Chance Harbor (13 page)

“I’m sure it’s not.”

“Gee. Thanks.”

He held up his hands. “I apologize! It’s just that, in my work, I see lots of kids who seem to cope fine until, one day, they don’t. Keep an eye on her is my advice. What about you? Will you be all right tonight? Do you have someone who can stay with you for a bit?”

“No. But I’ll be fine.”

“It might help, not to be alone,” he said. “You’re never more alone than when someone has rejected you.”

“That’s a funny way of putting it, but you’re right. That’s just how it feels: like I’ve been rejected for not being good enough. Did Brady’s mother leave you for someone else?”

Seth ran a hand through his hair, pushing it back off his forehead. She had assumed, when she’d first seen him in the office, that he was a young father, but now she could see from the deep lines across his forehead that he must be as old as she was, at least. “Brady’s mother left me for many reasons,” he said. “Most are too boring to talk about. Can I get you something more substantial to eat? A sandwich, maybe?”

She shook her head. “I should be going. I’ll be all right now.”

Seth studied her for a minute, then said, “It could help, you know, to talk to somebody impartial. Someone who’s been through this.”

“I doubt very much that most people have been through this particular thing,” Catherine said, and stood up. “But thanks.” She reached out to shake his hand as they reached the front door together.

“Say good-bye to Brady for me.”

Seth held her hand and gave her such a searching look that she imagined he could see into the darkest, most terrified corners of her mind. “Call someone to stay with you tonight,” he said. “Promise me.”

“I promise,” she lied, just so he would let her go.

•   •   •

On Thursday morning, Willow was surprised to see the blind beggar in the rainbow hat sitting beneath a tree on Cambridge Common. You hardly ever saw homeless people here. Plus, how would a blind beggar get from Boston to Cambridge?

Maybe she’d taken the subway. Or been picked up and brought to a shelter. That was probably it: Cambridge had, like, five homeless shelters.

Or maybe the woman had come to Cambridge because the Boston cops trotted around on their horses like sheriffs and yelled at people, even at the skaters trying to land ollies on their boards. Like yelling at skaters would help make the world a better place. If every guy had a skateboard, the world would have a lot less war. They should just give out skateboards to terrorists in Afghanistan or wherever.

Willow had been hanging out on Cambridge Common all week, even though Catherine had told her to stay in the house. “Spend this week thinking about where you might want to go to school,” Catherine had suggested.

As if she had a choice.

Willow had overheard Catherine talking to her friend Bethany about money, worrying that maybe they’d have to sell the house, or at least the car, if Russell didn’t get another job.

She knew, too, that Nana had tried to give Catherine money, but Catherine had refused it. “I’m not Zoe,” she had said, whispering so she thought Willow wouldn’t hear her.

On the Common, Willow usually sat on a bench near the playground because she’d be invisible here, blending in with the foreign nannies. Most didn’t look much older than she was and a lot of them were just as blond.

Catherine had told Willow to stay away from social media, too. She’d taken away Willow’s computer “for your own good,” forgetting that Willow knew the password for the home computer and could Google stuff on her phone. Russell being fired “for inappropriate conduct with a student” didn’t make any of the big news sites, but the story was all over social media. Willow wanted to puke every time she Googled and got another hit. She kept looking for stuff anyway.

The tweets and Facebook posts had slowed down, but every now and then someone made another comment. Half the people posting called Russell a perv who should be locked up and castrated. The other half—kids at her school, mostly—said Nola was a nympho slut who couldn’t keep her knees together even around the teachers.
Old bald dude beats out entire Beacon Hill Div. I football team to win Nola trophy,
Trent had tweeted.

Willow kept an eye on the homeless woman, who was strumming her beat-up guitar. The tin can was at her feet, but what was the point? Nobody but students used Cambridge Common during the day, and Harvard students were so rich that they acted poor all the time, wearing ratty polo shirts and crap sweatpants. That woman should come here later, when the professors and businesspeople were walking home from work.

