Good Harbor (13 page)

KATHLEEN SAT UP
in bed, her thin cotton nightgown soaked, the pillow damp, her heart pounding. The
digital clock glowed in the dark: 3:10. Buddy let out a soft groan and turned over
as she slipped out of the room.

Gripping the edge of the kitchen sink, she stared out into the dark yard, trying to
calm down. It had been a long time since she’d had a nightmare about Pat, and this
was a new one. In the old dream, her sister was lying in a metal casket, weeping softly.
But tonight, it was Kathleen in the coffin, pounding a slatted wooden lid above her.
Danny was with her. He was dead, but not a baby anymore, a boy with long legs and
arms tight around her neck. She heard Pat’s soothing voice repeating the phrase “It’s
all been taken care of.” Kathleen had woken up on the verge of a scream.

Pat had been so certain of life after death. She used to talk about Danny in heaven
as if he were just in a room upstairs. Even when she was dying, she had that kind
of faith. Rabbi Flacks had sat with Kathleen and Buddy and cried with them. But he
had never said anything about seeing her son again.

She splashed cold water on her face and walked out to the deck. The wood felt cool
and alive under her bare feet. If Buddy knew, he’d be after her about splinters. He
had become such a mother hen since the boys left. Sometimes she liked being fussed
over so tenderly, but sometimes it got on her nerves.

A clotted river of stars filled the moonless sky. “My goodness,” Kathleen whispered,
lowering the back of the chaise. After a moment, she realized she had assumed the
position she took every day under the machine — only it was the left arm bent above
her head and there was no headrest or armrest to keep her from moving. She stretched
her arm and twisted her torso, just because she could.

The techs were nice. That Rachel was pregnant didn’t seem to concern anyone but Kathleen.
“I’m not even in the room when it’s on, Mrs. Levine,” she explained sweetly, but Kathleen
worried about the baby.

Funny how quickly I’ve gotten caught up in their lives. They probably have to check
my chart to remember my name, but I’ll always remember them. Terry’s hands are cool.
Rachel’s are warm, probably due to the pregnancy, or maybe she just has that kind
of metabolism. Terry’s boyfriend is a nurse. Rachel’s husband works for Wildlife and
Fisheries. Terry loves chocolate. Rachel drinks Diet Coke, which can’t be good for
the baby.

Kathleen let her hand seek out the scar, feeling the seam in her flesh through the
nightgown. Terry said she was better off being small-breasted. Bigger women flopped
around, which made it harder to line up the machine accurately.

Better and worse, lucky and unlucky. New definitions.

After the first day, the radiation machine itself didn’t bother her. Some patient’s
child once said it looked like a dragon, and ever since, the techs had taken to calling
it Puff. They joked about painting a face on the movable head, putting arms on the
trunk, and a tail at the base. Kathleen whistled the tune to “Puff the Magic Dragon”
while she got on the table and waited. Terry and Rachel sang along and kept it up
from the control room. They talked to her over the intercom, filling every moment
she was alone in the treatment room, stopping only when Puff turned his head to zap
her from another angle. Rachel asked, “You all set, Mrs. Levine?” before they let
the next dose fly.

“Mrs. Levine is all set,” she answered meekly or brightly, depending on how little
sleep she’d had the night before or on the amount of roadkill she’d seen on the way
in. Kathleen didn’t understand where her moods came from anymore.

The wind shifted and the scent of beach roses reached her. It was such a sweet aroma,
though it always made her feel wistful. She closed her eyes to concentrate on the
smell, which faded in and out on the breeze. Starlight and roses. Lucky me.

She woke up with Buddy sitting beside her, frowning. A cotton blanket was tucked around
her toes and neatly folded below her chin.

“What time is it?” she asked, confused by the dim light.

“Five-thirty. You should have woken me up.”

“Oh, Buddy. What’s the point? Why should you be exhausted all day?”

“I just want to do something for you, Kath.”

“Well then, get me a cup of coffee,” she said, yawning.

The clouds were low, and it smelled like rain. No walk today, she thought. Buddy brought
out two cups. “How about if I drive you to your appointment today? Miguel can open.
We could get some breakfast after?”

Kathleen looked at him. He was asking her for something. “What is it, Buddy? What’s
the matter?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. I want to help you. Something. But there’s nothing to
do. You’re so quiet. I miss you.”

“I have been kind of preoccupied.”

“Of course,” Buddy said, quickly apologetic. “I don’t know what I mean.”

“Sure, why don’t you drive me in today. And then we can go over to the Spar for breakfast.
It’s been a long time since I had those blueberry waffles.”

Buddy took her hand and kissed it. She held on, swung her legs around, and pulled
herself to standing.

“I don’t want to die, Buddy.” She put her head on his chest. “I know this cancer probably
won’t kill me. But I think about dying all the time. I dream about it. What do you
think? Do I get to see Pat on the other side, or do I just lie there in the dirt forever?”

