Chance Harbor (33 page)

Zoe shrugged. “I don’t know. I just came to see Willow, you know?” she said in a rush. “I never meant to even
talk
to her. But she seemed so unhappy. So lonely. I couldn’t help it.”

“What do you want now, then?”

“To know Willow,” Zoe said quietly. “And to let her know that her real mom loves her. Catherine is good to her, but she can’t be that, right? Her real mom?”

“No, honey. Only you can be that.” Eve reached out to put a tentative hand on Zoe’s knee. Zoe smiled at her.

They were silent then, the two of them sitting close together, Eve’s hand resting lightly on Zoe’s leg. She slowly became aware of the faint ticking of a clock in another room and of the fact that her daughter was finally sitting still, as if she were a wild animal and Eve had, with great patience and skill, managed to quiet her so she wouldn’t run.

C
atherine had made Willow promise to go to Russell’s on Thursday and then come straight home after dinner. She couldn’t go anywhere else. Like she was ten years old!

“I don’t care if you don’t like it,” Catherine had said when Willow tried arguing.

“I don’t see what gives you the right to manage my schedule,” Willow had said. “My usual day with Russell is Wednesday. It’s not my fault if he was busy yesterday!”

“I have every right to manage your schedule because you’ve betrayed my trust too many times now,” Catherine reminded her. “You were meeting Zoe after school all those times and didn’t tell me where you were. You walked across the Common after dark when I expressly told you not to, many times, and you were almost mugged! How can I believe anything you say? No. You’ll have to earn my trust before I grant you that kind of freedom again. I need to know where you are at all times, even when I’m working.
Especially
when I’m working. So today you’re going to Russell’s. End of discussion!”

Willow couldn’t believe it. She’d never fought with Catherine. Now, ever since Russell had left and her real mom was back, Catherine was morphing into some kind of stupid drill sergeant you couldn’t please no matter what. She’d even started harassing Willow about making her bed. She’d never made her bed! Not unless company was coming for a holiday or something. What was the point of making your bed in the morning anyway, if you were going to be out all day and then just drop back into it at night?

So after school Willow didn’t think twice about texting her dad to say her mom had made a doctor’s appointment, sorry, and she couldn’t make it to dinner with him and Nola after all. Nobody was going to boss her around anymore.

Briefly, Willow thought about how scared Nola had looked when the ambulance came and everybody was shouting on the lawn. She was glad Nola hadn’t lost the baby. Nola seemed to really want a child. At least
some
babies ought to be lucky enough to have moms who actually wanted them. Unlike her. Yeah, Zoe was back, but did she want Willow with her?

If so, Willow needed to check out her house first. She wasn’t going to move into any dumpy apartment like they had before, where sometimes the lights didn’t even work and there was nothing in the fridge.

Willow took the subway to South Station, where she got a bus that took her as far as Newburyport. From there, she wasn’t sure how to get to Salisbury.

Then a solution pulled up right in front of her: a yellow school bus from some prep school in Maine, delivering kids with sports bags and musical instruments to their moms. The moms were waiting in practically matching SUVs, all with ski racks. She watched until she saw an older kid walking to his own car, a scraggly looking guy with more zits than skin, and followed him. It was easy to talk him into giving her a ride to Salisbury. Clearly, he didn’t have a lot of girls talk to him. He was super jumpy and wouldn’t look her in the eye.

Willow kept a tight grip on a pen in her pocket in case he did something funny and she had to stab him in the throat. The boy seemed as scared of her as she was of him, though, so gradually Willow relaxed and they talked about movies and video games.

The boy dropped her off at Salisbury Beach, where she said she was meeting a friend. When the kid looked like he didn’t believe her, Willow waved and turned around, acting like she was going into one of the big arcades.

After a few minutes, she came back out and consulted the GPS on her phone. Her mother’s house was only a few blocks away. An easy walk, though it was getting dark fast and she had to pull the collar of her coat up against her neck to keep out the oceany dampness.

Salisbury Beach was full of skaters and drug dealers and drunks. Everybody knew that. But there were new restaurants and condos, too. Willow hoped her mom lived in one of those nice places as she walked fast along the sidewalk, feeling the cold wind suck the heat right out from under her jacket. Why hadn’t she brought a hat?

