Chance Harbor (47 page)

“I will never forgive her.”

“Maybe not,” Grey said. “But I can help you understand, at least. And that might help you both take better care of Willow. Isn’t that what you want?”

“Yes. Absolutely.” Catherine picked up her glass and took another dainty sip despite the cloud descending on her brain. Why shouldn’t she get drunk?

“Do you know the real reason Zoe left school?”

“Sure. Because Mike broke up with her and she was upset. I was worried about her back then because I was about to graduate and wouldn’t be around anymore to look out for her. I told Zoe to put on her big-girl underpants and start studying, to actually
do
something with her life after Mike gave her the boot. Instead, she partied hard and came home from school, told us she was pregnant. After that, she was impossible. Mom said it was hormones, but I always thought it was a bad case of regret.”

Grey was staring at her now. It wasn’t a pleasant look. “It wasn’t either of those things, Catherine,” he said softly. “It was trauma.”

“Yeah? The trauma of a broken heart?” She giggled a little, the wine making her dizzy.

“No. Zoe was gang-raped.”

He said it so bluntly that Catherine felt as if he’d slapped her. She put the glass down. “What?”

“She was raped, Catherine. By a group of guys at a house party. Zoe wasn’t drinking or doing drugs. She went to a frat party with a friend and somebody spiked her drink.”

“And you believe her?” Catherine wanted, so badly, not to believe it.

He nodded. “I do. Zoe is a lot of things, but she has never been a liar about her own poor choices. And that’s why Zoe doesn’t know who Willow’s dad is. It happened that night.”

“No! She would have told us.” Even as she said this, though, the pieces were clicking into place: Zoe’s bruises, faded to yellow by the time their mother convinced Catherine to come home and try talking her into going back to school. Her near-comatose behavior. Her disinterest, at first, in the baby.

Grey was still talking, explaining to Catherine now that Zoe hadn’t wanted to report the rape because she didn’t know who the boys were. It had happened in a dark room at a party where she knew nobody except the girl who’d brought her. “And she was ashamed,” Grey added. “She didn’t want anyone to find out. Especially not Mike. She didn’t think any of you would believe her anyway.”

She was right, Catherine thought, but she couldn’t bring herself to say this, not while she was sitting beneath the too-bright overhead light of her own kitchen, her stomach churning from the cheap wine and the day’s events and now this, yet more evidence that she had failed Zoe as a sister. Why had she just assumed that whatever happened to her sister was Zoe’s own fault?

“You can understand why Zoe would find it difficult to tell Willow about this,” Grey said. “She didn’t ever want Willow to feel she wasn’t wanted.”

“Yes.” More pieces were tumbling into place: Zoe had told her that she ran away and made herself disappear after a man abused Willow. Given what she’d been through, Zoe would have been understandably terrified and determined to get Willow out of harm’s way. Which was exactly what she’d accomplished by having Catherine take over parenting Willow. She might not approve of Zoe’s reasoning, but her sister’s motives were clear: she wanted Willow to be safe, just as she’d been claiming all along.

Catherine suddenly felt sick and went to the sink. She held her face under the faucet, not caring that Grey was watching her.

He came up to touch her shoulder, but she remained staring blindly at the black square of the kitchen window. “You must hate me,” she said, finally mopping her face with a paper towel before turning to him. “The way I’ve been toward Zoe. How I was today.”

He shook his head. “I don’t. How could I? You’ve been fighting for Willow every step of the way. You’ve been a good mother to her, Catherine. And I know Zoe isn’t easy to love.”

“But you love her.”

He hesitated an instant, then nodded. “But not,” he said, “the way I could love you. Maybe already do.”

“You can’t possibly.”

“Why not?”

“You don’t even know me.”

“Oh, I think I do.” Grey gestured at her freshly scrubbed face, at her hair clinging now to her cheeks, at the dampness on her T-shirt. “Is this you? The real you? Angry and sad? Sorrowful, forgiving, scared? Loving? Is all of this you, Catherine? Who you are?”

