a couple of hours.”

Art unwrapped the sub which had been sliced in half. Peppers, tomatoes, lettuce and onions fell out of the bun and he tucked them back on top of the rare roast beef. He gave Sam half.

“And?” Art asked.

No weeping beeches, Sam told himself. Cut to the woman on the sidewalk. “It was in the middle of the storm and here was this woman standing on the sidewalk in the pouring rain staring at my house. She looked like Sarah, the way she stood and held her shoulders.”

“Like Sarah, huh?” he said as if Sam saw his dead wife every day. “How far away?”

Sam shrugged. “A hundred feet maybe. And she had her hood up, too. Sounds crazy, I know, but then she did something that Sarah used to do. She rubbed her cheek with the back of her hand.”

Art’s sandwich stopped half way to his mouth. “That’s it? She rubbed her cheek?”

“Sarah had a birthmark when I first met her. She covered it with makeup but she was self conscious about it. It wasn’t so much that she rubbed her cheek. She used her hand to hide the mark even after we had it removed. It was a nervous thing.”

“And this woman, standing in the rain, a hundred feet from your house, with a hood covering most of her face, brushed her cheek with her hand?”

“Uh huh.” Sam gave his friend a quick glance. “Crazy, huh?”

“I’d say yes, but that’s only a layman’s opinion. Eat your sandwich.”

Sam picked up his sandwich. “Maybe I am a little crazy.”

A minute passed while they chewed roast beef and drank beer. Sam was sure he’d gone too far, sure that he’d lost his only friend. Without looking at him Art nodded his head with an aha. “You really think you are going crazy.”
“Well, yes. It’s one thing to hear her voice in my head, but to see her standing in front of the house . . “
“Hmm.”

“And maybe I never saw her. Maybe I dreamed the whole thing.”

Lifting his bottle, Art took a drink. “Sam, you’ve been sitting in this house alone too damn long. You need to get out. Be with other people. Forget about writing for a while. Find a project.”

“Cynthia and her family are coming by on Saturday.”

“That’s not the same thing. You need something like the Marblehead Cancer Prevention Project. They’re raising hell about the Salem Power Plant. Go hold a sign in front of the plant.” He took a big bite of his sub and chewed it furiously. Sam nibbled on a piece of beef that dangled from his sandwich.
“On the other hand,” Art said growing serious, “what if it really was Sarah?”

“I know. Why else would a woman stand in the pouring rain and stare at my house?”

“There’s probably a hundred reasons,” Art said. He folded up the paper in which the sandwich had been wrapped and took it to the sink with his empty bottle. “Maybe she was looking for a lost cat. Maybe she . . hell, I don’t know, maybe she was nuts. In any case, good friend, you need to get out of the house.”

Kathleen’s four year old Ford Escort turned into Sam’s driveway late Friday afternoon. Of the three children, Kathleen was most like her father, not by looks, because she looked like her mother, but by temperament. Like her mother, she was tall, a little more solidly built, and with her mother’s curly brown hair and blue eyes.

“Hi, Dad?” she called into the house through the open door.

“Hi baby. You’re just in time,” Sam yelled from the kitchen as he poured two shots of Johnny Walker into a glass. “How about a drink?”

“No thanks. Can’t stay.” she said, crossing quickly through the living room, dining room and into the kitchen. “Naomi’s expecting me. Told me to be home by six and she’d have dinner ready.”

“Can’t beat that.”

She put her arms around him and kissed his cheek.

“Easy!” Sam said, drawing back. “Don’t squeeze the left side.”

“Oh, God, I’m sorry. Did I hurt you?”

“No, I’m just protective. How was the drive?”

“Not bad. Most of the traffic was headed north.”

“Let’s sit in the living room,” Sam said. After lunch he’d picked up old newspapers and brushed crumbs from the coffee table, so the room didn’t look too bad. “Tell me about your week.”

“We finished the Cadillac Mountain phase of the study. It’s a lovely place. Did you know that the top of Cadillac Mountain is the first place in the U.S. the rising sun hits?” Sam didn’t. “I got up at dawn this morning and stood on the very top so I’d be the first person in the country to have the sun shine on her.” He pictured her standing with outstretched arms to greet the dawn. Sarah might have done that when she was Kathleen’s age.

“But how are you?” she asked. “You don’t look like you had an operation two days ago.”

“I’m feeling better. I drove to the Stop & Shop today and bought a bunch of salad from their salad bar. I know it’s more expensive, but it’s easier.” Sam squirmed in his chair to find a position that didn’t pinch his bandaged side.

Kathleen saw the move and gave him a concerned look. “Are you really okay?”