Catherine was always trying to make her wear one against her will, that’s why.

All she wanted to do was check out where her mother lived. Zoe still had secrets, no matter what she’d said to Willow about being clean and all that crap. Her mother was the world’s best liar. For a minute Willow flinched, wondering if she’d turn out like that. She was lying to Catherine and Russell right now. Was this how it started?

No, she was on a mission. This was for a good cause. Willow had to know how her mom lived. To picture herself there. Maybe her mother was shacked up with some guy and had three other kids. Wouldn’t that be a fun surprise.

Willow kept her head down against the wind and finally turned onto a street of houses that kept getting smaller and smaller. Capes, then ranch houses, and finally a mobile home park. She glanced at her phone again. Oh, great. Mom lived in a trailer. That made Willow official trailer trash. Nice.

She found the right street, then the right number. A huge motorcycle was parked out front, as hulking and black as a buffalo.

Willow stood for a few minutes, staring at the white trailer and wondering what she’d find inside. Her mother zoned out on a couch? Her legs up around some guy’s bony ass? Two screaming babies in a playpen?

She couldn’t move. It felt like her feet were encased in cement. Now she wished she’d told somebody where she was going. Henry, maybe.

God. She should turn around. Leave right now. This was a total mistake. Why find out anything about people, if they only disappointed you in the end?

Then the door to the trailer opened and a man came out. He was the kind of guy you had to run from in the movies. He looked like he should be wearing a patch over one eye. “Hey, kid!” he said. “What are you doing out there?”

Willow glanced at the address on her phone. Had she put it in wrong? Maybe that was it. Her mother probably
did
live in a nicer place. One of the condos by the beach. She’d made a mistake.

She began to walk away. “Sorry,” she said. “I was just looking for somebody.”

“Who?” the guy called. “Who do you want?”

My mother,
Willow thought miserably.
I want a real mother. Somebody who cooks and cleans the house and asks how my day was at school. Somebody like Catherine, only more permanent and less bitchy.

“I asked you a question!” the guy yelled. He had a deep, scary voice. “Maybe I can help you.”

“I doubt it,” she said, and broke into a run, her backpack bumping against her like somebody hitting her spine with a fist.

In a minute she heard a revving sound, which made her heart race with it. She ran faster. It was no use, though. In seconds the guy was next to her on his motorcycle, somehow keeping it upright on two wheels even though they were going, like, one mile an hour.

“Who are you looking for?” he yelled over the engine.

Willow could feel sweat prickle her armpits as she kept running. She tried to calm herself down, rationalizing that it would be virtually impossible to mug somebody from a motorcycle, wouldn’t it? It wasn’t like people couldn’t hear you screaming. She glanced nervously around the trailer park to reassure herself that there were lights on in some of the other windows.

“Just tell me!” the guy said.

“My mom,” she finally answered, watching him out of the corner of one eye and sticking to the sidewalk. He’d have to jump the curb on his bike to get to her. “I’m looking for my mother.”

“You mean Zoe?”

Willow stopped dead on the sidewalk. “You know her?”

The guy pulled to the curb and cut the engine, letting the bike idle. “We live together.”

So that was it, then: her mother was trailer trash and had a druggie boyfriend on a Harley. What else could go wrong? Willow thought miserably. “Do you have kids, too?”

He laughed at this, tipping his head back. Who the hell was this guy? His hair was to his shoulders and tied in a ponytail. And shouldn’t he be wearing a helmet?

“No kids,” he said. “It’s not like that with us. Your mom and I are friends, that’s all.”

“Oh,” Willow said, almost sick with relief. “How did you know I was looking for Zoe?”

“Because she told me she had a daughter your age, and you look like her. You’re Willow, right?”

Willow nodded. “Who are you?”

“My name is Grey. Your grandmother stopped by this morning,” he added. “But you missed your mom. She had to go to work.”

“Nana was here?” Crap, Willow thought. Why hadn’t Nana told her she was going to look for Zoe? Willow could have come with her.

“Yeah. Your grandmother seems like a nice lady.”

