Chance Harbor (32 page)

You started Willow’s nightmare
, Eve thought, but contained herself. “Russell loves Willow. He’s doing his best to stay connected to her. Seeing her on weekends and some weeknights.”

“Hooray for him.” Zoe bit into another carrot with a snap.

“Do you have to eat those now?” Eve said irritably. “While we’re trying to have a conversation?”

“Sorry. No, guess not.” Zoe set the bag down on the table beside her. “So, is this the part where we play twenty questions? I bet I can guess what they are.”

“Probably. But let’s start with that guy on the motorcycle. Is he your boyfriend?”

“He’s hot, right? But, sadly, no.”

Eve wondered why not, but let it go. “All right. I would like an account of what you’ve been doing for the past five years.” Somehow, the anger she’d thought wasn’t there had started working its way up from her belly and into her throat. How
dare
her daughter be so flip about everything?

“Oh my God. That is
such
a boring story,” Zoe said, her eyes skittering toward the carrots. She twisted her hands in her lap.

Once an addict, always an addict, Eve thought suddenly. Zoe probably needed something in her mouth 24-7 to stay clean. She’d always been high-strung. Drugs and alcohol were her way of self-medicating.

“Go ahead and eat your carrots,” Eve said. “Maybe try to chew with your mouth closed. And tell me everything. You may think your story is boring, but your mother will not. I promise.”

To her relief, Zoe laughed. She took another carrot and said, “I already told Catherine pretty much everything. She must have told you.”

“No. Not much.”

Zoe told Eve how she’d hitchhiked to Florida and lived hand-to-mouth on the street or in shelters while she worked at whatever she could, most recently cleaning hotel rooms.

“People are pigs,” Zoe added.

“And that’s a surprise to you?”

Zoe bit into another carrot, slowly. “I guess not. I mean, look how I lived, right?”

“You had a drug problem.” Eve took a deep breath, then added, “You’re an addict, Zoe.” Andrew would be proud of her, she thought, for speaking her mind.

“Yes,” Zoe acknowledged. “I am.”

“Are you using anything now?”

“No, Mom. I’m clean.”

Eve nodded. “I’m glad. How did you quit?”

“By almost dying a few times. The last time was the worst.”

Eve winced, imagining Zoe nodding off on somebody’s couch, or maybe in a gas station bathroom. Being found, rushed to a hospital by strangers. Machines keeping her alive.

“I’m sorry you had to go through that.”

“Yeah, well. I brought it on myself. I had to get scared straight, right? That’s what everybody says. You and Dad tried your best, but you couldn’t have gotten me off drugs. I had to do it.” Zoe stood up and carried the carrots back to the fridge, put them away. She came back with a glass of water and sat back down on the opposite end of the couch, cross-legged and facing Eve.

“How long ago was this?” Eve asked.

“Two years ago. I met Sadie, Grey’s sister, at work. She offered me an empty room in her house so I could stay off the streets. It was Grey’s doing, really. He’d come down to Florida to look after his sister and thought I’d be a good influence on her, believe it or not. They’re gypsies, so Sadie lived part of the year down there, part of the year here.”

“Gypsies? Really? I’d call them snowbirds,” Eve said.

“Nope. They’re gypsies for real. Their mom is a fortune-teller here on Salisbury Beach. Madame Justine.”

Eve had seen Madame Justine’s signs—tarot card and palm readings for ten dollars—but had never been tempted. “If Sadie’s a gypsy, then isn’t Grey one, too?” She thought about the mobile home park, about all of the cars and trucks here. Of course: the gypsies in this area were itinerant workers, roofers and driveway pavers. They schooled their children sporadically and married them off to one another. Why would Zoe want to hang out with them?

Look at her, though, Eve reminded herself. Zoe was clearly healthy. And happy. The gypsy lifestyle must agree with her.

“They’re only half gypsy,” Zoe was explaining. “Sadie was more into the lifestyle than Grey ever was. Grey’s a boatbuilder. He has a shop in Salisbury and a house, too, but his mom lives there, since Grey travels so much. Now he’s fixing up another house for himself.”

Eve was trying to take all of this in and failing. Oh, what did it matter, anyway, if Zoe’s friends were gypsies or boatbuilders or kangaroos? The only thing that mattered was Zoe. What she was doing now and what she intended to do next.

