Page 95 - Where the Dream Ends ebook

Staying On

talking inside. No one knew where he was, and he would re-
main hidden for hours, reading, lost in a private world. It was
there, when he was very young that he read his first love story
about young Abraham Lincoln. He read it over and over, this
story about unrequited love. As an adult he thought about that
book often. He thought about it now as he said good-bye to
Edith, and again as he curled up to sleep that night in the half
empty bed in the aging beach house.

* * *

The next morning, he fixed the screen door. After that, he
took the ferry over to the mainland to pick up some plumbing
parts, and returned in just over two hours. The village store
was still open when he got back and there were ten or twelve
people milling about, finishing up their shopping before the
afternoon closing.

“What are you doing here, Liam?” Dave, the owner of the
market asked. “I thought you and Edith left Sunday.”

“Edith went home. I decided to stay on for a couple of
weeks.”

He liked the way that sounded: stayed on. Only the hearty
“stayed on”.

“Good for you,” Dave said, winking at Liam, suggesting
that this was Liam’s way of “getting away from the old lady”,
one of Dave’s favorite phrases.

Liam ignored him. Dave was fine during the summer, when
sexual innuendos fit the season, but now that it was fall, his
lines seemed old and worn.

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