Empire Falls

eleven, but he didn’t want to leave a mess for David and Charlene and the rest of the evening crew, who’d have their hands full when the Empire Grill reopened at six, so it was past noon before he finished the cleanup, and twelve-thirty by the time he showered off the smell of sausage grease, and one before he picked Cindy up, and one-fifteen before he found a place to park on a side street adjacent to Empire Field, and one twenty-five before they began to climb the cold metal bleachers on the visitors’ side of the field, the only place where there were still seats, and those up near the top. At one-thirty, just as Empire Falls kicked off, they finally completed the climb that Miles had begun in bed twelve hours before. Cindy had left her walker at home, content to use a sturdy cane for balance on one side and sturdy Miles Roby on the other. And by the time he’d stared malignantly at a woman in the top row until she moved down so he and Cindy could sit on the aisle, Empire Falls was already behind 7–0, Fairhaven having returned the opening kickoff for a touchdown. Miles sat there, sweating and bushed.
    “Oh, Miles, look!” Cindy said. From the top of the bleachers they could see all the way to the river. It was the first weekend in October, and the air was crisp, the leaves approaching their peak, the Knox River sparkling the blue of reflected sky. Empire Falls looked, in fact, like it had been replaced overnight with a better version of itself. Cindy hooked her arm through his, pressing a warm breast against his elbow, and he felt, after too many months of abstinence, a stirring he tried to ignore.
    “You know what I feel like?” she wanted to know, and for a moment the question confused him. Popcorn? Candy? Good God, they’d just sat down. “I feel just like a schoolgirl.”
    Miles knew what she meant. He’d have preferred a schoolgirl too, especially if it meant he himself could be a schoolboy. “Too bad all you have is a middle-aged man for company.”
    Unfortunately, levity had never had much effect on Cindy Whiting. She gripped the biceps of his left arm with both hands and said, “Dear Miles,” just as she had last night in his dream. “There’s not a soul on earth I’d rather be with.” And with that she pulled herself up his arm and kissed his cheek wetly, holding on to the kiss until it was interrupted by the clanging sound of her cane as it slipped between the bleachers and rattled to the ground below. “Oh, nuts,” she said happily. “You see what comes of passion?”
    “This,” Miles said, showing her where Timmy had bitten him half an hour earlier, “is what comes of passion.” The puncture marks were still visible, two small white dots. The wound now resembled what it had felt like at the time: a snakebite. In a matter of minutes his whole hand had swollen up like a mitt, though by now the swelling had gone down a little.
    “Poor Miles,” his companion said, stroking the wound gently with the back of her fingers. “Does it hurt?”
    “No,” he said, jerking his hand away and rubbing it vigorously against his corduroy knee. “It itches like hell.” What it reminded him of, he realized, was the poison ivy he’d contracted all those years ago on the Vineyard, and like that itch, this one returned, worse than before, the moment he quit scratching.
    “Stop, silly. You’ll make it swell up even worse.”
    “I don’t care,” Miles told her, digging at it with his fingernails now. Actually, he did care. He was fervently hoping that the swelling would go down by evening so he wouldn’t have to admit to his brother that once again he’d come back from Mrs. Whiting’s wounded. It was hard to believe that the animal had managed to surprise him yet again. Miles had been on the lookout, too, dropping his guard only as they were about to leave. Cindy had asked him to hand her a scarf hanging in the hall closet, the door of which was ajar. Reaching inside, Miles saw the scarf on a hook above a tier of shelves and glimpsed a quick movement, too late to withdraw his hand.
    “See?” Cindy observed when he stopped scratching. “You’ve only made it worse.”
    “It feels better, actually,” Miles lied, thinking that with a scalpel he could make it feel better still. “If I need a tetanus shot, I’m going to bill your mother.”
    That had been one good thing about this visit to the hacienda. Since Mrs. Whiting was away—in Boston, according to her daughter—David