The Map of True Places

25

THE REENACTORS WERE ON the benches outside Ann’s store again, and this time they were drunk. Not all of them. None of the pirates (not even the ones who sang the sea chanteys) seemed to be drinking, and they drank most of the time. No, this time it was the Revolutionary War reenactors who were sitting on the benches, sipping out of flasks or bottles concealed in paper bags. The redcoats and patriots sat on opposing sides hurling Colonial-era locker-room insults at each other.

This was too much, Ann thought. They were probably very good at what they did-they were certainly staying in character-but they were taking the whole Fourth of July thing way too seriously. Ann thought she noticed a bit more bravado than they’d shown in previous years, probably a result of the HBO John Adams miniseries, which had just come out. They seemed to have picked up a little more historical accuracy as well: the clip-on ponytails they sported better matched their hair colors, and several carried powder horns or wore hobnail shoes that fastened with large rectangular metal buckles.

Some of the patriots broke into a song meant to further taunt the redcoats:

Why come ye hither, Redcoats,

Your mind what madness fills?

In our valley there is danger,

And there’s danger on our hills.

Oh, hear ye not the singing of the bugle wild and free?

And soon you’ll know the ringing of the rifle from the tree.

At the end of the song, one of the patriots lifted his rifle and fired it into the air.

“Enough!” Ann said.

Long famous for its witches and even for pirates, Salem had never been known for having Revolutionary War reenactors. Though the first blood of the Revolution was actually spilled in Salem, the reenactments always took place in towns like Concord and Lexington. So it was particularly irksome to Ann to see the Revolutionary soldiers on the bench outside her store today. Why couldn’t they stay on their own turf to party? Why did they always have to come to Mickey’s?

Ann frowned at them from her doorway. “Could you gentlemen please move along? You’re scaring my customers,” she said.

“We’re scaring them?” a redcoat with a perfect Sussex accent said to her. The thought seemed terrifically funny to the soldiers. In honor of the holiday, Ann was dressed in her full witch regalia. Last night she had tinted her almost-waist-length red hair with black henna, and the result was a color that seemed to morph as she moved, creating a vaguely iridescent, hallucinogenic effect. “You’re scaring the hell out of us.”

“I can manage to scare you a whole lot more if you don’t move along,” she offered.

“It’s a free country,” the one costumed as Paul Revere said. “It’s the Fourth of July, for God’s sake.”

The Fourth of July was one of the busiest days of the year for Ann. Not only did people like to buy souvenirs on Independence Day, but for some reason they seemed to like to have their fortunes told as well. She had appointments booked throughout the day, but the big traffic would be the walk-ins. Her girls would all be busy today. On the holiday Ann brought in almost double what she made on a regular weekend-that is, if people would actually come into the store, and she was sure as hell not going to let these guys intimidate her clientele.

She was contemplating how best to scare them. She could pretty much count on their scattering the minute she started to chant, but that might drive away some of the potential customers who were lingering at the wharf taking in the water views or waiting to get into one of the waterfront restaurants. She needed something subtler. She had all but decided to sprinkle some fairy dust on them. It wouldn’t teach them to fly, but it smelled pervasively of heliotrope, a very feminine scent that spread quick and wide. It occurred to her then that she could just as easily call her friend Rafferty and have them cited for public drunkenness, but Rafferty wasn’t a beat cop, or even a detective anymore. He was chief of police and probably too busy to bother with something so petty. Besides, Ann didn’t have anything against drunkenness, public or otherwise-she just didn’t want it interfering with business. No, she wouldn’t call Rafferty. Instead she picked a package out of one of the bins in the front of the store, something meant to repel rodents, a horrid herbal blend she had created by accident one day when she was mixing potions. She and her girls had nicknamed it “stink-bomb herb.” She stood in the doorway, checking out the wind direction before she let it loose, when Mickey Doherty suddenly appeared on the sidewalk dressed in his pirate costume, complete with eye patch and three-cornered hat and with a capuchin monkey on his shoulder.

Clearly here to rescue her from the soldiers, Mickey had a way of anticipating Ann’s needs that she’d always found a bit disconcerting. She was aware that he had a crush on her. He’d been threatening to take her on for years, telling her he had magic powers of his own that could rival hers and inviting her to check them out. She’d never taken him up on it, though she had to admit she’d been tempted a few times. Annoying as he could be, Mickey Doherty was a carelessly attractive man.

Mickey was like the old-school movie heroes he’d obviously watched and emulated. He looked like Errol Flynn, though his attempts at flirtation were more like Groucho Marx. She wondered who he really was, thought she’d heard somewhere about some dark past-but no, that was a brother maybe. She couldn’t remember. All in all, the Dohertys were an interesting family. But dark. Quite dark.

Mickey had gone into a rage when his sister died, had turned against Finch and more particularly Melville, though no one could really blame him for that one. Mickey could be a bit of a brawler. She remembered, more than once, hearing on her scanner that the police had been called to break up some kind of disturbance at Mickey’s shop.

Ann’s one vice was a serious addiction to her police scanner. She had one in the shop and one by her bedside at home. Her habit had started when she’d first become a witch. In those days there were not a lot of witches in Salem, just Ann and Laurie Cabot and a few others who had not yet come out of the proverbial broom closet. In an act of paranoid practicality, Ann had purchased her first scanner in order to make sure she had a head start out of town if Salem’s famed witch-hunting ever started up again. In reality she had nothing to worry about. Sensing an opportunity for tourist revenue that the town sorely needed, Salem had for the most part embraced its new witches. But by now she was addicted to the chatter of the scanner.

“Come on, gentlemen,” Mickey said as he rounded up the soldiers. He gestured toward his shop with his sword. “I’ve got grog.”

The soldiers picked themselves up off the benches and followed him across the wharf to his store. When the last of them had filed in, Mickey removed his three-cornered hat and bowed to Ann.

She rolled her eyes and went back inside.

The sea-chantey singers had arrived and were setting up outside Mickey’s shop. On the wharf, people walked their dogs, and someone was assembling a booth for face painting. Ann thought she’d heard that the Friendship was sailing today, but she wasn’t sure. Already there was a line waiting to tour it where it sat at the wharves. Though the Friendship did sail on occasion, she was not allowed public passengers, just crew and, rarely, some special guests. Ann had heard that they were trying to change that status, to have the ship commissioned to sail with groups of tourists aboard, but so far nothing had come of it.

If they were taking the Friendship out sailing today, they’d better do it soon, Ann thought. It was going to storm later, and it was going to be a doozy. She didn’t know how she could tell this-she hadn’t heard a forecast-but Ann always knew about a day ahead exactly what the weather was going to do and when. If she hadn’t been a witch, she could easily have been a meteorologist.

She sighed at the thought of the day that lay ahead. Her first reading was already waiting inside, a twenty-something girl who’d been to the shop for readings several times in the last few months. She hoped to marry her live-in boyfriend, but he was holding back. With so many readings to do, Ann had almost forgotten that Zee was coming. She’d called and asked if she could come by, and Ann had offered lunch, completely forgetting that today was the Fourth. She had thought about rescheduling, but she hadn’t seen Zee much since she got back, and she knew that things must be tough for the girl. Finch had never been an easy man to deal with, though Ann had always liked him. Even when Maureen was having such a hard time of it, Ann had never blamed Finch. Though Maureen had been one of Ann’s best friends, it wasn’t difficult to see how sick she was.

What Maureen had seen in Finch in the first place was anybody’s guess. Still, it seemed that she’d loved him and longed for him in the same way that poets long for the romantic ideal, the merging with the beloved. Yet it didn’t take her psychic powers for Ann to tell that some of the stories Maureen related about their passion were clearly fictional. Maureen was, after all, a writer of fairy tales. But over the years Ann had come to suspect that the stories Maureen told weren’t about Finch at all, or if they were, then it was more wishful thinking on Maureen’s part than reality.

After her mother’s suicide, Zee had taken to hanging around Ann’s shop.

“Do you believe in reincarnation?” she had asked one day.

“I don’t know, sweetie,” Ann said. “Why do you ask?” Of course she had known exactly why she would ask, but she wanted Zee to talk. In the days since Maureen’s death, Zee had been far too silent.

“My mother believed in past lives,” Zee said.

Ann nodded. “Yes, she did.”

“I was thinking that she might come back as someone like Juliet.”

“You mean, as in Romeo and Juliet?”

“Yes, I know she wasn’t real, but someone like her. One of the great star-crossed lovers.”

Ann considered.

“Or maybe,” Zee said, “she might come back as a radish.”

“As in the root vegetable?”

“Why not?” Zee said. “Why do we have to come back as people at all?”

“Why indeed?” Ann said.

“My mother used to grow radishes.”

“Did she?” Ann asked. “That’s one thing I didn’t know about your mother.”

“There’s a lot you didn’t know about my mother,” Zee said.

Ann thought that was probably true. Zee had always known far more than any child her age should have to know.

“She really did love radishes,” Zee said. “She ate them all the time. Finch told her if she ate any more of them, she was going to turn into a radish.”

It brought a smile to Ann’s lips. She was really fond of this kid. Didn’t seem much like her mother at all, or her father either, for that matter. She was definitely her own person.

“I have some books on reincarnation,” Ann said. “If you want to read them.”

“No,” Zee said. “I just wanted to know if you believed in it.”

“I’m not sure what I believe about it,” Ann said.

ANN FIRST MET MAUREEN THE year before Zee was born, when Maureen enrolled in one of Ann’s herbal-remedy classes, one that was meant for practicing witches but was open to the public as well.

It was a decidedly manic period of Maureen’s life. She was spending Finch’s money with abandon and signing up for everything in town. It would have been annoying if she weren’t so charming. Seldom had Ann seen anyone as beautiful as Maureen. When she walked into the class-late, of course-the energy of the entire room changed. Heads turned.

Maureen’s purpose for taking the class, she said, was that she was afraid she couldn’t conceive. She was desperate, had tried all the regular methods, and wanted to try an herbal remedy. She announced this to the class as they went around the room, each person stating her particular areas of interest in herbalism. Most wanted spells, or child-safe remedies, or to learn to make perfume by brewing essential oils.

“What kind of traditional methods have you tried?” Ann asked Maureen at the break. No matter how New Age Ann might be, she was still a New Englander, and she didn’t believe Maureen should share such private information with the whole class.

“We tried different positions, of course, with me remaining prone with my legs in the air for hours. We’ve tried different times of the month. We’ve even tried a turkey baster.”

“Why would you try that?”

“The problem is really more with Finch,” Maureen said. “His libido, if you must know.”

Ann didn’t need to know-in fact, she would have preferred never to know. But she was afraid that if she didn’t address this new bit of information right away, Maureen might be tempted to share it with the whole class. “Talk to me after this is over,” Ann said. “Maybe I can brew something up for you.”

Maureen looked so grateful that Ann feared she might turn to the class and make another announcement, but she didn’t.

After class was over, Ann did brew something up-several things, in fact. Though it was long before Viagra, Ann had pretty good luck with raising people’s libidos, sometimes to the point of being less a gift and more of a curse. “It’s a tea,” Ann said. “Steep it for at least five minutes, and make sure he drinks it hot.” It was one of Ann’s most powerful potions, and it was popular among Salem’s male population. Even so, she doubted that her potion would work for Finch and Maureen. Ann had known Finch for years. She had been surprised when she heard he’d gotten married.

Maureen completed Ann’s introductory class in herbology. And then she took another, more advanced class. And somewhere along the line, Ann and Maureen became friends.

All that spring, Maureen fed Ann’s tea to Finch.

“So is it working?” Ann asked her one day after class.

“It is,” Maureen said. “Though I’ve taken to putting it in his wine instead of brewing tea.”

“I’m not sure about that,” Ann said. “You’re supposed to drink it hot.”

“Well, it seems to be working,” Maureen said. “Plus, I added a little something.”

“What kind of little something?” Ann asked.

“Just something I read about that enhances pleasure.”

Ann looked at her strangely. In the last month, Maureen had purchased every book on herbs and plants that Ann sold. If there was something in there that enhanced pleasure, chances were that Ann had already added it to the mix.

Maureen picked up on Ann’s concern. “Don’t worry about it,” she said.

“Hey,” Ann said. “If you found something that got Finch going, you ought to give me the recipe. We can package it and make a fortune.”

“Thanks so much,” Maureen said.

Ann didn’t realize quite how it sounded. “I didn’t mean it like that,” she said.

“Sure you did,” Maureen said.

It was the first time Ann realized that Maureen wasn’t in denial.

“I don’t get it,” Ann said. “Why do you stay?”

“Hey, it’s working,” Maureen said. “And we really want to have a baby.” Maureen’s eyes filled up with tears. “Finch would make such a good father,” she said.

Ann had already overstepped, and she knew it. “I wish you many blessings,” she said.

THAT SUMMER MAUREEN AND FINCH went their separate ways, Finch to Amherst and Maureen to Baker’s Island. It had been Mickey, and not Maureen, who’d told Ann about the split. So when they showed up at the store together, Ann was surprised.

“We have something to tell you,” Maureen said. “We’re pregnant.” For someone who had just gotten everything she said she wanted, Maureen didn’t look quite as happy as one might expect.

Finch, on the other hand, seemed ecstatic.

“Congratulations!” Ann said. “This is the best news!”

The pregnancy kept them together, as Maureen had hoped when she originally asked Ann for potions. The father-to-be was so attentive that Maureen couldn’t help but be happy during the duration of the pregnancy. Still, something was clearly bothering her. When Ann finally decided to ask, Maureen quoted Oscar Wilde: When the gods wish to punish us they answer our prayers.

ANN DID FOUR MORE READINGS before Zee showed up. She was beginning to doubt that Zee was coming at all when she suddenly appeared at the door.

