Chance Harbor (18 page)

“Okay.” Willow did as she was told, then came back to the table and sat down with the box. “There are photographs in here,” she said. “This is me, right?” She handed a picture over to Nana, who smiled and nodded.

“That’s you, all right. What a little angel.”

Willow made a face. “Mom used to tell me I cried all the time. And I’m so ugly! I never knew I was that bald and fat.”

Nana laughed. “You’re not fat. All babies have rolls of fat around their legs and wrists until they start moving around on their own. And every baby cries. That’s normal. You weren’t bald, either. You just had really light hair like your mom’s. Almost white. It doesn’t show in the photo. Trust me. You were a pretty baby. Almost as pretty as you are now.”

Willow rolled her eyes, but she was secretly pleased. Nobody ever told her she was pretty. Usually she felt invisible, and that was fine with her. She knew what happened when guys noticed you. She suppressed a shudder, thinking of Tom touching her.

She squinted at the picture. “I remember this blanket with the cows on it—I had it on my bed until first grade—but not this room. Where am I?”

“In Worcester. That’s one of the apartments you and your mother had after you stopped living with us.”

“Did we live with anybody else?” Willow asked. “I remember Mom’s boyfriend. Mike. He lived with us for a while, on and off.” She was testing her grandmother, trying to trick her into telling her more. Willow felt bad about this, but her mom wasn’t coming back. It was time she found her father. Mike would take care of her if Catherine and Russell didn’t want her anymore.

“Yes, Mike was a nice guy,” Nana said, looking up from her paper again. “I always hoped they’d end up together.”

“He was a magician, right?” Willow was excited. This was the first time anyone had ever told her anything about Mike. “And his last name was Martin.” She’d made that up on the spot, hoping her grandmother would correct her.

It worked! “No, no. He was only a magician on weekends for fun. Mike was a teacher at a Montessori school. His last name was Navarro, not Martin.” Nana smiled. “I liked him, but your grandfather thought he was odd. He didn’t believe teaching was an appropriate career choice for a man. But Mike clearly loved children. He loved you. I know that.”

Willow felt her eyes sting. Her dad
had
to be Mike. He’d cared about her the way a father would. Like that time she was sick with the flu and got up in the middle of the night to throw up. She was little, maybe six years old then, and scared because it felt like a wild thing had crawled down her throat, clawing its way to her stomach. Mike was the one who got up and watched TV with her, gave her ginger ale and ice cream, stroked her damp hair. Mike. Not her mother, who didn’t even wake up.

“Shhh,” Mike had said, when Willow tried to call her mother’s name from the doorway of the bedroom, not wanting to come into the room in her icky pajamas. “We don’t want to wake your mom. I’m coming.”

He’d helped her off with the nightgown—that was before Tom taught her that you couldn’t trust some men, even if you were a little kid—and washed her face. He brought her fresh pajamas and wrapped Willow in his own big warm flannel robe, rolling up the sleeves and tying a big bow in it. “There,” Mike had said. “You look just like a princess in her royal gown.”

That had made Willow laugh, even though she still felt like puking.

Mike was definitely her father.

“What do you really think happened to my mom, Nana? Do you think she’s dead?” Willow asked, setting the photo back in the box.

“No, I don’t, honey,” Nana said, biting her bottom lip as she looked at Willow across the table. “I think one day she’ll surprise us all and walk right back into our lives.”

Willow smiled and reached over to take her hand. “You’re lying to make me feel better, right?”

Nana shook her head. “No. I’m hoping,” she said. “With all my heart.”

E
ve thought she’d be tired enough to sleep after Catherine and Willow left Chance Harbor, but she was restless and finally got up with the sun.

She had taken Catherine and Willow to Charlottetown the previous afternoon for their flight to Boston. Catherine was skeptical when Eve said she wanted to stay on the island alone for another week to finish sorting through things and find workmen to do repairs before putting the house on the market. But she’d hugged Eve hard and left without looking back.

Now that Eve thought about the conversation with Catherine about her own marriage, she wished she’d been more honest. She could have at least shared the same story she’d told Russell. Maybe then Catherine would have a less absolute, black-and-white view of marriage and adultery. Of “good” husbands and wives.

But Catherine didn’t ask whether you were faithful
, Eve reminded herself.
Only her father.

What had held her back from confessing her own infidelity? Shame, partly. And Eve knew that telling her daughter the truth had the potential to shatter their relationship.

Catherine had adored her father. They’d had a special bond, those two. Sometimes Eve had even been envious, watching as Andrew showed Catherine how to bait a fishing line or taught her how to change the tire on her bicycle.

That close relationship between Andrew and Catherine had also bothered Zoe. Sometimes Eve wondered if that was why she’d been so protective, and perhaps too forgiving, of her younger daughter. Andrew, meanwhile, was often impatient with Zoe’s silly antics, her dramatic flair, and later with her risk-taking. He had no time for such nonsense, he said.

“Maybe I’m just too Scottish and practical to have an artistic daughter,” Andrew said with a sigh.

