Leaving Haven (39 page)

“Can we get a story straight on what we're going to tell Liza about why the baby isn't here?” Georgia said.

“John took him down to Glens Falls because he was colicky,” Chessy said.

“
No,
” Georgia said. “John took him on a
long drive
because he was colicky. Then they ran into Jimmy A., John's old chef, in Glens Falls and stopped to visit.”

“But what if you can't reach John and he doesn't come back today?” Ez said.

“He
has
to come back today,” Georgia said.

They all turned at the sound of car tires on the gravel road. Georgia put the bowl down on the table. “Liza's here!” she said. She hadn't realized how she had missed her, how eager she was for Liza's smile, her voice, all of her. She flew down the step from the kitchen to the porch, flung open the screen door, and stepped onto the wooden stoop.

But the car that pulled up next to the house wasn't Polly's red station wagon. It was a big blue SUV, with flashing red lights and the yellow logo of the New York State Police on the side.

T
WO
TROOPERS
GOT
out of the car.

“Is it my daughter?” Georgia said. “Did something happen to my daughter?”

“No,” the first trooper said, the older one. “Your daughter's fine. Your—”

“Oh, Jesus.” Georgia's heart hammered against her rib cage. “It's my husband. I knew something must have happened and that's why I couldn't reach him. Is he dead?”

“No,” the trooper said. “It's—”

“The baby.” Haven's loss, which until this moment had been deep but abstract, suddenly exploded into something large and black and so all encompassing it threatened to devour Georgia, a black hole. Who cared if he looked like Alice? He wasn't part of Alice the way he was part of Georgia. Georgia was the one who had felt his heartbeats in her own body, as he had felt hers in his; the one who had dreamed about him, known him, loved him.
This is what happens when you throw away what you should treasure most.

“Ma'am,” the trooper said. “
No one
is dead.”

“There was an altercation at a restaurant in town,” the second trooper said. He was taller than the first and looked, to Georgia's middle-aged eyes, like he was barely old enough to shave. “Your sister was involved. She claims she is staying here. The other party declined to press charges, but we impounded your sister's vehicle.”

“My sister?”

By now Ez and Chessy were on the stoop with Georgia, Ez with Lily in his arms and Chessy with a pair of scissors and a half-cut piece of bright red fabric. Georgia had to look at Chessy twice to make sure it
was
Chessy standing there. God knows Georgia would have voted Polly the
least
likely of the three of them to get in trouble with the police.

“Yeah. And we're nice guys so we gave her a ride back here,” the first one said.

Georgia tried to peer into the back of the police car. “But where's my daughter? My sister went to pick up my daughter.”

“Your daughter is with the other party,” the second trooper said. Georgia wished he would stop demonstrating just how recently he had graduated from the Police Academy and speak regular English.

“
Who is
the other party?” Georgia said.

“Actually, the altercation involved multiple parties,” he said.

“Oh, my God,” Chessy said. “Can you just tell us what the hell happened?”

The first trooper, the older one, went over to the car and helped Polly out of the backseat. She wore the jeans and T-shirt and fleece jacket she had left in early that morning, and had a stain of what looked like blood down the front of her pink shirt.

“Are you all right?” Georgia said.

Polly's lips were pursed, her face tight. She nodded.

“That's ketchup, not blood,” the older officer said.

“Where's Liza?” Georgia said.

“She's with John,” Polly said. “And the baby.”

“Oh, thank God.”

“
What happened?
” Chessy said.

The older officer turned to Polly. “I'll leave you here to handle the explanations.” He dug in his front pocket for a card and a pen, and wrote a number on the back of the card. “This is my card. Call the number on the back about getting your car back. I'd suggest you stay out of the Sugar Bowl restaurant for the next few weeks, or maybe the entire summer. I'd also make sure you stay out of trouble of any kind. Next time, you won't get off with just a warning.”

Polly pressed her lips together and nodded. “Thank you, officer,” she said.

“Thank you,” Georgia said. She wanted to say,
I'll be sure she behaves from now on,
but since Polly was almost forty, it seemed ridiculous. They all watched the troopers get into their car and back slowly down the gravel drive, lights still flashing.

Ez, Chessy, and Georgia turned expectant faces to Polly. “Well?” Georgia said.

“Well, it's been a rough morning,” Polly said. “Can we sit down?”

She walked over to one of the Adirondack chairs on the lawn in front of the porch, overlooking the wild iris and the lake beyond. She kicked off her sandals and rolled her jeans up to just below her knees, then looked down at her stained shirt. “I should change,” she said. “I'm a mess.”

“
Polly.
” Georgia felt desperate for information. She came over and sat down in the chair next to Polly's. Ez and Chessy followed her. Lily was squirming and crying in Ez's arms so he set her down on the grass, holding on to one of her chubby arms with one hand. Georgia looked around for something to keep Lily occupied and realized she was still carrying the wooden spoon she'd been using to beat the butter and sugar. She handed it to Lily, who sat down on the grass and began to lick the spoon.

“I picked up Liza,” Polly said. “She wasn't ready at seven, but that was fine. I waited, and I told her on the way back that John had taken the baby for a drive because he was colicky, so she wouldn't expect to see him right away. She was pretty disappointed, so I said I'd take her out to breakfast, and we went to the Sugar Bowl, in town.”

“Okay,” Georgia said.

“And when we walked in, who should be there but John, with the baby. And”—Polly paused for dramatic effect—“Duncan, Wren, and
Alice
.”

