LANIGAN BOOKS

Prologue The distance was less than twenty steps. It felt like miles. His feet dragged. His legs turned to lead. His hands shook as he unlocked the door. Inside, he went straight to the kitchen, grabbed the half-empty bottle of Crown Royal, and poured himself a heavy glass, half full, no ice. He didn’t bother sitting. He glanced out the window. The neighbouring house glowed. The lights were on. Bright. Yellow. Happy. Dangerous. Nothing life-threatening had happened in that house. Until it did. Ryan swallowed the whiskey in one brutal gulp. It burned his throat and left him numb, exactly what he needed. Two hours. That was all it took. One polite, neighbourly dinner, Fiona had invited him to. Her mother had flown back from Scotland that morning, and, of course, they had to meet. Introductions were only natural, Fiona had said. Fuck. Ryan set the glass down on the kitchen counter with a thud that nearly cracked it. Six weeks. Six fucking weeks of the life he had been dreaming about for twenty years, now gone. Tossed out the window as if it had never existed. As if he had never existed. He had come close. Dangerously close. To the point of no return. He had been reckless. Stupid. Alive. He had enjoyed it, too. He had known, always known, that he would reject her in the end. He would say no. Not because he didn’t want her. Not because the desire wasn’t there. God, it was. But out of kindness. That was how he framed it. That was how he framed everything. She was thirty-four. He was fifty-seven. He should have said no in the beginning. Yesterday, they had reached the edge. Oh God, he had been standing on it. She had touched him gently. Came close. Ran her fingers along his unshaven cheek, brushed her lips against his, pressed her body into his just enough to make the world tilt. They kissed. And then he leaned back, lowered his eyes, and in a hoarse, broken whisper said, “We shouldn’t…” She didn’t let go. But she understood. He saw it in her eyes. She knew he needed time. She knew what he was thinking. Her fingers traced his jeans, playful, slow, down, then up, finding him, feeling his response. She smiled. Kissed him again, softer this time, and whispered, “I know. I know. You need time.” He nodded. Said nothing. Now the memory wouldn’t leave him. It replayed again and again, mutating, curdling, turning into something grotesque, ugly, something he had never imagined himself capable of. He had always been a good man. Proper. Kind. The one who listened. Who rarely argued. Who did whatever was necessary to keep the peace. To avoid conflict at all costs. Wives. Child. Parents. He was always kind, always accommodating. To everyone. Fiona included. Nothing, absolutely nothing, had suggested the evening would collapse until he knocked on that door two hours ago. It opened. And he saw a face he knew instantly, though thirty-five years had passed. He hesitated, hoping he was wrong. Then he saw that familiar spark in her eyes. The tilt of her head. The movement of her lips. He wasn’t wrong. She recognized him, too. He saw the hesitation, the micro-pause, the quick calculation. It all took a second. Maybe two. Then Fiona appeared behind her, smiling, glowing. “Mom,” she said brightly, “this is Ryan. Our neighbour.” He assembled a smile with gigantic effort. The woman returned it with equal strain. “Susan,” she said, extending her hand. His heart dropped another level. “Ryan.” His palm was damp when he shook hers. Susan. Yes. Oh, no! How the fuck was that even possible? Warsaw. Poland. Nearly thirty-five years ago. An international school. He was twenty-two, fresh out of teachers’ college in Canada, flying to a country he barely knew existed for his first real job. That was where they met. She was five years older. The flirting came first. Then something more. They slept together twice. And then… he let it die. Out of kindness. He hadn’t wanted to hurt her. He knew there was no future. Or maybe he was just young. Cowardly. Unsure of himself. He never explained anything to her. He just acted as if nothing had happened. Then, still hiding behind kindness, he terminated his contract and went back to Canada, leaving the mess behind. And now thirty-five fucking years later, Susan, a woman from Scotland, was standing in front of him in a tiny Canadian cottage town where he had come to hide from two failed marriages. Fucking irony. Fucking unbelievable. But Susan wasn’t the real problem. Fiona was. Fiona, the woman who had fallen for him. The woman he had spent six weeks with, walking, talking, laughing, reading, and having dinners. The woman who had been keeping an eye on her mother’s house while Susan was away in Scotland, visiting family. “How about that, Ryan?” He asked himself. “How about the fact that she could be your daughter for fuck’s sake?” His body responded before his mind recoiled, and that was when the panic truly began. He poured another whiskey. Yes. Fiona. Possibly his