Empire Falls

his grandfather’s, so when he rounded the corner of the living room and saw the tableau that had been prepared for him, he knew at once that only God—the same God with whom he’d gone to war over the moose—could have arranged it and at the same time have blinded him so completely to the possibility of these three women standing just a few feet apart .
    Cindy was not in Augusta, as he’d imagined, but just inside the patio door, one hand on the handle, as if she intended in that frozen moment to slide the door open and join life on the other side, as if such a thing were possible. He knew, of course, that she was clutching the door handle for support and that this scene bespoke her entire life on the wrong side of one barrier or another, ever since the day so long ago when he’d risen up in impotent rage against his wife, packed a suitcase, tossed it into the trunk and gunned the Lincoln in reverse even before the automatic garage door had raised completely, not caring in the least if he tore it off on the way out. He’d heard nothing and felt only a small bump—not for the first time either, since the child was forever leaving things in the driveway. She liked to rest all of her dolls up against the closed garage door, pleased with how many of them there were, and that was exactly what the bump felt like, except that the doll must’ve gotten caught up under the car. When he pulled out onto the road and felt the second bump, he looked and he saw her in the rearview mirror and thought, indeed, that he’d again run over one of his daughter’s dolls . Except this one was too big. C.B. himself had bought every one of her dolls, and he couldn’t remember any that looked like this .
    How could something like that happen? The question was no sooner asked than answered. C. B. Whiting might have been a weak man—well, in truth, he knew he was a weak man—but he’d never mastered the fine art of self-deception as most weak men do, so when he asked himself how it was possible to forget all about his beloved daughter, he realized that of course this wasn’t the first time, but merely the first to bear consequences. This time it was hatred that had clouded his vision. In the past he’d been just as blinded by love .
    Exactly when had he fallen in love with Grace Roby, now standing outside the patio door? He had noticed her, naturally, at the shirt factory, and then her pregnancy had proceeded in lockstep with Francine’s, but perhaps it was that moment at the hospital, when he saw Grace cradling her baby at her breast, when he was truly lost. It wasn’t simply that she was so tired and beautiful. There was something about her joy in the child, her happiness and gratitude, that allowed him to glimpse the possibility of another, better life and to wonder what if? Both women were kept in the hospital for three days after they gave birth, the maternity ward so full that even a woman with the name Whiting couldn’t get a private room—Thank God! he recalled thinking—and by the time they were released, he would’ve made the trade right then and there, his wife and baby daughter and all his wealth for the opportunity to return with Grace and her infant son to the little rented house she shared with her husband, a fellow who was always flecked with dried paint and seemed to have no idea how lucky he was. The intensity of his passion for this woman—and the shocking vividness of his vision of another life, so tangible and yet remote in what was now the beginning of middle age—made C.B. wonder if he was losing his mind, or if surrendering both Grace and the possibility of happiness might not be too much to bear. Worse, when he drove Francine and his own newborn daughter, writhing and twisting at her mother’s meager breast, across the Iron Bridge and saw the swift water running beneath, he recalled his war with God over the moose and he realized for the first time that God had won, that as an arrogant sinner the only course left to him was penance. Unable to surrender his newfound hope, he knew now that the only way to win Grace Roby would be with God’s permission, and that would be denied until he was worthy of her, which he resolved forthwith to become .
    How long he courted Grace without her even knowing! Weeks into months into years, watching her at work from his glassed-in office on the top floor, seeing her on weekends along Empire Avenue with her little boy in tow , her husband always off somewhere