Maybe she was going to stay all day. What else did a homeless person have to do? In a way, that wasn’t much different from what Willow was doing now: waiting for nothing.

She shifted her weight on the bench, alternating her attention between the homeless woman and a nanny trying to calm down a little kid who was howling. His cheeks were red and his hair stood up in a mini black Mohawk. The nanny finally picked up the kid and carried him back to his stroller, the little boy’s feet thumping against her skinny legs.

Just then, the homeless woman bent over and took something furry out of the bag by her feet. An animal? She set it down on the ground, but it didn’t move. Was it even alive?

Willow squinted at it. After a minute she decided it was a dog. It was brown and had a squashed face like one of those stupid Ewoks in the old Star Wars movie that Russell made her watch with him, saying, “This is a classic.”

“A classic geek movie,” Willow had teased, feeling good that Russell wanted to share a movie with her. She’d even made popcorn.

Stupid asshole cheater.

It was a dog, definitely, running back and forth next to the bench like some dumb windup toy.

Willow had always been scared of dogs, after a bad experience with a pit bull in one apartment she’d shared with her mom, but this one was so small, she wanted to touch it.

She stood up and gathered her things. The nanny in the platform shoes had given the little boy a bottle and he was quiet now, his eyes almost closed as the nanny rocked his carriage with one foot and texted, her dark frizzy hair like a cloud over her round brown face. She glanced up and smiled as Willow walked by, her eyes a surprising turquoise.

Willow wanted to photograph her, but she was afraid to ask. The woman might be illegal, like a lot of the nannies who worked for the parents of kids she knew at school. She didn’t want to get anybody into trouble.

The homeless woman was still playing with the dog, making it dance around on its little hind legs. How did she feed it? Did she sleep on the street with it, or take it to her shelter?

Willow kept edging closer, thinking she could sneak up on them, but the dog sensed her presence and whirled around, wagging its stub of a tail and barking. Shit, shit, shit.

“Hello?” Willow said, trying to put a smile in her voice so she wouldn’t scare the woman.

She raised her head in Willow’s direction, sort of, then turned her head to the side, as if she were listening closely with one ear.

Probably not deaf, Willow thought. More likely just traumatized or nuts. What had happened, that this woman had ended up blind and playing guitar for money? Was she really homeless? She didn’t actually look that dirty.

Willow dropped down on the grass next to the puppy and started playing with it. “Cool dog. Is it yours?”

The woman continued strumming the guitar without answering. So either she was deaf or just didn’t like talking. That was cool. Willow didn’t need anyone else talking to her, telling her shit she didn’t want to hear.

“Is it okay if I take a picture of your dog?” Willow asked, glancing up.

To her surprise, the woman nodded. Okay. So she could hear. Unless she was just randomly moving her head.

Willow took out her camera. The dog’s head was oversized for its body and it had funny ears that stood up in little triangles. Its muzzle was smashed nearly flat, as if it had been pressed against a wall. Overall, this puppy looked like it had been put together out of spare parts. Willow smiled every time she looked at it.

The woman moved to the far side of the bench and pulled her shawl up to hide half her face. “It’s okay,” Willow reassured her. “I’m not taking your picture. Just the dog. Your dog made me smile. That’s, like, the first time I’ve smiled in a week. Since my parents decided to get divorced.”

The woman turned her head sharply in Willow’s direction. Willow pretended not to notice, but she was dying to photograph the woman’s clothes up close, to get those contrasts in texture between her rainbow tam and shawl, between awesomely bright fabrics and that black hair in shiny knotted ribbons. The hair was so black, it looked fake.

She kept talking. The guy who took their school pictures did that to relax you. “Yeah, now I’ll be like most kids, I guess, shuttling between two houses. I mean, if my dad even gets a house, now that he’s having a baby with this girl from my school.”

