Chance Harbor (49 page)

The drive to Prince Edward Island was hellishly long without company. She sang with the radio or argued with talk-show hosts to keep herself awake. For lunch she stopped for fish and chips at a small New Brunswick restaurant overlooking the Bay of Fundy.

Every meal, every scene along the road, reminded her of family trips to Chance Harbor. Of her parents talking in the front seat while she and Zoe rode in back and argued or played word games or, sometimes, took turns tracing letters on each other’s narrow backs, trying to guess the words they were writing.

Catherine remembered, as she continued along the Bay of Fundy’s dramatic shoreline, how they had always stopped for smoked salmon at a tiny family-run smokehouse down one of the side roads leading to a cove. The smokehouse was built of cinder blocks and painted yellow, like some kind of Lego house. The giant rosebush in front of it attracted hummingbirds by the dozen.

They would pack the salmon into a cooler and then drive to the end of that road, to a remote rocky cove with a series of small humpbacked islands rising out of the water like turtles surfacing. It was always foggy there, making the colored fishing boats look even brighter.

Despite the icy water, she and Zoe would take off their shoes, not minding the rocks because they were smooth and slippery. Their bare feet and ankles were soon numbed by the water. Water so cold that the pain roared up their skinny legs and into their spines, a sudden shock of sensation that made them laugh.

Their mother waded with them while their father made sandwiches of salmon and onion and butter on thick crusty bread. Then they’d eat, their family alone in that forgotten misty cove. Their own world. Happy.

And then, one day, they were not happy. Zoe was a teenager and acting out. Her parents were bitter and scared, alienated from each other. Their marriage—now that Catherine had more perspective on it, she could see this—had gone sour. They had stayed together out of sheer stubbornness and loyalty. But maybe that was a form of love. She could see that now, too.

Marriage was such a tricky thing. A creature all its own, separate in many ways from the two people who created it. Like a child, a marriage had to be nurtured and fed, and even then it could have unexpected traits, inherited or brought on by environment.

A marriage could be happy and calm, or petty and jealous, or angry and removed. A separate being that grew bigger and stronger on its own, apart from the couple who made it. Or, alternatively, the marriage became malnourished and eventually withered and died. You could try to mold a marriage into what you wanted and expected. But, sometimes, all the willpower in the world wasn’t enough to save it. Triage came too late. That’s how it was with Russell. She could never go back to him now.

By the time Catherine reached Chance Harbor, she had exhausted herself not only by driving steadily forward with so few breaks, but also from performing these mental gymnastics. Her reveries about love and marriage and family had led her exactly nowhere.

Or maybe they had, she thought, as she slammed the car door behind her and stood in front of the yellow house, where Willow, spotting her from the window, came bounding outside like a colt, all skinny legs and hopeful face.

Maybe her life, her marriage, had led her exactly here, to a place where she could open her arms wide and welcome this girl who was like a daughter to her, to say, “I’m so glad to see you. I missed you like crazy. I hope you know how much I love you.”

“W
hy are you making me see these people?”

Zoe sounded about twelve years old, Eve thought. They were in the car, just the two of them, driving toward North Lake. It was a clear morning, and the potato fields sparkled with snow. Snow swirls rose in front of them as the wind whipped up miniature tornadoes of red dirt mixed with white. “They’re family. You know Cousin Jane.”

Zoe frowned and buried her chin deeper into the purple quilted down jacket Eve had loaned her. “You mean Dad’s cousin? That woman with the bubble butt and the big hair who never stops talking?
That’s
who we’re going to see? But why?”

“I wanted to bring her a pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving. And I wanted her to see you.”

“But it’s not even their Thanksgiving. That’s already over.” Zoe was looking panicked. Trapped. “I don’t see what the point is.”

“The point is that Jane is Malcolm’s older sister,” Eve said.

Now Zoe looked like she wanted to open the car door and jump out. But there was no place for her to go: just snow and wind and pine trees and frozen potato fields and bright blue water everywhere she looked. “I don’t want to see her.”

“I know. But she wants to see you.”

“Jesus, Mommy. This is torture.”

Eve kept her hands steady on the wheel. “It’s a small island, honey. You can’t hide from family here.”

When they pulled up in front of Jane’s small brown house, three other cars and a pickup truck were parked in the driveway. “Who else is here?” Zoe nearly yelled.

“I have no idea. More family, I imagine.”

“Do they all know?” Zoe glanced at Eve, eyes wide.

“I don’t think so,” Eve said, but her own knees were unsteady as she climbed out of the car and got the pie from the backseat. “Ten minutes,” she promised. “That’s all. Then we’ll say we have to go home and help Darcy cook.”

They did not visit for ten minutes, of course. More like an hour. Jane had gathered all of her children—four of them, three with spouses—as well as her grandchildren, and Malcolm’s two children as well. Malcolm’s children, both sons, looked and sounded so much like him, and like Andrew, too, with their fair hair and ruddy complexions, and their talk of fishing and farming, that Eve had to sit down quickly in the kitchen with the women. Jane pressed her to eat a cheese biscuit with her tea, served on what was clearly her best flowered china.