Ann got one of her girls to take over her station, then led Zee through the back rooms past beakers, bottles, wands, crystals, jugs of distilled water and stacks of handmade soap, candles, and rows of books on magick and the healing arts.

Ann had recently replaced her Indian-print door curtain with a beaded one and her futon with a brass daybed she’d bought from an old witch she’d met at the Farmington midsummer festival who was retiring and moving to Florida.

Zee hadn’t been in Ann’s private room in years. Looking around, she thought it seemed more brothel than witch’s lair.

“Too McCabe and Mrs. Miller?” Ann asked.

“No, I like it,” Zee said, heading straight for the bed and sitting cross-legged as if they were about to do Transcendental Meditation, as they had in the old days when her mother brought her along. Zee had been the most devout little student, keeping her eyes closed and holding the lotus position for longer than anyone else and with such an expression of sheer determination that Ann and Maureen couldn’t help but laugh.

Ann had made sandwiches with sprouts and early tomatoes on the multigrain bread she bought at A & J King. “Thank the goddess for that bakery,” Ann said.

“I’ve been meaning to stop there,” Zee said. “The place right next to Cornerstone Books, right?”

“The other side of the building,” Ann said, turning on the electric kettle. “Would you like a cup of herbal tea?”

“Sprouts, herbal tea, the world has moved on, you know.”

“You’re wrong about that,” Ann said. “The world is moving backward. Yoga is back. And everyone’s vegan.”

“Not everyone,” Zee said. “I’m sure as hell not.”

“Everyone in my circle,” Ann said.

Zee laughed and took a bite of the sandwich. “Actually, it’s really good,” she said, thinking she should get some of this bread for Finch’s sandwiches.

Zee looked at Ann’s bookshelves. “You still stock books on reincarnation?” she asked.

“A few,” Ann said. “What are you looking for?”

“I don’t know,” Zee said. “I just thought I’d read something about it.”

“You still think your mother’s coming back as a radish?”

“A what?”

Zee had clearly forgotten her earlier speculation. Ann waved her hand to clear the words. She went to her bookcase and pulled out a book by Edgar Cayce that one of her students had given her.

“Cayce is a good place to start,” she said.

Zee put the paperback in her bag.

“Have you started to believe in reincarnation?” Ann had to ask.

“No. Maybe… I don’t know,” Zee said. “What about you?”

“Pretty much. I believe more in simultaneous incarnations. Though I do agree with what Eleanor Roosevelt said about reincarnation.”

“What was that?”

“I’m paraphrasing here, but it was something to the effect of, ‘I don’t think the idea of my being here in a past life is any more surreal than the idea of my being here now.’ Something like that.”

“I always liked Eleanor Roosevelt,” Zee said. Then, thinking about it, she went on, “I’m considering giving up my practice.”

“Interesting segue,” Ann said.

Zee shrugged.

“Why would you do that?”

“I’m just not sure I’m any good at it,” Zee said.

“I would imagine that you’re very good at it.”

“Don’t bet on it,” Zee said.

“Has something happened?”

“A lot of things have happened,” Zee said.

“Like what?” Ann asked.

“Like, I’m not sure why I got into it in the first place.”

“That’s not too difficult to figure out,” Ann said. “After what happened to your mother.”

“That doesn’t mean it was the right choice, does it?”

“Not necessarily,” Ann said. “But I’m still surprised. You worked so hard to get there. Is there something else you’d rather be doing?”

“I don’t know,” Zee said.

Ann thought about it for a minute. “So you’re giving up your practice and your engagement all within a month,” Ann said.

“I’m just thinking about giving up my practice. I haven’t made any decisions.”

“Interesting,” Ann said.

“Which means?”

“Interesting,” Ann said again. She thought about it some more. “Don’t become a full-time caregiver,” Ann said.

“Why not?”

“Because I’ve seen what it does to people. To Melville, for one.”

“Poor Melville,” Zee said.

“What the hell happened between those two?” Ann asked. She knew it was something big, could feel the weight of it, but she had no clue as to its origins.

“I wish I knew,” Zee said.

Some kids were setting off firecrackers on the wharf. A cat scooted under the bed.

“What was that?” Zee saw it flash past.

“That’s Persephone. She’s a Katrina cat,” Ann said. “They shipped a lot of them up here. I got her at the shelter.”

The three masts of the Friendship moved by Ann’s window. She was headed out for a Fourth of July sail. Ann noticed Zee watching it. She thought about the weather. There was no sign of a storm on the horizon as yet, so they should have smooth sailing for an hour or so.

Maybe it was the reenactors, maybe it was the Friendship itself-the three masts of the tall ship and its rigging made Ann think of Salem’s past days of shipping, the bustle of the busy wharves, the excitement of Salem as a world port. She pictured the powerful shipping families, the man they called King Derby who owned the next wharf and the Pickerings who owned this one. At any time there might be a hundred ships like the Friendship in port, loading and unloading their bounty. The tunnels that ran under Derby Wharf and up to the houses owned by the shipping families were a perfect place for hiding their taxable goods. Ann lived in one of the historic houses up on Orange Street. In the middle of her kitchen floor was a trapdoor that led to the old Derby tunnel. It was a place that Persephone loved to hide, and Ann had taken to blocking it off at night, so the cat wouldn’t end up lost in the tunnel somewhere under the wharves and more frightened than ever.

One of the Friendship’s sails was set, and the huge ship moved solely on wind power as she left the harbor now. Hawk was high in the rigging, helping set the foresail.

Ann observed Zee watching the ship and handed her a pair of binoculars she kept on her desk.

“Binoculars. A police scanner. Have you started working for the CIA?”

“Just nosy by nature,” Ann said.

Zee held up the binoculars and looked at the ship.

Ann watched as Hawk moved quickly down one mast and up another. “I’m surprised he doesn’t fall,” she said.

“He moves really well,” Zee said.

Something about the way she said it took Ann by surprise.

The people on the wharf began to cheer and clap as the Friendship hoisted her second sail.

Zee didn’t stop looking and was still watching Hawk as the ship reached the mouth of the harbor.

Oh, my God, Ann thought. She’s sleeping with him. The thought came to her in words, and she was relieved to find that she hadn’t uttered those words aloud.

And just as quickly another thought came to her, and before she had a chance to censor herself, this time the words did come out of her mouth. “Be careful of that one,” Ann said to Zee. “He’s not who you think he is.”

“What?” Zee asked, surprised to have her thoughts so clearly invaded.

Ann knew that Zee didn’t believe in any of this stuff. But she also observed a blush starting on Zee’s face that quickly spread all the way down her neck.

26

LIGHTNING HIT THE MAST of a moored Hunter 31 that had sailed north to the tip of Cape Ann and into Rockport Harbor even before the storm appeared on the horizon. Luckily there was no one on board at the time. The charge traveled down the aluminum mast, and, not finding a path to ground, it side-flashed, blowing out the boat’s hull.

“Shit,” someone said. “That boat just exploded.”

Hawk flew down the rigging of the Friendship as if he were on a slide.

“Lightning,” he said.

No one agreed. The sun, so strong just minutes ago, was now behind a cloud. But the sky was still bright blue. The general opinion was that it was probably a leaky propane tank, but Hawk had seen the strike from his post high in the rigging.

The captain listened to Hawk and put into Sandy Bay, just outside Rockport Harbor. “Better safe harbor than sorry sailor,” he said. The plan had been to reach Newburyport in time for the fireworks, but the wooden mast on the Friendship had been hit once before, and the captain didn’t want to risk it again. Though Gloucester Harbor would have been a much better choice, there was no time to get there. Within five minutes the sky had blackened and lightning flashed overhead like natural fireworks.

The Friendship dropped anchor.

“Everybody below deck,” the captain ordered. “And don’t touch anything metal.”

As a general rule, Hawk liked thunderstorms. He especially liked them on the water, where they came up fast and you could see the thunderheads forming and pushing upward in the sky. But this one seemed to have come out of nowhere, a phenomenon he’d heard about but had never yet seen. There were people struck by lightning as much as thirty minutes before a storm arrived. It wasn’t that uncommon. The charge could travel.

But today he’d been on the rigging when the strike hit. It was close enough that he felt the elation from it before he saw the burst. The hair on his neck and arms stood up as the errant bolt passed. By all rights it should have hit the Friendship, which was by far the tallest ship around, but instead it moved on, striking the Hunter. He knew it wasn’t random-lightning followed the rules of electricity-but it seemed personal somehow. The Friendship would have survived the strike, but Hawk, on the rigging, would most likely have been its casualty. He couldn’t help feeling he’d been spared.

He didn’t share his story; he knew these guys too well. They’d had enough trouble believing that there’d been a strike at all, though they certainly believed it now. The ocean had come up, and the ship rolled as it took the swells sideways. Even Rockport’s breakwater did nothing to stop the surge.

The sailors sat down below, listening to the crack and boom. As the sky lit up, the town of Rockport froze in silhouette, leaving a burned, stuttering image of terrified tourists huddled in doorways on Bearskin Neck.

Normally a rowdy group, the men were unusually quiet as they watched the Hunter 31 burn and sink.

“I thought aluminum masts didn’t conduct electricity,” one of the sailors said.

“Sure they do,” Hawk said. “The problem must have been in the grounding.”

“Shit,” one of the other guys said.

“Double shit,” another said. “We’re the highest mast in the harbor, and wet wood is a conductor.”

“We’ll be okay,” Hawk said. “We have lightning rods, and we’re grounded with copper.”

Everyone was silent, hoping that he was right.

When it finally ended, the crew made their way back on deck. One of the lines was singed, probably the result of a side flash from the Hunter 31.

Someone pointed to the mouth of the harbor. A rolling fog was moving in slowly from open ocean. It was an odd occurrence, more suited to the Pacific than this part of the Atlantic. Usually the New England fog fell in patches rather than rolled.

“Jesus,” one of the crew said.

BY 6:00 P.M. THE WHOLE of Cape Ann was fogged in. There would be no making it to Newburyport tonight.

They all walked into town. Until recently Rockport had been a dry town. Even now the only place you could get a drink was at one of the local inns, and so that’s where the crew headed. When they got to the top of High Street, Hawk broke from the group.

“Where do you think you’re going?” his friend Josh asked.

“I’m going to Salem,” Hawk said. “I’ll be back here in the morning.”

“How’re you gonna get there? Fly?” someone else asked.

“Yeah,” he said. “I’m gonna sprout little wings.”

“I wouldn’t doubt it,” one of the other guys said. The group had been in awe of his climbing skills, and of the idea that anyone actually liked being up in the air so high.

HAWK DECIDED TO HITCH A ride to the Rockport train station. The first two cars passed him, but the third one, a car full of college girls, pulled over and opened the door.

They were headed to Newburyport to a party, and they wanted him to come along.

“I don’t think so,” Hawk said, shaking his head. “I know trouble when I see it.”

“Oh, come on,” one of them said with a smile. “It’ll be fun.”

He waited at the station for the Salem train. There was almost no one riding tonight. Hawk sat alone in the last car.

The train pushed through the fog in Beverly. He could see people lining the wharves waiting for the fireworks: families on blankets, tailgaters.

When he got off the train in Salem, the streets were dry. He walked down Washington Street through groups of partying tourists and then cut down Front Street to Derby. He didn’t stop at the wharf, didn’t even stop at his boat to change. People crowded the grass at the end of Turner Street and sat in the gardens at the Gables. There was no moon tonight, so it would be a good show. He took a quick look to make sure no one was watching him, glad that the streetlight near the old house was burned out. Then he climbed the vines to the room on the second floor and let himself in through Zee’s open window.

27

ZEE COULD HEAR JESSINA downstairs, the sound of silverware clanking as she cleaned up. Breakfast was over, and she was baking something.

Zee noticed the scratch marks she had left on Hawk’s back. She felt bad about it, hoped he wouldn’t take off his shirt at work today. But watching him half dressed and sitting on the edge of the bed, something stirred in her again, and she wanted to reach out to him.

“Do you have to go?” she said to him, and he laughed and turned to face her.

“I’ve got to get back to Rockport,” Hawk said.

She reached out and pulled him onto the bed, unzipped his pants and went down on him. He groaned.

“Shh,” she said, hearing Finch’s walker below, heading toward the kitchen.

“I’m not the one who needs shushing, am I?” He grinned as he moved slowly on top of her. And when he was close and when she started to moan, he clamped his hand over her mouth and pressed hard. She arched her back and rolled onto him and bit down hard on his hand, and he didn’t pull it away. And she didn’t care anymore if Jessina heard them or even if Finch did, because she was no longer here.

THEY’D BEEN SLEEPING TOGETHER FOR almost a month. Zee knew that Mattei would tell her it was obsessive, especially so soon after Michael. Mattei would tell her that Hawk was her drug of choice. But she didn’t want to think about Mattei or about Michael or Finch downstairs with Jessina still hand-feeding him his meals and Zee letting it slide. Zee knew she shouldn’t let her do it, because he needed to be able to feed himself, to hold on to that skill. She had been here for six weeks now, and things with Finch were clearly slipping. She couldn’t help but let them slip, because there were so many of those things, too many details to manage. Everyday tasks the rest of us take for granted, from buttoning a shirt to getting up from a chair, had to be watched and aided. So when Zee could escape for a while into another world with Hawk, she did so gratefully.

If Hawk was her drug of choice, then he was her only vice. She couldn’t get enough of him. She lived in two worlds, or so it seemed. Her days were filled with the business of caregiving and all the things that went along: ordering food from Peapod, diapers and lotion so Finch’s skin wouldn’t break down, a soft washcloth to bathe him, prunes for constipation, Oreos for treats. When Finch wandered, which he did whenever he got to the tail end of a dose, she followed him, making sure he didn’t fall with each unsteady step.

She couldn’t get him to use the railings that Hawk had installed. It wasn’t that he wouldn’t use them, more that he couldn’t seem to figure out how, or couldn’t make his hand grasp the rails that would steady him. Instead Zee kept placing his walker in front of him, reminding him softly each time he moved to “use the walker.”

