Good Harbor (27 page)

Kathleen sighed. “I think he left you in the lurch this summer. And now it also sounds
like he needs your support, a lot.”

“I know,” Joyce said. They sat quietly. “But, Kathleen?”

“Yes, dear?”

“I need a bathroom. And there are way too many people around here for us to have another
peeing contest.”

Kathleen stood up and reached her hand out to Joyce. “Let’s go to your house.”

THE PHONE WAS
ringing as they walked through the door. Joyce pointed to the answering machine and
put her finger to her lips. What if it was Patrick? What if the police hadn’t raided
the place? What if they had arrested him, and he wanted her to bail him out?

“Joyce?” Frank sounded frantic. “Where the hell are you?”

She picked up the phone and Kathleen turned away to give her some privacy, but turned
back when she heard Joyce say, “Oh, God. Is she okay? . . .

“No. I just walked in the door. I didn’t . . . When? When did it happen? . . .

“Yes. I’ll be there as soon as I can. . . . Yes,” said Joyce. “Hanover. The medical
center. Is she really going to be okay? . . . Yes Yes, I’m sorry. I’ll find you. I’m
leaving now.”

“What happened?” Kathleen asked, trying to sound calm.

“Nina fell out of a tree.”

“What?”

“She was climbing a tree near her cabin this morning. She broke her collarbone. Frank’s
been calling for hours. She lost consciousness for a minute, which means there was
a concussion, so they took her to Dartmouth-Hitchcock for observation. Frank says
there’s a map in the car.

“Oh, shit,” Joyce shouted. “My car is in Rockport.”

“Don’t be silly, I’m driving. Go use the bathroom, loan me a pair of sandals, and
we’ll leave.”

As Kathleen eased the car into the first traffic rotary, she said, “Now tell me exactly
what Frank said.”

Joyce ran through the few details she knew. “The break was on her left side, and she
regained consciousness quickly, which is good. But I have no idea what she was doing
up in a tree. Was she there on a dare? Was it an accident? Was she trying to, I don’t
know, hurt herself?”

“That’s way too big an assumption,” Kathleen interrupted. “Kids do lots of stupid
things for no reason at all.”

“I guess. But Nina doesn’t. Or she hasn’t.”

“Well, doing stupid things is part of adolescence, I’m afraid.”

They were past the second rotary and starting over the bridge. Kathleen gripped the
wheel, anticipating panic. But there was nothing.

Exactly what had scared her so much about doing this? It was a twenty-degree rise
up to the crest of the bridge, if that. And the whole span took two minutes, at most.
Where was her terror?

“Kathleen?” Joyce’s voice was trembling. “Would you keep talking? It’s probably irrational,
but I’m so afraid of what I’m going to find at the hospital, I’ll go nuts if I don’t
have something else to think about. Or maybe it’s that I’m afraid to face Frank after
what just happened. Could you keep talking to me? Would you mind?”

Starting with the first thing that came into her head, Kathleen described in elaborate
detail a meal Jack had cooked the other night, including a mouthwatering pasta dish
made with cabbage, of all things. The smell had gotten her remembering her grandmother’s
house, which seemed saturated with the smell of cabbage, which made her think about
how much Pat hated cabbage. When Pat announced that she was going to take vows, she
said, “I asked them if I could have an exemption written into the vow of obedience
if they ever put cabbage on my plate.”

“I felt like I was losing her when she went into the convent,” Kathleen said. “It
felt like a repudiation of us, of our relationship. Like she was choosing those Sisters
over me. I’m glad I never told her that, because it wasn’t so. We stayed close, even
though we lived in different cities.

“We worked at it, you know, with letters, and phone calls. She came here every summer
for her two-week vacation. Pat was devoted to Buddy and the boys. But I’m afraid I
always compared other friendships to hers, which was unfair. But that’s how it is.
Your family makes you who you are. And then she died.”

“How long ago was that?” Joyce asked.

“Fourteen years. I felt so helpless during her illness, especially at the end. All
the nursing Sisters bustled around, bringing her medications, changing the bed, bathing
her. I just sat there and held her hand, weeping. She sent me away the night she died.
She told me to go rest. And then she slipped away, so I wouldn’t have to watch. She
was taking care of me, even at the end.”

Kathleen took a deep breath. “At her funeral I felt so strange, so out of place. The
Sisters and the priest kept talking about how she was in a better place. They were
all smiles — big, heartfelt smiles. But I was sobbing. I could barely stand up, much
less smile back at them. I felt there was something terribly wrong with me, but Buddy
told me that I was just being Jewish, and there’s just no pie in the sky like that
for us.”

Kathleen shook her head. “After she died, I figured I’d get breast cancer, too. Every
mammogram, I thought, this time it’ll be my turn. That first biopsy, I thought for
sure, this is it. But it wasn’t. And this time, well, I got off easy.”

“Wait a minute.”

“I know,” Kathleen corrected herself. “It sucks. But it’s true that I’m not going
to die from this — at least, it’s not likely. I’m going to be around for a while.
I’m grateful. I am lucky. I know it.”

Joyce nodded and leaned back into the headrest. Her eyes were fixed on Kathleen as
she talked on and on, telling stories about Pat. Her boldness as a girl. How she liked
Buddy right off the bat. How she’d stood by Kathleen’s side, under the bridal canopy
at their wedding, which had been a small affair at her in-laws’ house.

After they crossed the border into New Hampshire, Kathleen stopped for gas and coffee.
Back on the road, she started talking about her sons. Hal’s shyness, his childhood
terror of bugs, his science honors in high school. Jack’s outgoing nature, his fearlessness
in the water, his trophies for swimming, for wrestling, and track. The way the boys
used to fight over their toys, and the way they looked, side by side, walking out
to the car the other night, on their way to temple.