“Holy crap,” Chessy said. She sat on the arm of Georgia's chair, cutting out the rest of her red fabric square.

“Alice is here?” Georgia's heart would not slow down.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I don't know. Anyway, I'm a little sleep-deprived”—Polly shot a look at Georgia—“because I was up with somebody's baby all night the other night. Liza was all excited to see the baby, although she was kind of upset that Wren saw him first. It was tense in there. First the waitress came over and went on and on about how much the baby looked like Alice, so Liza got even more upset, and Alice looked like she was going to be sick, and Duncan started to turn really red.”

“Oh, God,” Georgia said. “You know we never told Liza or Wren about the egg donation. We were going to wait.”

“For what?” Chessy said. “That was dumb.”

“And Alice was so jittery her leg kept shaking the whole table,” Polly said. “And Duncan looked like he was going to smack John. I couldn't believe the girls didn't feel all that tension, too, so I told them to take the baby for a walk, to get them out of there. They went off with the baby in his stroller.”

“And then you spilled ketchup all over yourself?” Chessy said.

Ez smiled, then caught himself and put his hand over his mouth, so Polly didn't see him smiling.

“Very funny,” Polly said. “Then I told John he needed to bring the baby back to Lake Con for the day. And John said something along the lines of he wished we'd decide what the hell we wanted because he'd taken the baby and then given the baby to us and then taken the baby back and he was tired of all the back and forth and just wanted to get some sleep. And I told him to grow up, and he told me to stop meddling and that he and you”—Polly nodded at Georgia—“would probably still be together if it weren't for me and Chessy always interfering. Then I said you guys would probably still be together if he had kept his dick in his pants. Then Alice blushed like crazy and Duncan said, ‘Wait just a minute,' and John called me a bitch, and I picked up a glass of water on the table and threw it in John's face and then he dumped ketchup on me.”

“Oh, my God.” Georgia closed her eyes. “But how did the police get involved? And why did they impound your car?”

Polly gave an exasperated sigh. “Well, it was just bad luck. Dudley Do-Right and the other trooper were eating breakfast at the counter. After John threw the ketchup, Duncan tried to intervene—he is a real gentleman—and John told him to back off. Then Duncan got mad and looked like he was going to punch him again, so I jumped on Duncan to keep him from punching John, and then Alice stood up and I told her if I ever saw her anywhere again I'd run her over for what she had done to you, and then the officers came over and insisted on giving me a Breathalyzer—at eight fifteen in the morning!—and they impounded my car.”

Ez and Chessy and Georgia sat in silence for a few minutes, absorbing the weight of Polly's story. The sun had cleared the treetops on the point at the edge of the bay, and the air was warmer now. A light breeze rustled the leaves on the trees in the woods. Georgia felt a sudden clarity. She stood up.

“I'll see you in a little while,” she said. “I'm going to town.”

28

Alice

June 26, 2012

A
lice would not have thought it possible, but she longed for Dun Roamin'. Her musty bed and knotty pine room seemed cozy and appealing, a safe cocoon, after the public humiliation in the restaurant. It was bad enough that John had thrown ketchup like some thirteen-year-old and Polly had ranted like a crazy person, but the most painful part of the whole ordeal for Alice was the fact that as soon as it was over and Polly and John had left with the police, Duncan had turned to Alice and said, “Well. That's that,” and then stood up and left.

She had fumbled to find her credit card to pay for John's uneaten eggs and her uneaten oatmeal, only to discover that the restaurant accepted nothing but cash. Then she'd had to scrounge through her pockets and purse for every bit of loose change to come up with enough money to cover the bill. By the time she got outside, Duncan was gone.

She walked down the sidewalk, toward the little park at the other end of town. Someone had to find Wren and Liza and Haven. She passed the old movie theater, with its dun-colored brick facade, and the realtors' office with the photos of log cabins nestled under tall firs, blue lakes gleaming in the background. She was almost at the coffee shop, the place with the lattes named after local mountains, when she saw Duncan.

He stood at the end of the block in the little town park, his back to her, hands on his hips. She increased her stride down the block, moving faster until she was running, her eyes fixed on her husband's back.

“Duncan.” She stopped just behind him and bent forward, her hands on her knees, to catch her breath. She had sprinted the last thirty yards.

He turned, and she stood up straight. Her throat was dry and the cold breeze from the lake stung her eyes and made her nose run.

“Goodness, Alice,” he said. “Are you all right?”

“Duncan, please. Can I talk to you?”

“I'm looking for the kids. I think they're there, down on the tennis courts.”

He pointed to the asphalt court down the hill on the other side of the park. Alice could just make out two figures wheeling a stroller up and down the court. She recognized Wren's pink jacket. “Yes, that's them.”

“I should get them to Georgia's. This wedding is today and I'm sure Georgia is wondering where they are.”

She put her hand on his arm and he turned to face her. The lines around his eyes looked deeper, the skin over the sharp planes of his nose and cheekbones looked tighter. His face was so familiar—how could something and someone so familiar feel so strange?

“I came here to find you,” she said. “I mean, I came to the Adirondacks. After you and Wren left—”

“You know what I remember?” Duncan interrupted her. “I remember that time we went kayaking, on our second or third date. I brought you coffee. And you were
so happy
I remembered you liked it with cream. You couldn't stop talking about it. And I thought, ‘God, is this woman easy to please.' You smiled at me like I'd handed you your heart's desire. I remember thinking I could be very happy with someone who smiled at me like that.”