Most of the time, she felt as if she were talking to a child, though she knew full well that he understood her words. This was her father, yet it wasn’t. It was a duality she had stopped trying to resolve. Finch was now both child and father. She realized that her need for a father was profound. But with so much unresolved between them, theirs had often been an uneasy relationship. Still, he had always been there when she needed him. And now he was the one who needed her.

The tender feelings she had for Finch, when they came to her, seemed to come from that vulnerable place she recognized in him, a place that may have always been there but that was now the more prevalent part of his otherwise thorny personality. Finch had always used his intellect to distance himself. When things became too much for him, he had often spoken in quotes or riddles, a quality that seemed to amuse Melville but one that Zee had found frustrating. And now, once the new drug had left his system, the one that caused the hallucinations, he had stopped speaking as Hawthorne, but he had pretty much stopped talking altogether, though she could tell that he still understood her. When he spoke, his speech was perfect, but he chose to do so less and less, and he uttered not much more than single syllables if possible when Jessina was in the house, though Zee could tell that Finch liked her.

“You don’t need to talk down to him,” Zee said. “He may not be talking much, but he can understand you well enough.”

“I’m not talking down to him,” Jessina insisted. “I would never do that.”

Jessina bathed Finch and dressed him in the mornings, then came back again to feed him dinner and put him to bed. In the long hours in between, Zee read books to him, something she knew that Melville had done, though Melville had had better success with it than Zee. Mostly, when his meds were at their peak, Finch dozed. She would get up, prop a pillow under whichever side his head flopped to, and sit back down again, reading more quietly now so as not to disturb his sleep but not altogether stopping in case her words might drift to someplace in his subconscious that might still be vibrant, a place she could not often reach when Finch was awake.

She did not presume to read Hawthorne to Finch. The book she picked from Finch’s shelf was Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past, partly because she had never made her way past the first volume and partly because she thought the words might jar Finch’s involuntary or Proustian memory. She wondered whether she could get Jessina to make madeleines, if Zee could find a recipe.

When she found herself unable to read any longer, Zee would put on the soft music she knew that Finch favored: Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake, or sometimes Puccini.

When his meds wore off, Finch grew agitated and felt compelled to walk, though it was the worst possible time to do so. He had fallen twice already. Luckily, neither fall had hurt him, but falling was a serious threat to the elderly in general and to Parkinson’s patients in particular. Though Finch was only in his late sixties, and far too young to be experiencing the extreme effects of aging, the Parkinson’s seemed to be moving much faster than Zee had expected.

And so Zee followed him as he walked through the house, accompanying him everywhere-to the kitchen, to the bedroom, to the bath-trying to afford him some privacy but being careful that he didn’t get up and wander, leaving the door partly open so she could hear him if he needed her. “Leave me,” he would often say.

“I’m sorry,” she answered. “I know how much you hate this.”

She tried to explain what the VNA nurses who came once a week had told her: “It’s important to keep him clean. It’s important that he get dressed every day.” She understood the first but wasn’t altogether certain she agreed with the last. It was just too difficult sometimes, she thought. He didn’t want to do it. He would have preferred to remain in his robe and pajamas, which would have seemed fine to Zee.

But every morning Jessina happily picked outfits for him, dressing him like a little doll, in vibrant color combinations Finch would never have chosen for himself. Jessina seemed to have a genuine affection for him.

Zee rarely left Finch alone, not unless she prearranged it with Jessina, who was glad to oblige when she could. But Jessina was the single mother of a teenage boy, and she didn’t feel good about leaving her son alone for too long. She could almost see her house from Turner Street, but the neighborhoods were vastly different, and there was all sorts of trouble Danny could get into if left unsupervised.

And so most of the time it was just Finch and Zee. He didn’t want to go out anymore, didn’t even want to go for rides in the car. As bad as his reaction to his meds had been, Zee sometimes thought she preferred his Hawthorne hallucinations to the quiet depression he seemed to be experiencing now.

For her own mental health, Zee had to get out of the house every day and used the two sessions when Jessina was with Finch to escape. Salem was a great walking city. Sometimes she walked down to the harbor or over to the Willows for a game of skee ball at the arcade, a game she had loved as a child. Sometimes she met Melville for coffee or walked over to the gardens at the Ropes Mansion. This was her city more than Boston had ever been. Its diversity of person and place suited every mood she was having that summer. There was part of her that simply felt better here.

On the occasions when she could hire Jessina for more than a few hours, she would escape for longer periods, usually to the beach or to Winter Island, often coming back to find Jessina and Finch sitting in the den watching the Lifetime Channel. It was out of character for her father to watch television at all, let alone such estrogen-based dramas. Still, they seemed to be among the only things that captured his interest, and he sat, eyes glued to the set, his reactions intense and perfectly timed to the story, as if the whole drama were unfolding not on a small screen at all but right here in his den.

ZEE HAD BEGUN TO SLEEP in Maureen’s room even before she started seeing Hawk. Finch’s sundowning was getting worse, he’d begun to have the hallucinations so common to Alzheimer’s patients that was a sign of the crossover the doctor had been telling her to watch out for. After the sun went down, Finch grew more and more agitated and confused. He often wandered, waking her, and she could never get back to sleep.

It didn’t happen when she stayed upstairs. Finch couldn’t climb the stairs anymore, and he wouldn’t try, but still she would worry about him waking up, so she checked on him every few hours. As a result she was still often exhausted and grouchy from lack of sleep. For a while she raised the side rails on the hospital bed the OT had ordered, but then the VNA nurse talked her out of it.

“The problem is, they try to get out anyway,” the nurse said. “I’ve seen more hospitalizations because one of my dementia patients tried to climb over the bedside and got himself tangled and ended up breaking a bone.”

It was Jessina who suggested the alarm. “They use them at the nursing home,” she said.

The next time Jessina came in, she brought one of the alarms with her. It clipped to Finch’s bedclothes and to the bed. When the connection broke, the alarm went off. Finch clearly hated it, but it served its purpose. Zee began to sleep through the night, waking only when she heard the buzzing.

ZEE OFTEN TALKED TO MELVILLE either in person or on the phone about what was happening to Finch. And she consulted with several doctors who basically told her what she already knew, that there was nothing much that could be done.

Mattei left messages on her cell. She returned the calls when she could bear to do so, which was less and less often as time went on. She didn’t want to talk about Finch or about Michael and how the whole situation made her feel. She remembered something one of her patients had replied when she asked him how he felt about the illness of a parent: How do you think I feel about it? I feel fucking awful. By the end of each day, Zee could feel an inescapable heaviness descending on her. It was about Finch, of course, but it was about Lilly, too, and about Michael and her career and basically about all the choices she’d made in her life so far that were either not well enough thought out or just altogether wrong.

Now, for the first time she could remember, there were no choices to be made. Instead of trying to fix things or plan her life, she only needed to be present for her father, something she found easier than she might have expected. She couldn’t remember ever spending this much time with Finch.

And so every night when Jessina put Finch to bed, Zee would give him his first sleeping pill and take her evening walk. When she got home again, she would give him the second pill, telling him what was new in town, talking about what she’d seen. She would kiss him good night, lingering for a minute with her hand upon his shoulder. Then, after Jessina had gone for the night, Zee would go upstairs to her other life, drawing herself a long bath and waiting for Hawk. Though a simple set of stairs connected the two worlds, they could not have been more different.

EVER SINCE EARLY JUNE, WHEN she’d told Hawk who she was, Zee had been having dreams about Lilly: Lilly on the bridge. Lilly being chased by Adam. So when she started having her recurring dream about Maureen’s story again, she was almost relieved. The night she started up with Hawk had been several weeks ago, back on June 10, the first really warm night of the season.

Zee had been too tired to sleep. She was so exhausted, and it was far too hot upstairs. Every time she settled down, her legs would jump her awake again. Desperate, she’d taken one of the sleeping pills Mattei had prescribed.

And then she’d had a dream about the Friendship, a dream she’d had off and on for years. Zee dreamed about the lower level of the ship, as Maureen had once imagined and described it, with very specific details: the hold, the bunks, a lantern that hung from a chain.

When she woke up, Zee became obsessed by the idea of seeing the Friendship for herself and finding out how accurate Maureen’s description had been. The fact that she didn’t want to wait until morning, when she could pay her admission and go aboard the historic vessel, should have been her first clue that the obsession was a reaction to the sleeping pill. Everyone had heard stories of people who’d done odd or unusual things while under the influence. But the drug was still in Zee’s system, and so her compulsion to immediately see the Friendship seemed logical.

Her mother had never set eyes on the Friendship, or rather on the replica of the 1797 merchant ship that the City of Salem re-created in the 1990s. Maureen had died back in the 1980s, long before the plans for building the ship were even drawn up, though money was beginning to be raised for the project. Tonight, for some reason, Zee was obsessed with discovering how accurate her mother’s detailed description had been.

And so she quickly dressed and snuck out of the house, tiptoeing down the stairs, stretching over the squeaky one near the bottom, and letting herself out through the kitchen door, careful to close the outside screen door slowly so that the spring didn’t slam it shut and wake Finch. Once outside, she cut across the backyards and alleys until she reached Derby Wharf, where the Friendship was tied up. The night was clear, the stars seemed bright and close.

The ranger’s station was deserted, as was the rigging shed. When she got to the Friendship, the ship was dark and there was a chain across the gangplank. But the moonlight was strong, and she easily ducked under the chain, removing her shoes so that she wouldn’t make a sound on the ramp. When she got to the ship’s deck, she looked around. She knew there was security, knew Hawk to be part of the team who took shifts making sure the Friendship was safe, mostly from kids who might sneak aboard and vandalize it. The Park Service rangers were really the ones in charge, but the men who worked on the ship also volunteered on occasion, taking turns keeping watch.

Zee found the stairs and descended to the cabin below. Her heart was racing. It was so dark that she could barely see a few feet in front of her. Though she was still drugged, she was beginning to realize that this had been a stupid idea. She should have waited until tomorrow and taken the tour with the tourists.

Ever so slowly her eyes began to adjust to the darkness. The moonlight merged with the streetlight, and the beam from the tiny lighthouse at the end of the wharf provided just enough illumination that she began to make her way around. She could see only traces of things. She moved as if blind, feeling for the structure of objects as Maureen had described them and the positions where she knew those objects to be. Here was the hold, the bunk, there the hanging lantern. Each confirmation filled her with awe, but it also scared her a little. The sea was calm and the ship tied securely, but she could feel it rolling, feel the floor shifting beneath her feet as if it weren’t here in port at all but in the middle of a stormy sea. It must be the sleeping pill, she thought, and then it occurred to her that she might be only dreaming now, dreaming that she’d left Finch in his bed and made her way down here on such a determined mission. She began to hope she was dreaming.

A beam of light swept toward her, and she froze.

“What’s going on?” Hawk’s voice filled the empty space. Then he stopped in recognition as the beam from his flashlight lit her face. “What are you doing here?”

She might have passed out. Or maybe it was the effect of the drug. But the next thing she knew, she was sitting on his boat. He was making her tea or coffee or something hot. And she was coming back. He didn’t ask again what she was doing on the boat. He didn’t ask anything, just waited for her to explain, which she didn’t do. She’d heard about this kind of thing. Sleeping pills affected people in a variety of ways. Some had blackouts where they didn’t remember driving. The prescription came with warnings: Don’t drink, don’t operate heavy machinery, blackouts may occur. This wasn’t a blackout, not in any traditional sense. But sitting here, embarrassed and confused, she made a mental note never to take another sleeping pill. There was something too intimate about being here on his boat, with his personal things scattered about. She wasn’t sure what she was feeling exactly, except that she wanted to erase this night.

When she was okay again, Hawk offered to walk her home. As they walked down Derby Street, she started to shiver, and he gave her his jacket. They walked in silence.

At the door she realized she had locked herself out. She’d left the interior door unlocked, but the screen door had clicked shut and locked behind her, an extra precaution she had set up to stop Finch’s wandering. Hawk tried one of the side windows, but they were also locked. Then, looking up, he spotted the vine that led to the open window in Maureen’s room. Zee stood watching as he climbed the vine in the same easy way he’d climbed the rigging that first day she’d seen him, and for just a moment she saw him as the young sailor in her mother’s story.

When Hawk let her in the kitchen door, Finch’s alarm was going off. He stood at the far end of the tilting hallway, staring at Hawk.

“It’s okay,” Zee said. “You remember Hawk. I locked myself out, and he let me back in.”

Finch didn’t answer but just stood staring at them both. “Let me get you back to bed,” Zee said.

By the time she got him settled and calmed him down, Hawk was gone.

THE NEXT NIGHT ZEE ASKED Jessina to stay late.

She walked down to the Friendship and then to Hawk’s boat, moored at one of the slips on Pickering Wharf. He wasn’t there. She found him at Capt.’s, sitting at the bar with the rest of the crew. All heads turned as she entered.

Hawk stood and came over. “Two nights in a row,” he said. “Lucky me.”

She realized she could take the remark two different ways.

“I wanted to thank you,” she said.

“For what?” he asked.

“For walking me home. For your jacket. For not having me arrested.”

He laughed.

She handed him the jacket. He put it on and went outside with her, holding the door as they exited.

They walked down the wharf, past the Friendship and the dog walkers and the granite benches to the tiny lighthouse almost half a mile out into the harbor. They sat on the bench.

She had expected to have to offer him an explanation, had been working on what she would say for most of the afternoon, but everything she could think of sounded lame.

But he didn’t ask her. Instead he sat looking out across the harbor.

“What are you looking at?” she asked.

“The house I grew up in,” he said, pointing to the Marblehead side of the harbor.

“Which one?” She could see two houses, both with wharves.

He pointed to a blue house.

