Chance Harbor (37 page)

They wandered through downtown Newburyport with silly grins, hands and hips touching. It was too early for the shops to be open, but they stopped here and there along State Street anyway, so Bear could drink out of the water dishes shopkeepers put out for dog visitors.

Back at the house, she came up behind Darcy and wrapped her arms around him. She wondered even as she did it who this new woman was, reaching for him. Andrew had always been the one to initiate. Malcolm, too. Not her.

She steadily unbuttoned Darcy’s shirt as he tried to do up the buttons, playing this game until they were both laughing hard, the same kind of stupid giggles she used to get with her sister when they were children and having a contest of faces. That giddy laughter of childhood, that mirth. Where did it go when you grew up?

It was still inside her, Eve was relieved to discover, as Darcy, still laughing, turned in her arms and said, “If you insist, madam,” and led her back to bed.

She did insist. Oh, yes, she did.

•   •   •

Willow and Nola had finished their homework by noon on Saturday. Russell was at the grocery store when Nola dropped her newest bomb. “So, Russell’s moving out,” she said.

“What do you mean?” Willow’s body froze in place.

“He’s moving out of my house.” Nola looked like she always did, saying this. A cross between pretty and smart, sweet and mean. Like she couldn’t decide who to be. Even in a blue striped maternity top that made her look, well, like a top.

Sometimes, looking at Nola was like looking at those drawings her art teacher had shown them that could look like different things depending on your perspective: an old lady or a young woman, a flower or a tiger.

“But
why
? And where’s he going to go?” Willow felt a hummingbird flutter of fear in her throat. Where would
she
go, if not here? Catherine always said she wanted Willow to stay with her, but would Catherine still want her if it meant having her all the time, now that she was used to having some weekends free and going out with Seth or Bethany?

Maybe Zoe would just take her someplace, like Florida, if Catherine and Russell didn’t want her. Willow pictured palm trees and alligators. She didn’t know if she wanted that. In fact, she was pretty sure she didn’t.

“I need my space. Guess Russell didn’t tell you like he said he would, huh? Figures.” Nola rolled her eyes. “He’s a nice guy, but kind of a coward, your dad.”

“He’s not my dad,” Willow said automatically, then felt guilty. Russell did everything a dad should do for her. Well, except be predictable. Predictable might be nice for a change.

“Whatever. He still should have told you.”

“Is it you or him?” Willow asked.

“Me, I guess. But sort of both.” Nola was sitting cross-legged on her Yogibo, where she’d been watching videos to help her study for her GED test; once she earned her high school degree that way, she was going to the community college part-time, she’d announced earlier today. Willow had been studying at Nola’s desk and was turned around now, straddling the chair. In this pose, Nola looked like a Buddha, with her belly sticking out and resting on top of her legs like it was a pillow shoved up under her shirt.

Her stomach wasn’t fake, though; Willow had seen the ultrasound photos. Nola had put them on Facebook and Instagram, even Twitter. Pretty much the whole world had seen how the baby was sucking his thumb inside Nola, his eyes closed. And, yeah, it was definitely a boy. That much was embarrassingly obvious.

Willow had felt the baby move, too. Nola had made her put a hand on her belly when it was happening. It was terrifying, like that ancient movie
Alien
. Willow had imagined Nola’s body splitting open and the baby coming out, all head and snapping jaws on a long neck.

“Why?” Willow asked again.

“I’m just not sure this is absolutely for me, you know, this whole playing house thing. Marriage.” Nola waved a hand. “I mean, I definitely
want
a baby. That’s cool. But marriage? Not so much. Every marriage is a train wreck waiting to happen. Just look around.”

Willow hated to admit that Nola was right, but she was. “What about Russell, though? Don’t you love him?”

“I don’t know. What is love, anyway?” Nola said, nibbling on a cuticle.

Love, thought Willow, meant knowing somebody would be on your side no matter what, which was what Russell had totally done for Nola. “So what’s going to happen?”

“No clue. I mean, I felt bad when I told him, no lie,” Nola said. “I really did. I know I pretty much fucked up his whole life. Yours, too. I get that. But it is what it is, right? That’s what my dad always says. He thinks it’s better to cut your losses before you get in too deep. Daddy says he’ll pay for a nanny. Carmen can’t do
everything
, I told him, and Daddy totally agrees with me. Plus, Russell will take care of the baby sometimes, like on weekends. That way I can still have a life.”