When she took a step away from him, panicked by the intensity of his eyes, Grey put a hand around her waist, making contact with her bare skin just above her jeans. He held her in place, cupping her waist and studying her face, no longer smiling.

She didn’t move. If only she could stand here long enough, with the palm of this man’s generous hand warming her entire body, the world would right itself.

“Yes. This is me,” she said, and leaned her head on his shoulder.

•   •   •

Had anyone asked her a few weeks ago what she would be most thankful for this year, Eve would never have imagined this possibility even in her most wildly optimistic fantasies: Thanksgiving at Chance Harbor with Zoe, the daughter she had feared dead, and with Willow, the granddaughter she loved beyond words because Willow was so clearly the product of both mothers who had raised her: wild and loving, sweet and mercurial, brave and vulnerable.

The only thing that could have made this holiday more perfect would have been having Catherine with them, too. But Catherine had insisted that they go without her. “It’s clear that Willow’s trying to figure some things out, and she needs time alone with Zoe,” she’d said. “I’d just be in the way.”

“What changed your mind about letting Willow come with us?” Eve had asked, truly astounded by this generous gesture. She had been certain that Catherine would fight her sister on everything where Willow was concerned.

“Grey explained some things to me,” she said vaguely, “and, anyway, I know you’ll be up there to supervise things.”

Eve could guess what those things were, and shuddered. “I will,” she had promised. “But won’t you change your mind and come? It would be so nice for all of us to be together. And I don’t want you spending the holiday alone.”

Catherine still said no. She had thought about it, she added, but Bethany had invited her for the holiday. “Plus, I need some space to think about my next steps,” she said.

They arrived at Chance Harbor as it was getting dark and unloaded the car, stomping through a light crust of snow to carry things into the house. Cousin Jane, bless her, had come by to crank up the thermostat and fill the fridge. The house was warm and smelled of Jane’s biscuits and something else, too. Cheese?

Yes, there it was, a block of homemade sheep’s cheese on the counter from their neighbor down the road, to go with the biscuits and beef stew Jane had left to welcome them.

Zoe hiked up and down the stairs, making up beds and exclaiming over the new paint in the kitchen, the wallpaper Eve had chosen for her room. She was wearing one of Eve’s quilted down jackets; the jacket made Zoe look twice her size, but her eyes were bright and her skin looked healthy.

Willow, though, was unexpectedly quiet, almost sullen. Eve didn’t know what that was about, but at least they were here now, the long drive behind them. Zoe and Willow had promised to help around the house, to finish stripping old wallpaper out of the two remaining bedrooms and put up new.

They all went to bed early, exhausted from the drive. When morning came, bringing unexpectedly warm weather for the third week of November, Eve suggested breakfast on the beach, egg and bacon sandwiches washed down by a thermos of hot tea. They ate on the circle of rocks near the base of the wooden stairs leading down the rocky red cliff, watching the gulls circle for crusts.

The wind had died down and the sun was slowly emerging from the clouds, casting a pale yellow light on the Northumberland Strait. The beach was clear of snow and Eve could just make out Cape Breton in the distance. She thought, not of Malcolm or that terrible day she’d traveled there, leaving Andrew on the dock, but of Darcy, of their time together hiking in the headlands, and smiled.

Willow and Zoe were racing up and down the dunes, shrieking and making Mike bark. Eve pushed her hands into her pockets and began walking toward the inlet with Bear. She glanced at the girls over her shoulder once and realized that Willow was so tall now, it was difficult to tell from a distance who was the mother and who was the daughter.

The water was calm, a flat nail-head gray. A pair of seals rode the waves, their sleek doggy heads pointed in her direction. Eve had a sudden memory of being on this beach one chilly autumn morning with Andrew, shortly after Zoe learned to walk. Catherine was probably four years old then and fascinated by seaweed; she ignored the cold and draped sandy strands of it around her neck and around Zoe’s too, calling them “princess necklaces.” Zoe made comical faces at the feel of the clammy plants on her skin, but put up with it because she would do anything for Catherine.

