Chance Harbor (4 page)

A better idea: she’d find Russell and see if he wanted to go to the North End for pizza. Catherine could meet them in Boston when she was finished at her clinic.

By now nearly everyone was gone. The deserted hallways suddenly seemed too wide. The light streamed in ribbons through the classroom windows, and the wood floors had turned to gold. A few lockers gaped open. Nobody locked anything at Beacon Hill School. What would be the point? They could all buy ten or fifty of whatever they wanted, here in this prep school that squatted in the shadow of the State House’s gilded dome.

The carpet was tongue colored and spongy beneath her feet. In the east wing, where most of the faculty offices were located, the teachers’ lounge had an overstuffed sofa and flowered chairs in front of a fireplace. The doors were heavy wood, each with a brass nameplate.

Russell’s office was at the very end of the faculty hallway. She never came down here—usually they just texted if they wanted to meet up—but her feet had carried her along while she’d been intent on her pizza plan. She could almost taste the cheese.

Willow was close to Russell’s office when she heard a noise from inside it like somebody choking. The hair on the back of her neck rose like needles, prickly under her T-shirt.

“But I can’t wait anymore,” a girl moaned. “You have to tell her.”

The girl’s voice sounded deep and sad, Willow decided: not scared. So nobody was being mugged or stabbed.

Willow crept forward, listening hard. The crying was definitely coming from Russell’s office. That made sense. Russell had won Best Teacher of the Year two years in a row because he could make history as exciting as
Game of Thrones
. It was like Russell actually knew the people on the pages of your history book personally.

“William Howard Taft?” he’d say. “Now, there was a guy with an eating disorder! He tried to eat himself to death, probably because he couldn’t live up to his parents’ high expectations or get out from under Roosevelt’s shadow, poor bugger.”

Plus, from everything Willow had heard other kids say, Russell treated his students like actual people. If you had a problem with an assignment or got into trouble, he’d help you.

Maybe one of his AP students was already suffering a meltdown over college. A lot of seniors here applied early decision to their top choices, which were usually Harvard, Harvard, or Harvard.

The sobs had turned into a low humming, a sound like water flowing over rocks. Willow hesitated outside Russell’s partly open door. She couldn’t see inside his office. She should text him, maybe, not embarrass the shit out of whoever was in there.

No, that was stupid. She was right here. And Russell might be psyched to have her interrupt him. Then he could ditch the crier and leave. It was Friday, after all.

Willow knocked. No answer. Just that river of voices. She pushed open the door and started to say hey, then stopped. It felt as if she’d swallowed a ball of string.

Russell was holding Nola Simone in his arms. Their faces were pressed close together, foreheads touching. Then, as if it were all happening in slow motion, Russell put his mouth over Nola’s.

Willow felt sour ick rise in her throat and slowly backed out of the room. She ran blindly down the hall’s carpeted floor so fast that she ran straight into the swinging fire door and banged her forehead on the glass.

Her eyes filled with tears. She kept running until she was out of the building, speeding down the hill and across Beacon Street to the Common, ignoring the stitch in her side.

She plowed right through the clump of people standing at the corner, waiting for the bus. Willow wished she could join them. She wanted to step onto some crowded bus and disappear.

•   •   •

By the time Catherine parked on Newbury Street, it was raining and the streets were dotted with umbrellas, bright spots of light against the slick gray pavement. She’d forgotten her umbrella but didn’t mind. It was a light rain, the sort of drizzle that always seemed to be falling in Scotland when they’d visited her father’s extended family. Like a damp shawl flung over your head and pinned into place.

She hoped the cool, humid air would clear her head. It had been a brutal day at the clinic. She’d been treating children with ear infections, fevers, stomachaches, sprained ankles—even one possible case of meningitis—since early this morning.

Cell phones rang, blared, and played salsa or Bollywood tunes in the waiting room as anxious parents did the work-family fandango. Although she was one of the senior nurse practitioners in the practice, Catherine never had the heart to tell parents to obey the “Please Turn off Your Cell Phone” sign by the front desk. She left the office etiquette to Alicia Sanchez, the energetic receptionist who spoke three languages but hardly seemed older than Willow.