And Willow. What about Willow? If Zoe was living like a gypsy, clearly they’d have to prevent Willow from living with her. Willow needed stability.

“Why did you decide to come back now, after all this time?”

“Timing, I guess. When Sadie died, I realized how alone I felt, and that made me think about how much Willow must have been missing me, at least at first. Grey was driving north and said he wouldn’t mind some company. And I’d been thinking about things. I didn’t want to come back too soon; I felt like my head was finally on straight. Though of course I wish I’d been here for you when Dad died.” She covered her mouth, whispered, “I can’t believe I didn’t get to see him, Mommy.”

Eve felt terrible, seeing her so upset. And how much worse would it be for Zoe if she knew she’d lost not just one father, but two?

Still. Eve had decided: she had to tell Zoe about Malcolm before she disappeared again.

“It’s all right. Dad knew you loved him.”

Zoe nodded, her face pink. It looked like she was struggling, trying not to cry. “Were there a lot of people at his service? I bet there were.”

“Oh yes,” Eve said, and tried to describe it for her: the people crowding into the wake, the church service in Newburyport, and the memorial service a month later at the church in Chance Harbor.

“He was well loved,” she said, remembering Marta like a thorn she’d forgotten was embedded in her foot.

Marta had had the nerve to show up at the funeral in Newburyport, and even came to their house for the reception afterward, saying, “I’m so very sorry, Eve, about all this. It wasn’t meant to be this way.”

What had she been talking about? At the time, Eve was too numb with grief to ask, much less to throw her out of the house, which was what she should have done. What had Marta meant? That Andrew hadn’t meant to
die
? Or that he hadn’t meant to die on her couch instead of his wife’s?

Meanly, now, Eve decided she could be glad in one way: at least she hadn’t had to deal with the shock of finding Andrew, of trying to do CPR and failing to revive him, as Marta had done. (Marta had told her this at the reception.) Eve hadn’t had to ride in the screaming ambulance, knowing the trip was futile.

No. By the time Eve made it to the hospital an hour after Marta’s call—Marta’s house was in Brookline, a suburb of Boston, forty miles south of Newburyport—Andrew was already gone. Just the rapidly cooling shell of his body on the gurney. Marta was a shadow in a black coat disappearing down a long, antiseptic-smelling hallway.

Beside her on the couch, Zoe was weeping quietly. “I feel so awful about Daddy. About all the things I did to disappoint him. God, if only I had another chance, I would take it all back. Or I would at least have made it home in time to tell him I was sorry.”

You used up all the chances he gave you
, Eve thought sadly, remembering Andrew storming out of the house once when he discovered that Eve had been secretly giving Zoe money after Zoe moved out of the house with Willow. A lot of money. She had done it because she was terrified that her daughter and granddaughter would end up on the street. Andrew, on the other hand, had been determined “not to fall for any more of Zoe’s damn drug addict tricks.”

He could be so harsh. But he was right: Zoe had probably used that money for drugs.

“Daddy loved you, honey,” Eve told Zoe, finally daring to slide over to her daughter on the couch and stroke her hair while Zoe cried on her shoulder.

Zoe’s head felt as it had when she was a girl, heavy and hot. She had only ever let Eve hold her when she was sick or upset. Eve had treasured those moments, the feeling of her daughter’s solid weight against her. Zoe’s hair was always long. So odd to feel it cropped short now. As short as Eve’s own.

Zoe had been high-strung as a child, easily upset. When she was tiny, the least thing could spark a tantrum: a wrinkled sock, peas for dinner, having to wear a jacket. High school was even worse. Then the tantrums built into tsunamis with terrible consequences. Once, they’d tried to ground her for breaking curfew in ninth grade, and Zoe had run away. They’d found her with the help of the police, living in a tenement house in Revere with a man ten years older than she was. The man had overdosed before they could charge him with anything.

The truth was that Zoe had never really fit into their family. Zoe had said that herself one Christmas. Screamed it, really, at the dinner table. Zoe was a junior in high school, while Catherine had come home from college, filled with excitement about her classes, her professors, even the food and her crazy roommate.

At dinner, Andrew had praised Catherine. “You’ve taken an important step toward independence,” he’d told her. “I’m proud of you.”

That’s when Zoe, already sulking because they’d told her she had to eat Christmas dinner at home with the family before going out with friends, lost it completely. Said she might as well leave the family, because they obviously didn’t need her, with Catherine around.