Of course, it was her own fault that Andrew couldn’t really bond with Zoe. Eve knew that. She had come close to explaining all of this to Catherine but had pulled back at the last second. Why sully Catherine’s memories of her father? Of their family?

Had she really trusted Andrew, as she’d told Catherine? In the big things—in sickness and health, for richer or poorer—absolutely, yes. She and Andrew had looked out for each other while he was building up his business and, later, as she was getting her career off the ground. They’d propped each other up through the early years of parenthood, his skin cancer treatments and her own breast cancer scare, the deaths of his parents and grandmother, her father’s dementia and the deaths of her own parents, too. There had been challenges with their extended families as well, like the MacLeish cousin who was perpetually in jail and asking Andrew for money, or her own sister, a hoarder and recluse in Wisconsin.

But Eve did not trust Andrew to be faithful. What she didn’t tell Catherine was this: after finding those hotel receipts and confronting Andrew, after hearing his story and his vow to end the relationship with his German colleague, she had met Marta.

It was at a company function where Andrew was receiving a major award. Eve hadn’t expected Marta to be there, but by then Marta was one of the company’s vice presidents—a promotion approved by Andrew, no doubt.

After Andrew first told her about his affair, Eve had imagined Marta as the sort of brisk, tailored, older woman who would be a top administrator at a high-tech company. Instead, Marta had been—how else to put this?—luscious, an ample brunette with creamy breasts spilling out of a red cocktail dress. A woman who spoke not with a clipped German accent, but in soft murmurs that caused everyone—the men, especially—to lean closer, to practically pillow their heads on her bosom, as if Marta were reading them bedtime stories instead of reciting sales figures.

Marta lived in New York, Andrew told her after that party, speaking dismissively, literally waving Eve’s questions about her away with one hand as they drove home. “You have no reason to worry or feel jealous. Marta and I scarcely have reason to run into each other anymore,” he said. “Anyway, that’s all over now.”

She had believed him.

After the affair, Andrew had insisted on scheduling regular weekend getaways. They both loved to cross-country ski, and so, for Andrew’s birthday in January, she surprised him with a weekend at a hotel in Vermont. They’d spent the day skiing and had returned to their room exhausted, sore, and happy, making love in that languid way of couples who know there is nothing to interrupt them.

Afterward, Eve had gone down the hall for ice. When she returned, Andrew was sobbing in the shower, his body folded nearly double.

Alarmed, she’d opened the shower door and turned off the scalding water, worried that the red stains on his pale, freckled back might actually be burns that would blister. Andrew had been meek and quiet once she arrived, letting her bundle him into one of the hotel’s plush white towels.

She’d ordered a hot toddy from room service, scotch with orange juice and hot water, a pat of butter melted on top. Once Andrew had drunk it, once he had collected himself and his teeth had stopped chattering, Eve had promised him that, whatever he had to tell her, it would be all right. They would get through it together.

She had believed this with all her heart. But she was blindsided when the truth turned out to be that Andrew hadn’t stopped seeing Marta after all. They had met many times since then, in Europe and New York, even in Latin America, Andrew told her. “Now she has left her husband, and Marta says I have to leave you, too,” Andrew said dully, pulling the towel around his shoulders like a cape.

“And what do you want to do?” Eve asked. “To stay with me, or be with her?”

“Stay,” he’d said. “Oh, my love. You’re the one who has my heart.”

Eve had closed her eyes, trying to feel whether he was telling the truth. He was. Andrew had always loved her. Loved her, still. She knew that in her bones. She opened her eyes again. “All right, then. If you stay with me, you must promise to never see Marta again. Do you understand? This is your last chance.”

“Yes,” he said. “I understand.”

“What’s her number?” Eve demanded.

He’d looked up at her then. “Eve, you can’t.”

“I can. And I will.”

Andrew had given it to her finally, and Eve had dialed Marta. There was a brief, terse conversation, where Eve told Marta that just because she was ready to end her marriage didn’t mean Eve was ready to end her own. There would be no more threats, Eve added, or she would go to the police.

It had taken months. A year, maybe, before Eve would let Andrew touch her again. But she and Andrew had gotten through all that, and through Eve’s affair with Malcolm a few months later. At the time, her own infidelity had seemed to be a far more serious betrayal than Andrew’s; whereas he had always said he wanted to be with her, Eve couldn’t honestly say the same to him. That was the real reason she’d gone to Cape Breton Island and left Andrew in tears: to decide.

•   •   •

Wednesdays were definitely going to suck big-time, Willow thought as she waited in front of the school for Nola to pick her up.

For some reason, Catherine was insisting on this stupid custody arrangement, and Willow now had to spend time with Russell every Wednesday. “It’s important for you to keep up your relationship,” Catherine had explained.

When Willow said no way did she want to waste even one more minute of her life with Russell, Catherine brought out some legal document about a gazillion pages thick to show her: the separation agreement.