Willow glanced up when she heard a sharp intake of breath. What the hell? The woman was clutching the guitar like it was a joystick and the world was a video game. Was she having a seizure?

No cops around. Never when you needed them. But the nannies in the playground probably knew first aid, right? Willow bet you had to do all kinds of training to get a crap job like changing the diapers on somebody else’s kid.

“You okay?” she asked, sitting down beside the woman.

The woman had the shawl pulled up over her nose and turned away, but nodded.

“So you really can hear me!”

The woman nodded again.

“Okay, that’s good. I was starting to think maybe you were deaf.” Willow settled back against the bench, pleased. Maybe if they got to know each other the woman would let her do a portrait. Or she could do a documentary series of pictures following a homeless person around Boston! Mrs. Lagrasso would love that!

Then she remembered: no more art classes with Mrs. Lagrasso. Her eyes burned. She didn’t want to start her whole life over. Not again.

Willow felt the puppy scrambling up her leg. “Do you mind if I hold your dog?”

When the woman shrugged, Willow bent down and scooped the puppy into her arms. Its belly was round and hard and warm. His ears were going crazy, twitching back and forth as he stood on his back legs and tried to lick her face. Willow laughed and said no, like, ten times before the dog curled into a ball on her lap and settled down.

The woman was silent, staring straight ahead now. Willow followed her gaze. They were sitting directly in line with the bench where Willow had been hanging out every afternoon by the playground. She wondered if the homeless woman had been here in the park all along and she just hadn’t noticed her.

Willow felt comforted by the dog on her lap. The wagging had stopped, and the dog felt heavy as a brick. Sound asleep, even snoring a little through that mashed nose. So cute.

“I probably won’t have any friends for, like, two years after all the shit that’s happened,” she said. “I know these are first-world problems, but my life pretty much sucks right now.”

The woman stood up suddenly and gathered her things. Shit, Willow thought. She’d offended her. Here she was, whining about friends, when this woman probably didn’t even know where she was going to sleep.

Willow noticed the woman’s boots as she bent to put her guitar in the case and snapped it shut. The boots were better than they should have been, like the kind they sold in that shoe store in Harvard Square with the weird displays. Maybe she’d stolen them. Or it could be that the shelter gave them to her. Anyway, the woman was walking away in those boots, using her cane to guide her, the guitar in her other hand, the big cloth bag slung over one shoulder.

“Hey!” Willow hurried after her, carrying the puppy. “You forgot your dog!”

The woman held up a hand, waving Willow away. She kept walking, shoulders hunched beneath the red shawl, and mumbled something.

“What did you say?” Willow kept pace.

“Friend,” the woman said, her voice a surprise, a low growl, as if it took everything she had to say it.

Did she have sore vocal cords? A tracheotomy, like in that horrible TV ad with the ex-smoker talking through a tube in his throat?

Finally, Willow’s mind pieced together what she meant: the woman wanted Willow to keep the dog. She felt sorry for Willow and thought she needed a friend.

Crap. Life was really in the toilet if a homeless blind woman felt sorry for you.

“No, no,” Willow said. “This is your dog. You need to take it with you. I don’t think my mom even likes dogs.”

The woman kept walking. She was surprisingly fast for an old blind person with a cane. They’d nearly reached Mass Ave, and the traffic noise made conversation impossible, even if the woman had been willing to talk.

“Really,” Willow called, despairing now as the woman continued her head-down journey. “I can’t take this dog.”

“Friend,” the woman said again. Then she pulled the shawl up higher, wrapping it completely around her face except for the glasses, and dashed straight into the oncoming traffic.

Willow screamed and closed her eyes as a car horn blared. When she opened them again, the woman was gone, leaving Willow with the puppy in her arms.

O
n Friday afternoon, Catherine met Bethany after work at the Fiddler’s Son, an Irish pub near Porter Square. The place was dark and empty except for three stocky men hunched on barstools, their bodies a trio of commas. The dim light and sticky floor matched Catherine’s mood.

