Empire Falls

slow.”
    “That’s okay,” Miles said, taking her by the elbow, rattled by both the cat and his embarrassing fear of it. The bell continued to ring as they made their slow progress, and when they arrived at the patio door, Miles saw the cat splayed across the inside of the sliding screen, about halfway up, purring loudly, her claws gripping the mesh. The screen was rent in several places, suggesting that this was not the first time Timmy had performed such an acrobatic feat.
    “She just loves the sound of Mother’s bell,” Cindy said sweetly.
    Outside, Miles could see the old woman sitting in the gazebo, facing the river with her back to them and ringing her bell as if she expected the sound to make fish jump at her command. Everyone else certainly did. Why not the fish? Grace Roby had claimed she could hear her employer’s bell ringing in her sleep. Miles again felt his heart soften, considering the saddest truth of Cindy Whiting’s existence: her choice in life was between living at home and answering that bell and remaining at the state hospital in Augusta.
    Miles took a deep breath and turned toward her before heading outside. “Cindy,” he said softly.
    A mistake. Clutching the walker with her left hand, she made a grab for Miles with her right, snagging his shirtsleeve and holding on with amazing strength. “I heard about you and Janine,” she said. “Your divorce. I’m so sorry, Miles.”
    He decided on the simple truth. “Me too.”
    But Cindy didn’t seem to register his tone.
    “You never loved her, Miles,” Cindy told him. “I know you didn’t.”
    “That’s what she claims, too,” he admitted, sad that two women as different as Janine and Cindy should have arrived at the same depressing conclusion.
    Letting go of his shirt, Cindy now caught his fingers in her viselike grip. “I lied, Miles,” she told him, tears starting to spill now. “I’m not sorry about your divorce. It gives me a slender thread of hope—”
    “Cindy—” he said, trying to pull away without upsetting her fragile balance. The bell outside was ringing louder now.
    “I still love you, Miles. You see that, don’t you? It’s the one thing the lithium can’t touch. Did you know that? The drugs wash into your brain and make things easier to bear, but they can’t touch your heart! They can’t alter what’s already there, Miles.”
    She clasped his hand to her breast so he could feel the truth of what she was saying. Now it seemed to Miles that Mrs. Whiting’s bell was playing through a bullhorn inside his head. He tried to withdraw his hand but could not, at least not without toppling Cindy. “I should go—”
    “Don’t, Miles.”
    “Cindy,” he said, more harshly than he’d planned, as he finally broke free and she again grabbed hold of her walker. “Cindy, please.”
    When the walker wobbled, he caught her by the wrist, the same one she’d slashed twenty years ago. “It’s okay,” she said, visibly gathering herself. “Go.”
    There can’t be a God, Miles thought. There just can’t be. “Cindy,” he repeated.
    “No, go,” she said, backing away now, dragging the walker. “I’m fine.”
    Miles took a deep breath, then heard himself say, “How about I give you a call sometime this week?”
    At this suggestion her face lit up so quickly that Miles briefly suspected he’d been tricked. “Really, Miles? You’ll call me?”
    Now the task was to swallow his annoyance. “Why wouldn’t I?” he asked, a man with more reasons than he could count.
    “Oh, Miles.” Her hand again went to her mouth. “Dear, dear Miles.”
    Dear, dear God.
    He got as far as the sliding patio door before she called after him. Her expression had darkened into the one he remembered from when she was a girl, a look of terrible recognition. “Miles?”
    “Yes, Cindy?”
    “Outside? When you got out of your car? You stopped and just stood there for a minute. You looked … like you wanted to run away.”
    Miles located the lie he needed. “I realized I’d forgotten some stuff I needed to give your mother. You know how she is—receipts for all expenditures.”
    She studied him for a long moment. “I had this terrible thought,” she said slowly, “that maybe you’d noticed my car and realized I was home.”
    “Cindy—” Miles began.
    “I can bear it that you don’t love me, Miles,” she said. “I’ve borne it all my life. But if I thought I made you want to run away …”
    “We’re old