“I’m sorry, but this is what he and I have agreed, and it’s a legally binding document,” Catherine said, pointing to the actual page where it supposedly said that. “Look on the bright side, can’t you? I have to work late most Wednesdays. This way you’ll get dinner. And it’s the least you can do, if Russell’s going to take care of that dog while you’re in school. It’s only fair.”

Fair
. Had Russell considered what was fair when he screwed Nola? He made her sick.

How was Russell so different from Tom, Mr. Real Deal, with his cold hand on her leg, sliding up her thigh? She was ten when that happened. Tom must have been, what, like twenty-nine? Nineteen years older than she was. Almost the same difference between Nola and Russell. Gross. Willow wanted to gag, thinking about how Russell might have put his chalky fingers up Nola’s skirt when she was bending over his desk, asking for help on a history essay.

Except, knowing Nola, she’d probably worn a thong and put Russell’s hand there herself. Last year Willow had a study hall with Nola. She remembered the effect Nola had on that Latin teacher who monitored the room, a guy with a name so long everyone called him Dr. Q. All Nola had to do was sit in the front row in a short skirt, crossing and uncrossing her legs, and the poor guy stood in front of her like he’d been turned to stone by a wizard. Once Nola had paralyzed him, she could use her cell phone all she wanted. Her hotness factor was like some kind of spider’s web or magnetic force field. Guys could only make it in if she let them, and then they couldn’t get out.

Nola was pulling up to the curb now, looking like a bitch in charge in her black Range Rover. The car was a present from her dad for her sixteenth birthday.

Willow scowled at a group of girls staring at Nola and the car. The only upsides to this whole custody thing were that Russell had picked up her dog earlier today, so now Mike greeted her by leaping from the backseat into the front, and people in this new school would leave Willow alone if they saw her with Nola, imagining Nola was her sister or cousin or whatever.

Or stepmother. Ew.

Willow focused on rubbing Mike’s ears as the car slid noiselessly away from the curb.

“So how was school?” Nola asked, steering with one hand on the wheel and texting with her other. Willow had hoped Russell would pick her up, but apparently he had some kind of job interview.

“Fine.”

Nola glanced at her. “Fine, fine? Or really fine?”

“Really fine. Nobody’s beaten me up yet or stolen my lunch money, okay?”

“Well, you tell those pricks they’ll have to deal with me if they bother you.”

Willow glanced at Nola, surprised. Maybe because Nola had destroyed Willow’s whole life to get what she wanted, she was going to be her fairy godmother now. Oh, goody.

“Need a snack before we go home?”

This must be Nola’s way of practicing to be a mom. “No.” Willow pointedly took a book out of her backpack and opened it.

She hadn’t seen Nola’s apartment yet. She’d been too busy “getting settled in school,” as Catherine put it, though that wasn’t actually what was happening. No, it was more like she was surviving by being invisible, something that was actually a lot harder to do than she’d thought it would be in a school this size.

Probably because she was the only kid who’d started at the wrong time of year. Everyone asked why. She said her family was traveling. Luckily, in Cambridge that excuse flew. About half the people she’d met in her classes so far had parents who were professors at some college or other; a lot of them had parents who did sabbaticals or were on fellowships.

They drove across the BU Bridge and down Commonwealth Avenue. Then Nola turned left and left again, finally pulling up in front of a brownstone on Beacon Street. “This is it,” she said.

Willow glanced at her, shocked. They were maybe four blocks from Beacon Hill School. For the first time, she wondered what Nola was doing about school. They wouldn’t let her stay at Beacon Hill, would they? Had they only kicked Russell and Willow out? Maybe, if Nola’s dad gave the school enough money.

“How long have you lived here?” Willow asked, grabbing the dog’s leash as she opened the car door.

Nola tossed her goddess hair. “Like, all my life since I was twelve,” she said. “I mean, whenever my dad wasn’t dragging us halfway around the world. He’s in Dubai right now. Before that, my grandmother lived here and I lived with my mom in our house in Geneva, mostly, unless we were in New York.”

“So your dad lets you live here by yourself now?”

Nola arched an eyebrow. “It’s my house since I turned eighteen. It was my mom’s before she died and left it to me. I was thirteen when she died. It was
her
mother’s before that.”

“Oh.” Willow didn’t know Nola had a dead mother; she had to work hard not to feel sorry about that. “Where does your dad live?”

“He lived here with me until I told him to get the hell out. Now he has a condo in Brookline. Come on. Russell’s probably still at his job interview, but he’ll be home soon.”

Nola said her father’s name like it was poetry. What job interview? Willow wanted to ask, but she didn’t want to give Nola the satisfaction of knowing her dad told Nola more than he told his own kid.

Except I’m
not
his, Willow reminded herself. She had a real dad out there. Mike. He’d want her to stay with him instead of Russell if he knew what was happening. She had to find him.

She followed Nola along a stone path between two miniature but perfect gardens. The gardens still had a few raggedy flowers, and there was a curved stone bench in one of them next to a little pond. A miniature tree with branches falling like soft hair grew next to the bench.