She had gone into the office despite everything, and was proud of having held things together even under the scrutiny of Alicia, fish-eyed Julia, and the other medical staff. Now she was relieved to escape.

As they shared a shepherd’s pie and a plate of fries, Catherine went into another rant about Russell and Nola and her worries about Willow and money. Afterward, she didn’t feel more relaxed or happier, though. She felt woozy and stupid, like a bloated cow in her itchy brown mohair sweater. The kind of cow with the shaggy coat and huge horns. What were they called?

Scottish Highland cattle
. Dad had taken them to Scotland once to meet the branch of the MacLeish family that had sensibly opted to stay put instead of immigrating to Prince Edward Island and chancing death by fever or shipwrecks. One of Dad’s uncles had raised Scottish Highland cattle. They’d walked through a field of them, and the shaggy prehistoric beasts had terrified Catherine.

Zoe, of course, had gone right up to one and kissed it on the nose. Her sister had always been the brave one. Or the crazy one, depending on your point of view. Catherine knew her parents had always counted on her to be solid and dependable and that Zoe had resented her as a tattletale and a scold. But what nobody knew was how much Catherine had yearned to be more like her younger sister. She’d always cared too much about failing to take any real risks. She colored inside the lines. Followed maps instead of her nose. And where had that gotten her?

Here, a blowsy, soon-to-be divorcée and single mom, drinking beer in a sticky pub at four in the afternoon.

“Earth to Catherine?” Bethany asked. “Want another beer?”

“God, no.” Catherine tugged the collar of the sweater away from her neck. “Another drink and I’ll be under the table. I need to keep my wits. Russell’s bringing Willow back after dinner. Then I have to help her pack for PEI. She and Mom are leaving Sunday.”

“I still think you should go with them.”

“I need to work. Who knows what will happen with Russell’s job situation? The headmaster asked him to resign. He promised to keep things on the down low with the media, but the story may come spilling out anyway. Russell will probably never teach again.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Bethany said. “Nola’s eighteen, right? In the scheme of things, is that even a worthy headline? Russell’s not like that pervy teacher they just caught in Boston.”

“What teacher?”

“You know, the guy shooting secret videos of middle school girls in the locker room and posting them online. And Russell’s definitely a notch of sleaze above that swim coach who was having an affair with the girl he was training for the Olympics. She was only fourteen.”

“I know. But Russell was this girl’s teacher. It was still an abuse of power and a violation of school policy. Russell also said her dad might press charges even if the school doesn’t. I think that’s why he’s marrying her.”

“Well, duh. Russell adores you. He’d never leave you if he hadn’t gotten her pregnant.” Bethany ordered them each another beer.

Catherine wondered if Bethany was right. Should she be fighting for their marriage, as her mother had suggested? She didn’t see the point. No matter how much she’d loved Russell, he clearly hadn’t been happy with her, or he never would have done this.

Bethany was the only friend Catherine had confided in about Russell. Since then, she’d been showing up to watch movies after dinner, hanging out with Willow some afternoons while Catherine worked, and dropping off food that Catherine forced herself to eat. She had a voice like a foghorn and wore layered clothing in bright colors that always made her look like a bouquet of flowers. Red lipstick was her trademark, along with earrings made out of found objects: sea glass, small forks, feathers. Today Bethany’s earrings were shiny and green and noisy, some sort of giant insect’s shellacked wings. They shouldn’t have been beautiful, but they were.

Catherine picked up her beer and sipped it.
Too dumb to live
: That’s what she and Bethany used to say about the girls in those horror movies they’d loved to watch on weekends after marathon study sessions in nursing school, the girls who descended into dark basements by themselves even after their friends were hacked to pieces by some masked guy with a chain saw.

“Too dumb to live, that’s how I feel,” she told Bethany now.