Willow wanted to choke her, but she reined it in. One thing she’d learned lately was that (1) you couldn’t change crazy, and (2) she’d better take care of herself. Her best bet now was to find her backup parent. Mike. It was time for him to know she existed.

“Okay, well, good luck,” she said. “I’ve been thinking about finding my real dad, anyway. Maybe spend some time with him.”

“That’s cool. Where does he live?”

“I don’t know. I guess I’ll have to look online or something.” Willow knew this was like feeding catnip to a cat. Little Miss Internet Addiction would grab at it.

Sure enough, Nola lit up and said, “Let’s do it! That bastard should at least give you college funds. What’s his name?”

Willow told her. Nola tapped Mike’s name into her iPad. Google brought up a bunch of junk. She tried Facebook next. There were tons of Michael Navarros, though, even when they typed “Massachusetts” into Facebook’s search bar. Willow felt discouraged. “This is harder than I thought. Maybe we should give up.”

“Hell no. What else do you know about this deadbeat?” Nola said.

“Don’t call him that. He might not even know I’m his.”

Nola’s eyes practically popped out of her skull. “Whoa. Your mom was a total player.”

“She was a total drug addict.” Willow bit her lip, feeling guilty about outing her mom that way. But nobody seemed to be playing by the rules anymore. Why should she? “My dad was a teacher and a magician,” she remembered.

By now she’d moved over to stand next to Nola, close enough to smell her strawberry lip gloss. It was funny how she’d stopped seeing Nola as sexy hot. Now she saw Nola as a hot mess. Like, that lip gloss probably drove guys insane with lust, but personally? Willow thought lip gloss was beyond gross. Wearing it made her feel like her mouth was glued shut.

Plus, she could see the baby moving under Nola’s shirt. The alien. So creepy. Definitely not hot. At all.

Willow fixed her eyes on the screen as Nola scrolled through Google searches, and wondered what this baby would think when he got old enough to know his mom was once the hottest girl in high school, until she screwed a teacher and got knocked up. Would she and Nola even know each other then? Probably not.

Weirdly, that thought made her sad. At least Nola, unlike most of the other people in Willow’s life right now, was always honest. You never had to guess what she was thinking.

As Nola next tried searching Mike’s name plus “teachers,” Willow suddenly remembered something else. “Try Montessori schools in Massachusetts with his name,” she said. “How many of those could there be?”

Not many. Most had Web sites listing the faculty with photographs. And there, in one of the Montessori schools in some town called Framingham, was a Web site listing Mike Navarro as the middle school science teacher.

“Where’s Framingham?” Willow asked, almost chewing through her cheek with excitement.

“An hour away.” Nola bent over to squint at the thumb-sized profile picture. “Holy shit. Your real dad’s hot.”

Willow yanked on a piece of Nola’s hair. “Stop. Be good.”

Nola laughed. “Yeah, yeah. Anyway, who’d want me now?”

So Nola knew she was over. Willow wondered if she minded. She didn’t think so. In fact, the more Willow thought about it, the more she thought that maybe Nola was glad. It must get pretty tiring to look like Nola.

“So all I have to do is get to Framingham.” Willow used her phone to search bus and train routes. “There’s a bus in an hour from South Station,” she said. “But then what would I do? We know where he works, but not where he lives.”

Nola was still moving her hands across her iPad like spiders. “White pages,” she said when Willow came over to watch again. “Here’s his address. And look. We can Zillow his house.”

Another few seconds, and there was the house, a white Cape.

“See?” Nola said, obviously pleased with herself. “Wow.” She squinted at the photo. “Looks like a doll’s house. So cute. I’d say your dad’s doing pretty good for a teacher. Zillow says it’s worth six hundred and seventy-five K. Trust fund?”

“Yeah, like everybody in the universe has one of those,” Willow said, rolling her eyes.

“Okay, so maybe your dad married somebody rich. That’s good, right?” Nola looked up at her expectantly. “You need to get some of that, girlfriend. You don’t want college debt.”

Willow felt uncomfortable. “That’s not why I want to find him.”

Nola was indignant. “It should be, though. Your mom didn’t get pregnant all by herself. That would be like saying Russell shouldn’t support his son.” She rested a hand on her belly.

