Chance Harbor (31 page)

Zoe’s hands were in fists; she shoved them into the pockets of her leather jacket. “I admit I made mistakes. But let’s cut to the chase here, Cat. Is Willow’s life with you really so perfect?” She looked pointedly around the room. “Do I see a husband here? A happy marriage? No. I see my daughter having to leave a school she loved and having to bounce between two households. I see a girl who’s lost and practically a latchkey kid, because you work such long hours. You don’t even know what she’s doing after school.”

“And you do?” Catherine demanded.

“I do now,” Zoe said. “Who do you think has been making sure she’s safe walking home from school after dark? She was attacked the other day. Some guy jumped her and tried to steal her backpack. He might have done worse, except I was there.
Me.
Not you.”

Catherine’s throat was almost too tight for her to respond. Willow, attacked? “I don’t believe you.”

Zoe shrugged. “Ask her. Anyway, I’m not blaming you for that. It could have happened to any girl walking around at night in a city. But what I’m saying is that I was
there
. I protected her, not you. Willow needs me, Cat.”

“Over my dead body,” Catherine said furiously. “You will not take her from me.”

Zoe had the gall to look amused. “Look, I didn’t come here to interfere. I just wanted to get to know Willow, to make sure she’s doing okay. I gave her to you because I thought you’d be a good mother and I was in trouble. But things are different now. That’s all I’m saying. Anyway, it’s not like you get to choose. She’s
my
daughter.”

“And I’m her legal guardian!” Catherine said through clenched teeth. Now her hands were in fists, too. She wanted to knock her sister off her stupid high-heeled boots, send her and her cool leather jacket back out to the street. “If you want money, fine. I’ll give it to you. But that’s it. Willow is staying with me. She’s my daughter now.”

“Relax,” Zoe said, watching Catherine warily. “I didn’t come here to fight.”

Catherine had no intention of relaxing. But then she became aware of a movement behind her. She turned around and saw Willow standing there in her blue bathrobe. How much had she heard?

“Sorry, honey,” Catherine said shakily. “You shouldn’t have had to hear that. Everything is fine. Did you brush your teeth?”

“It’s okay,” Willow said. “You don’t have to hide stuff. And, yeah, I brushed my teeth. But you really don’t have to ask that question anymore, either.
God
.”

She sounded so normal, so wonderfully adolescent, that Catherine wanted to kiss her. But she didn’t want to kiss her in front of Zoe.

“You should probably go now,” Catherine told her sister. “It’s getting late.”

To her surprise, Zoe nodded and walked across the room, stopping to briefly rest her hand on Willow’s shoulder before opening the front door and letting another blast of cold night air into the house. “We’ll talk later,” she said.

“When?” Willow said, turning to watch Zoe with her face alight, hopeful.

“Soon,” Zoe said, and closed the door behind her.

Willow turned back to Catherine after Zoe had gone, looking panicked. “What’s going to happen? Will she come back?”

“I think so. Right now, though, all that’s going to happen is that you and I are going to bed,” Catherine said. “It’s been a long, long day.”

“What about Nana?” Willow asked, giving Eve an anxious look.

“I’ll come back down and check on her every couple of hours. Don’t worry.”

She followed Willow up the stairs with an effort, feeling like someone had attached lead weights to her ankles. She noticed that Willow’s bathrobe, bought for the new school year a couple of months ago, was too short for her now.

Things were going to change whether she wanted them to or not. In fact, they already had. But she’d meant what she said to Zoe: she would fight for Willow, and she would win.

T
wo days after seeing Zoe at Catherine’s, Eve crossed the Route 1 bridge from Newburyport over the Merrimack River in search of her. Most of the boats had been pulled out of the water for the winter. Instead of the usual forest of masts, the river was a shimmering bolt of indigo silk unrolling toward the ocean, which lay just beyond the mouth of the river.

Zoe lived on the other side of the river, in Salisbury, and that’s where Eve was going, even though Zoe hadn’t given her the address and had no idea that her mother was coming. Too bad. Zoe couldn’t expect to be the only one with surprises up her sleeve. And Eve didn’t have a way to call her daughter anyway.

Bear was in his customary pose, seated on his massive haunches in the passenger seat and panting with pleasure, turning his head to grin at Eve from time to time. He was tall enough that his head nearly hit the ceiling.

She probably shouldn’t have brought him. But she’d grown so accustomed to having Bear’s company that she couldn’t stand the thought of leaving him home. It would be difficult to give him back. Bear was her link to those last carefree hours with Darcy. Oh, Darcy had called twice already, but she didn’t want to see him again. Eve knew that her feelings for him were misplaced. It was the island, or maybe all of the Canadian Maritimes, that Darcy and his dog represented to her. It wasn’t
real
, what she felt.

And even if it were, what was the point of entering into another relationship at her age? In a few years, God, she’d be seventy. Not many good years left. She enjoyed her conversations with Darcy. She enjoyed
him
. But who were they fooling, talking on the phone like teenagers? Where could all of that lead?

To intimacy. Maybe even love. But then? More grief down the road. No, she couldn’t take that. Better to live on her own.