Bethany grinned, understanding the reference at once. “No, you’re not.”

“Yes, I am. I should have seen this coming.”

“That’s ridiculous! How could you have?” Bethany demanded. “Russell has always been so attentive and loving. The ideal husband.”

“There must have been clues, though. How could I have missed the fact that Russell was sleeping with someone else? Especially a student? Russell and I have been through hell and back together. He wasn’t just my husband. He was my best
friend
.” Catherine felt her voice scrape raw on the last word. She clamped her lips shut.

“Poor girl. You’re a mess, and I don’t blame you,” Bethany said, putting her arm around Catherine’s shoulders. “That’s why you should go to PEI with your mom and Willow. You need to get away.”

“I can’t. They’re swamped at work.”

“So? I’m guessing you have sick time and vacation days piled up. You need a mental-health vacation.”

Catherine shook her head. “That’s not what it would be, though. I’d go crazy up there, with nothing to do but go through my dad’s stuff and watch Mom cry. It was so bad when we went up in August that I vowed never again. Now Mom’s determined to clear out the house and put it on the market, so it’ll be even worse. We won’t just be saying good-bye to the house but to Dad all over again, and I hate wallowing. You know that about me.”

Bethany rapped her knuckles on the table hard enough to make Catherine jump. “Oh, come on! Your mom is grieving and needs your help. You’re feeling stuck. Just go! You’ll have a better perspective on everything if you do. Besides, this may be your last opportunity to see Chance Harbor.”

“Don’t remind me.” Catherine felt her stomach twist. “I still can’t believe Mom’s selling the house. Dad would have a fit.”

“Maybe not. Your dad was a stand-up guy who loved your mom. He’d want her to do whatever made her life easier.”

Bethany was right, of course. Catherine’s guilt over her own reluctance to go to Chance Harbor deepened as she said, “Mom has always been better at coping than I am. Clearing out the house could do me in. Sometimes I see Dad on the street, you know? It hasn’t fully sunk in yet that he’s gone for good.”

Bethany put her hand over Catherine’s. “I know. You two were so close.”

“We were, yeah. Dad always said I was the son he never had. He taught me everything: fishing, sailing, driving a stick. Even how to hunt and dress a deer.”

“Zoe, too?”

Catherine felt the smile slide off her face. “No. They were always butting heads. Dad got frustrated with Zoe. Even I thought he was too hard on her.”

“Sad.”

“I know. But don’t feel too sorry for Zoe. She always did exactly what she wanted. Nobody could stop her. I tried. So did my parents. She had plenty of chances to turn her life around, but she never took them.” Catherine swallowed another sip of beer, though she didn’t really want it anymore. “I don’t know. Today, maybe there would be a medication for whatever she had wrong with her. I’m guessing these days she’d be diagnosed with something like oppositional defiant disorder.”

“Is that even a real thing? It sounds made-up.”

“I know. But it pretty much describes what was wrong with Zoe.” Catherine was surprised to look down and see that her knuckles were white on the beer bottle. As much as she missed her sister, she was still furious at Zoe for making life harder for their entire family.

Now Zoe was some horrible statistic and Catherine was left feeling awash with conflicting emotions anytime she thought of her: sorrow at her absence, guilt at the relief she felt about Zoe being gone, resentment at having to clean up after Zoe’s emotional wreckage, and rage at what Zoe had done to hurt Willow.

“Was she always wild? Even as a little kid?”

Catherine nodded. “Zoe never stopped moving. She had one bad idea after another. If there was a high point on a walk—a stone wall, a tree—Zoe would be at the top of it before you knew she was gone. The first time she was suspended, she was in fourth grade. The teacher caught her running a casino in her desk and taking money from the other kids.”

Bethany laughed. “She sounds interesting, anyway.”

“Oh, she was. Nobody was more fun than my sister. Or more beautiful. That was part of her problem, too.”