As Eve and Andrew walked with the girls, the tide was out and they had come across a shipwreck. It had been there awhile, Andrew had told her, though she’d never seen it before. The tidal conditions had to be just right to uncover it.

The ribs of the ship poked out of the sand along with some rusty metal bits. Eve had winced when she saw it, thinking of Malcolm. She’d thought then—as she would think many times in the coming years—about how similar death was to birth. Humans marked both of these events in similar ways, with food and flowers and hushed voices and even prayers. When a baby was born or you lost a loved one, you paced at night, sleepless with grief or joy, overtaken by the absurdity of the human condition. Giving birth and mourning the dead were life’s reminders that none of us can control fate.

“You miss him,” Andrew had said that day, watching Eve’s face as she turned away from the wreck, stricken, despite knowing it couldn’t possibly be Malcolm’s boat. His vessel had gone down on the north side of the island.

She didn’t pretend not to know what Andrew meant. Since her affair, Eve had decided that dishonesty was pointless in a marriage. She’d thought Andrew had also come to that conclusion, but apparently he hadn’t. He’d had a child with Marta, had gone on seeing her. Had even
lost a son
, all without telling Eve. Her husband had his secrets, and yet he’d stayed with her. When she wasn’t angry about this—which was more often now—Eve almost pitied Andrew for his lies: how much more difficult it must have been, all of that deep subterfuge, than to just come out and tell the truth.

“Yes,” she’d said, when Andrew asked about Malcolm that day on the beach. “But I don’t know if I miss him, or the idea of him still being here,” she’d admitted. “I loved Malcolm, but not the same way I love you. It just feels, I don’t know. Odd. Empty.”

“I understand,” he’d said, and held her close. “I’m sorry.”

Eve had been amazed—and still was—that Andrew could find the strength and generosity within himself to comfort her. She wished that she had known the depth of Andrew’s losses. Marta. His son. He had kept that all to himself. No wonder she’d felt that she could never reach him.

She had reached the inlet now. The tide was coming in; she’d have to turn around. Find the girls and go up to the house. Start stripping wallpaper. That thought—not the actual work, but the idea that the house would then be ready to sell—made her legs and arms feel heavy, as leaden as the color of the sky. She didn’t want to leave Chance Harbor and the memories it contained of herself as a young lover and new bride, as a wife and mother, and now as an older woman with so much life to be thankful for having lived. This house, this island, was where she’d grown into womanhood. Selling it would be losing herself.

She couldn’t do it. She wouldn’t. She’d find a way to keep the house.

As Eve walked into the wind with her head down, she heard someone calling and looked up. Darcy! She had told him she would be here for Thanksgiving, had joked about him joining them, but she hadn’t taken him seriously when he’d said he’d consider it. Surely he’d want to spend Thanksgiving with his children. Here he was, though, Bear bounding ahead of her to greet him.

“You came!” She laughed, as Bear pushed against Darcy’s legs ecstatically and nuzzled his hands. Darcy’s face creased in a smile. He was hatless, his hair a tuft of silver feathers rising in the sun, as if he were some exotic seabird.

“Yes. I didn’t feel like flying to California to see my son, and my daughter’s in Mexico for her anniversary. I’ll see the kids at Christmas,” he said. “I saw your car in the driveway and came down to the beach. The girls told me where you were.” He stopped a respectable distance away. Beyond him, Zoe and Willow were waiting by the staircase leading up to the house and watching them curiously. “How was the trip?”

Eve wanted to push herself against him, to nuzzle his hands as the dog had done. She wanted—and her own desire stunned her—to feel caressed by Darcy. Yet knowing the girls could see them held her back.

“The trip was uneventful,” she said, “unlike the days leading up to it.”

She hadn’t told him much during their phone conversations, only saying there had been “some drama” with Catherine, Zoe, and Willow. Now she felt suddenly shy. This man was a stranger. They’d known each other hardly any time at all.

Darcy reached for her hand. “Can’t wait to hear all,” he said. “Did you buy your turkey yet?”

She shook her head. “It seemed easier to pretend we’d missed Thanksgiving; after all, we’re in Canada and they celebrated weeks ago. Lower expectations during this particular holiday might be a good thing.”

