He had seen her flit about her consignment shop like a songbird among the foliage of her dwelling tree. Serendipity was its name, and he found it all too appropriate where he concerned himself.
Molly Foster owned Serendipity Consignment, a humble but proudly independent business down in Greenville Junction, at the base of Moosehead Lake. Across the street was the Blue Loon, a cafe‑slash‑bar that Will made a point to frequent. Sometimes he would go alone, sit at a table and just stare off across the street through the windows. Other times he went under social cover with coworkers, for drinks.
Along with moving out of state, abandoning the lovely rurality of Wolf Trap, Virginia, Will made a silent resolution within himself that he would move on, that he would recover from Hannibal Lecter. Relocating to Maine was just the first step of this arduous process. It was a very necessary step to take. He needed a clean slate to work with. Once the slate was in his grasp, he would begin to create his portrait. He found work, once again putting those handyman skills to use out on the shores of Moosehead. There was always work where there were boats and boatmen. Around town, he established acquaintanceships, nurtured those into friendships (even if they were only superficial ones). After allowing himself a grace period in which he shut himself away and passed the days alone with his dogs to suffer in isolation, he became more involved in his community in many aspects. He took part in endeavors like the community watch, biweekly volunteer cleanups‑ he even joined the local hunting club. Normalcy gradually calcified in his bones. It was only contested by the trauma‑induced memories and fevered dreams that chronically afflicted him.
He still had nightmares. He still found himself passing nights by sleeplessly, sitting in the darkness of his living room, quietly listening to coyotes howl out in the woods and the dogs scuffle in the dark as he sipped away a glass of whiskey. On the the nights when the moonlight spilled unapologetically into his living space through the tall windows he might catch his pets glaring eerily at himCnot unlike the startling reflective glow of Hannibal=s maroon eyes. But he would just stare back at those laser points, not entirely repulsed, or apathetic.
It was in those quiet, still moments that he missed him most.
Once in the early days, he was so intoxicated that he bitterly asked Winston if he had finally come around to beg his forgiveness, on his knees, like a dog. When his eyes abruptly rose from the floor to prideful stature, he was silent. He could only watch as he slowly emerged from the shadows, leery‑eyed, in polished loafers and a checkered suit. Before a word could be spoken through those parted lips, Will realized the degree of his drunkeness, and the apparition ushered itself from the room at once. The inebriated man grasped the faint whisper of his inhale and desperately tried to hold onto it, but as alcohol tends to do when consumed in large quantities, it gently scrubbed the sound from immediate memory.
Will since took it upon himself to be his own savior. In spite of passive habituation to allow himself circumstantial stagnation (which was in itself a form of negligence, poor self‑care), he mustered up the willpower to take the initiative and bring about the changes to his life that he direly needed. He made it as far as Maine. He'd done good so far.
He had to keep going.
Will was seated alone alongside one of the front windows of the Blue Loon. His regular patronage rewarded him familiarity with some of the staff. Debra, a waitress, only needed to ask for confirmation on "the usual" before taking off to the kitchen by this point. In her absence, he let his eyes wander out the window as they tended to. Across the street, into Serendipity, he saw Molly chatting up a customer. Seemed to be someone she knew pretty well, a friend maybe. She was laughing. He wondered whether or not he should risk walking through her doors today. Will had taken care to calculate the frequency of his presence in Molly's shop. It wasn't ever a very crowded scene and he knew that in such a small town, she was bound to remember his face relatively easily. God forbid she think he was stalking her. He wasn't stalking her, he told himself on more than one occasion, he was justCdiscreetly observing her from a single inconspicuous location. Working up the nerve to ask her out on a date. That was it.
God, she was so beautiful.
Will fidgeted from focus when Debra snuck up on him with the water he forgot he asked for. He clumsily asked her about her kids. She had two little ones and a third bun currently baking in the oven.
"Oh, well Ollie started preschool today," she glossed, probably unaware that her cooey mommy voice was leaking out, "and Tris is on good behavior at daycare-"
"Oh, well that's good," Will grinned, unconsciously following her syntactic lead. It still bothered him how easily he conformed to others in verbal conversation. The habit was harder to break than it seemed. Debra perked.
"I know! He was getting into trouble, biting other kids-"
Suddenly, back in his old lecture hall, teaching psychoanalytic methodology applied to teeth renderings in flesh, among other objects. Will drifted away from Debra's voice. It only took her a few moments of uninterrupted babbling to realize his inattentiveness.
"Will?"
He blinked, back to here and now.
"Are you okay? You seem kinda distracted."
He looked around briefly, wondering why the young woman was still talking to him. The cafe was mostly empty, a simple answer. "Yeah, I'm fine. Sorry, Deb." The empathetic man didn't have to meet her eyes to know she didn't quite believe him. In fact, she was offended. She was also self‑conscious. Idiot, prattling away like chatty Cathy when he couldn't care less.
She smiled through her feelings anyway. "It's okay, I'll come back around in a bit."
Will was left to his own devices once again, only now to also soak in a spill of slight guilt. Way to space out on her. While unease took a seat across from him on account of his gaucherie, he fixated back on the consignment shop. Sadly, Molly was no longer visible through the windows. He had to settle for recollections instead.
The first time Will entered Serendipity he wound up leaving with a Burberry scarf he didn't really need. He had been out exploring the town and he was woefully unprepared to find an absolutely entrancing woman keeping the place. It happened very suddenly. One thing led to another, and she successfully fished an impulsive purchase from him. He went home defeated in a fell swoop, but not unhappy to wear something in which the fragrance of her shop lingered. A few weeks later, he showed face again, that time better prepared for an assault, rooted in firm determination not to buy anything. He just browsed and went home. The third visit heralded a shocking revelation: She was a parent. Presumably, a single one.
He noticed a glaring absence of a wedding band on her finger, but it hadn't crossed his mind that she was a mother. Will might have been able to experience others' emotions viscerally, but even his uncanny abilities had limitations. He hadn't been able to perceive this. Or, maybe he might have been able to, if his own emotions hadn't blinded him to it.
Thankfully on their first encounter Molly gathered that he wasn't from around here, and he told her that he had recently moved to Moosehead. So it wasn't too strange for him to ask about the brunette boy sitting behind the glass counter full of tacky used jewelry and trinkets.
"Is he yours?"
"Uh, yep," she chuckled. "His name's Walter."
The boy didn't so much as look up from the PSP he was focused on. Molly didn't call upon him to acknowledge them. Will found himself wary, yet appreciative of this. He was a young fellow and unsurprisingly shy. It was easily pardonable. Though, she hadn't exactly welcomed him to introduce himself, nor had she herself introduced him. It wasn't too hard to see why. Her negligence told him that not only was the father far out of the picture but that she was vigilant about her family's safety. With these things in mind, he tried to appear as least imposing as possible.
"Hello, Walter," he started considerately.
The child, no older than ten he guessed, reluctantly lifted his eyes to meet Will's. He found he was being smiled kindly upon.
It took no deliberation for Will to decide that he could just as happily accommodate Walter in his own life as he could his mother.