Zoe was embraced by one relative after another, most of whom remembered her as a child and a teenager. They regaled her with questions about life in the United States, especially sports, and Eve was relieved to see Zoe open up, as if it hadn’t been more than fifteen years since her last visit. At one point, one of her half brothers said, “Jesus and Mary, if this girl isn’t the spittin’ image of himself, our uncle Andrew, eh?” at which point Jane met Eve’s eyes over the table and smiled.

“Thank you for bringing her,” Jane said, pressing Eve’s hands between her own as they were leaving. Jane’s hands felt warm and solid as two new loaves of bread. “I just wanted to see his children gathered together again, now that they’re all grown-up.”

“I wish it could have happened sooner, but after Zoe dropped out of college, she was living a bit rough,” Eve said. “I’m sorry. We couldn’t get her to do anything with the family, and then she disappeared for years.”

To her surprise, Jane nodded. “Aye, I know you’ve been through a rough time with this girl of yours. But so many of the young ones go through a rough patch, and we’re always glad to see them return. I’m very glad to see your girl here now. I know Malcolm is watching and feeling very pleased, too.”

Zoe was carrying on with her cousins outside, tossing snowballs as if she really were twelve years old again. “I bet she’ll come back,” Eve said. “Should we tell anyone else?”

“I don’t know about that,” Jane said. “Let’s just leave things as they are, eh? We’ll let Zoe do it, if she’s a mind to, when she feels ready.”

“All right.” Eve kissed Jane on the cheek. “I love you. And your family. I hope you know how much.”

“You’re one of us—don’t forget that,” Jane said. “So don’t you go selling that house. You need to keep one foot on the island. For your girls, if nothing else.”

“I’ve decided to keep the house,” Eve said.

Jane, in her customary no-nonsense way, did nothing more than nod, but her eyes were bright. “Well, there. That’s all settled, then.”

On the drive back, Eve glanced at Zoe, whose profile was serene against the deepening blue sky. “So what do you think of the island, now that you’re back?”

“That it’s nice to be in a place where most of my memories are happy.” Zoe turned in her seat to look at Eve. “Was it very awful, thinking I was dead?”

The question stunned Eve. “I mostly didn’t believe you were really dead,” she said when she could trust her voice. “I thought I’d know if you were. But, yes, the few times I let my mind go there, it was awful.”

“Still, it must have been easier in a lot of ways, not having to worry about me.”

Eve was so angry that she jerked the car over to the side of the road, flinging Zoe against the window, and slammed it into park. She unclasped her seat belt and turned to look at her daughter. “Do not ever dare say that again,” she said. “Do not ever think that I would wish you dead. You are my
child
!” she yelled, and burst into tears.

“Oh, Mommy,” Zoe said, and slid across the seat to hold her.

•   •   •

They’d been kicked out of the house. “Go, go, go!” Eve cried, actually shooing them out of the kitchen door with a dish towel.

Catherine suspected her mother had contrived this as a way to push her into talking alone with Zoe. So far, she and her sister had been circling like territorial cats, polite but for the occasional hiss, with Willow nervously bouncing between them and giggling like a hyper eight-year-old or clinging to Catherine.

“Let us at least help peel potatoes or something,” Catherine said. There was no part of her that felt ready to be alone with Zoe.

“This kitchen isn’t big enough for both of you,” Eve snapped. “You can help with cleanup later. Go down to the beach and get some air while it’s still light out. You’ve been moping around underfoot, and I can’t stand it anymore.”

“We’re not moping,” Zoe said. “I was doing a puzzle.”

“I don’t care what you were doing. You girls need some fresh air to work up an appetite,” Eve said. Then, when Willow began putting her jacket on to follow them, she hauled her back. “Not you, Willow. You stay here and set the table.”

Catherine stepped outside and hesitated as Zoe bounded toward the cliff, declaring her intention to walk the beach as far as Basin Head. “You can come or not,” she tossed over her shoulder, and disappeared down the steep wooden staircase leading to the water.

In this late-afternoon light, the sun slanted orange over the snowy fields. Catherine could make out bird and mouse tracks on top of the slight crust of snow, proving that even in the dead of winter, even on this remote corner of a remote island, life went on, no matter what silly business the humans were conducting.

She took the staircase gingerly because some of the boards were icy, hating herself for being so cautious. Zoe, whom she could see striding along the beach, had probably descended the steps at a run, or maybe even jumped from the halfway point.

The beach was mostly free of snow. If they’d been at home, it would be getting dark by now. But on Prince Edward Island, the light lingered in the sky and turned all shades of color, as if someone up there were constantly tie-dyeing the horizon, refusing to create the same crazy color combinations twice. Just now the clouds were shadowed in purple and laced in green and yellow.

Catherine picked her way through the enormous red rocks, staying close to the cliff to keep out of the wind. Zoe had stopped to examine something in the sand—deliberately?—and Catherine caught up with her by the first trio of tall dunes.