“Ah. Well, let’s not celebrate Thanksgiving, then. But how about if I cook my turkey at your house, maybe the day after tomorrow?”

“Now, that’s an offer I definitely can’t refuse,” she said, and kissed him.

T
his was how Zoe was like Nola: she could sleep forever. Willow would go into her mom’s room to wake her, only to be swatted away. Then she sat on the hard wooden chair beside the single bed in the room with its slanted ceiling, watching Mom sleep until Nana called her downstairs for breakfast.

She sat there not because it was so interesting, watching Mom sleep—she slept like a dead person, with one arm tossed over her face like it weighed fifty pounds—but because Willow always hoped she could watch her mom’s face and tell what she was dreaming about. Or maybe she would hear her talk in her sleep.

It bothered her that she didn’t know what Mom was thinking. In this way, Zoe was very different from Nola, who was always on some kind of panty rant. And from Catherine, who was always TMI-ing. Though, right now, Willow was surprised to find herself missing Catherine. A lot. In the last five years, she had spent every holiday and birthday and summer vacation with Catherine. Catherine always knew how to make a holiday special. Any day, really.

If Catherine were here, they’d make something the Pilgrims made, like brown bread in a can or squash muffins, or she’d ask Willow to help her draw and cut out paper Pilgrim hats or at least some turkey decorations. One year they’d made turkeys out of pine cones and leftover candy corn from Halloween.

Maybe Nana would help her at least make place mats for the table now that Darcy said he was going to roast a turkey. Willow had plenty of white paper and she’d brought her markers and watercolors.

“Why do you sleep so much?” she finally asked Zoe on their second morning at the house in Chance Harbor, when Zoe came slouching downstairs in an old sweatshirt and flannel pajama pants, then shuffled along the kitchen counter as if she had to feel her way to the coffee.

Zoe peered at her through half-lidded eyes. “Why do you get up so damn early and make such an insane racket?” she said, pouring herself a cup of coffee.

“I’m a kid.”

“You’re not a kid. You’re fourteen!”

“Fifteen,” Willow corrected.

She could tell by the way Zoe jerked her head up that she really had forgotten.

“You’re not, like, using anything, are you?” Willow asked, watching Zoe continue her slow zombie walk over to the fridge to get milk for her coffee.

Her mom snorted. “What would I be using? There’s nothing up here and I don’t have a car. I’d have to be smoking potato skins.”

This made Willow laugh, but barely.

She and Zoe had spent the previous day stripping the smallest bedroom of old wallpaper and putting up fresh. Willow loved everything about this process: soaking the paper and peeling it off in strips, discovering the layers underneath, scraping and sanding the walls smooth. If this were her house, she’d leave those patches of ancient patterns and colors on the white walls. But Nana had brought rolls of new paper, so she and Zoe helped with this, too, measuring and cutting strips and helping Nana sponge and glue them into place.

Darcy worked with them sometimes, too. He was fun to have around, telling dumb jokes she hadn’t heard since third grade: “Why did the little red house call the doctor?”

“Because it had window panes!”

The thought of how she’d gone to Mike’s house, assuming he was her dad, still made Willow question her own sanity. She should have known that it was too good to be true. Her real dad was probably a drug addict. Or dead! Sometimes she woke up at night and felt the bones of her face, squinching her eyes shut to picture herself better. Did she look like Zoe? Her grandparents? What part of her didn’t belong to this family? Her dad could have been anybody and anything: Egyptian. Mexican. Irish. A cop. A homeless guy. A drunk. A hero.

It wasn’t until Darcy and Nana went off to buy more groceries that she and Zoe were finally left alone in the house. They were finishing up in the last bedroom when Willow decided to keep asking questions until she got the answers she needed.

“If my dad isn’t Mike, then who is he?” Willow said.

“I told you, all right? I don’t know,” Zoe said, but she wouldn’t look at Willow, so she was probably lying.

“What about this?” Willow said. “Just count back nine months from when I was born and list all the guys you hooked up with during that time, okay? There can’t be that many, unless you were a prostitute.”