Her face went red. “You didn’t have a cuddy-cabin cruiser, did you?”

“Our neighbors had the cuddy,” he said.

It was the boat she had stolen, the crime for which she’d been arrested and Melville had posted bail.

“Why?”

“No reason,” she said.

He looked at her curiously. “You’re an odd woman, Dr. Finch.”

“You have no idea,” she said.

He laughed, his smile catching her by surprise. It was that smile, she decided, that’s what the attraction was. It had been a long time since she’d been attracted to anyone but Michael, and there had not been a lot of smiling lately.

It was more grin than smile, she thought, still trying to analyze what was happening to her when he leaned over and kissed her.

That first kiss and the feeling of electricity that passed between them took her by surprise. He was watching her now, to see how she felt about it.

He didn’t have to wait long for her answer. The kiss had effectively stalled any objective analysis she’d been trying to perform. She kissed him back.

SHE DIDN’T GET HOME UNTIL after midnight. They had gone back to his boat, and afterward, when she looked at the time, she had rushed to get dressed and hurried away, embarrassed, not really certain how everything had moved so quickly and yet happy about it, giddy even.

Standing there later in front of Jessina, she’d felt like a teenager about to be caught. She had dressed hastily, and she hoped like hell she hadn’t put her shirt on backward or, God forbid, inside out.

28

IN THE WEEKS THAT followed, they talked about a lot of things. He had gone to school in England, Hawk told her, to study celestial navigation, a field for which there wasn’t much demand, especially in the United States these days. “Which is why I’m a carpenter,” he said.

“You’re not a carpenter, you’re a rigger,” she said, quoting the remark he’d made the first day they met.

Zee told Hawk about Finch and Melville and about Maureen and the way she’d died. Later, to lighten the mood a bit, she told him that she was the girl who had stolen his neighbor’s cuddy-cabin cruiser.

“I remember when that happened,” he said.

“I was a wild child,” she said.

He laughed. “You’re a fairly wild adult.”

She smiled to think how most people she knew these days would disagree. Certainly Michael had never had such a thought about her.

“Seriously, didn’t you go to jail for that?”

“What?”

“My mother told me that the cuddy thief was doing time.”

“Probation,” she said. “And a lot of community service.”

“I was relieved when they caught you,” he said. “Before that, I was certain our neighbor suspected me,” Hawk added, kissing her playfully.

They were lying in bed looking up at the ceiling and the sliver of moonlight coming through what appeared to be a skylight.

“What’s up there?” he asked.

“It was the widow’s walk.”

He thought for a minute and then said, “I never noticed a widow’s walk from the outside.”

“We don’t have it anymore, a previous owner cut it down. Way back in the early 1800s.”

“Mind if I take a look?” he asked.

“Be my guest.”

He got out of bed and walked to the center of the room, drawing over the chair from Maureen’s writing desk. He reached up and opened the hatch. Then he pulled himself up. “Great view,” he said, looking back down at her. “You want to come up?”

She had never particularly wanted to go up there. It was too much a part of her mother’s story. Plus, Finch always told her it was dangerous. But tonight her curiosity got the best of her. She stood on the chair, and he reached down with both hands and pulled her up through the opening. They stood together on a small perch mid-roof. There was no platform anymore; the captain, in his fit of rage, had chopped it away, leaving only the sharp shards of splintered frame to hint at its existence. Hawk examined the gashes from the captain’s ax that were still visible on the hatch frame.

“It leaks sometimes,” she said. “If we get a really heavy rain.”

“I could fix that,” he said. “It wouldn’t be difficult.” Then, tracing what was left of the frame, he added, “I could rebuild the entire widow’s walk if you wanted me to. I couldn’t do it until October, though.”

“It’s not my house,” she said.

“Just a thought,” he said, then added, grinning, “It would be nice to make love up on the widow’s walk.”

It was a little too close to her mother’s story, and it bothered her. “Not in October, it wouldn’t,” she said, wrapping her arms around herself.

Hawk looked at her strangely.

“It’s cold up here,” she said.

They stood looking at each other for a long moment.

“Did I say something that offended you?”

“October,” she said.

“What?”

“You said the word ‘October,’” she lied. There was no way she was going to tell him that this was about a fairy tale.

“I’ll remove the word permanently from my vocabulary.”

She laughed.

Talking about restoring the widow’s walk had been too close to Maureen’s story for Zee. Not that she believed in reincarnation or anything. She had thought about it a while back, even read some books, but in the end the theory just didn’t resonate with her the way it had with Maureen. Her objection was much more practical than that. Restoring the widow’s walk would be something Mattei would see as an attempt to fulfill the mother’s dream. Just the thought of it made Zee uncomfortable.

“Let’s go back inside,” she said. “I’m cold.”

HAWK BROUGHT UP THE SUBJECT of Lilly Braedon on a number of occasions. It was always tentative, a testing of the waters that Zee recognized from her practice. Sometimes it was an offhand remark or even a question that hung at the edges of the confidentiality issue but didn’t exactly breach it. How long had Zee been treating Lilly? Had she ever met her children?

“I can’t talk about Lilly Braedon with you,” she said. “I can’t even talk about her with her own family.”

It’s not that Zee didn’t want to talk about Lilly. In one way he would have been the perfect person to talk with. He’d been an eyewitness, and, as was typical in such cases, he felt a certain connection to Lilly and her fate. She knew he would always wonder if he could have saved her. He’d told her as much. But Zee knew that if she started talking about Lilly with Hawk, it would be difficult to stop. Lilly was in her thoughts more and more these days. Zee ran the risk not only of crossing the lines of confidentiality but of using the relationship as a substitute for the therapy she obviously needed, something that she was aware she might already be doing, though in a different way. She genuinely liked Hawk, she didn’t want to use him in any way. She was well aware that she needed therapy concerning the death of her patient, but she wasn’t ready, not yet.

BY THE THIRD WEEK OF July, she was as ready as she would ever be, and so she booked a session with Mattei and drove to Boston.

Mattei looked surprisingly different-she was quite tanned and dressed in a skirt that looked like it was out of the early sixties.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you in a skirt,” Zee said.

“I don’t think I’ve ever worn one,” Mattei said with a laugh. “I’m practicing for the wedding.” She walked across the room to demonstrate. “I’m feeling very Betty Draper.”

Zee took a seat. “So how are things going here?”

“Not too bad. Michelle has taken two of your patients, and Greta has the rest of them. They all want you back, but for the most part everyone’s doing pretty well. I had to increase Mr. Goodhue’s meds.”

“We knew that was coming,” Zee said.

“I’ve been sending anyone new over to Greta. There’s one guy who keeps asking for you and saying he’ll wait.”

“What guy?”

“He says his name is Reynaldo. He’s evidently a referral.”

Zee knew the name. She had heard it before. But she couldn’t remember where. “A referral from whom?”

“I’m not sure. I can find out.”

“No,” Zee said. “It’s not important.”

“So what do you want to talk about today?” Mattei asked. “I’m sure you didn’t come all the way in here to chat about the office.”

“I want to talk about Lilly,” Zee said.

“I was expecting that you might,” Mattei said.

Zee sat for a minute but didn’t say anything. Finally, and with difficulty, she spoke up. “I still don’t think her death was a suicide,” Zee said.

“All evidence to the contrary.”

“She didn’t leave a note.”

“Not all suicides do.”

“Maybe.”

“Your own mother didn’t leave a note.”

Zee stopped. “Why did you mention my mother?”

“Why do you think?”

“I don’t know how it happened. Lilly was doing better.”

“As is often the case.”

“No, this was different.” Zee could feel her face getting red.

“You’re angry,” Mattei said.

Zee nodded.

“At whom?”

“Right now at you,” Zee said.

“Who else?”

“At myself.”

“Why are you angry at yourself?” Mattei said.

“Because I could have stopped it.”

“How?” Mattei asked. “How could you have stopped it if you couldn’t see it coming?”

“I could have stopped him,” Zee said.

“Adam?”

“Yes, Adam. Who do you think I’m talking about?”

“How could you have stopped him?” Mattei asked.

“I could have insisted that the police do something,” Zee said.

“I think you have to let yourself off the hook for that. You did everything that could possibly be done. More, actually.”

“You think I crossed a line,” Zee said.

“Is that what you think?”

Many lines, Zee thought. She had attended the funeral. She had treated Lilly at home. She had given unasked-for advice.

Zee had also let the line blur between Lilly and Maureen, so much so that she wondered every day if she’d been objective enough, or if her wish to make this case turn out differently from her mother’s had made her too involved with Lilly’s case and that that involvement had somehow blinded her. The day she told Lilly that she had to leave Adam had been the turning point, the day Zee crossed the first big line. And the worst part of it was that she knew she would do it again. You were supposed to let the patient find her own course of action. But if it happened now, Zee would have tried to do more to stop it, not less. Which was another reason she had recently begun to question her choice of career.

“I crossed more lines with Lilly than you know,” Zee said.

Mattei looked at her, waiting.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Zee said.

They sat silently for a while. When it was clear that Zee was not going to explain, Mattei spoke. “Losing your first patient is very difficult.”

“Are you telling me there will be more?”

“Probably,” Mattei said.

“How many have you lost?”

“A few,” Mattei said.

“How many?”

“Is that important to you?”

“Yes,” Zee said.

“Why?”

Zee didn’t answer. She knew that it was an attempt to make Mattei cross the same kinds of lines she had been crossing, and she knew that Mattei was wise to her tactics.

Mattei considered for a long time before answering. “Three.”

Zee felt immediately sorry. But at the same time, she was grateful.

“How do you live with that?” It was a sincere question.

“Day by day,” Mattei said.

“I don’t think I’m cut out for this,” Zee said.

“You’re absolutely cut out for this,” Mattei said. “I wouldn’t have hired you if you weren’t.”

She looked at her computer, scribbled down a name and number on a piece of paper, and slid it across the table to Zee.

“What’s this?”

“The shrink’s shrink,” she said. “He’s very good. I go to him myself on occasion. You need to talk to someone about this, and it can no longer be me.”

“Thanks,” Zee said, meaning it. The line they’d crossed had been blurring for years, and a new one had now taken its place. At this moment they were no longer doctor and patient, or even employer and employee. They were friends.

ZEE MADE AN APPOINTMENT FOR the following week with the new therapist. It went as well as could be expected, considering that it would take a while for him to get to know her. But at least she was talking to someone, she thought. After that first appointment, she stopped by the office to pick up some of her things as well as turn over some files to the people who were covering her patients.

It was a day for cleaning things out. Once she’d finished at the office, she headed over to Michael’s condo on Beacon Hill to clean out the rest of her things. She had arranged to do it on a day he would be out of town, so there’d be no chance of running into him. Zee had hoped to be done by rush hour, but she’d gotten a late start. By the time she had emptied her closet and made three trips down to the Volvo, it was five-thirty.

Finally finished cleaning out the closet, she walked through the house, looking around, surprised by how few things in the place were actually hers. There were a few CDs that she’d picked up in college, a few more books, and the cowboy coffeepot that Melville had given her. Everything else in the house belonged to Michael. It hadn’t seemed odd to her when she lived here, particularly since she had moved into his house. Still, it seemed strange now, as if she’d never really been anything but a visitor and, on some level, had never intended to stay.

Zee left her engagement ring in Michael’s top drawer. She had planned to leave a note with it, but she couldn’t find any words that didn’t sound wrong. She let herself out through the back door, leaving her set of keys on the kitchen counter so he would see them as soon as he walked in.

ZEE DIDN’T NOTICE THE RED truck behind her as she pulled out of the driveway, just as she hadn’t noticed it follow her out of her office parking lot, where it had been parked every late afternoon for the last two weeks. She turned from Joy Street onto Pinckney. When she got to Charles Street, she stepped hard on the gas to avoid a cross light. The engine sputtered as she floored it, and she made a mental note to have it tuned. The Volvo was the last car across as the sign changed to WALK, and Zee was looking ahead toward Storrow Drive. She had wanted to head north before the rush-hour traffic got too bad, but now she found herself in the thick of it. The light turned just as she cleared the intersection, and the red truck sat stuck halfway into the crosswalk, as pedestrians crossed both in front of it and behind.

29

IT WAS SCRABBLE NIGHT at the Salem Athenaeum, the historic membership library where Melville had worked for the last several years. Though he wasn’t playing tonight, he had volunteered to stay. After they finished, as Melville was locking the front door, he ran into Ann Chase. She was coming from the public library across the street.

“What are you doing on my side of town?” he called out.

“Slumming,” she replied, and since the McIntyre was probably the prettiest historic district in town, they both laughed at her joke.

“Where are you living?” Ann asked. She knew about the split, but she didn’t know the details.

Melville pointed toward Federal Street.

“I love that street,” Ann said. While most of the McIntyre district had Federal period housing, Federal Street ironically had some of the earlier period homes.

“It’s actually the street behind Federal,” Melville said. “You want to come up for coffee?”

“I don’t drink coffee,” she said. “But I’d love to see your place.”

He explained that it wasn’t really his place, that he was house-sitting. As they climbed the stairs, Bowditch snarled and barked and threw himself against the door.

“What the hell have you got in there?” Ann asked, having second thoughts.

“Wait till you see.” Melville smiled.

The minute he opened the door, Bowditch jumped on him and wagged his tail. Then he waddled over to Ann and sniffed her.

“Good puppy,” she said, laughing. “You’re a big faker.”

Melville walked her to the kitchen.

Old photos were spread out on the table, several of Finch and Zee in better times. An empty wine bottle sat upended in the sink.

“Yesterday was not one of my better days,” he said.

“I’m so sorry,” Ann said, meaning it. It sounded as if someone had died. It was almost as sad.

“Whose place is this?” she asked, trying to change the subject.

“Someone I know at the Peabody Essex. He’s gone to China for the better part of the year.

“And you inherited Cujo here?”