“Sea glass,” Zoe said, holding out her palm. A triangular piece of glass lay there, a delicate turquoise color.

“Pretty.”

“Probably one of the same pieces we picked up as kids. I always thought Mom tossed them back on the beach at night after we found them.”

“Me, too.”

They walked into the wind toward Basin Head. Catherine’s forehead was numb with cold. She couldn’t think of how to begin to tell Zoe what she’d found out from Grey, and that one confession seemed to have lodged in her throat, preventing any other conversation.

“What do you think of Darcy?” Zoe asked. “Pretty hunky for sixty.”

Catherine laughed, glad to have a distraction. “He’s probably pushing seventy.”

“Whatever. It’s still weird, right, how he and Mom can hardly keep their eyes off each other? I even saw them holding hands. It’s like chaperoning a pair of lovesick teenagers.”

“They do seem pretty smitten.”

“Guess that’s better than her being alone. And he’s kind of sweet. Nicer than Dad in a lot of ways. I still can’t believe the guy’s cooking us a turkey.”

“Mom could do worse,” Catherine agreed. She’d forgotten this: how much time she and Zoe used to spend watching their parents, dissecting their moods. She supposed all children must do that, and then shuddered to think of what Willow must have observed between her and Russell. “Observing the animals in their natural habitat,” Zoe had called it in middle school when she’d spy on their parents and report something back to Catherine like, “The male of the species is now circling the watering hole, in search of whiskey, while the female flicks her tail feathers and issues indignant squawks. This is their weekly mating ritual.”

Nobody could make her laugh as hard as her sister. Now, as they continued walking in silence, Zoe’s silhouette beside her seemed so familiar that Catherine felt almost as if they were walking back through time, to the childhood and adolescence they’d spent on this beach with innumerable MacLeish cousins.

Just then Zoe glanced at her, eyebrows raised beneath the old blue watch cap of their father’s she’d shoved onto her head, her yellow bangs pressed flat beneath it. “How weird is this?” she said, echoing Catherine’s thoughts. “I feel like I’m ten again.”

“I know. I was just thinking the same thing.”

“I’m glad you came for Thanksgiving,” Zoe said. “It’s good you’re here. You made Mom’s holiday happier. Willow’s, too. They were missing you.”

Was Zoe, too? Catherine wished she knew. She searched the patterned sand at their feet, looking for the right words written there in the scrolls of the sea. “Listen. I know what happened to you at school. How you got pregnant. And I’m sorry.”

Zoe stopped walking and shoved her hands deep into her pockets. “Who told you? Mom?”

So their mother knew, too. This surprised Catherine, but she wasn’t about to tell Zoe it was Grey. He was Zoe’s best friend; it might be worse if it had come from him.

“When did you tell her the truth?” Catherine asked to avoid answering her question.

“Not long ago.”

“I’m so sorry,” Catherine said again. “I wish I’d known.”

“I didn’t
want
you to know.” Zoe started walking again, faster. “I still wish nobody did.”

Catherine had to step up her pace and felt suddenly breathless, remembering this, too, from their childhood at Chance Harbor: Zoe, after about age eight, was always faster, stronger, and more impulsive than she was. So mercurial that Catherine had often felt like she was a faint light trailing after her sister’s own bright flare.

“Does Willow know?”

Zoe shook her head, hard. “I would never tell her, and don’t you do it, either,” she said fiercely, stopping again to grab Catherine’s arm. “Please.”

“But she has to know. Otherwise she’ll keep asking questions.”

“No. I don’t think so. Yesterday I told her a partial truth, okay? Enough. I just said I’d met this guy at a party and hooked up with him. That he was a nice guy, but it was a onetime thing and I never looked for him. That’s all she knows.”

“Why don’t you want to tell her?”

“I don’t want Willow to ever think the rape had anything to do with her. I don’t want her tainted by it,” Zoe said. “I know that’s a medieval word, and I know I’m supposed to be a feminist and all that, but Willow doesn’t have to know everything, okay? Promise me that.”

“I promise,” Catherine said, touched by her sister’s determined generosity. “For what it’s worth, I think you’re probably right not to tell her.”

Zoe turned away, but not before Catherine could see that she was crying, one cheek shinier than the other. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome. But I still don’t understand why you didn’t tell me. I was right there, Zoe!”

“You were busy getting ready to graduate.”

“You’re my sister. I would have dropped everything for you!”

Zoe shrugged, the purple jacket hunching up around her ears as if it had been pulled upward by strings. “You did that enough. You’d already made it clear you were done with me, after I came crying to you about Mike so many times.”

This was true. Catherine thought back to how Zoe had wept, her eyes red-rimmed for weeks after Mike broke up with her. How she’d refused to eat and couldn’t sleep without dope or antihistamines. By then Catherine had met Russell, was busy planning not only her graduation party, but their wedding. Then would come nursing school. Her future was set. Zoe, she had thought, was wallowing. Again.