B000FC1MHI EBOK (24 page)

“It’s so quiet here,” she murmured, and it was. Waves hit the shore, wind hit the bluff, and rain hit the roof of the keeper’s house, but in the midst of it all, there was a stillness. “This is a place removed. Can’t think about the usual worries here. I understand why you come.”

Actually, Julia realized, the sense of separateness applied to all of Big Sawyer. Perhaps that was what she felt when she had visited as a child. Worries had a hard time making the crossing from the mainland; in moments like this, they were spectral—not quite here, not quite gone, certainly nowhere near as ominous as they had been.

“I always imagined I could stay here forever,” she said wistfully.

Kim shot her a horrified look.

“No?” Julia asked.

A short, sharp head shake said a definitive no.

“You’d leave?”

Kim nodded.

“Why?” she asked. Then, “Where would you go? What would you do? Who would you be?” She paused, then faced forward and gave a diffident snort. “I’m a fine one to be asking you that. Who would
I
be? I haven’t a clue.”

Julia wished she wanted to be a lawyer like her friend Jane. She wasn’t too old to go to law school; she could see herself doing family law or even legal aid work, either of which would be time-consuming and rewarding enough to compensate for Monte’s infidelity. Or she could become an accountant. She was good at math, and accountants were in demand.
Or
she could take a job in her friend’s store; Charlotte was always begging her to.

If she did any of those things, she might craft a life that would allow her to leave her marriage intact. That would please Molly. It might even please Monte. It would surely please her parents.

But would it please
her
?

Shy of an answer, she spent Saturday afternoon alternating between the rabbits in the barn and her photo printer in the house, and spent Saturday evening with Zoe and her friends. These things kept her busy enough so that she didn’t dwell on the fact that Molly was coming and going without a word. Sunday morning, when Ellen Hamilton called, desperate for help, Julia was more than happy to oblige.

Bearing a fresh batch of cookies, she drove to the weathered farmhouse on Dobbs Hill. Far from deserted this time, the front yard was filled with cars. A U-Haul was backed up to the door, and an army of friends were carting furniture and boxes from house to van.

This was moving day. The rain had moved farther offshore, and while the sky was filled with clouds, they were the palest of gray. Sun came and went. The air was warm. Julia wore shorts, a T-shirt, and Birks. She had a sweatshirt tied around her shoulders, and though she wasn’t sure she would need it, it offered a kind of comfort. Leaving the car and approaching the porch, she felt a distinct knot in the pit of her stomach.

The girls were off in the side yard, playing with a woman Julia had met just the night before with Zoe. The woman waved; Julia waved back but continued on toward the house. She had barely reached it when Ellen rushed out. Sandy hair flying, she looked frantic.

“Thank you so much for coming,” she said, grasping Julia’s arm and pulling her toward the yard. “Deanna’s been with the kids, but she has to leave, and the rest of us are trying to get things loaded so that I can make the noon ferry, and the girls just love you.” Even as she spoke, Vanessa broke away and, little legs wheeling, ran toward them. Halfway there, she stumbled and fell, but Julia barely had time to start forward when the child was up and running again. Grasping Julia’s leg, she tipped her head back and grinned.

Julia scooped her up. “How’s my little sweetie?”

“Good,” Vanessa said and curled an arm around her neck. “D’ya bring cookies?”

“I did,” Julia said, adding more quietly to Ellen, “Go back to work. We’ll be fine.”

Ellen didn’t need further encouragement. Deanna lingered to talk with Julia until she absolutely had to run, at which point Julia took the girls across the meadow, farther from the hubbub at the house. Sitting in the tall grass, she gave them cookies, told them stories, and played little games with them. She even asked questions about the move, which they answered in a way that suggested they had come to their own understanding of it and were okay.

That was before Ellen came looking for them, at which point Vanessa, who had been sitting snug against Julia’s leg, wrapped that little arm again around her neck, so tightly now that Julia had no choice but to lift her. Annie stayed close, as well.