“Jesus, Willow. I should smack you upside the head for saying that.” Zoe was staring at her now, with a strip of wallpaper in her hand. The wallpaper was green and white striped; earlier Zoe had said the wallpaper made her feel like they were inside a Christmas candy. “How could you think I’d have sex for
money
?”

Because you bought a lot of drugs and we were always broke,
Willow thought, but that wasn’t an argument she wanted to have. “You have to tell me who my dad was, Mom,” she said. “What if my dad died of cancer or a heart attack? Or had Parkinson’s or ALS? They can do things for diseases now if you catch them early. Don’t you want to help me stay healthy?”

“Christ. You really have spent too much time with Catherine,” Zoe muttered, holding up the strip of paper for Willow to press into place.

“It’s not fair to blame her for everything.”

“Sure I can. Somebody has to! Perfect Miss Catherine can do no wrong. I’ve been hearing that since I was born.”

Willow bit her bottom lip, focusing for a minute on lining up the stripes. This wasn’t easy, since the old floor slanted and so did the ceiling, but she did the best she could. “Let’s not talk about her, okay?”

“So that’s how it is,” Zoe said. “You’re on her side. Like everybody else.”

“Mom!” Willow said sharply. “Stop! This has nothing to do with her, okay? I need to know who my father was. Why can’t you just tell me?”

“Because I don’t know who he was!” Zoe shouted back, then fell to her knees, face in her hands, tipping over the bucket of warm water they’d been using to sponge the wallpaper into place.

Willow ran into the bathroom for a towel. By the time she returned to the room, her mother had disappeared. She mopped up the mess, then went in search of her, stomach churning. Zoe was sitting on the floor of her old bedroom, her arms wrapped around her knees. Willow was scared at first—she’d found her mother rocking on the floor in that position a few times, usually during bad trips when she was hallucinating—but when Zoe looked up, her eyes were focused and a very sharp blue, like bits of bright sky showing through clouds.

“I’m sorry I upset you.” Willow dropped to the floor and rested her hand on her mother’s damp leg.

“You shouldn’t have to comfort me,” her mother said. “You’re the kid! I’m the mother!”

Willow shook her head, remembering what Catherine had said once when Willow had come home upset about something at school, listing all the reasons she was dumb and worthless.

“Don’t worry,” she said, repeating Catherine’s words. “I’ve got your back, and we’ll get through this together.”

Zoe snorted and lifted her eyes to the ceiling. “We won’t, though. Not if I tell you the truth.”

“Why not? Mom, please.”

“If you know something, you can’t ever unknow it.”

“Obviously! Come on. Just say it.” Willow patted her mother’s leg, feeling awkward, then swiveled to face her. “It’s just you and me here. Nobody else is listening.”

“How you came into the world?” Her mom’s expression turned dreamy. “You always tried to make things easy for me, even on that day. You gave me plenty of warning and my body did the work. I just went along for the ride. No drugs. Done in a few hours. You didn’t even cry when you were born, not like those horrible babies you see in movies. You were chubby and red and very pleased with yourself for finding your way into the world. You were completely yourself from the start.”

Willow smiled. Her mother had told her this story many times, but now she could picture it better, maybe because she had seen Nola’s belly grow. She let her eyes drop to her own mother’s slender waist. How was it possible that she’d once been part of her mother’s body?

“So he wasn’t there when I was born,” she said, double-checking. “My dad.”

Her mother’s face closed again. “No. Your father was not there. He doesn’t know you exist.”

Willow had figured as much, but hearing this still made her feel lost. Forgotten. “Why not? Why didn’t you call him?”

“Because we weren’t involved.” Zoe looked sad, and that made her look older, the lines around her eyes and mouth sketched in deeply, as if some invisible hand were working on her with a sharp black pencil. “Look, here’s the truth. I hardly knew the guy. The pregnancy was an accident. Mike and I had broken up and I was sad, so I went to a party and hooked up. That’s all there is to the story, baby. I’m sorry. I don’t know your dad’s name or what happened to him after that.”