And then, Kathleen found herself telling stories about Danny. He loved trucks. He
was pigeon-toed. He fought sleep, even when he was exhausted. When he got his first
tooth, he bit Hal’s finger so hard he broke the skin.

There were hundreds of people at Danny’s funeral. People Kathleen had never seen before:
customers from the store, acquaintances of Mae and Irv’s. Louisa Bendix had stayed
home to look after Hal. “The coffin was tiny. Obscene. It was small enough that just
one man from the funeral home could carry it.”

Joyce hugged her knees to her chest and listened intently. They passed Manchester
and the road emptied, so that it seemed they were alone in the world.

Kathleen felt a little like she was in a confessional. As a child she hated the dark
wooden booths in church. They always scared her, and after she saw her first Dracula
movie, they reminded her of coffins. The car was an intimate space, too, a good place
for telling secrets, but it held no threat. Maybe it was the changing light, or Joyce’s
rapt attention.

“It’s twenty-five years this month,” Kathleen said, her eyes fixed on the road ahead.
“Remember you asked me how long ago it was that Danny died? I didn’t want to tell
you because, well, I didn’t want you making allowances for me.” She lowered her voice
to a mock-reverent whisper. “Poor Kathleen. It’s twenty-five years since her little
boy died. Poor woman.”

Joyce started to speak, but Kathleen cut her off. “I couldn’t stand that because,
I . . .” She stopped, and Joyce waited.

“Remember I told you the phone rang, and I went into the house? Well, it was Stan
on the phone.”

Joyce sat up straight in her seat.

“I ran inside just to see who it was. Just for a second, you know. I thought it might
be Pat, who was due to visit that month. But it was him.

“I hadn’t seen him or even spoken to him for five months. He called and said his wife
was kicking him out of the house. He said he loved me and wanted to marry me. He wanted
to come to the house. He was sobbing.

“I told Hal, ‘Watch your brother.’ I said, ‘I’ll be just a second.’ But it wasn’t
just a second. And then I heard Hal scream. Not Danny. Hal.

“It was . . . That was . . .” The car filled up with the noise of the engine, the
tires on the road, the air rushing over the windows.

“What a horrible sound. I can’t begin to tell you. Like a siren. Louder than you’d
ever think a child could scream. Screaming and screaming.

“And you know what I did? What ‘poor Kathleen’ did? I hung up the phone. I didn’t
drop it when I heard Hal. I didn’t leave it dangling. I took the time to hang up the
damn receiver.

“I don’t think I said anything to Stan. I don’t remember really. But I do remember
replacing the phone on the hook before I went to see why my son was screaming. I never
forgave myself that moment. I never will.”

“Why not?”

Joyce had been so quiet, Kathleen almost jumped at the sound of her voice.

“Why wouldn’t you forgive yourself for that half second? It was a reflex. It was nothing.
You couldn’t have stopped the car. Even if the phone had never rung.

“Kathleen,” Joyce said firmly, “it wasn’t your fault. Hanging up the phone doesn’t
make you a bad person. Or a bad mother. You didn’t kill Danny. The old man behind
the wheel of that car killed Danny, by accident. It was an accident. It wasn’t your
fault.”

“I should have been there,” Kathleen whispered.

“You were there.”

The physical sensation of that morning returned to Kathleen. With her hands on the
wheel of a car hurtling across New Hampshire, Kathleen felt herself back at the scene
outside her house. Hal screaming. A lawn mower droning in the distance. The blood
on the ambulance driver’s white shirt. The heat.

“It was blazing hot. My neighbors called the police. The ambulance came. Two ambulances.
I got into one of them with Danny. Hal was still screaming. I got into the ambulance
with Danny and tried not to scream myself.

“Buddy was at the hospital when we got there. Pat came that night. The days in the
hospital were . . . I don’t remember them as days; it was a long blur of waiting and
crying. But Danny couldn’t . . . He didn’t get better. And then we had to let him
go.”

Joyce wiped her eyes and put her hand lightly on Kathleen’s shoulder.

“We donated his corneas and his organs.”

“It wasn’t your fault.”

“It wasn’t? I told my five-year-old son to watch my three-year-old while I was on
the phone with my lover.” Kathleen spit out the words.

“It wasn’t your fault. And it isn’t your fault that you’re going to survive breast
cancer and Pat died from it.”

“No?” Kathleen said sharply, then relented. “I suppose not.”

They drove in silence as the mountains grew greener in the afternoon light. Kathleen
asked, “Do you know what absolution means?”

“I think so.” Joyce blew her nose. “Does Hal feel guilty?”

“Why would Hal feel guilty? He was five years old. There was nothing he could have
done.”

“There was nothing you could have done, either. That didn’t stop you from making it
into your fault.”

Kathleen shook her head. “We tried to protect Hal from Danny’s death. These days,
the child psychologists tell you that’s the wrong thing to do. But back then, I didn’t
want to frighten him all over again or make him relive it. Besides, I was too guilty.

“Oh, dear,” Kathleen said, her eyes filling with tears, “I think Hal must feel guilty.”
She remembered what he had said the other day, about not being home with her.

“I was wondering when you’d finally spring a leak,” Joyce said, handing her a tissue.

They drove on for a few minutes. Kathleen pointed to a road sign for Dartmouth-Hitchcock
Medical Center.

“Oh, God,” Joyce said, almost moaning, thinking the worst. Permanent nerve damage?
Suicide attempt? Brain injury?

“It’s going to be okay,” Kathleen said as they pulled up to the emergency room entrance.
“Go ahead. I’ll park the car and be right in.”