She’d explained all of this to Darcy on the phone, in very plain language, but he’d only laughed. “Well, even if we have only a few good minutes left, wouldn’t they be better if we spent them together?”

She didn’t agree. Couldn’t. Her heart had been broken too many times. Besides, she was too focused now on Zoe, on finding her and keeping her close, if possible, to think much about Darcy.

Eve cracked the window open, letting in a rush of salty air and causing Bear to swivel his giant head her way and threaten to scramble onto her lap until she opened his window, too. She thought again about Zoe, wondering why her daughter had come back now.

Unfortunately, Catherine was right about one thing: in the past, Zoe had typically put herself first. Eve hoped Zoe wasn’t here to extort money from them. Or to threaten Catherine in any way about taking Willow back.

Eve could kick herself for fainting and then conking out on Catherine’s couch before having a proper conversation with Zoe. What had happened between the two girls while she was asleep? And why hadn’t Zoe tried to get in touch with them since then? She felt sick, thinking that Zoe might disappear again.

She remembered waking on Catherine’s couch. Zoe was gone. She had immediately panicked. What if she had only dreamed about Zoe’s return, as she had so many times before?

Eve had cried out Zoe’s name, but it was Catherine who appeared, rising out of the armchair across the living room. Apparently she’d gone upstairs to tuck Willow into bed, then had come back down to the living room to sleep in the chair, determined to keep an eye on her after the fall.

“Silly girl,” Eve had said, smiling.

She had felt hugely comforted when Catherine had shushed her the way a mother quiets a small child and told her it wasn’t a dream. “Zoe’s really back and she’s okay, Mom,” Catherine said. “I’m sure you’ll see her again soon. Sleep, now.”

The next time she woke, it was still dark, but Catherine was making coffee and Willow was eating breakfast before going to school. Catherine had looked fragile, her skin almost translucent in the sunny kitchen, her hair pulled back severely from her forehead with a red hair band that didn’t suit her. She was clenching her jaw.

As they drank coffee in the kitchen, Catherine filled Eve in on what Zoe had said about her itinerant life in Florida.

“And that’s it?” Eve had asked desperately. “Zoe didn’t tell you how long she’s staying here? Or where she’s living?”

Catherine shook her head. “I’m sorry, Mom. I really don’t know anything else. You know Zoe.”

That was the problem, Eve thought. None of them knew Zoe.

Fortunately, Zoe had given Willow her address, and Willow had shared it with Eve before leaving for school—but only after making Eve promise not to tell Catherine.

“I don’t think Zoe’s ready to see her,” Willow had said solemnly while Catherine was upstairs, getting ready for work. “She told me to only use her address if it was for something really important.” She had flashed a sweet, unexpected smile. “I think you’re something really important, Nana.”

“Bless you,” Eve said, pulling Willow against her in a sudden fierce hug.

She’d given Zoe an entire day and night to get in touch. When she hadn’t, Eve had decided to look for her. Now she checked the GPS again, despite knowing exactly where she was. She couldn’t believe Zoe was right across the Merrimack River in Salisbury, of all places.

Back when the girls were small, Eve used to bring them to Salisbury Beach on hot days after school or even at night. It wasn’t the same as the deserted, singing white sand beach at Chance Harbor, but it was still better than sitting at home in the stifling September heat. Andrew claimed to be too Scottish to ever agree to air-conditioning. They’d come here and have a picnic dinner after Eve got out of work, sometimes eating pizza and fried dough on the boardwalk.

Then they’d go down to the water. Eve usually settled on the beach with a book, glad to have the sea air clear her head after whatever PR crises she’d faced at the hospital. Catherine typically hung back for a bit, then waded into the icy water with a grimace. Zoe threw herself into the waves as if into a mother’s arms, shrieking with laughter.

Catherine had always been afraid of whatever might lie beneath the water—sharks, crabs, rays—while Zoe teased her sister, even swam underwater and pinched her legs, pretending to be some crazy biting beast. Which, looking back now, she was.

Eve knew she should be angry with Zoe for vanishing. For coming back so secretly. For not making it home before Andrew died. And now for deliberately not giving Eve a way to contact her. But she was still too relieved to find Zoe alive to allow herself the luxury of anger. Her daughter was home and safe. That trumped everything.

Her GPS led her to a mobile home park a few blocks before the Salisbury boardwalk. She was surprised to see, even off-season, how many cars and trucks were parked in the driveways and how permanent some of the trailers looked. Many had patios and decks, screened porches, and even stone walls and birdbaths or garden statues.

Eve couldn’t imagine what had brought Zoe here, of all places. She anxiously navigated the narrow streets—well marked, another surprise—until she found Arrow Lane and turned onto it, looking for 27, the number Willow had scrawled on the paper.

This trailer was white and smaller than some of the others, but it was tidy. A picket fence enclosed a garden of perennials gone by. A stone birdbath stood next to a brick walk leading to the front steps, and the windows were adorned with ornate shutters, painted red. A motorcycle was parked in the driveway.

The sight of the motorcycle made Eve even more nervous. She knew nothing about Zoe’s living situation, and women didn’t usually ride Harleys that size.