“Bowditch,” he said.

“As in Salem’s famous navigator?”

“Nathaniel Bowditch. The very same.”

Bowditch raised his head as if he were being summoned.

“Sorry,” Melville said to the dog, who had started to stand up. “Stay.”

Bowditch sighed and put his head back down.

“He’s a good fellow,” Ann said.

“That he is.”

Melville went through the cabinets. “Good thing you didn’t want coffee,” he said. “I don’t have any.”

She laughed.

“Would you like some wine?”

“No thanks,” she said. “Water would be great, though.”

He poured them two glasses of water and sat down.

Ann was looking through the photos. “These are great,” she said. There were several black-and-whites that Finch had taken of Melville and Zee with his eight-by-ten camera and another, much earlier one from the same camera of Maureen and Zee. “Where did you get this one?” she asked, turning it over and noting the inscription on the back: Christmas 1986. Ann thought it was a bit odd that he would have a photo of Maureen, even if Zee was in it, too.

“I stole it from Finch,” he said.

“You really are in a bad place, aren’t you?” she said, wondering why he would want such a reminder.

“Let me put it this way,” Melville said. “It’s probably a good thing I ran into you tonight.”

ANN STAYED UNTIL ALMOST MIDNIGHT. As he walked her to her car, she turned to him. “You know what I always do when I break up with someone?”

“I’m sorry to admit I have no idea.”

“I do all the things I couldn’t do when we were together,” she said. “It might not seem like much, but it helps you remember who you used to be.”

He hugged her, and she got into the car.

“Didn’t you once own a boat?” she asked.

“I still do,” he said. “It’s been sitting in Finch’s driveway for the last six years.”

“Maybe it’s time you put it back in the water,” she suggested, squeezing his arm good-bye.

IT WAS A GOOD IDEA, Melville thought as he walked back to the house. Tomorrow he would call the boatyard and have them pick it up. It would probably need a lot of work, but he could do most of it himself. He didn’t know how long it would take to get the boat in shape, but it was something to do. And she was right, it would remind him of who he used to be.

30

AFTER THEY MADE LOVE for the second time that night, Hawk asked Zee out on a date.

“Why?” she asked.

“Why?” He was clearly amused. “You’re kidding me, right? You know, in some cultures, it’s customary for people to actually go on a date or two before they have sex.”

“Not in ours,” Zee said. “Not these days.”

“So that’s a no?”

“It’s difficult for me to get out,” she said. “Because of Finch. Jessina can’t often stay late in the evenings.”

“So let’s make it on a night she can stay.”

Zee didn’t answer.

“Okay,” he said. “Now you’re starting to piss me off. Maybe I’ll just go climb into the window of someone who actually wants to be seen with me.”

She laughed. “It’s not that. It’s that I just broke up with Michael, and…”

“And you don’t want to be seen with me.” He grinned at her.

She had to laugh. “I don’t want to run into Mickey,” she said. “I haven’t told him yet.”

“What if I take you to dinner out of town?”

“Okay,” she said.

“Okay when?”

“Okay, as soon as I can set it up with Jessina.”

Finch’s alarm bell went off. Zee got up and pulled on her robe. “Don’t go anywhere,” she said.

He put his hands behind his head, looking up through the skylight at a patch of starry sky. He sighed. “Where would I go?” he said under his breath. But he was smiling.

31

MELVILLE AND ZEE MET for coffee at Jaho. He told her that he was having the boat picked up and was going to try to get it back in the water.

“That’s a great idea,” Zee said.

“It’s something,” he said. “Maybe we can take it out together sometime.”

“I’d like that,” she said.

He paused for a moment, then asked the same question he always asked: “How’s Finch?”

Zee wished she had a better answer to give him. “About the same,” she said.

“You look a little tired,” he said.

“I’m fine.”

“I think you need some more help.”

“I’m handling things,” she said.

“There’s a lot to handle.”

“He thought I was Maureen this morning,” she said. “He thinks that a lot.”

Melville considered. “It’s an honest mistake,” he said. “You look like your mother.”

“Not that much, I don’t,” she said.

“So what are you doing for you?”

She wanted to tell him about Hawk but thought better of it. She already knew what he would say. It was too soon.

“Enough,” she said.

“Name one thing.”

“I play skee ball.” She smiled.

He laughed. “God, that brings back a memory.”

In the summers when Melville had first lived with them, Zee had a habit of disappearing. Melville often hunted her down at the Willows playing skee ball. Sometimes, if it wasn’t too late and Finch wasn’t worried about her, Melville would play.

“I’ve developed the perfect bank shot,” she said.

He looked at her.

“I’m really all right,” she said again. “Good, in fact.”

MELVILLE DIDN’T WANT TO INTERFERE, but he was worried about Zee. He thought this was all too much for her. She wasn’t herself. He was worried about Finch, too, if the truth be known. He still spoke with Jessina once in a while, still paid her weekly salary, though Zee had told him not to. It was the least he could do, he said. Meaning it was something.

He wanted to stop by the shop to talk to Mickey about it. He was aware that Mickey hadn’t forgiven him for Maureen, probably would never forgive him for breaking up her marriage, but it didn’t matter. This was about Finch, and it was about Zee, and some things were more important.

He walked down Derby Wharf, past the rigging shed, looking up at the Friendship as he went by. He remembered when they were building her, had donated money for it, in fact. He’d been there the day that lightning had struck the main mast, and they’d had to raise more money to replace it. She was an amazing ship, if you thought about it, though he found he couldn’t think about it without thinking about Maureen and the story she’d been writing when she died.

Seeing Mickey was like looking at Maureen. Their eyes were the same. But as soon as Mickey spoke, the illusion shattered.

“Hi, Melville. What can I do you for?”

It was an old New England expression, but the twist was implicit.

“Funny,” Melville said.

“I want to talk to you about your niece,” Melville said. “I’m worried about her.”

Mickey listened without interrupting to insert his usual sarcasm. In the end he promised to help out. To take Finch out once in a while, just to give Zee some relief.

“You were friends once,” Melville said by way of justifying his request. He knew it was a mistake as soon as he said it. Mickey had already agreed.

“Age-old rule,” Mickey said. “Stop selling when you get to yes.”

“Thank you,” Melville said. He started toward the door.

“Hey,” Mickey said, calling him back.

“What?” Melville said.

“I may never like you,” Mickey said. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate what you do for my niece.”

32

TODAY ANN WAS READING lace. She’d been doing this more and more in the last few years, ever since her friend Towner Whitney had given her all of her late Aunt Eva’s pieces. Ann thought of the lace as another reader might think of a crystal ball, something that you gazed into to help you see images. She’d done two readings before lunch and was now turning and crumpling a piece of black antique lace in an effort to gain more perspective about her regular customer, the one who wanted so badly to get married.

What she got was more of the same, a bad relationship that was getting worse by the moment. Ann thought it was time to tell the girl everything, and she was just trying to find the words when an image began to form in the lace. It looked like a vine, and it was moving. Ann watched as the vine turned to feathers and one of the longer feathers turned into a woman’s neck. Ann realized that what she was looking at was a swan. And then she saw something in the lace that she’d never seen before, but something she’d heard her friend Eva describe from her own lace reading. The swan began to move, and it turned to a man, and she recognized Melville.

The hopeful bride looked strangely at Ann, who had been staring, trancelike, into the lace for a very long time. The breeze from the ocean cooled the room, breaking the spell. Ann turned toward the open door in time to see Melville walking away from Mickey’s shop and across the parking lot toward town.

She excused herself, hurried to the door, and called to him. He turned around. She could see that he was upset. He waved to her, but he didn’t stop.

33

ZEE PAID JESSINA TO stay until morning. Her son was on an overnight at Children’s Island Camp, and she was free.

They took Hawk’s boat to Clark Landing in Marblehead and walked over to the Barnacle for dinner. She could see Children’s Island from here and thought about Jessina’s son, who had helped her clean out some of Finch’s things just the week before.

They sat on the porch and watched as dogs played on the patch of beach below. They skipped dessert in favor of getting ice cream on the way back. After dinner they walked up to Fort Sewall and sat on a bench looking out to sea. All of the border islands were visible from here: Children’s, the Miseries, and Baker’s Island with its lighthouse off to the north. In the middle distance, she could see Yellow Dog Island, the shelter for abused women and children. Zee thought about May Whitney, who ran the shelter, and the great work she was doing out there. Zee wished that she had been able to do as much for Lilly.

But she didn’t want to think about Lilly tonight, didn’t want the thought to come between them. Instead she concentrated on the beautiful view. It was Race Week in Marblehead, and sailors from all over the world had come to compete. A long line of spinnakered J/24s moved along the horizon.

“Mickey says you could make your way across the ocean just by looking at the stars.”

“It’s a little more complicated than that.” Hawk laughed. “The Park Service is running a class in celestial navigation, if you’re interested.”

“Didn’t you teach that class?” She thought she remembered him saying something about teaching such a class.

“Just a few classes,” he said. “I’m not a teacher.”

“Not a carpenter, not a teacher. It must be nice to know what you’re not,” she said.

“Are you having doubts about your career?” It was a real question.

“Let’s change the subject,” she said.

“I understand that we can’t talk about Lilly, but now we can’t talk about your career either?”

“The two are hopelessly intertwined, I’m afraid.”

He sat silently for a minute.

“I think I need to talk about it,” he said.

“About your career?”

“About Lilly Braedon,” he said.

“I understand why that might be true,” she said.

“That’s just it, I don’t think you do.”

“Nevertheless,” she said.

It was meant to politely end the conversation, but it had the opposite effect on Hawk.

“What the hell does that mean?”

“I’m sorry,” she said sincerely. “If you’re having trouble reconciling your feelings about her death, and you need someone to talk to, I can give you some names. It just can’t be me.”

He was clearly annoyed.

“I’m sorry,” she said again. “I understand that you might be angry at me.”

“I’m not angry,” he said. “Let’s drop it.”

THEY WALKED BACK TOWARD THE car in silence. At sunset the cannons from the yacht clubs fired, the blasts echoing around the harbor.

She assumed that the date was over. But she noticed Hawk’s mood lifting as they reached Coffey’s ice-cream shop. The line was out the door.

“Do you still want ice cream?” he asked.

“Sure,” she said. “I mean, if you do.”

“Yeah,” he said. “We have to do something to save the evening.”

He held the door for her, and she walked inside. “Do you know what you’d like?” Hawk asked, still formal but softening a bit.

“Not really,” she said, looking at the display case. She’d bought ice cream for Finch, always coffee. Michael had been a Häagen-Dazs guy, either that or gelato. She honestly couldn’t remember the last time she’d ordered ice cream for herself. It was ridiculous to be flustered by such a small thing, but there it was. He was waiting for her choice, and she didn’t have one. She felt suddenly the way a little kid might feel. The decision seemed monumental. Her mind raced. She thought back to what she would have ordered as a kid. “Moose Track and Bubble Gum with gummi bears,” she said.

“You’re kidding,” he said. “I was going to order that, too.”

“Funny,” she said.

THEY SAT ON ANOTHER BENCH down by the landing eating their ice cream. In the harbor, sailors blasted signals for the launches. The owner of the ice-cream store locked up and walked to his car, nodding to them as he passed.

“Show me how to navigate by the stars,” she said.

He looked at her strangely but didn’t respond.

“I’d really like to learn.”

“There are too many lights here,” he said. “You can’t see the stars well enough for a lesson. Plus, you have to take your readings at dawn or dusk when you can still see the horizon.”

“Too bad,” she said.

“Maybe another time,” he said, meaning it.

THEY SAT FOR A WHILE longer. “What do you want to do now?” she asked. “I hired Jessina for the whole night.”

He thought about it. “I have a place up the street,” he said, “though it’s pretty much a dump.”

She didn’t have to be back until morning, so going to his place would be the easiest thing to do. But she wanted to offer something more, something of herself she couldn’t explain to him in words, so she made a counterproposal. “I might have a better place,” she said.

“Where?” he asked.

“Someplace dark enough to see the stars.”

“Let’s go,” he said.

HE LET HER PILOT THE boat. She checked the fuel level automatically, then laughed at herself. She hadn’t been at the wheel of one of these boats since she had stolen them when she was a kid. There was something freeing about it.

She maneuvered slowly through the crowded moorings of Marblehead Harbor, and when they passed the red nun and the end of the 5 mph limit, she opened up the engine and headed for Baker’s Island.

34

JESSINA DECIDED TO BAKE cookies for Finch. It was hot, and she had the kitchen windows open to the offshore breeze. She rifled though the baking cabinet, pulling down red and green sugar, more Christmas than July colors. Though it was past July Fourth, she’d been hoping for red, white, and blue. Still, she made stars with the colors she had, shaking powdered sugar over the red and green.

Finch loved her cookies, which she made soft enough for him to eat. Each afternoon he ate two with a large glass of milk, not the 2 percent kind Zee ordered from Peapod but the full old-fashioned stuff Jessina bought at one of the colmados on Lafayette Street. Finch needed to put some weight on-he was wasting away.

WHEN THE PIRATE FIRST APPEARED at the window in his tricorn hat and eye patch, Jessina thought she was seeing things. Then, when he spoke, she recognized Mickey’s voice. She’d heard him do local radio spots, seen him marketing his tourist traps on Salem Access TV. A lot of the kids who lived in the Point worked summer jobs for Mickey, which made him a good guy at least in that respect. He did use mostly college kids from Salem State, but he also gave the Dominican high-school kids a chance. She was hoping that next year, when he was too old for day camp, Danny might get a job working for Mickey.

Mickey asked for Zee first, and then, when Jessina informed him that Zee wasn’t there, he reluctantly asked for Finch.

Jessina walked him down the hall to where Finch sat in his new recliner watching a soap opera. Finch looked up in surprise when he saw the pirate, huge in this small space, his hat just inches away from the ceiling beam.