“We’re ready to go,” Ellen said, forcing an enticing smile for the girls. “The ferry’s waiting for us.” She held out a hand to Annie. “All set?”

Nodding docilely, the child took Ellen’s hand. Following them, carrying Vanessa, Julia had a lump in her throat. She doubted the girls were old enough to realize that this part of their life was done. But they did sense something of the moment’s import. She could tell by the way Annie held back a little when they approached the car with the U-Haul hooked behind it, and Vanessa’s arm clutched her neck as though she would never let go.

The lump in Julia’s throat grew larger as longtime Walsh friends took turns saying good-bye to the girls. Some had tears in their eyes, others couldn’t speak, simply gave kisses and hugs. They had known these girls since birth. Sending them off to a new life in Akron was like pouring salt on the wound of the loss of Evan, Jeannie, and Kristie.

Annie climbed into the backseat of Ellen’s car, but when Julia tried to settle Vanessa there, she refused to go. Both hands held Julia’s neck now. Small sounds of protest came from the child’s throat.

Wanting to make the leave-taking as easy on the three of them as possible, Julia offered to drive Vanessa to the dock. The little girl played with the long end of the seat belt the whole way, weaving it here and there, twisting it and tying it in ways that took Julia long minutes to undo when they arrived, but the extra time allowed Ellen to drive the car with its trailer onto the waiting ferry, before returning for Vanessa.

Vanessa wasn’t going. Winding both arms and both legs around Julia now, she started to cry. Ellen tried prying her limbs free. Julia did the same. The more they tried, the harder Vanessa held on and the louder she cried.

The waterfront was crowded with people. The deck of the Harbor Grill held Sunday brunchers; tourists who had come in on the ferry were just beginning to wander toward Main Street; lobstermen were spending their enforced Sunday off by doing work on their boats. Vanessa’s cries were shrill enough to draw eyes right and left, but what was there to do? Julia crooned soft words of encouragement to the child until her own throat closed up, at which point she was relegated to stroking the little girl’s warm hair as she struggled to pass her to Ellen. Vanessa’s mouth was open in screams of protest; large tears streamed down her cheeks. She climbed Julia’s body with startling strength. Julia’s heart positively ached.

In the end, a small child was no match for two healthy adults. They managed to transfer her, twisting and fighting, to Ellen’s arms, and Ellen managed to get her aboard the ferry with Annie moments before the ramp was drawn up, and still Vanessa held out her arms to Julia, screeching now, “
Nononooo!”

It was when
Nononooo!
turned to
Mamamama!
with little hands opening and closing, trying to grasp what she desperately wanted but was surely losing, that Julia pressed a hand to her mouth and began to cry softly herself. Once started, the tears wouldn’t stop—not when the ferry pulled away, nor when its engine drowned out the sound of the child’s screams, reducing her to a mimed image of hysteria, nor even when Ellen carried her to the front of the vessel and out of Julia’s sight.

Sobbing quietly, Julia watched until the ferry was out of the harbor, on open ocean and gone. She moved her hand from her mouth to her heart, hugged herself with the other arm, and still she felt bereft. She pressed her lips together in an attempt to regain control; when that didn’t work, she simply took sunglasses from the top of her head and put them on. Crossing to a bench at the shore end of the dock, she sank down—and all the while, quietly, she wept.

“Mom?” Molly asked, coming down to the bench beside Julia.

Julia kept her eyes on the sea and her fingers hard against her lips.

“Did you know them?”

“Enough,” Julia managed, but couldn’t say more. She didn’t know where the tears had come from and why they refused to stop. She wasn’t Vanessa’s mother. She had spent a total of three, maybe four hours with the child.

Vanessa’s tears were more understandable. From the very first, the little girl had gravitated to Julia. Too young to understand what had happened to her own parents, she had sensed a maternal something and gone for it.

