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envies you, fishing for a living.’
    Eric chuckled. ‘I was in there about a month ago or so and I told him to drive up sometime and I’d take him out.’ ‘I suppose he never came.’ ‘No, he didn’t.’
    ‘Mother apparently wouldn’t give him permission,’ Maggie remarked sardonically.
    Maggie’s mother had been’ a harridan for as long as Eric had known her. He remembered his fear of Vera Pearson when he’d dated Maggie and how the area women, in general, disliked her.
    ‘I take it she hasn’t changed.’
    ‘Not much. At least she hadn’t the last time I was home, which was.., oh, three years ago, I guess. She’s still got a ring in Daddy’s nose, and she’d like to see one in mine. Consequently, I don’t come home very often.’
    ‘You didn’t make the last class reunion.”
    ‘No... Phillip and I lived out here in Seattle then and.... i, its a long way. We just somehow never made it, we travel a lot, though.., or... well, we did, I mean.’ to
    Her slip caused a moment’s awkwardness. ‘Sorry’, she inserted. ‘I !try not to do that, but sometimes it slips out.’
    ‘No, that s... that’s okay, Maggie.’ He paused, then admitted, ‘You know, I’m trying to picture you. Funny isn’t it, how hard it is to picture a person older than we remember them?’ In his mind she was still seventeen, thin and auburn-haired, with brown eyes, a delicate face and an attractively cleft chin. Vivacious. And laughing. He’d always been able to make her laugh so easily. I’ m older. Definitely older.’ ‘Aren’t we all?’
    Eric picked up a teakwood pear from a wooden bowl in the centre of the table and rubbed it with his thumb. He’d never understood why Nancy put wooden fruit on the table when the genuine article grew all over
Door
County
. ‘You miss your husband a lot?”
    ‘Yes, I do. We had a model marriage.’
    He tried to think of some reply but none came. ‘I’m afraid I’m not much good at this, Maggie,
    I’m sorry. When my dad died it was the same way. I didn’t know what the hell to say to my mother.”
    ‘It’s all right, Eric. It makes a lot of people uncomfortable, even me sometimes.’
    ‘Maggie, can I ask you something?’
    ‘Of course. ‘
    He paused uncertainly. ‘No, I guess I’d better not.’ ‘No, go ahead. What?’
    ‘I’m curious, that’s all. It’s... well...’ Perhaps it was an impertinent question, but he couldn’t stop himself from asking. ‘Why did you call?’
    His question startled her, too; he could tell by the seconds of silence that followed.
    ‘I don’t know. Just to say hi.’
    After twenty-three years, just to say hi? It seemed odd, yet there appeared no other logical reason.
    She rushed on. “Well... it’s late, and I’m sure you have to be up early tomorrow. Saturday in The Door . . . I remember it well. Always a lot of tourists around then, and they probably all want to go fishing for salmon, right then, forgive me for waking you, and please apologize to your wife. I know I woke her, too.’
    ‘No problem, Maggie. Hey, I’m really glad you called. I ncan that.’
    ‘So am I.’
    ‘Well...’ Eric waited, uneasy for no good reason he could name, finally coming up with a closing remark. ‘Next time you come home, give us a call. I’d like you to meet Nancy .’
    I’ll do that. And greet your mom and Mike for me. ‘I will.’
    “Well, good-bye, Eric.”
    ‘Good-bye.’
    The line clicked immediately but he sat for long moments, perplexed, gazing at the phone.
    What the hell?
    He hung up, returned the phone to the cabinet and stood staring at it.
Eleven o’clock
at night after twenty-three years Maggie calls. Why’? He slipped his hands inside the elastic waistband of his shorts and scratched his belly, wondering. He opened the refrigerator and stood a while with the chill air fanning his bare legs, registering little but the repetitive thought:
    Just to say hi, she’d said, but that sounded fishy.
    He took out a container of