“Hello, Finch,” Mickey said to him.

Finch looked at Mickey and then at Jessina. It was clear that he had no idea who Mickey was. He kept looking as if he were waiting for either an explanation or a punch line.

“How are you?” Mickey asked.

Finch seemed surprised by the question. “Fine, thank you,” he said. “And you?”

“Pretty good for an old man,” Mickey said.

“An old pirate, you mean,” Finch said.

“That, too,” Mickey said.

Picking up on Finch’s obvious confusion and wanting to defuse the tension Mickey must be feeling, Jessina turned to Finch. “Perhaps we should offer Mr. Doherty one of our cookies.”

Finch looked baffled by the thought.

“Would you like a cookie, Mr. Doherty?” Jessina said.

“No thank you, no,” Mickey said.

“I’m tired,” Finch said to Jessina.

“Yes, Papi, I know you’re tired, but Mr. Doherty has come to visit you.”

“It’s okay,” Mickey said. “I was just stopping by for a minute.” He had come in the kitchen door, but now he walked toward the front door, which was closer to the den. He couldn’t get away fast enough. “Just tell Zee I stopped by,” he said.

He could hear Finch chuckling softly to himself as he walked out. “We just had a pirate in our den, didn’t we?” He looked at Jessina for confirmation.

“We certainly did,” she said.

35

ZEE POINTED THE FLASHLIGHT along the path leading to the cottage.

She reached into the window box, fishing for the key. Skeletons of old plants and flowers, annuals planted when Maureen was still alive, crumbled under her fingers, but the key was still there. The screen was ripped and its frame twisted out of alignment. The last time she was here, she obviously hadn’t bothered to pull the door shut, and the winter damp had warped the wood. But the inside wooden door, though swollen, was still intact. She had to push hard to open it.

“Whose place is this?” Hawk asked.

“It’s mine,” she said. “But I haven’t been here for a long time.”

The kerosene lamp sat on the table in the middle of the room. Zee walked to the kitchen drawer and pulled out an old box of safety matches. They were damp and a bit moldy, but on the fifth try she managed to get one lit.

A circle of warm light radiated outward, illuminating the couch and the tiny kitchen with its soapstone sink and hand pump, the oak icebox. Zee walked to the sink and opened the interior shutters and the French windows beyond. The stars and moon reflected off black water. She walked window to window, opening them and letting the salt air erase the musty smell.

“This place is amazing,” Hawk said.

“You think?”

It occurred to her that Michael had never seen the place, had never seemed interested. Like Finch, Michael wasn’t a water person. Still, she wondered why she hadn’t insisted on showing it to him.

Hawk looked at the pump. “Is that salt or fresh water?”

“Salt,” she said. “There’s a well down that way for fresh.” She saw him pick up the bucket. “I don’t think the pump works,” she said.

“Let’s give it a try,” he said. He carried the bucket down to the tiny beach in front of the cottage and filled it.

It took many tries, but he got the pump going. Then he laughed at himself. “I’m not sure why I did that,” he said.

“Thanks,” she said.

She smiled. She pumped some water just to see it. When she was little, she had done their dishes in salt water, she’d had to stand on a stepstool to reach. It was a good memory of Zee and her mother, one of the only good ones, and she was grateful to Hawk for giving it back to her. Any good memories she had of her mother were from this place: Maureen reading her stories aloud while Zee sat on the braided rug sketching dragonflies and gulls, the summer they picked beach plums and made jam, hauling both the sugar and water from the mainland. There were a lot of scraps and flashes of memory that came to her now, and she was grateful for each of them.

They sat at the table and played gin rummy with an old deck of cards Zee found in the drawer with the matches. He won all but one hand. “So what do you want to do now?” he asked.

“How about an overnight?” she asked.

“Like at camp?”

“Yeah,” she said. “Just like that.”

“You got any marshmallows?”

“If I do, they’ve got to be twenty years old.”

“What about scary stories. Do you know any?”

“I know some,” she said, thinking suddenly of Lilly Braedon. We both know one, she thought. Then she thought about the other story she knew, the one her mother had written. She wasn’t about to tell him either story. Not tonight. She’d have to think of something else.

“Okay,” he said. “I’m game.”

Hawk blew up the old canvas air mattress while she rolled out the rug and got the blankets down from a shelf.

The cottage was situated in such a way that the views were almost 360 degrees. They lay down together, looking up through the huge doors that lined the west-facing wall. With the doors open, they had a clear view of the stars. They could hear the waves crashing on the rocks below.

First he pointed out the constellations, the easy ones she already knew, and the signs of the zodiac: Aries and Libra. Then he tried to point out some of the fifty-seven stars used in celestial navigation.

“I had an easier time with the zodiac,” she said.

“No, look, there’s the Big Dipper. Polaris is there.”

“The North Star.”

“Yes. Polaris is always within one degree of the North Pole. You can pick up your latitude by looking at Polaris.”

“I see the North Star, but I don’t see the other one you were pointing at,” she said. He moved her head into position and extended his pointing arm from over her shoulder, adjusting for her sight line. “Still don’t see it,” she said.

He laughed.

“Well, you see the moon. We use the moon a lot, and the horizon,” he said. “So you have three points of reference. You can only take readings at dawn and dusk, because when it gets this dark, the horizon disappears. But at twilight, for just a little while, the stars are still visible.” He pointed again, this time to a spot low on the western horizon. “Look, there’s Spica, in Virgo, one of the brightest stars in the sky. Spica is a blue giant, and it’s not really one star but two stars that revolve around each other so closely that they appear as one.”

“That’s either very romantic or hopelessly codependent,” Zee said, looking where he was pointing.

He laughed. “See it?”

She shook her head. He pointed again. “Do you see the Big Dipper?”

“Yes,” she said. “That I can find.”

“Okay, follow the handle of the Big Dipper.” He lay behind her, placing himself at her eye level and raising her arm with his until it traced the handle. “That bright star there is Arcturus. Now, if you keep tracing the straight line about the same distance, you’ll find Spica. Right there. See?”

She squinted her eye.

“Spica is key if you’re ever navigating at the equator.”

“Good to know,” she said.

“In another month you’ll hardly be able to see her in the night sky at all,” he said. “She won’t be back until next summer.”

“She?”

“Spica is definitely female. See her?”

“Sorry,” she said.

“Right there,” he said, tracing the line again.

“It’s sad when Spica disappears below the horizon,” he said. “But she has her heliacal rising right around Halloween.”

“Her what?”

“At morning twilight in the middle of October, Spica will be visible again on the horizon for just a few days. It’s like a tiny sunrise. It’s always good to see her again when she shows up.”

“I think you have a thing for this star.”

He laughed. “I just love bright, beautiful Virgos, what can I say?”

She laughed.

He traced the line one more time, pulling her closer to him, lifting her arm with his. “Right there. See? She’s the brightest star in Virgo.”

“I’ve never seen Virgo, and I don’t see her now.”

“I think that’s sad. You are a Virgo,” he said, laughing again. “Actually, you can only see part of Virgo right now. She’s mostly below the horizon this time of night.”

“Spica. Virgo. This is how you navigate across the ocean?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t you believe in maps?” she asked.

“No way. Ocean maps are incredibly inaccurate.”

“What about GPS?”

“I do believe in GPS,” he laughed. “I just believe in the stars more.”

“More than GPS?”

“GPS is electronic. It can malfunction. If you put your faith in the stars, you can always find your way home.”

“Unless it’s a cloudy night,” she said.

“Yeah,” he agreed. “On a cloudy night, I believe very strongly in GPS.” He stopped talking then. “Listen,” he said.

“To the stars?”

“No.” A soft hissing sound was barely audible. “I think this air mattress has a leak,” he said.

She laughed. “I wouldn’t be at all surprised.”

THE AIR COOLED DOWN QUICKLY. Zee got some more blankets from the drawer. “We really need a campfire,” she said.

He wrapped the blanket around her shoulders. “You promised me a scary story,” he said.

“I have a better idea,” she said, kissing his neck.

“I thought we were supposed to be at camp,” he said.

“We are.”

She pulled off his T-shirt and ran her hands over his chest.

“Obviously, my mother sent me to the wrong camp,” he said.

ZEE ROLLED OVER, TRYING TO get comfortable. The air mattress had completely deflated during the night, and she woke to find herself sleeping on the cold floor. The sky was beginning to lighten. Hawk was across the room by the open window, setting up the brass sextant.

“What’s that?” she asked.

“Come here and I’ll show you,” he said. “If I were taking sights today, this would be the time. In fifteen minutes, when the horizon line is more clearly defined, you’ll no longer be able to see those stars.”

He showed her the star he was plotting. “That’s Procyon,” he said.

She leaned over and looked through the sextant.

“It’s there, just above the horizon,” he said.

“I see it.” She smiled. “It’s beautiful.” She looked at the star for a long time. “You take sights at both dawn and dusk?”

“Morning and evening twilight,” he said.

“And from this you can find your way home from anywhere in the world?”

“Pretty much,” he said. “As long as I have a good quartz watch and an almanac.”

“Amazing,” she said.

“Not really,” he said. “You could learn to do it, if you wanted.”

“I can’t even find Spica,” she said.

Hawk laughed. “True enough.” He kissed her good morning. “I need coffee.”

She pulled the blanket tighter around her. “God, it’s cold,” she said.

He pulled her to him and hugged her. Looking over her shoulder, he spotted the closed door. “Is that another room?”

“It’s the bedroom,” she said.

“We slept on a cold, hard floor when we had a bedroom?” He was across the room and had the door open before she had a chance to stop him.

She followed him inside, watched as he discovered the bed with its fading green chenille.

“I don’t get it,” he said.

“It was my parents’ marriage bed,” she said.

“And?”

“And, as a result, we always just sleep in the living room.”

“I still don’t get it, but I get the idea that I’m supposed to drop the subject,” he said.

“You do get it,” she said with a laugh.

36

WHEN ZEE GOT BACK to the house, Jessina was whipping egg whites into a white mountain of frosting for the chocolate cake she was making. Worried, she related to Zee the story of Mickey’s visit.

“Finch didn’t recognize Mr. Doherty,” Jessina said.

Zee was surprised, though she tried to rationalize it away, telling herself that the two men hadn’t seen each other for a long time. Still, it was difficult not to recognize Mickey Doherty. It could have been something with Finch’s medication. Lately he had started to spit out his pills. She checked in between his chair cushions and on the surrounding floor. He seemed all right today, if somewhat drowsy.

At dinner Finch mistook her for Maureen again.

Zee called the doctor and left a message.

She called again in the morning and asked that the doctor fit them in.

IT WAS CLEAR FROM THE office visit that things were deteriorating fast. The last time they’d been there, Finch had been able to walk the straight line, albeit shakily, that the doctor had taped to the floor. This time he couldn’t do it without his walker, and even then he was so tired he could only make it a few feet before he reached out for Zee’s arm, and she rushed to help him.

The doctor suggested some physical therapy. He offered to set it up so that they could come to the house two times a week to walk with Finch.

“I walk with him,” she said, somewhat defensively.

“You have enough to do,” he said, and had his nurse make the call.

Finch’s speech seemed somewhat garbled, his voice shaky and very hoarse.

“Is there any chance that he’s just sick?” Zee asked hopefully. She hadn’t thought of it until this very minute.

The doctor took his temperature. “He doesn’t have a fever,” he said. “What time did he take his last pill?”

“He’s almost due,” Zee said.

The doctor asked him basic questions from the AMTS. What is your age? What is the year? Who is president? Finch answered the third question correctly but hesitated on the first and second. When he was asked what year World War II began, he answered without hesitation. He also scored well on the facial-recognition tests, knowing the doctor and others who worked in the office, though he was unable to say what their positions were. When asked to count backward from twenty, Finch looked at her helplessly. And when asked to remember an address he was given at the beginning of the questioning, he didn’t even remember hearing it.

There was a second test, this one meant for Zee to answer, which measured the rate and changes in Finch’s mental decline. They were all questions about memory, and Zee was asked to comment on each, stating whether things had stayed the same or changed. She found she could answer very few of them, having been there for only a short time and having come to realize just how much Melville and Finch had been hiding from her. “I’ll have to fax this back to you,” Zee said to the doctor. She had to talk to Melville.

The doctor spoke with Finch for a while, a very conversational chatter that didn’t fool Finch for a minute. He might not know the answers to some of the questions, but Zee could tell from Finch’s eyes that he knew very well what they were here to determine. He looked both frightened and angry.

When the doctor was finished with his final line of questioning, he spoke to both of them.

“I’d say we’re pretty deep into the Alzheimer’s crossover,” he said. “It’s almost inevitable in Parkinson’s patients. At some point in the progression of this disease, it begins to act more like Alzheimer’s. The same is true for advanced Alzheimer’s-those patients begin to develop the movements common to Parkinson’s.”

She’d heard it before, but it had always seemed to be some vague possibility that might occur a long time from now. She took Finch’s hand. She had wanted to talk with the doctor privately about this. She understood the ethics involved. The patient had a right to know. But she could see from the look on Finch’s face that he understood too well, and it scared him.

“How long has it been since he was diagnosed?”

She was appalled that the doctor didn’t know. “About ten years,” she said.

The doctor was quiet for a moment and then said in a serious but far too casual tone. “Ten years is a good long run for Parkinson’s.”

She looked at Finch to see if he had understood the doctor’s meaning. His masked face was difficult to read. Zee could feel the anger rising up in her. She wanted to tell the doctor what she thought of him. She wanted to call him a son of a bitch. How dare he talk to a patient like this? Disclosure was one thing. Zee believed in the right to know. But to dismiss a life so casually was beyond cruel.

However, anything she could have said on the spot would only make things worse. She hoped that Finch had missed the doctor’s meaning. She remembered the words Mattei often used to describe neurologists: The geeks of the doctor world. No bedside manner. Little princes. She wanted to kill him. To literally rip his smug face off.