When Eve knocked on the trailer door, a man answered it. He was tall and magnetic-looking, with broad shoulders and a stubborn chin. His tangled blue-black curls fell to his shoulders. His wary dark eyes were rimmed in lashes so black that at first she thought he might be wearing eyeliner, and a scar beneath one eye gleamed pale against his toffee-colored skin. He wore black jeans and a black leather jacket similar to the one Zoe had on last night. This couldn’t be the same jacket, though, Eve thought in confusion, because this guy was much larger than Zoe.

So large, in fact, that he easily blocked her view of the trailer’s interior. “Can I help you?” the man asked, in a way that made it seem as if he wasn’t really interested in doing so.

“I’m looking for Zoe.” Eve pulled her purse more tightly across her shoulder.

The man’s dark eyes narrowed. He had a long, elegant nose, and this expression, along with the gleaming black hair and the almond shape of his eyes, made him look regal and foreign despite his workman’s clothing. The kind of regal that heralded another time. Alexander the Great, maybe, prepared to go into battle to unite ancient Greece.

“Is she here or not?” Eve pressed as the silence lengthened and become uncomfortable.

“Depends who’s asking.”

“I’m Eve MacLeish. Zoe’s mother.” She held out a hand. “And you are?”

At her name, the man’s expression had altered. He was smiling now, his eyes warm and a lighter shade of brown. Chocolate, maybe. “Nice to meet you. I’m Grey Boswell. Zoe didn’t say you were coming.”

“She didn’t know. I wanted to surprise her.”

“Sure. Come on in.”

Eve hesitated. Grey had said nothing to indicate his connection to Zoe, though he must be her boyfriend, if they were camped out here on the beach together. At least he didn’t look wild-eyed or sleepy or red-eyed or angry, all of which Zoe’s other boyfriends had been. With the exception of Mike, her sweet high school and college boyfriend, Zoe had demonstrated universally awful taste in men.

To Grey, she said, “Thank you. But I think I’ll wait outside while you tell her I’m here.”

“You sure? Might be a while.”

“Oh.”

Grey must have read the disappointment in her face, because he added, “She’s just taking a shower. I’m about to go to work. Sure you don’t want to wait inside?”

The fact that this man was leaving gave Eve the courage to say that she’d come inside after all.

“Good. I’ll tell her you’re here,” he said, and disappeared after she’d stepped through the door.

Grey went down the hall to speak to Zoe, then gathered his things—a wallet retrieved from somewhere and tucked into his jeans pocket, a backpack slung over one shoulder, a motorcycle helmet—before shaking her hand good-bye and leaving. She watched through the front window, arms crossed, for Grey to straddle the bike and roar away before finally turning around to examine her surroundings.

The trailer’s living room wasn’t exactly neat—there were magazines and newspapers strewn about, and a few empty mugs and plates—but it smelled clean and the rugs were in decent condition. The living room was painted pale yellow and was separated from the kitchen by a low Formica counter with a retro pattern of black-speckled white like the old composition notebooks her daughters used in elementary school.

The kitchen cupboards were white with bright red knobs, continuing the retro theme, and the living room furniture was inexpensive but serviceable—a green cloth couch and a leather recliner. It looked like a seaside condo, really, Eve thought, feeling better now about Zoe’s living situation.

She sat on the couch to wait. A few minutes later, Zoe hurried into the living room, still toweling her hair, looking bewildered. “What’s happened? What are you doing here, Mom?”

“Nothing. I just came to see you.”

“How’s your head?” Zoe draped the towel over one of the kitchen stools and finger-combed her short blond curls. She wore no makeup, but her skin was mostly unlined, her cheeks pink from the shower, her nose sprinkled with freckles. She looked younger than her age, which—and Eve was mortified to have to do a deliberate calculation here—must be thirty-four.

“My head’s fine.”

“I’m glad,” Zoe said. “Want something to drink?”

“Water would be nice.”

“How did you even find me?” Zoe asked, filling a glass from the tap and adding a couple of ice cubes from the freezer. She held the glass out to her mother, rolling her eyes. “Never mind. I can guess. Willow.”

“She made me promise not to tell Catherine.”

“Well, that’s a relief. Want anything to eat?”

Eve shook her head. “Why is it a relief? And why didn’t you give Catherine and me any way to contact you?”

Zoe snorted. “You were asleep when I left. And the last thing I need is to have Catherine bulldogging her way into my life. Jesus. She’s wound tight as a top. What a scold.”

Eve agreed, but didn’t want to say so. Funny how quickly she reverted to her old mothering stance of trying to treat the girls fairly and evenly. They were always so quick to find fault with each other. “Things aren’t easy for her since Russell left.”

“Yeah, no kidding. What a dick.” Zoe’s head was in the refrigerator and her voice was muffled.

“I’m surprised to hear you be that judgmental,” Eve said carefully. “Russell was always good to you. And he has been very good to Willow.”

“He wasn’t good to me! He was condescending. And how is he being good to Willow now? Remind me.” Zoe came back to the living room with a bag of carrots and proceeded to eat one of them, crunching loudly. “Oh, right. He’s dragging Willow through another mess. What a nightmare.”