Buddy took the cup out of her hand and put it down gently. It was so much a gesture
out of a movie, Kathleen almost laughed. Buddy wrapped his arms around her and drew
her close. “I think dead is dead,” he said softly, near her ear. “But that’s not so
bad. I think of it as following. Following the rest of them.”

“The rest of them?” She leaned back and looked up into his eyes.

“Yeah. My mother and father. Your sister, your mom. But not just them. All of them.
All of us. People.” He dropped his voice and she wasn’t quite sure if he said, “Danny.”

“I don’t know,” he continued. “Maybe it’s just a way to feel less lonesome about the
whole thing, but I think of dying as a path we all go down separately at first, but
eventually, together.”

Kathleen looked up at her husband. “That’s so beautiful. Where did that come from?”

He smiled. “You’re not the only deep one around here.”

Kathleen shook her head. “Buddy, you’re a fucking well.”

“Kathleen Mary Elizabeth! Such language.”

“We cancer patients can say whatever the hell we want,” she said, defiant.

“Says who?”

“Says Joyce.”

“Oh, well, if the wise and wonderful Dr. Joyce says so.”

Kathleen sneezed.

“Time to go inside,” Buddy said.

“No,” she protested, holding him. But the moment had passed.

“Time to go,” he insisted, and picking up the cups, led her into the house and the
rest of the day.

IT RAINED HARD THE
rest of the week. Joyce spent the mornings stripping wallpaper. Afternoons she sat
at the computer and made a dutiful stab at her novel, a story about three sisters,
serially married to the same man.
Stab
seemed like the right word, since all she did was slice at the opening paragraphs
over and over.

She met Kathleen for cappuccino at the café on Main Street one gray afternoon and
told her about how walking through Charleston, morning, noon, and night, had helped
conjure up the world of
Magnolia’s Heart:
the fine ironwork fences made by slave labor, the paving stones laid by slave labor,
the mahogany faces of impassive black women, sitting on blankets in the touristy marketplace,
selling baskets woven in ancestral patterns.

“I don’t think I ever enjoyed writing as much as when I was working on Magnolia,”
she said. “I actually couldn’t wait to get to the computer to find out what she would
do next.”

“You sound happy when you talk about it,” Kathleen said.

“Yeah, but I’m not having much luck on my current project.”

“Why don’t you bring Magnolia and Jordan up here? Doesn’t Jordan have an abolitionist
aunt in Boston? They could settle in Gloucester. Think of all the research you could
do on Yankee underwear!”

That made Joyce laugh, but she remained unconvinced. “I want to do something one hundred
and eighty degrees different. And the truth is, I want my own name on the cover. I
want to be invited to talk at the local bookstores and at the Belmont library. Magnolia
would call me a dog-faced coward. And she would be right.”

“I understand, but Magnolia is very alive to me. I want to know what happens to her
next.”

“Thanks,” said Joyce, who wanted to know, too.

Apart from the checkout girls at the supermarket, Kathleen was virtually the only
person Joyce saw all week. Frank called every morning, promising he’d try to come
up that night, but by the afternoon there would be a crisis he didn’t want to leave
with “the kids,” which is how he referred to Tran and Harlan, the twenty-two-year-old
MIT entrepreneurs who had started the company. Their new search engine was to be launched
at the end of the summer, and Frank, who had already been down several of these yellow-brick
start-up roads, was their key adviser on several fronts. Frank thought their product
had great potential, and he was betting on it taking them all, finally, to the Emerald
City. Besides, he liked the kids a lot.

Frank would have enjoyed sons, Joyce thought.

“I’ll be there tomorrow night for sure,” Frank said.

“You said that last night.”

“I promise.”

“Sure,” she said, annoyed. “G’night.”

“Good night, Joyce. Love you.”

She drove in and out of Belmont one morning after rush hour, just to check the mail
and pick up a sweatshirt and an extra pair of jeans. Mario had left two more messages
asking for news of Magnolia. Joyce called him back late at night, when he was sure
to be out of the office, telling his machine, “Magnolia is on vacation. She will return
when she’s totally rested.”

She left Frank a note on his pillow: “Come up and see me sometime.”

But she wasn’t entirely sure she did want him in Gloucester. Lonely as the evenings
could be, she liked knowing the sink wouldn’t generate dirty dishes whenever she turned
her back. She liked the peace of going to bed alone.

They almost never had sex. Either Frank was tired, or she was. Or she was angry with
him, or he was preoccupied. Or she went to bed hours after he did, or his back hurt.
On the rare occasion they lay down together, there was always a moment’s tension.
Would one of them make a move? Would one of them turn away?

Maybe this was what happened to people after so many years of sharing a bed, Joyce
thought. Maybe we’re normal. Or maybe I’m kidding myself.

She poured a glass of wine and walked into the living room to admire her handiwork;
her spackling was improving so much, she decided to go back and replaster one of the
first cracks she’d fixed. The phone rang.

“Mrs. Tabachnik?” said a voice too mellifluous to belong to a telemarketer. “This
is Father Sherry at St. Rita’s.”

Joyce put down her glass and stood up straight to speak to the priest.