The thought of Willow made Catherine smile as she neared the restaurant where she was supposed to meet Russell for dinner. While most parents complained noisily about their teenagers—drinking or drugs, sex or reckless driving—Willow was easy and sweet. A gift.

Of course
, whispered a cynical voice in Catherine’s head,
Willow’s not your real daughter. Maybe that’s why she’s so easy.

No. Catherine refused to let herself think that way. Willow was hers now. Had been for the past five years, ever since that night she’d called Catherine to say Zoe had left her at South Station. Alone.

Soon after Zoe’s disappearance, Catherine and Russell had filed the paperwork to become Willow’s legal guardians. As furious as she still felt whenever she thought about Zoe abandoning her daughter, a part of Catherine was grateful. She’d offered to take Willow before, whenever Zoe’s living situation looked sketchy, but her sister had always refused.

“She’s my kid and belongs with me,” Zoe would say fiercely, even if she was living in a shelter or once again boomeranging back into their parents’ house in Newburyport.

Catherine knew her life was more complete with Willow in it. She and Russell hadn’t been able to conceive a child of their own despite eight years of IVF treatments that had left her feeling like a bloated pincushion. That agony was over now. She’d given herself permission to quit trying to get pregnant on her thirty-seventh birthday last year.

She felt her phone buzz and pulled it out of her pocket to glance at the text. Russell: he’d arrived at the tapas place and had scored a table. With this rain, they’d have to sit inside now. Too bad.

On the other hand, as Catherine climbed the steps to the restaurant, she remembered how beautiful it was, with its burnished copper tables and red walls, the hand-painted pottery pitchers filled with sunflowers on the tables. They hadn’t been here since their wedding anniversary several months ago.

Russell had managed a table by a window on the second floor; from this vantage point, the umbrellas bloomed like lilies floating on a stream of pedestrians.

“Good job on the table. Sorry I’m late,” Catherine said.

He stood up to kiss her cheek. “I’m just sorry you had to get wet.”

“Doesn’t matter. Feels good to cool off after the day I’ve had.”

“That frantic?” Russell had ordered a pitcher of sangria. He poured a glass for her as she sat down.

“Awful. I was hit by a last-minute stampede of parents panicking before the weekend. Like every kid in the city decided to get sick because a full week of school was too much to take.” Catherine opened the menu. “How was your day?”

“Oh, fine.”

“What about Willow? How is she? I meant to call her when I left work, but the train came right away.”

“I don’t know. I never saw her all day. I texted her when I left school, but by then she was already home. She seemed fine with the idea of hanging out with your mom tonight, even though it was a last-minute plan.”

“Good. Maybe Willow’s mood will be better tonight than it was this morning.”

Russell shrugged. “Probably. I don’t know why you were so worried. Mornings and teenagers just don’t mix.”

He was right, of course. The teenagers Catherine saw in her office kept zombie schedules. Online all night, hardly able to function the next day.

Catherine always felt lucky that she’d married a man who understood children. That was evident the day they met, when she and Russell were both seniors at the university and working as orientation leaders for incoming students. They’d played all sorts of team-building games, and he was great at jollying even the sulkiest girls and sleepiest potheads into participating. He was handsome and sweet, especially kind to the overwhelmed new freshmen. Together, they’d comforted one girl whose boyfriend had broken up with her that weekend and had talked a couple of drunk boys out of elevator surfing.

After their orientation duties were over, Catherine invited Russell back to her studio apartment. They’d drunk cheap beer and played Scrabble as they talked. He had teased her about having a Canadian accent, imitating the way she said “sorry” and “about.” Her father’s fault, she told him: she’d spent weeks at a time on Prince Edward Island growing up, was half Canadian. Had a passport to prove it.

“Home of Anne of Green Gables,” she’d explained when Russell was confused about where, exactly, PEI was. “The Canadian Maritimes. Just keep driving northeast from Massachusetts past about five million pine trees through Maine and New Brunswick. You used to have to take a ferry from New Brunswick or Nova Scotia to the island, but now there’s a bridge.”