Privately, that was exactly what Willow thought: Why should Nola get money from Russell, if she was the one who seduced him and then dropped him without a blink? Nola had plenty of money and now she was kicking him out. The poor guy wouldn’t even get to live with the kid he was paying for.

Then Nola took her by surprise again, saying, “We should go right now and catch your dad at home. It’s Saturday. He’s probably mowing the lawn or whatever.”

“Oh no. You are
so
not coming with me,” Willow said. “We’d probably give Mike a heart attack. And I can’t go now. Russell would kill me even if Catherine didn’t. I’m already in huge trouble. And I don’t have bus fare.”

“No probs. I’ll give you a ride.” Nola put the iPad on the pillow, where it always lived, stood up, and pushed her feet into a pair of striped Toms. “We’ll get back before Russell does. He said he was going to the store after the gym, and that guy can take a long time to pick out a chicken.”

“I don’t think this is a good idea,” Willow said, but she was already tucking her phone into her pocket and looking for her shoes.

O
n Saturday morning, Catherine finished cleaning the house, exploring the sensation that she was scrubbing not just mold off the shower and dirt off the floor, but removing Russell, too. As she tried to picture her husband moving home again, or to imagine Russell in bed with her or even cooking in the kitchen, she had trouble breathing. It felt as if a heavy animal, maybe a raccoon or a monkey, was sitting on the back of her neck, a dead, itchy weight that made it difficult to move.

It took a few hours of housework before the strange sensation disappeared. Her body was telling her what her mind had been having trouble acknowledging: She didn’t want Russell to move back in, no matter how logical that step might seem in terms of making a home for Willow.

She’d been too busy cleaning to eat anything. By noon she was starving, and her arms and legs were trembling the way they had when she’d had to take steroids once for poison ivy. She inhaled a quick lunch of canned soup and half a ham sandwich, washed down by more coffee.

Within a few minutes, she knew the caffeine was a bad idea. She was even more jittery. Or was that just nerves, now that she was finally ready to see Zoe?

Catherine had lied to Russell about Zoe giving her the address. The truth: she’d found the piece of paper after doing a thorough search of Willow’s room. Yes, she felt guilty, but she was desperate. And the paper wasn’t even hidden; it was folded in half and tossed onto Willow’s desk. She knew it was the right address because it was in Zoe’s round, loopy handwriting.

Salisbury made sense. Zoe used to surf that beach with one of her boyfriends, a guy from California with ear gauges as big as quarters. His earlobes had practically hung to his shoulders. Catherine had met him after tracking Zoe down on the beach one summer weekend when her sister had refused to come home. Zoe was only seventeen; their parents were out of their minds with worry.

“They treat me like a baby,” Zoe had fumed when Catherine found her on the beach. She was wearing a wet suit, and her blond ringlets curved in gold commas around her face. “They won’t let me live my life, so I have to run away and live it myself!” she’d cried, then whooped and ran into the crashing waves with her board.

Catherine had watched her sister surf for a few minutes, furious but envious, because she’d scheduled that entire weekend around studying for the SAT exam. Why did Zoe get to have all the fun?

Because you chose to be good,
she reminded herself then and now. Zoe had made her parents so miserable that Catherine couldn’t rebel.

To Zoe, Dad would say, “You want to do
what
?” whenever Zoe described some of her outlandish plans for the future: to be a rock star, a fashion model, a doctor. “But that doesn’t even make sense,” he’d say. “Pick something sensible. God knows you probably won’t even get into college with your grades. Maybe it’s time you looked at hospitality programs, Zoe. Or secretarial schools.”

Catherine had tried to pick something sensible, a job she could do even while having a family. A career that would give her the flexibility to work part-time. She was thinking ahead, she told her parents. Nursing was perfect.

“I don’t want to have to go to school forever, so forget medical school. And I don’t want to have to work long hours like Mom,” she’d added pointedly. She had hated it that her mother’s job in public relations meant she was hardly ever home, even in the evenings.

“Now, that sounds like a sensible plan,” Dad had agreed about nursing.

Meanwhile, Zoe’s transgressions grew in number and severity as she got older: an arrest in middle school for shoplifting, a drunk-driving charge in high school, drug possession. Catherine couldn’t understand what propelled her sister to keep screwing up.