“I’m all right. Same old complaints except now I hurt a little and get tired easy. Better than two days ago, though.” Sam smiled bravely and changed the subject. “Why don’t you and Naomi come by tomorrow. Cynthia, Claude and the kids will be here. She’s bringing things for dinner and fixing it here.”

She gave him a look he’d come to expect when it came to Cynthia. Growing up the girls were at each other’s throats, constantly vying for their parents’ attention. Now they respected each other’s professionalism, but had little in common to talk about.

“Can’t make it tomorrow, Dad,” Kathleen said, “We’re going bicycling. Staying over night.”

“You’ll break your sister’s heart,” Sam smiled.

Kathleen laughed, “She’ll manage.”

He walked her to the door and watched her drive away, then his eyes returned to the spot where he’d seen the woman the day before. He wondered if he should have told Kathleen that he thought he’d seen her mother. He grinned. The idea was so preposterous it helped him put the whole thing from his mind.

Saturday afternoon Sam sat on one of the boulders that served as rip-rap beneath the concrete wall of the causeway between the town and Marblehead Neck. Claudia and Vickie were playing in the sand about twenty-five feet from the water that lapped in small waves onto the beach. Sam managed the strain of walking the three blocks from his house, but was exhausted by his three-year-old granddaughter Vickie who kept running ahead of him. He tried holding her arm but the pulling was too much. Finally, five-year-old Claudia held her sister’s hand in a firm grip and, giving orders that sounded like her mother, kept her in tow. Cynthia and Claude were back at the house cleaning and cooking just as he’d anticipated.

A nob on the rock where Sam sat pressed into his buttock. He grimaced as he tried to find a comfortable position, and wished he were back on his sofa watching the Red Sox. Looking up he saw Vickie heading toward the waves. Just as he was about to get up she stopped five feet from the water, threw a stone, and ran back to her sister. Sam settled back on his rocky seat.
A two-masted schooner caught Sam’s eye and he followed it as it rounded the point. He imagined himself sitting on the deck heading down the coast to the Caribbean. Once he’d told Sarah about this dream as they walked along Devereaux Beech watching a similar schooner.

“It’d be fun,” Sam had said.

“For you, yes, but sitting on a boat while other people dash about pulling on ropes and yelling commands is not my idea of fun.

“But you’d enjoy it if only you’d give it a try.”

“Uh huh,” she said. “You always think you know what I want, but you don’t. If you want to do it, go ahead. Who’s stopping you? Go for a cruise. Buy a boat.”

“No. I think I just liked the idea of it. It’d probably be boring.”

She was quiet for a moment, then said, “You use me, Sam. You get me to stop you from doing what you don’t want to do in the first place.”

“Not always. There’re lots of things I want us to do that I don’t push because I know you won’t want to.”

“You don’t know what I want and you never will.” The memory of those words cut him as much as when his wife had spoken them.

“Who ya talkin’ to, Grampa?” Claudia was standing beside him holding a piece of seaweed with a mussel attached.

Embarrassed and confused, he said, “Nobody. Just thinking out loud.” Rising from his rock, he said, “Where’s your sister?” His eyes scanned the beach. “Oh, there. Better go get her. It’s time to go home.”

“What’s this Grampa?” She held up the seaweed and mussel.

“It’s a little sea creature hanging on for dear life.”

They’d finished dinner and Claude was putting the last of the dishes into the dishwasher while Cynthia scrubbed the counter. Sam came into the kitchen. “Thanks for all you two’ve done. The dinner was great and the house looks like new.”

“There’re plenty of leftovers in the refrig.” She was drying the counter, but stopped and turned to him. “Dad, I’m worried about you. There’s too much house here for you to take care of. I know we’ve talked about this before and you say one of these days you’ll make a change. Well, it’s time now. Just think of it. If you had a small condo you wouldn’t have to worry about the lawn in the summer or the snow in the winter. If the roof leaked, you could report it and someone would fix it. You’re not going to feel as young as you do now forever.”

“I don’t feel all that young now,” Sam said.

“And Dad, there’s something else.” She looked at him seriously. “Claudia said that you were talking to someone at the beach and no one was there. I’ve heard you too, but I thought I might be mistaken.”

Claude turned to him. “Sam, I think it’d be a good idea if you had a full neurological check up. No sense in having your mind play games with you if you don’t have to.”

Sam worked his jaw as he stared at the two of them. He was sure they’d been planning this confrontation for weeks. What Claudia told them was the excuse they needed. Christ, he said to himself, I’ve got to protect myself from my own children.

“I’m all right,” Sam said adamantly. “I’m fine. Go to Europe. I can take care of myself.”