“She is,” Willow said. “Where does my mom work?”

“At a car place just up the road. But she’s driving a car down to the Cape right now,” Grey said. “She won’t be back until late.”

“Oh.” That sounded like a cool job. Better than dealing drugs, anyway. But this guy sure looked like a dealer. Willow had seen a lot of long-haired guys in leather jackets come and go in her mom’s life.

“So, you want a ride home?” Grey asked.

Willow shook her head. “I took the bus here.”

“There aren’t any buses from Salisbury to Boston.”

“I know. I got a ride from Newburyport.” She was eyeing the bike. Maybe she could just let him give her a ride to Newburyport. Catherine would have a fit. This was a total stranger. On the other hand, he lived with Zoe and had met Nana.

“I could take you to Newburyport if you want,” he said. “But I really don’t mind going to Boston. It’s a nice night.”

Willow shivered. “It is not. It’s cold.”

“It’s a nice night on a bike if you’re wearing leather,” Grey amended. “Come on. I’ll get you outfitted. Then we’ll head south. I’d like to meet Catherine.”

That’s what did it: He knew Catherine’s name. Grey was practically part of the family, Willow told herself, as she straddled the bike and put her arms around his waist.

•   •   •

Seth was out of town at a conference when Zoe showed up. Catherine had waited to call him until Thursday night, squeezing in the call on her cell phone between patients at the clinic. “I need to see you tonight,” she said.

She could hear the grin in Seth’s voice. “I like the sound of that,” he said. “What did you have in mind?”

Nothing, other than talking to him about Zoe’s reappearance and the possibility that she might fight for custody. Catherine needed Seth’s legal advice as much as his friendship.

She decided to come clean and told him this, knowing he was hoping for something else. He’d made his interest in her clear enough. But to his credit, Seth listened, then said he’d come to dinner.

“Takeout, my treat,” Catherine said in relief. “Chinese or Indian? Bring Brady, too, if you like.”

Seth assured her that Brady could go to his mother’s and said he’d bring the food, not to worry. She felt better by the time they hung up and managed to get through the day. With luck, she and Seth would be able to talk before Willow got back from Russell’s.

Catherine paced the living room nervously after work, a glass of wine in one hand as she waited. Seth arrived promptly at six, carrying two grocery bags stuffed with food. “What’s all this?” Catherine said as she opened the door.

“Dinner. I thought it might be nice to cook for a change.”

Dear Lord. That was the last thing Catherine wanted to do. But she obediently followed Seth’s instructions, chopping vegetables and fishing out her biggest pan. He was making a chicken mango curry with rice; he’d even found fresh mangoes at the little market near his house.

Catherine’s spirits lifted as they sat down to eat. Of course, that might have been the second glass of wine, but why couldn’t she fall in love with Seth? He was nice, better-than-average-looking, a good father from all she’d seen. Employed. And he could cook! She took a bite and chewed, savoring the mix of spices.

“So tell me about Brady,” she said.

Seth said Brady was doing fine. “The new inhaler really lets him run around,” he said. “It’s such a relief for him. For me, too.”

“I’m so glad,” Catherine said warmly. Stories like that reminded her of why she’d become a pediatric nurse practitioner in the first place.

“So let’s talk about you,” Seth said, clearing the table.

Catherine watched him move comfortably around the kitchen. He really was adorable. Why had that nutty wife of his dumped him? What on earth had she been thinking?

She hoped people were saying the same thing about her whenever they saw Russell: What on earth was he thinking?

And then Catherine was weeping. Seth was at her side in an instant, an arm around her shoulders, urging her into the living room and onto the couch, ordering her to prop her feet up and tell him what was going on.

She told him then about Zoe showing up, about Russell coming at the same time and Nola’s miscarriage scare. That led to telling him about her own miscarriages and about how hard it had been lately at work. “So many babies with thoughtless mothers,” she said. “And then. And then! My own sister shows up and wants Willow back!”

“Did Zoe actually say that?”

Catherine put a hand to her mouth. “I don’t know with Zoe whether she’s telling the truth or lying, no matter what she says, so it wouldn’t really matter.”