As Russell stood up to leave that first night, she’d decided: he was the one. She was still a virgin, had guarded herself from involvements while focusing on her studies, but this man was steady and she was about to graduate. His hair was a tangle of brown curls she could imagine grabbing by the handful, and his eyes were like blue chips of ice against his tan. He’d wanted to be a teacher even back then.

Catherine felt certain they were meant for each other. It wasn’t difficult to convince Russell to spend the night on her futon. They’d been apart very few nights since then, except for last month, when he’d been so busy with his book that she’d gone up to PEI with Willow to spend part of August while Russell stayed in Cambridge to write.

She had hesitated about the separation, knowing she’d miss him. But her mother had seemed so lost since her father’s death in May, and Willow was so heartbroken at the thought of not going up to Canada that Catherine felt like she had no other choice. Besides, as Russell gently pointed out, he’d get more writing done without them around.

They had agreed that Catherine would take Willow to Chance Harbor alone. But, before that, she and Russell had left Willow with friends and gone to New York City by themselves for a spectacular weekend of walking Central Park, getting lost in the MET, seeing a Broadway show. Their usual lovemaking was comfortable, though sometimes so predictable that it might as well have been scripted. That weekend, though, they’d stayed in a hotel with an Asian theme and made the kind of love you can only have in hotels, assuming positions on the floor and in the armchair that they’d never attempted at home.

Catherine left for Chance Harbor after that feeling cherished and oddly powerful, even happy that she and Russell would be apart for a few weeks. It would be sad to be in the Chance Harbor house without her father, she knew, but at least this way her mother wouldn’t have to go up there alone the first time. Besides, while they were in Canada, she and Russell would miss each other. Catherine took pleasure in anticipating their passionate reunion. Maybe this was what their marriage needed, the sort of jolt that would make it feel fresh again after so many years of challenges: long work days, infertility, Willow, Russell’s father’s death and then her own father’s, too. All of that had taken a toll on them.

Russell hadn’t disappointed her. On the day of their return in August, after Willow went to bed, he had led Catherine into the bedroom, gently removed her clothes, and given her a full-body massage, whispering, “Tell me what to do. I’ll follow your every command.”

Catherine sipped her sangria and shivered with pleasure. Maybe he’d be in the mood tonight. He’d been too tired to make love all week.

They ordered their usual tapas and the menus were whisked away. Russell poured them each another glass of sangria and she raised her glass to his. “
Salud
,” she said. “Here’s to the weekend. Thanks for arranging all this with Mom. I thought she might be too tired, since she just made that drive back alone from Chance Harbor. That must have been a brutal trip.”

“She seemed happy to do it. Feeling better?”

“Oh yes.” She smiled at him over the rim of her glass. Tonight it would be
her
turn to serve
him
, she decided. “What about you? Tell me about your day. You must be glad the first week of school is over.”

“Not so bad,” he said. “I told you, didn’t I, that I have two upper-level history classes? Both are small. Just one section of freshmen. Easy. It was a relief to be back in a routine, actually.”

“But you must miss the free time you had to work on your book this summer,” she said, surprised.

“Not really. It’s still a joy, teaching.”

Catherine heard the strain in Russell’s voice but couldn’t decipher it. Was he worried about something? Tired? That was probably it. She’d found Russell on his laptop in the living room early every morning this week, working on his book long before she and Willow even came downstairs, “before my head gets crowded,” he explained. She was proud of his focus and told him that now.

“We’re so lucky, aren’t we?” she said, gazing into her ruby-colored sangria with its slice of orange in the crystal glass. “We’re blessed to have each other and work we love.”

“Lucky. We are. Yes.”

Russell agreed in such a distracted way that Catherine forgot her drink and looked up at him. He was holding his phone under the table, staring at it like a lost man with a compass. “Who are you texting? Willow?”

“No,” he said, tucking the phone back into his pocket.

She would have pressed him, but the waiter arrived and began setting plates on the table. She was starving, Catherine realized.