“Why do you always make the wrong choices?” she’d screamed at Zoe once, after Zoe lost her license for drinking and driving at seventeen.

“Why are you so
boring
?” Zoe had shouted back.

Thinking about all of this made Catherine decide to stop in Newburyport on the way to Salisbury and invite her mother to join her. Zoe would be less hostile if their mother were present for their conversation.

Besides, if Zoe was living rough, Catherine wanted her mother there as a witness and an ally. It was easy to imagine her sister holed up in one of those welfare motels along Route 1, maybe the one near Tiger Cubs, the strip club that advertised “Mini Mary” and “Tiny China.”

It took her less than forty minutes to drive north from Cambridge to Newburyport. The seaside town was all but deserted now that the summer day-trippers were gone; the Christmas shoppers hadn’t yet descended. Driving down High Street, past the stern white Federalist houses and the curvy Victorians with their turrets and grand porches, Catherine pictured women in long skirts and bonnets, their hands tucked into muffs, wandering the brick sidewalks beside men in stovepipe hats.

Catherine’s father had bought their Victorian on Water Street before the town experienced its resurgence in the 1970s and began attracting tourists and Boston commuters. It was a Queen Anne style and painted in three colors like the Painted Ladies in San Francisco: yellow clapboards with green and red trim. Her favorite was the turret overlooking the Merrimack River; this round space jutted out from one corner of her parents’ bedroom.

Her father had built a window seat there. As she approached the house, Catherine remembered now, with startling clarity, a morning spent sitting there with her mother. Both were in their bathrobes. They’d read the newspaper while snow fell on the river, pockmarking its smooth surface. The reason Catherine remembered this particular morning was because her mother had been so tense, chewing her nails as she read, biting them to the quick. Eventually her mother had started crying and had sent Catherine away. She still had no idea why.

Now she thought back to the strange conversation with Russell weeks ago, the one in which he’d claimed that her mother had had an affair, too, as well as her father. Catherine still had trouble believing this. Shouldn’t she have suspected? And yet she never had. As a child, and even as a teenager, Catherine had viewed her parents’ marriage as a foundation, one as immovable as their Victorian house. A house that had withstood countless storms since it was built in 1880, including one that had sent boats crashing up onto the riverbank when she was ten years old.

“Don’t you worry,” her father had said during that storm, as the wind howled and the windows rattled around them. “This house was built to take a thrashing. You’ll always be safe here.”

That’s exactly how she’d always felt with her parents: safe. How silly. They must have been unhappy with each other, at least during some of their long marriage. Otherwise, why would they have sought out other lovers? Now she wondered, on the heels of Russell’s offer, how they’d resolved those affairs and trusted each other again.

She pulled into the circular driveway and parked behind an oversized pickup truck with a Vermont license plate. What sort of workman would her mother call to come down from Vermont that she couldn’t find locally?

Catherine was also surprised that anyone would show up on a weekend. Yet, there he was, a guy in a green jacket up on a tall ladder. He appeared to be clearing leaves out of the gutter. Well, good. At least Mom was taking care of the house.

She didn’t bother knocking, just opened the front door and went in. Catherine smiled at the familiar homey smells of coffee and bacon. That was a good sign, too. For weeks after Dad died, her mother hadn’t cooked. Had hardly eaten. Grief must be loosening its grip on her as time passed, especially now that Zoe had reappeared.

“Mom?” Catherine called.

She heard footsteps on the second floor, a startled series of light thumps, and went to the bottom of the staircase. “Mom? It’s only me!” she called. “Are you decent?”

“Not exactly.” To her shock, her mother appeared at the top of the stairs in an unfamiliar bathrobe, something ivory and silky. Her mother’s short brown curls were tousled and her face was free of makeup despite the fact that it was early afternoon.

“Hi,” Catherine said. “Are you sick?”

“No, no. What are you doing here?” her mother said. “Did we have a date and I forgot?” She pushed the hair out of her eyes.

“No,” Catherine said. “I stopped by on impulse. Were you sleeping?”

“Yes. Just resting.” Her mother’s laugh was a nervous giggle. “Hang on. I’ll be down in two seconds. There’s coffee in the kitchen if you want.”

Catherine went into the kitchen, puzzled by her mother’s odd behavior. Her mother was usually up with the sun and never greeted company unless she was fully clothed, yet today she had a workman here and was wearing lingerie after lunch.

