Shadows On The River. Linda Hall

with, I was thinking about Larry Fremont and Paul Ashton. Money, of course. If Ashton was Fremont’s financial adviser, and a Christian at that, you can bet he found some discrepancies in the books. I knew I would be proved correct. It would just be a matter of time.

      It occurred to me that I could ask Mark about this. He might know something. Truth was, after he told me he knew Ashton, I’d become wary. I don’t know why. Not many people knew about the Larry Fremont episode of my life. Even my parents don’t even know the entire thing. Jolene does. I’d told her the whole thing back when we were in high school.

      It’d taken me a while to open up to her. I had arrived at the high school on Prince Edward Island, a sad, scared girl from a little town in Nova Scotia, hurt and grieving and afraid of getting close to anyone. Jolene introduced me to sailing. Her family had a couple of little sunfish sailboats that we used to take out onto the Northumberland Strait in the summer. It was on one of these trips that I had told her my story, swearing her to secrecy.

      I grew to love sailing. Gliding fast through the fierce waves was the only time I felt alive. I was in my own world out there, and when I could control nothing else in my life, I could control my boat.

      I opened a few online newspaper articles, but couldn’t find anything additional on Paul Ashton’s death. By all accounts, he looked to have tripped on the edge of the hotel carpet and hit his head on the coffee table. I needed to dig deeper.

      Because I didn’t want to risk losing this information, I printed what I found. I ended up with quite a little stack beside my computer.

      I got so engrossed in this work that for several seconds I didn’t notice Maddy standing there beside me. Finally she tugged on my sleeve. “Mom, when are we going to get skates?”

      “Just a few more minutes,” I signed. “And then we’ll go. And we’ll even stop for ice cream on the way home. Would you like that?”

      She signed “yummy” by rubbing her tummy and smacking her lips—a family sign.

      “I like Mark,” Maddy signed to me suddenly.

      I looked at her. What brought that on?

      “Really?” I said.

      “He’s nice,” she signed.

      “I’m glad you think so,” I said.

      “It was fun yesterday,” she added, and I agreed. What was happening to me? I couldn’t afford to fall for a guy like Mark.

      We were getting ready to leave when the phone rang and the second life-changing event happened.

      It was Rod. He sounded breathless. But more than that, he was angry. And the always even-tempered Rod I know doesn’t get angry.

      “Ally. Ally. You sitting down?”

      “Yes, Rod, Rod,” I said repeating his name the way he had repeated mine. “I am sitting here at my computer.”

      A pause.

      And then suddenly I was concerned. “Rod,” I said. “What’s wrong?” Was something wrong with Jolene? Had something gone wrong with the pregnancy? They had been trying for so long. “Is everything okay?”

      “Ally, brace yourself. We lost the project.”

      “What?” At first I thought he said baby, that they had lost the baby. It took me a moment to realize that the word he had said was project.

      “The project. We lost it,” he said.

      “What are you talking about?”

      “With Maine Boatbuilding. They gave it to someone else, get this, a bigger firm in California. California! How convenient is that? They wanted a firm with more resources.” He sputtered out the last word.

      I gripped the phone with both hands. Maddy was beside me on the floor, playing with two of her toy ponies.

      “Rod?” I said. “How could this happen? We already gave them the general design. Didn’t they say it was ours?”

      “Yes, they did. They gave me every indication.”

      “I don’t understand.” I put my hand to my head, looked away from my blue-eyed daughter who was tugging at my sleeve.

      “They found a firm with more people, their bid came in under ours. I’ve been on the phone for the past hour.”

      “You found this out today? On a Sunday?”

      “I called Lew. At home. I was sick and tired of them not answering our calls. We should have heard a week ago. Two weeks ago, even. I thought, he’s got to be home on Sunday morning. So I called him. I said, ‘You owe us, Lew, what’s going on? Why haven’t we heard?’ And that’s when he told me.”

      “I absolutely can’t believe it, Rod. We’ve done work for them before. Plus, we even hired Mark.”

      “I know. And they always liked our work. Lew did say they loved your design,” he added. His voice trailed off and I knew what he was thinking. The project was major. It would have put us into the big leagues. Not to mention it would have paid a few bills.

      “The whole thing stinks,” he said.

      “We have no recourse?”

      “They were pretty firm on it.”

      “We should protest. Maybe we have a case.” I put my hand to my head because suddenly all I could think about was the fact that I had not seen a cent of child support since early fall.

      “There’s nothing we can do about it. We can’t sue. We have no legal grounds. The bids were fair and square and Maritime Nautical just lost out. That’s the way it would play out with a lawyer.”

      I sighed. “Great.” The two of us didn’t say anything for a while.

      “Ally, I know this affects you, but I’ve been thinking about you. I’d like you back on board. I’d like the three of us to be Maritime Nautical again.”

      “But you don’t have enough work.”

      “I’ve been checking on a lot of stuff. There are a bunch of contracts we can bid on.”

      I asked, “What about Mark?”

      “We’ll have to let him go. I’m sure he wouldn’t want to stay, not with his credentials and talent.”

      Why did the thought of not seeing Mark on a regular basis fill me with such sadness? I still could not quite believe it.

      “Maybe we should meet this afternoon. I’d like to talk to Mark face-to-face. Jolene and I could come there, or you could come here.”

      I said, “Why don’t you come over here? With Maddy, it would be easier for me.”

      Rod said, “That’s what I figured. I’ll call Mark. See if he’s available.”

      I felt my chest collapse. Finally I said, “He was just here yesterday. We went over plans for the interior.”

      “Swell,” he said drily.

      “How’s Jolene taking it?”

      “I haven’t told her yet.”

      “What do you mean you haven’t told her?”

      “She’s out looking at baby furniture with her mother.”

      “This doubly stinks,” I said.

      “Ally?”

      “Yeah?”

      “I’m really sorry.”

      “It’s not your fault.”

      And when we hung up, Maddy came to me and I told her that we couldn’t go shopping for a while. I signed, “I have a very important meeting this afternoon here at the house. Rod and Jolene are coming over. And Mark, too.” And because we didn’t have