Instead she helped Finch from the office, his steps agonizingly slow as he tried to maneuver the walker out of the office and down the hall.

The warm air in the parking lot calmed her slightly. Maybe Finch hadn’t heard what the doctor said, or hadn’t caught his meaning.

She unlocked the car door and helped Finch in. He was stiff, the pill overdue. She put the walker in the trunk. Then she got into the driver’s side of the car, reaching into her purse for the water and the box of pills labeled with the times of day. She pulled out his three-o’clock dose, undid the water bottle, and passed it to him. He swallowed the pill dutifully. Then she reached across and buckled his seat belt, which she had forgotten to do. As she pulled her hand back, she lingered on Finch’s arm. “I love you,” she said. He smiled weakly.

As she pulled the Volvo out of the parking lot, Finch finally spoke, his voice so weak from needing the meds that it was barely audible. “So what he was saying is that I’m going to die soon.”

She pulled the car over on Mass Avenue.

“That doctor is a son of a bitch,” she said. She was about to tell him they would never go back, that neurologists were a dime a dozen in Boston, and that she’d have a new one for him by morning. But Finch spoke before she could form the words.

“It’s all right,” he said. “I want to die.”

37

ZEE CALLED MELVILLE AND left a message. Then she called Mattei.

“I’m really worried,” she said. “He’s clearly depressed.”

“You want me to prescribe something?”

“I know he needs something, but I don’t want to interfere with the meds he’s already on,” Zee said.

“I can come out there if you like,” Mattei offered.

It wasn’t something Zee would have asked of Mattei, but she felt relief at the prospect of seeing her and getting her opinion. “I’d really appreciate it.”

“I can’t come tomorrow, but I can be there on Saturday,” Mattei said.

“Thanks,” Zee said.

She doled out Finch’s meds to Jessina, then took the pill bottles upstairs, locking the door when she came back down. She could tell that Jessina was curious, but she didn’t offer any explanation.

SHE FINALLY FOUND MELVILLE AT the Athenaeum. He seemed happily surprised to see her there, but the expression on her face told him this wasn’t a social visit.

“What’s going on?”

“Is there someplace we can talk for a minute?”

He led her into the stacks of the membership library and down a flight of metal stairs to the basement. It was close quarters, but it was quiet. The stacks extended three floors deep. Today there were no visiting scholars, no one asking to see the voyage and travel collections or the books that Hawthorne read in the days he had spent at the Athenaeum. For the moment they could be alone here to talk. Someone entering on any of the three skeletal floors would be clearly visible.

Melville led her to a small table where he’d been cataloging some old maps and travelogues.

Zee handed him the survey she’d gotten from the doctor. “I know what’s been going on in the last month,” Zee said. “But I couldn’t fill in the progression of his disease.”

Melville looked at the paper. There were sixteen questions, all having to do with Finch’s memory and how it had changed in the last ten years. The answers ranged from “much improved” to “much worse.” It was an easy questionnaire to fill in, though he knew that there would be nothing encouraging in his answers. He went through the questions carefully, aware that Zee was watching him. When he was finished, he slid the paper back across the table to her.

Zee read it over, looking at the answers Melville had circled. Most were labeled “much worse” or “a bit worse.” Nothing indicated any improvement.

“I don’t understand how you were keeping this from me,” Zee said.

“We’ve had this conversation before,” Melville said. “It’s what he wanted.”

“The doctor basically told Finch he was going to die,” she said, shaking her head.

Melville looked at her.

“And Finch said that’s what he wants.”

Melville reached across the table and took her hand. “I’m sorry,” he said.

“But not surprised,” she said.

He thought about lying, but there was no point now. “No.”

“God,” she said. “This is terrible.”

“Yes,” he said. “It is.”

“I’m afraid he might be suicidal,” she said.

He understood. He knew that Finch didn’t want to live with the progression of the disease. But in all their conversations about the future, they had both been keenly aware of the effect any such disclosure might have on Zee.

Melville’s lack of surprise shocked her. “You’re not okay with it?”

“Of course I’m not okay with it. But we’ve talked about the eventuality. He doesn’t want to live with end-stage Parkinson’s,” Melville said to her. “He doesn’t want to wind up in a nursing home in the fetal position for the next ten years.”

Zee sat silently for a few minutes. “Well, he’s not going to kill himself,” she said finally. “Not on my watch.”

38

ZEE HAD CALLED EARLIER and told Hawk she couldn’t see him today. It was his day off, and they had planned to take his boat out to Baker’s Island.

“There’s something going on with Finch,” she said. “I have to stick around.”

“You still want me to come by tonight?” he asked.

“Maybe not this time,” she said.

He didn’t know what to say, so he didn’t say anything.

“I’ll call you tomorrow,” she said.

HAWK WASN’T IN THE BEST of moods. He’d been looking forward to spending time with Zee. Not knowing what else to do with himself, he drove the van to his place in Marblehead to pick up his mail. As he climbed the steps, a police cruiser that had been circling pulled up.

“Been away on vacation?” the cop asked.

“No.”

“Your mail and papers have been piling up.”

Hawk retrieved the mail, thinking the cop’s question strange.

“So where have you been?” the cop asked.

“Working,” Hawk said.

“Not in town.”

“In Salem.”

“You working for one of the construction crews over there?”

Hawk knew the officer, though not well enough to call him by name. He had often seen him on his beat. Though his tone was friendly, the cop wasn’t as a general rule someone known to stop and make small talk.

“Do you have a real question you’d like to ask me, or are we just shooting the shit here?”

“Only trying to be friendly,” the officer said.

“I’m working on the Friendship.”

The cop looked at him blankly, clearly having no idea what Hawk meant by his last remark.

“It’s a boat,” Hawk said. “In Salem Harbor.”

It had always amazed Hawk that the towns of Marblehead and Salem shared not only a border but a harbor, yet few people he met knew what was going on from one town to the next.

“You shouldn’t leave your mail out like that,” the cop said. “It’s a written invitation.” He turned and walked back to the cruiser.

Hawk watched as it pulled away. “Weird,” he said under his breath as he let himself in.

39

YOU NEED TO CALM down,” Mattei said to Zee. Mattei had talked with Finch for over an hour.

“What do you think?”

“I think he’s depressed,” Mattei said. “Who wouldn’t be?”

Zee had to agree.

“This isn’t suicidal thinking,” Mattei said. “This is a logical thought progression in the course of a devastating illness.”

“He’s not exactly logical. He doesn’t even recognize people he’s known for years.”

“He’s not Maureen,” Mattei said.

“I know that.”

“Or Lilly.”

“I know it’s not the same thing,” Zee said. “But I don’t think I can live with another suicide.”

“I understand,” Mattei said.

“I don’t want to make this about me.”

“You’re entitled to your feelings,” Mattei said.

“Which is probably why Finch and Melville have been keeping things from me.”

“Have you made another appointment with the therapist I told you about?”

“Not yet,” she said.

“Now might be a good time to do that.”

“Just let me get Finch stabilized first.”

Mattei’s look revealed her doubts. Instead of discussing it further, she got on the phone and called the neurologist. When she hung up, she pulled out her prescription pad. “I think we should add Effexor to the mix,” she said. “It seems to work well with Parkinson’s, and it won’t interfere with his other meds.” She wrote the prescription. “This should help his mood a bit,” Mattei said. “You have to do some thinking about what’s next.”

“What do you mean?”

“He should be in a long-term-care facility,” Mattei said. “You know that as well as I do.”

“The whole point here is that he would rather die than end up in a nursing home,” Zee said.

“He needs physical therapy, and he needs counseling. He needs a good nutritionist and a nurse administering his meds.”

Zee wanted to say, Nevertheless, but she kept quiet. She knew that Mattei was right.

“Let’s give these new pills a chance to work. Then we can see what we’re dealing with,” Mattei said.

They sat at the table for several moments, neither of them saying anything. Then, from the bedroom, Finch’s alarm began to ring.

“I’ll be right back,” Zee said, and headed toward his room.

Mattei spotted the unopened wedding invitation on the lazy Susan and picked it up. She was still holding it when Zee came back into the room.

“Is he okay?” Mattei asked.

“He’s fine. He just got a little tangled in his sheets.” Zee saw the envelope in Mattei’s hands.

“I’ve been meaning to send back the RSVP,” Zee apologized. The wedding was not until Labor Day weekend. “I’ll be there.”

Mattei hesitated before speaking. “I’ll understand if you don’t want to,” she finally said. “I hear that Michael’s bringing someone.”

Zee stared at her. “Well, that was fast.”

“I’d say his ego is a bit bruised,” Mattei said. “Again, I’ll understand if you don’t want to come. Though both Rhonda and I will be disappointed.”

“I’ll be there,” Zee said.

40

MELVILLE STILL REMEMBERED THE date that same-sex marriage had become legal in Massachusetts. It was May 17, 2004. On May 20 of that same year, on the anniversary of the day that Melville and Finch first met, he had proposed to Finch.

It wasn’t as if they’d never talked about marriage before. They’d been talking about it for years before the law passed, discussing every aspect of what it might mean for them: long-term care of each other, custody of Zee if anything should happen to Finch. When Finch was diagnosed with Parkinson’s, it became even more important to him for a while, though by that time Zee was in college and the custody issue didn’t much matter anymore. Still, there were reasons that Finch and Melville along with the rest of the gay and lesbian communities in Massachusetts had lobbied for same-sex marriage, and when civil unions became legal in Vermont, they had briefly contemplated a move to that state, but then they’d rejected it and campaigned harder than ever to get a real marriage bill passed in their home state.

By the time it happened, Finch had stopped talking about it. His disease had taken such a toll that it was all he could do to make his way through each day, let alone fight for the changes that he’d once found so important.

But Melville wanted to marry Finch more than ever, and for a number of very practical reasons. He didn’t care about inheritance-Finch had long ago set up his trusts providing generously for both Zee and Melville. But Melville had not been able to get Finch to sign a health-care proxy appointing him to make decisions in the event that Finch was no longer capable of caring for himself. The reason was simple: Finch wasn’t certain that Melville had ever agreed with his wishes.

For the last few years, Finch had been hoarding his medications. Anytime he took a fall and a doctor provided a painkiller, Finch filled all the prescriptions. When his primary-care physician did his annual checkup, Finch complained to him that he wasn’t sleeping, then hoarded the sleeping pills the doctor prescribed. When Melville called him on it, Finch got angry, claiming that Melville wouldn’t help him when the time came.

“I never said I wouldn’t help you,” Melville said.

“You never said you would.”

“We have years before that becomes an issue,” Melville said, persuading Finch to let him flush the pills, telling him that they would have long since expired by the time Finch got sick enough to want to use them.

They hadn’t talked about it since. But the previous summer, in 2003, they’d been up in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire, staying at a favorite bed-and-breakfast and doing a bit of antiquing in an old barn, when Finch found a small brown bottle among a collection of vintage bottles in the loft. He’d been looking at it, rolling around the little silver balls inside the amber glass, when Melville came up behind him.

“What’s that?” Melville asked.

Finch thought about it for a minute before answering.

“Strychnine,” Finch said. “They used to prescribe it as medicine.”

Melville was horrified. He knew well how Maureen had died. It had been a horrible death, unbearably painful, the kind of thing you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy. He stared at the silver balls that Finch held in front of him.

“You’re not thinking of using that,” Melville said.

“It worked for my wife,” Finch said.

“I’ll help you,” Melville said, never wanting Finch to suffer.

Finch stood looking at him.

“Put that back,” Melville said, taking the bottle and setting it among the others. “Or better yet, tell the man to get rid of it. They shouldn’t leave such things around.”

The shopkeeper was approaching. Melville couldn’t stand it. He was close to crying. He walked outside and stood in the sun, willing himself to breathe.

MELVILLE WASN’T THERE TO SEE Finch slip the amber bottle into his pocket. It wasn’t that he didn’t believe Melville. He did. But he knew just how hard things were going to get, and he knew that Melville, when faced with it, might not be able to keep his hasty promise. The strychnine was Finch’s insurance policy.

ON MAY 20, 2004, MELVILLE took Finch back to the same bed-and-breakfast. Finch could no longer climb the stairs, so they had taken a first-floor room with a view of Lake Winnipesaukee. For the last few weeks, Finch had seemed confused. He’d forgotten several appointments and was having trouble finding things in the house. Melville had wondered if Finch was fighting something off; they’d had this problem before since he’d been diagnosed. Usually it flared up when he was about to get sick.

Melville wondered if he should postpone the weekend. He wanted the night he proposed to Finch to be perfect.

By Friday, Finch had not come down with anything. Though he still seemed confused, he was looking forward to the weekend, so Melville didn’t cancel the reservation.

They had dinner at Mise en Place, a favorite local bistro, then walked down to Lake Winnipesaukee to get some coffee. Unsteady on the way back, Finch took his arm. Melville watched as some looks came their way. Perhaps he should have picked Provincetown, Melville thought, or at least someplace in Massachusetts. But no, Finch had always loved Wolfeboro.

When they got back to the B and B, Finch took his pills. Melville had bought champagne, and he poured each of them a small glass, just enough for a toast.

“What’s this?” Finch asked, taking a seat next to Melville on the balcony.

From the bandstand an orchestra played “When I Fall in Love,” its sound echoing over the water. It couldn’t have been more perfect.

Melville didn’t get down on his knees. That was a different tradition. Instead he turned and said quietly to Finch. “Will you marry me?”

Finch looked at him sadly. Though everyone had been talking about the landmark legislation that had just happened in Massachusetts, Finch seemed to have removed himself from the importance of this historic event.

“It’s far too late for all that,” he said.

41

WHILE JESSINA WAS FEEDING Finch his breakfast, Zee walked down to Walgreens to fill his new prescription.