“You’re beautiful,” said Bethany, always loyal. “Did you look a lot alike? I can’t remember. She was blond like you, right?”

“Blonder.” Catherine tugged at a lock of her straight hair. “Zoe had that kind of curly blond hair you see on princesses in Disney movies. And she always kept it long. Drove guys crazy, that hair.”

“So Willow looks a lot like her mom.”

Catherine nodded. “Yes. Zoe had a body to die for, too. Like Willow’s going to have. Willow tries to hide hers, but Zoe loved showing it off. Made Dad nuts, the way the boys were always coming around, even when Zoe was in middle school.”

“I bet.”

“It didn’t help that Dad thought Zoe was wasting her potential to do something with her life. She was so smart—quicker than I am, in a lot of ways—but she never paid attention in school. She was too caught up with her friends and boyfriends. Partying hard. It’s amazing she ever got into college. Nobody was surprised when she got pregnant and dropped out at the end of her freshman year. Even when my parents said they’d take care of Willow if she wanted to go back to school, Zoe still couldn’t get her act together.”

Catherine forced herself to take another sip of beer. Why dredge through all of that again? Zoe was gone.

“Nobody knows who Willow’s dad is, right?”

“Zoe wouldn’t say.”

Bethany gave her a sympathetic look. “And I’m guessing you wouldn’t try finding him even if you had a name.”

“Right. I know that’s awful and selfish. The thing is, if the guy wanted to claim Willow, he would have done it by now, right? Zoe was always easy to find. I mean, until she disappeared completely. That’s why I want to kill Russell—he didn’t just cheat on me; he’s abandoning Willow.”

“You don’t know that,” Bethany pointed out. “Some dads become more involved after divorce.”

“Maybe. But he’ll be busy with his new family, don’t forget.”

“Go to Canada,” Bethany said. “You’re tense and exhausted because you’re adjusting to life as a single working mom.”

Catherine frowned. “That’s part of it. But I think it’s also because I have to see all of these young moms with their kids and have it constantly thrown in my face that I can’t have what they do. I thought I was over not having children of my own, but lately I’ve been feeling ticked off at every idiot high school girl with a baby. It sucks that Nola’s got this cute little baby bump and my husband while I’m stuck with midlife muffin and our mortgage.”

Bethany was trying hard not to laugh but failing; she ended up snorting beer out her nose. “Oh my God,” she said, mopping her face with a napkin. “Catherine, you are about the last woman on earth with a midlife muffin. You’re the size of a minnow! And, okay. Russell will have a baby. But that doesn’t guarantee he’ll be happy. Wait until Nola’s nagging him to change diapers while she does Pilates or whatever.”

“What I don’t get is why she wanted my husband in the first place.”

“Probably some kind of daddy complex,” Bethany said, “and Russell is smart and handsome. She’s young and thinks she’s in love—until she’s not. Then Russell’s in for a fall.”

“You’re probably right,” Catherine said, “but somehow that still doesn’t make me feel better. And you know what the worst thing is?”

“Uh-oh. What?”

“Sometimes I fantasize about Nola realizing she doesn’t want the baby, so Russell takes the child and comes back to me. How sick is that?”

Bethany grinned. “Are you kidding? It’s the perfect solution. You’d have a surrogate without having to shell out a gazillion dollars.”

They started laughing. Then, suddenly, Catherine felt exhausted. Her brain was on overdrive. “I’d better get going,” she said.

They linked arms as they stepped outside. It was already getting dark. Another sign that autumn was here. A narrow band of gold light dimpled the underside of purple clouds going black at the edges like rotting fruit.

They parted at the Porter Square T station, where Bethany took the subway back to Boston but Catherine opted to walk home.

She and Russell had agreed that he’d take Willow every other weekend and have dinner with her once a week, on Wednesdays. A traditional custody arrangement, though they’d also agreed to be flexible. So grown-up and civilized. Like co-owners of a business franchise.