Julia’s tears, though? She wasn’t a novice at separation. With Molly her only child, she had felt it more keenly than most, but she had learned to accept what had to be. Molly had to go to kindergarten. She had to sleep over at the houses of friends, had to eventually spend the summer away at camp. These experiences were as crucial to her education as schoolwork, and there was that, too. Molly had to go off to college. Julia missed her terribly. But she knew that all these things were in Molly’s best interest.

“What can I do?” Molly whispered now.

Nothing,
Julia said with the shake of her head.

“I was just stopping by at the Grill, but I’m not working until tonight. Want me to drive you home?”

Julia shook her head. She couldn’t leave the harbor yet.

Her daughter sat for a minute. Then, sounding embarrassed, she asked, “Are you going to just…
sit
here?”

That embarrassment hit Julia the wrong way. Wiping tears from her cheeks, she looked at Molly through her dark glasses and said brokenly, “Yes. I’m going to just sit here.” The words were barely out when new tears began to fall.

Molly straightened, then slumped, then swiveled on her bottom to face forward, and it hit Julia that her daughter didn’t know what to do. She had never seen Julia like this. She didn’t know what Julia needed— remarkably, didn’t think to put an arm around Julia’s shoulder or even a hand on her hand as Julia had done so many times when the tables were turned. But that was it—the tables had always been turned. Julia was the giver of comfort, not the recipient. Molly had no idea how to handle this new turn of events—and that was one more reason for Julia to cry. If children learned from the example their parents set, either Molly was failing the test, or Julia had failed it on the teaching end.

“Well, then,” Molly said unsurely, “if you want to stay here, I’ll leave. I’ll be hanging around the Grill. If you change your mind and want me to do something, come in and get me, okay?”

Julia nodded, but she didn’t watch Molly walk away. Rather, she put her elbows on her thighs, pressed her quivering mouth to laced fingers, and closed her eyes. All she had to do was to picture Vanessa Walsh reaching out so futilely, and she began crying again. There was loss here, but it didn’t stop with Vanessa. Julia cried for the failure of her marriage, for wasted years of heartache and hope. She cried for her life in New York, because, though it was all she really knew, she didn’t want it anymore.

“Hey,” came a low male voice. She didn’t have to open her eyes to know whose hand was holding her knee. She covered it with one of her own. His warmth was a balm.

“That was a rough good-bye,” he said.

She nodded and wiped at her cheeks. “It just hit me,” she murmured nasally. “I don’t know why.”

“Sure you do,” he said in that same low voice. “You’re sensitive, and you’re smart. You know what that little girl’s lost.”

She sniffled and rubbed her nose with the back of her hand.

“Need a tissue?” he asked and, as though summoning a waiter, raised his voice. “Tissue!” Seconds later, he gave her a fresh one.

She blotted her eyes and blew her nose—all one-handed, because somewhere along the way his hand on her knee had turned up and their fingers had linked, and she wasn’t breaking that contact. She didn’t care if people saw; she needed a friend, and he was there.

So was his dog, sitting quietly, facing Julia on her left as Noah was on her right. “Lucas is staring again,” she whispered.

Noah whispered back, “He’s never seen anyone as beautiful before.”

“Beautiful? Omigod. I’m a mess.”

“He doesn’t see it that way.”

Julia took some solace in that. Never one for public displays, she figured that anyone else passing by must think her a head case. But she wasn’t ready to leave.

“It’s more than just Vanessa,” she said, her chin in her palm, her face inches from his. “It’s every frightening little thing. We think a child is worse off because she doesn’t understand the extent of what’s happening, but an adult
does
understand, and
that
makes it worse.
Plus,
an adult has the responsibility of acting—planning—moving—doing.” She met Noah’s gaze. “I’d love to sit back and let someone else take responsibility for my life.”

“Right now?” He smiled. “Okay. Are you hungry?”

“No,” she said, then changed that to “Yes.” Coming off a crying jag, she shouldn’t have felt like eating, but there was a definite hole in her stomach. She assumed part of it, at least, was from hunger.