daughter. Hadn’t Susan hinted at it tonight? Calmly. Clearly. Almost playfully, as if she were offering him a goddamn puzzle she already knew he would solve incorrectly. Like a blade sliding between his ribs, piercing, twisting. The kind of sentence you save for thirty-five years. Jesus. He had almost slept with Fiona. Almost. Ryan lowered himself into the chair. His life here was over. He felt sick. How the hell had he managed to entangle himself like this again? He had wanted a clean, fresh start. A beginning scrubbed of history and expectation. No mistakes. No pressure. No emotional debt. No one. And now— A soft, deliberate knock tapped against the window, precise enough to freeze him where he sat. He got up slowly. Drew the curtain aside just an inch. Susan. She stood outside, composed, almost patient. She lifted her hand and gestured toward the door. His heart dropped. Of course. The past had finally come to collect. Chapter 1 Six weeks earlier. The U-Haul door slammed shut with a dull, final thud. Ryan wiped his hands on a paper towel and looked toward the front door. It stayed closed. She wasn’t coming out. She didn’t plan to say goodbye. She wasn’t going to say anything at all. He lingered beside the truck, uncertain what to do with his body now that the work was finished. His life, reduced to a few boxes and pieces of furniture, sat inside the rented U-Haul: his desk, his favorite armchair, the objects that had survived their marriage, even when they hadn’t. Fine. This time, it was she who had chosen silence. His patented weapon. A sharp impulse rose in him to go back inside, to say it out loud: I’m leaving. I’m done. I’m ready. As if the words could give the moment shape, make it real. But he stopped himself. He knew better. She didn’t want to hear it. She didn’t want to see him. He could picture her upstairs, in the study, the door closed. Working. Or pretending to. Her face set, immovable, eyes on the screen while her mind wandered through the years they had spent together. He was doing the same. Thinking. Packing. Wasn’t this what they had both wanted? They had talked about it endlessly. Long conversations stretched over years, honest, exhausted, almost tender. Admitting how impossible it was to live like that. Sometimes, like friends. Sometimes, like polite neighbours. But never like a couple. Ryan reached into his pocket and wrapped his fingers around the keys. He looked at the door one last time. Leaving without a word felt wrong. But wasn’t that what he had always done? Avoided the moment, chose quiet exits, and let silence do the work words should have done. He exhaled, long and tired, climbed into the driver’s seat, and turned the key. The engine came to life. The drive wouldn’t be long. Two and a half hours, at most. Still, it felt like the longest journey of his life. *** The road wasn’t busy. He watched familiar landmarks slide past the windshield and caught himself wondering when he might see her again. It was a strange question, if you dared to think about it. He had just left. Moved out. Separated. And yet his mind was already circling dates, possibilities, and small future coordinates he could pin down to keep himself steady. Probably Christmas, when Anna came home for the break. Her first year in Boston. Barely two months gone from the house, still half-believing it was intact. She didn’t know. They hadn’t told her. And when they did, they would soften it, sand it down until it sounded almost intentional. Something like: Your dad finally found his dream, a little cottage in lake country. Everyone would be welcome. Nothing was really changing. They weren’t planning to divorce. Not right now. They had agreed on something far quieter, far more exhausting. They would pretend. Ryan saw the ONroute sign and flicked on his signal. Coffee would be good. Something warm, something ordinary. Besides, he had all the time in the world now. It didn’t matter when he arrived. Starbucks. Latte. Back on the road. Yeah… well. He never would have left that house if his uncle hadn’t died and left him his old property. He had said that to his wife openly. No drama. He’d sell and use the money to buy himself a place. She and Anna would keep their house. Fair. Clean. She agreed. The truth was simpler and more humiliating: he could never have afforded to leave on his own. His best years were behind him. The last five or six spent surviving on whatever he had managed to save. He still hadn’t recovered from the collapse of his online business, a slow, humiliating slide from decent profits to zero. He had tried to fight it. Tried to keep up. But technology moved faster than he did. He lost. Depression followed. And then writing came. Five years of it. Enough to bring him peace. Not enough to bring money. Or approval. It brought something else instead: tension. Resentment and silence. “Do something real,” she would say. And he would stop speaking to her for days, calling it peace.