“I don’t even fit into this stupid perfect TV family!” she’d shouted. “I’m not like
any
of you!”

Then she’d stormed out in the way only Zoe could storm, making the china rattle in the cupboards. They didn’t see her for two days. Of course, that was before they knew she was not only drinking and smoking weed, but doing ecstasy—molly, they called it now, MDMA—and cocaine, too, as well as whatever pills she could get. Zoe swung between euphoric highs and crippling depression, depending on what drugs she was taking. How could she and Andrew have been so stupid? To have missed their daughter’s addiction for so long?

Because nobody wanted to think a beautiful, middle-class girl would become a drug addict, least of all her parents.

“Zoe,” Eve said quietly, “Daddy did love you. You have to believe me.”

Zoe turned to look at her without lifting her head off the couch, so that her hair snagged on the green tweed fabric. The trailer was so quiet that Eve heard the shushing sound made by Zoe’s head rubbing on the couch. “Come on, Mom. You don’t have to pretend. You know he didn’t love me unconditionally. Not like Catherine.”

“He was concerned for you. He wanted you to grow up to be good. Responsible. Every parent wants that for their children.”

“Not every parent,” Zoe mumbled. “I’ve seen the other kind.”

Eve thought back to the apartments Zoe had shared, to the shelters she must have gone to when she was desperate. She probably had seen plenty of the other kind. Somehow, this didn’t seem the time to tell her about Malcolm, so Eve stayed on more familiar ground. “We were upset when you drank and did drugs, when you let your grades slip. We were certainly disappointed when you got pregnant and dropped out of college.”

To her shock, Zoe leaped off the couch and turned on her. “You and Dad had
no idea
the kind of shit that happened to me in college!”

For a moment, they stared at each other, Eve willing Zoe to stay in the trailer. She knew by the way her daughter’s body was trembling that Zoe’s instinct was to run away. “Why don’t you tell me, then?” she said quietly. “I’d like to know what really happened to you in college.”

Zoe sat down again, but shook her head. “I can’t. You’ll only tell Catherine, and she might tell Willow.”

This was about Willow’s father, Eve realized with a start. Oh, good Lord. What was Zoe saying? That she’d been raped? “I won’t tell Catherine,” she said. “I promise.”

Zoe shook her head, adamant. “I don’t want to talk about any of that.” She turned to her then and said something unexpected. “I need to see Chance Harbor again before you sell it, okay? Promise? I was always happy there.”

“Of course,” Eve said. “I was planning to go up again anyway, to finish up some work I started.” Maybe that would be the right time to tell her about Malcolm.

“Can I ask you something else?” Zoe said.

“Why not?” Eve said, steeling herself.

“Could we bring Willow to Chance Harbor with us?”

“I don’t know.” Eve frowned, considering. “Catherine probably wouldn’t want her to miss school,” she said, silently adding,
And she certainly doesn’t want Willow spending time alone with you.

“Willow’s miserable at school,” Zoe said with an impatient toss of her head. “Catherine doesn’t know anything about my daughter’s life.”

Eve stared at her.
My daughter
, Zoe had said. Oh, dear. If Zoe wanted custody of Willow and Catherine fought her on that, what would happen?

Maybe, now that Willow was fifteen, she’d be allowed to choose. Who would she want to live with, if it was left up to her? Eve knew how much Willow hated having to spend time with Russell and Nola. Would those visits continue? Russell was her legal guardian, but could that be overturned?

She was jumping to conclusions, Eve reminded herself. Maybe Zoe wouldn’t even want the responsibility of raising her daughter.

“I certainly do think you should spend some time with Willow,” she said. “Still, we ought to discuss the logistics with Catherine, since she knows Willow’s school and social schedule.” She hesitated, then asked, “Are you working?”

Zoe nodded. “Grey helped me find a job with a friend of his who owns a car dealership. It’s an Internet dealership; I drive the cars to the buyers. It’s fun. Yesterday I took a Range Rover to Maine. This afternoon I get to drive a Mini Cooper down to the Cape! I work my own hours and get paid off the books,” Zoe added. “Twelve bucks an hour.”

She said this with pride. Zoe probably loved the fact that she was off the radar and free of ordinary burdens, like paying taxes, Eve thought. “And how long will you be staying here?”