She poured a cup of coffee and went to the refrigerator for milk, then took a spoon out of the drawer. It was only as she started to put the spoon in the dishwasher that she noticed the two mugs and two plates on the counter. That was strange, too. Her mother had never tolerated dirty dishes in the kitchen.

She was rinsing the plates when she heard footsteps behind her. She turned, smiling, expecting her mother, but it was the man she’d seen up on the ladder. He was rangy and tall, well over six feet, with an angular, patrician sort of face and intelligent gray eyes. He smiled and stuck out a hand in greeting. “Hello. I’m Darcy.”

“I’m Catherine. Eve’s daughter,” she said, shaking his hand. Maybe he’d come in for a glass of water. Nervy guy, but at least he looked clean enough. “Can I help you? Did you need something?”

“No, no. I was just looking for Eve,” Darcy said.

“She’s upstairs getting dressed. She’ll be down in a minute.”

“I’m right here,” Eve said, coming into the kitchen, looking breathless, her hair combed but still not tidy. She’d misbuttoned her blue flannel shirt. “Hello, sweetie.”

When she saw the way Darcy was looking at her mother, Catherine suddenly got it. “Oh,” she said, feeling foolish. “You’re not here to work on the house, are you?”

“What? Why would you think that?” her mother said. “Oh! You saw Darcy outside. On the ladder. No, no. He’s not working on the house.” Her mother was blushing, even her neck bright red now. “Well, he is, but only as a favor. Leaves were clogging the gutters. He volunteered to clear them for me.”

“That was nice of you,” Catherine said, as the big black dog her mother had brought to her house wandered into the kitchen and gazed up at them hopefully, smelling bacon. “I like your dog.”

Darcy laughed and glanced at her mother again. “Not mine. My son’s. And now he’s your mom’s. Likes it here and plans to stay.” Darcy looked like he was about to reach for Eve’s hand, but she sidled away, broke off a bit of bacon, and fed it to the dog.

“What are you doing up this way?” she asked Catherine. “Nothing’s wrong, is it? Where’s Willow?”

“She’s with Russell this weekend. I’m on my way to see Zoe.”

“Oh?” Her mother’s voice held a note of warning.

Catherine ignored it. “Yes. I just, you know, want to catch up a little. I stopped by to see if you want to come with me.”

“Actually, I’ve already been there,” Eve said. “She lives in a trailer near the beach. It looks clean enough. I think she’s doing all right. I believe she’s telling the truth about not doing drugs.”

Catherine felt a ripple of tension across her shoulders, as if someone had dragged a wire across her skin. As usual, her mother was going to side with Zoe. She should have predicted that.

“My wild monkey,” Eve would call Zoe affectionately, whenever her sister ran around the yard, hooting and out of control. Their mother loved that streak of abandon in Zoe. She’d encouraged it. “Zoe’s not afraid of anything,” Catherine had once overheard her mother saying to a neighbor. “Catherine’s another story. She’s afraid of her own shadow, poor thing.”

“I hope you’re right about Zoe cleaning up her act,” Catherine said. “If she’s not, no way will I let Willow even visit her. I’m going to check things out for myself.”

“She’s living with someone now,” Eve said. “A man.”

“I know. I met him.” Catherine looked again at Darcy, whose weight was resting on one foot more than the other, so that his body listed slightly toward her mother’s. Yes, they were definitely lovers. God, this was uncomfortable.

“So, do you want to come with me?” Catherine asked.

Her mother shook her head. Her body had responded to Darcy’s subtly; she had cocked her hip in his direction while still looking attentively at Catherine. “No. It might be better if you saw Zoe on your own. Did you call her? She works odd hours.”

“No,” Catherine said. “I wanted to surprise her.”

“All right. Good luck. Let me know how it goes.”

“I will,” Catherine said, but as she left the house and the realization sank in that she was truly on her own, she felt slightly nauseated from fear. Hurt, too. Her mother had apparently moved on from her father and had easily embraced Zoe’s return. Catherine felt like she was inhabiting a completely different reality. Alone.

•   •   •

She found Zoe’s place without difficulty. Her mother was right: the trailer was well kept, at least the outside, and the trailer park appeared to be quiet, just a few modest vehicles parked in front of the mobile homes, children’s toys and bicycles in some of the yards.