“Nothing?”

Mom shook her head. “All I remember is that he seemed smart and sweet.” She reached out to Willow, touched her knee. “And cute, too. It didn’t matter to me that I didn’t have a husband. Or a boyfriend. I was happy to have you on my own. Gave me a great excuse to drop out of school. I always hated school.”

Willow knew her mom was lying again. But why? And about what? “So you’re saying I’m the product of you fucking some hot guy at a party, and you never tried to see him again?”

Zoe lowered her eyes. “Yes.”

“Nice.” Willow stood up suddenly, her chest aching. So this was it. The beginning and the end of her story: she didn’t have a dad, only an irresponsible party mom. “You meant to have sex that night, to forget about Mike. But not to get pregnant. I was a total accident.”

“Yes, but a welcome one.”

“So welcome that you couldn’t even stop doing drugs!” Willow hurled the words at her, as if the words were bones she had to spit out of her mouth. “You loved having a baby so much that you gave me to your sister! Well, you know what? You did the right thing. Catherine deserves to have a daughter, not you!”

Mutely, Zoe nodded, keeping her eyes fixed on the floor between her knees.

“Okay. We cleared that up, I guess,” Willow said. “You’re off the hook.”

Zoe looked up finally. “I’m trying to be good,” she said. “I came back for you, didn’t I?”

“
Trying
to be good isn’t the same thing as
being
good,” Willow said. “I love you, but I’m not taking care of you. I’m done with that. You have to learn how to take care of yourself, and so do I.”

Willow left her mother on the floor like a forgotten doll and ran downstairs, feeling a little bit bad, but good, too. She was free.

•   •   •

Bethany woke her out of a sound sleep, using her key to get into the house and coming right upstairs into the bedroom to shake Catherine’s shoulder. “Okay, get up,” she said. “You can’t be like this.”

“I don’t know how else to be.” Catherine pulled the pillow over her head.

She’d taken Thanksgiving week off from work, ostensibly to sort out her finances and decide what strategy to follow if Zoe came back from Chance Harbor saying she wanted custody of Willow. She’d thought she might see Grey, too, and figure things out with him.

What she hadn’t counted on was the sudden avalanche of emotions that had rolled over her the minute Willow left with Zoe and her mother, as suddenly as if she were standing at the bottom of a mountain during an explosion. She was drowning in these petty, irrational, juvenile feelings and didn’t know how to stay above any of them. There was jealousy, first and foremost: every time she imagined her sister walking the beach below the Chance Harbor house with Willow, or cooking in the kitchen with their mother—roles only Catherine had played for the past five years—she was suffused with a hot, choking jealous rage that she knew was beneath her, and useless besides.

Then, on the heels of her jealousy, there was loneliness. She felt more intensely alone than she could remember feeling at any other time in her life, even that first terrifying week at the university. Part of it was physical: Catherine hadn’t been alone in this house for more than one or two nights at a time since kicking Russell out. Now the rooms loomed large around her, and her steps echoed on the bare wooden floors as if she were walking through a castle. She had to take the batteries out of the ticking clock on the kitchen wall because each
ticktock
was like a dart shot into her skin. Part of the problem was her imagination: Catherine could see a time when she would have to grant Willow’s wish to live with Zoe, and if she did, this was what it would feel like to live alone. She felt purposeless, abandoned, forgotten.

It was tempting to see Grey. But Catherine had decided against spending time with him after all. That would be a crutch, and she didn’t want to give herself any false expectations. There could be no relationship there, period. Grey was Zoe’s friend. And if Willow ended up living with Zoe, Catherine would feel better if Zoe could lean on Grey when she needed support.

Still, even recognizing all of these emotions, Catherine was shocked by her own weakness. She told herself, almost hourly, that she was not this sort of person. She had never been prone to depression, flu, cramps, or any other thing that might keep her pinned between the sheets. Each morning, she made herself get up, shower, comb her hair, dress, and eat breakfast. But then she took her clothes off again and went right back to bed, where she fell as if shot and went into a near coma.