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“Dad…what if I have a problem that you and Mom can’t fix?”
From the mouth of babes-but while he would concede this point to himself, almost, there was no way he would admit it to his daughter. Lenhardt liked to tell himself that was the difference between him and a guy like Hartigan. He knew he couldn’t do everything for his kids, that he couldn’t keep them from disappointment and heartache. Lenhardt liked to tell himself that, but he also knew he was full of shit. His first daughter, Tally, was as lost to him as Kat Hartigan was to her father, and for less fathomable reasons. He couldn’t stand in judgment of anyone.
“You just come and talk to us, Jessie, and we’ll take it from there.”
Dale Hartigan could see the red-and-white Long & Foster sign outside the Snyders’ property even in the encroaching dusk. That made sense, with Bi
Look at her now, he thought as she opened the door to him. It was almost unbearable, the way she gazed at him, the gentle voice she employed, as if Dale were a wounded animal.
“The deed was in my safe-deposit box,” he said, handing her a manila envelope. “An oversight. You know how papers flew back and forth in the divorce.”
“I never would have sold if Kat-Well, you know how much she loved our little patch of woods. But there’s a buyer for the Snyder farm, and he offered so much for my acres. Enough for me to move wherever I like, maybe even go back to school. It seems like fate.”
“Sort of the opposite, if you think about it.” Inviting her to castigate him, to co
“Let’s just say it’s meant to be. How’s Susa
“Fine. I told her, you know. Made a clean breast.”
“About what?”
“Us. That night.”
“Oh, Dale.” Just hearing the pity in her voice was like fingering a bruise, for it reminded him that Chloe had never entertained the same rosy hopes of reconciliation, not even while making love to him. He was the only one who had imagined starting over.
“I’m simply trying to be honest.”
“It’s possible to be too honest, Dale. Just because you need to say it doesn’t mean anyone else needs to hear it.”
“Well, she forgave me. She took me back. Susa
Yes, he was reproaching Chloe in his own way, reminding her that some women were capable of forgiveness. He didn’t mention his sneaking suspicion that Susa
“I have plans tonight, so if there’s nothing else…”
“Plans? Like a date?”
“Dale.”
“Okay. None of my business. Just make sure he’s not after your money.” It was a pathetic attempt at a joke, and it fell flat, as it deserved to. “Chloe…when you’re getting ready to move, I’d like first crack at anything you get rid of. Especially Kat’s things, of course.”
“Even the painting?” She raised an eyebrow, capable now of making jokes at her own expense.
“Actually, I would love to have that painting. More than anything.”
“It was always yours, Dale. Remember? I gave it to you for Christmas, the year Kat was eleven.”
“Ten.” But they smiled at the old disagreement. Their fractiousness was a memory now, a reminder of a time when they could afford such petty irritations.
Heading down the drive a few minutes later, Dale saw three small figures cutting across his land. Chloe’s land, he corrected himself, and soon to pass out of the Hartigan name altogether. Enjoy it now, he wanted to yell out. If Snyder’s property was already in escrow, bulldozers would probably be here by Labor Day, grading the land for the forty or so houses the site would accommodate. Would Muhly sell as well? No, he was too stubborn, too proud of being able to say he worked a farm that had been in his family for five generations. The old Meeker farmstead had stayed in Dale’s family for three-which, as it turned out, was the end of the Hartigan line.
From this distance the children were dim shadows in the twilight, and it was difficult to tell if they were boys or girls, especially as they moved single file through the grass, which was waist-high to their small frames. They had to raise their knees to right angles to find their footing. How had it gotten so overgrown? Chloe must have forgotten that she was responsible for maintaining this part of the property, or thought it no longer mattered with a sale imminent. Didn’t she know that high grass like that attracted rats and other vermin? It almost made him happy, this evidence of Chloe’s characteristic carelessness, his reflexive self-righteousness. Seemed like old times.
As the three children reached the tree line, they re-formed so they were walking abreast and reached for one another’s hands. Swinging their arms between them, they ran toward the elms and maples and ailanthus. Girls, Dale thought, only girls hold hands. Boys, no matter how young and unself-conscious, would never be caught doing such a thing.
Then, just like that, the girls were gone, disappearing so suddenly in the gray-green dusk that Dale was forced to wonder if they had ever really been there at all.
Author’s Note
Because of the odd nature of Maryland in general and Baltimore County in particular, it is possible that there is a Glendale somewhere within the county’s strange and ragged boundaries. But the area described in this book is wholly fictional, as are the circumstances of its creation. Those who know the state will find a clue or two to Glendale ’s whereabouts, but they’ll never find Glendale.
A fictional setting, as it turns out, requires just as much research and outside expertise as a real one. For myriad details on police work, farm work, high school, musical theater, fathers, daughters, mothers, sons, etc., I am grateful to: George Pelecanos, Anthony Neil Smith, Bill Toohey, Gary Childs, David Simon, Beth Tindall, Toby Hessenauer, Linda Perlstein, Denise Stybr, the Coles family (Charles, Mary Jea
Although I’ve always been quick to credit my editor, Carrie Feron, and agent, Vicky Bijur, I’ve never publicly tried to thank everyone at my publishing house because it’s inevitable that someone will be overlooked and I’ll feel rotten. But this time out I would like to essay at least a partial list: Selina McLemore, Michael Morrison, Lisa Gallagher, George Bick, Debbie Stier, Sharyn Rosenblum, Samantha Hagerbaumer, all the sales reps (but especially Ian Doherty), and, last but never least, Jane Friedman.