When she came back, the kitchen was in shambles, there was broken glass on the floor, and Jessina was carefully picking it up. Everything had been dumped on the counters-even the canisters had been emptied.

“What happened?” Zee asked.

“Finch did this,” Jessina said. “I went to check the laundry, and when I came back, he had trashed the place. He claims he was looking for something.”

He’s looking for his pills. The thought alarmed Zee, but she knew she was right. Though she usually kept the pills on the lazy Susan, she had begun to lock them in the upstairs room. She wasn’t about to tell Jessina, but she had been expecting this. “Where is he now?”

“He’s asleep in the den. I tried to clean the flour off of him, but I couldn’t get it all.” Jessina was clearly shaken.

“It’s okay,” Zee said.

She helped Jessina clean up the mess, then opened the new prescription that Mattei had written and woke Finch to give him the first dose of the antidepressant. She hoped to God that it would work.

42

ZEE DIDN’T CALL HAWK on Saturday, and she didn’t call him all day Sunday. By Sunday night he had decided that if she didn’t call him by the time he finished work, he’d walk over to see her. It was after 9:00 P.M. when he found himself at her door. He saw the light on in her upstairs window, but he no longer felt comfortable climbing the ivy. Instead he knocked on the kitchen door.

She unlocked the dead bolt and let him in.

“I’m sorry I didn’t call,” she said. “I meant to.”

Hawk eased the door shut behind him, not wanting to let it slam and wake Finch.

“My father is having trouble,” she said.

“What kind of trouble?”

“Severe depression.”

Hawk could certainly understand. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Is there anything I can do?”

“No,” she said. “But thanks for asking.”

There was a long silence.

“I’m glad you came by,” she said. “We need to talk.”

She motioned him to the kitchen table, then took a seat across from him.

He bumped the table as he sat, setting the lazy Susan in motion. He reached out and stilled it. “You look as if you haven’t been sleeping much,” he said.

“I’m a mess,” she said, suddenly self-conscious about her appearance.

“You look beautiful,” he said. “Just a little tired.”

“Weary,” she said.

“Good word.”

They sat in silence for a minute.

“I came back here to take care of my father,” she said.

“Yes.”

“And I’m not doing a very good job.”

“Because of me.” He already knew it was where the conversation was going.

“No,” she said quickly. “Because I’ve been having far too much fun with you.”

“We’ve only been on the one date,” he said, trying to lighten the mood.

“Finch needs to be watched every minute,” she said. “Especially right now.”

He didn’t say anything.

“This isn’t going to work out,” she said.

“What isn’t going to work out?” he asked.

“This…Us.”

“Because of Finch?”

“I’m afraid he might try to hurt himself.”

Hawk understood only too well what that must be doing to her. “I’m sorry,” he said.

“I have to watch him every minute,” she said again.

“I understand,” he said.

“I just can’t do anything else right now.”

“What about Jessina?”

“Jessina is great, but she’s only here for five hours a day.”

“I’m here, too,” he said. “I can help.”

“That’s a really sweet offer,” she said. “But it’s too early in our relationship for you to take on that kind of responsibility.”

“So instead you’re going to break us up?”

She didn’t answer.

“It doesn’t seem very logical to me,” he said.

“It probably doesn’t,” she said.

“Is it what you want?”

“I don’t know what I want,” she said, her eyes filling up with tears. “I’m too tired to know what I want. All I want right now is sleep.”

“You should go to bed,” he said, touching the side of her face.

She looked toward the bedroom.

“I’ll go,” he said, standing up, starting toward the door.

“No,” she said. “Don’t.”

43

FINCH DREAMED OF THE python, the earth dragon of Delphi, which was tightening around his thighs and stomach. He was aware that he was sweating and hoped the sweat would make it easier for him to slide out of its death grip. Just as the pressure became unbearable, a sound from upstairs woke him, and he struggled to place himself. He was in his home, his bed. But even now, in his wakened state, the snake was tightening its hold, and it took him a moment to realize that this was not a snake at all, but his top sheet in which he had become tangled. His struggle to free himself from the twisted sheet had succeeded only in making its snakelike grip tighter.

Panic seized him now, and it took everything he had to keep from crying out. His limited range of motion was no match for the monster who held him so tightly. With no Apollo to slay the beast, he had to rely on the logic that had once come so easily to him. He was trapped in a tourniquet that was cutting off his blood supply until he could no longer feel his right leg at all or catch the air to breathe. The more he pulled against it, the tighter it snaked around and gripped him.

He fought for calm, forcing himself to think strategically, breaking down the steps he needed to take to save himself. “Surrender” was the word that came to mind. Surrender was counter to his body’s natural response, but it was what was needed here. With all his will, he stopped pulling away and moved toward the beast until, feeling his surrender, it loosened his grip on him and his sweat-covered body slipped free. As soon as he was out of its killing grip, he heaved the beast onto the floor, and in its flight it resumed the ghostly form of the top sheet it was and floated innocently to the floor as if it had no idea what it had been to him only moments before.

He wanted to call out for his wife, for Maureen. He could hear that she was home, in the room upstairs. But they hardly spoke now. He could feel his heart slamming his chest wall, could feel it in his leg as the blood rushed back to the appendage. The bottom sheet was wet, and for a moment he wondered if he had wet the bed himself, as a helpless child might do, and he felt the shame of it, but no, it was his sweat that had pooled on the base sheet in an effort to cool his burning body. He had never been so hot. It was unbearable.

The window was open. He could smell the sea air from the harbor. Across Turner Street he could see Chanticleer, the rooster, near the gates of the Gables, having escaped the enclosure that old Hepzibah had built to keep him inside. His eyes filled with tears, grateful that the rooster had been able to escape his shackles, so much did he identify with the wiry old bird of Hawthorne’s story that he failed to realize for a moment that it was not the fictional rooster of his imaginings at all but Dusty the cat.

By the time the realization hit him, Finch had climbed out of his bed and was making his way down the hall toward the kitchen and his escape. Behind him the alarm began to sound. Not stopping for his walker, for the first time he used the railing that had so recently been installed. His shaky hands groped their way laboriously not to the front door-which was much closer to his room-for it wasn’t the street he sought, or even the Gables, but something else. Slowly, methodically, he moved down the long hall toward the kitchen with its back entrance that was so much closer to the cool ocean below.

The sound of the alarm faded behind him with every step down the tilted hallway until he could no longer hear it, the rhythmical sound of the gentle harbor waves, real or imagined, muting its incessant whine. He didn’t think of the pain in his legs or of his skin that burned with every brush against rail or wall, but only of the seawater that had the properties to cool and heal, water as salty as blood, a replacement perhaps for his own blood, which betrayed him with every searing step.

He crossed the high threshold to the kitchen. Seven more steps and his hand was on the door. With all the strength he had, he turned the handle, expecting to have to pop the dead bolt, knowing the difficulty of the task. He had tried before, but his fingers worked their own will and not his these days, and he had failed. Tonight, to his good fortune, he realized that the dead bolt was not set, that the only lock was the flimsy one on the door handle. The door opened easily. In one freeing step his bare foot found the deck.

With no rail to grip for support, he crossed the deck painstakingly, finding first a chair, then a table on which to lean, moving from one piece of furniture to another, a zigzag path of navigation to the three stairs that held him above the earth and sea. It might as easily have been a hundred. For a moment he almost turned back, but the sea, which had never called him before, was calling to him now. The harbor spread its cool darkness beyond the small patch of earth below. He could see the jeweled lights around its perimeter. With his last reserve of strength, he gripped the handrail and lowered himself ever so slowly to the earth below.

The beach reeds burned his bare legs. The rocks cut his feet. He could feel their sting, but he could also feel the cool of the sand, and he moved deeper into its coolness until the water found his ankles, his calves. With each step he took, the phosphorescence sparkled and glimmered its healing miracle around him, creating a Masaccio-like halo around him as he moved.

He could feel the water, the cold release of it, as the silt from the mudflats surrounded his feet, holding him steady while the gentle ocean swell moved higher on his bare legs, first to his thighs and then upward to his waist. He sighed at the blessed coolness of its caress.

44

THE SOUND OF FINCH’S alarm woke Hawk first, then Zee. She grabbed her robe and ran downstairs to Finch’s bedroom, but he was not there, nor was he in the den, or even in Zee’s childhood room. She glanced immediately at the front door, which was very close to his room, but it was secure. She told herself to relax, that she’d find him. Then she felt the cross breeze blowing up from the harbor at the rear of the house. Dread filling her, she turned and ran down the hall toward the kitchen. The back door was open.

“He’s outside!” Zee yelled at Hawk.

“What?”

“Finch is outside!” She motioned to the kitchen door.

THEY LOOKED FOR HIM ON the street. Then, because Zee determined it would be the first place Finch would go, Hawk scaled the fence to the House of the Seven Gables and looked around the grounds.

When he wasn’t at the Gables, Hawk ran down Derby Street, looking in every doorway and alley, though he doubted that Finch could make it very far, being so unsteady on his feet. Hawk was dialing the Salem police on his cell when he heard Zee yelling to him.

He found her at the water’s edge, wading in to where Finch was stuck, his feet planted in the mudflats, the harbor water soaking his thin pajama top.

They pulled him out together, bundled him in blankets, and drove him to the emergency room at Salem hospital. He wasn’t hurt, not even slightly hypothermic-he hadn’t been in the water that long. But the hospital wanted to keep him overnight, just to make sure.

HOURS PAST MIDNIGHT HAWK DROVE Zee back to the house. When they pulled into the driveway, she started to cry. Her sobs were huge and wrenching, and he held her for a long time, telling her over and over that everything was going to be all right.

He said it once more after she was calm enough to speak. “It’s going to be all right,” he said.

She turned to him, her face puffy and red from crying.

“That’s just it,” she said. “It isn’t.”

They sat in silence for a long time.

“I can’t do this anymore,” she finally said.

For a brief moment, he thought she meant taking care of Finch. He hoped that was what she meant, both for her sake and for his own. But he knew from the way she looked at him that he was kidding himself. It was over. She had told him just tonight that she wasn’t ready, that this wasn’t the right time for any kind of relationship between them. As much as it hurt him, he knew he was going to have to let her go.

45

WITHOUT ZEE IT WAS too hard for Hawk to be in Salem. He gave his notice to the Park Service. He had committed to one more sail with the Friendship, on Labor Day weekend, and they couldn’t find a replacement. He had paid for his boat slip for the whole season, so he told his friend Josh that he could stay there for the next few weeks. Hawk would go back to his apartment in Marblehead. He didn’t want to run into Zee.

It all happened so quickly, and though he had known it was a bad idea (rebound relationships were never a good idea, were they?) he had fallen hard. He couldn’t explain it; nothing like this had ever happened to him before. It wasn’t just the sex. It was something else. The moment he met her, it seemed as if they’d always known each other.

He’d tried several times to tell her about Lilly, but she blocked him at every turn. She couldn’t even talk about the case with Lilly’s own family, she’d said.

He didn’t know Lilly’s husband, though he had met her children when he’d done carpentry work at their house. They were great kids. Lilly had talked about them all the time, and about her fears that she was a bad mother. Pretty much the same stuff she’d talked about in therapy, if Lilly was to be believed.

If you’re having trouble reconciling your feelings about her death, and you need someone to talk to, Zee had said, I can give you some names. It just can’t be me.

Well, he was having trouble reconciling his feelings, more trouble really than he wanted to admit. He’d been depressed about it, actually. Before he met Zee, he’d been really down. Mostly he was upset that he hadn’t been able to save Lilly. He imagined that it was pretty much the same thing Zee must be feeling, so it was too bad they couldn’t talk about it together. At least that was how he felt on one level. On another he was relieved that she hadn’t allowed him to speak about Lilly. Though he was a pretty honest guy, he realized that one more broaching of the subject of Lilly might drive Zee away, and more than anything he hadn’t wanted that to happen. Ironic that he’d lost her anyway. By all signs, including how horrible he felt right now, he figured he was pretty much in love with Hepzibah T. Finch. For all the good it was going to do him.

He cursed himself for getting involved in the first place. He should have seen this coming.

Hawk grabbed the rest of his clothes and some other things he would need from his boat. Then he scribbled his Marblehead address on a piece of paper and left it for Josh, who had promised to forward his paycheck the minute it arrived.

46

MATTEI CALLED AND ASKED Zee to meet her for lunch at Kelly’s in Revere.

“I can come in to Boston,” Zee said.

“I’ll meet you halfway,” Mattei said.

THEY SAT IN THE PAVILION and looked out at the ocean.

“Want some?” Mattei asked, offering a bite of her roast-beef sandwich. Zee had ordered fried clams and was waiting for the order to be called.

“I know you love Kelly’s, but what’s the real reason you wanted to meet me here?” Zee asked.

“We had a visit from Adam the other day,” Mattei said.

Zee stared at her. “Adam was at the office?”

“He didn’t come in when I was there, but he evidently gave our new receptionist a scare, saying you’d have to answer for what you’d done to Lilly. I’ve alerted both the Marblehead and the Boston police.”

Zee stared at her.

“I don’t think he’ll bother us again,” Mattei said. “But I think it would be better if you stayed away from the office for a while.”

“And here I was afraid you were about to fire me for being away for so long.” Zee was trying to keep her tone light, but she was having a hard time of it.

“No such luck,” Mattei said. “So how’s Finch doing on the new meds?” she asked.

“Besides trying to drown himself in the harbor, you mean?” Zee replied.

“How’s he doing now that he’s been on them for two full weeks?” Mattei asked.

“Actually, he seems a little bit better,” Zee said.

“And what about you, my friend?”

“I’m fine.”

“Yeah,” Mattei said. “You look fine.”

Zee tried to smile.

“Are you going to tell me what else is bothering you, or do I have to ask you pointed questions? You know I’ll get it out of you eventually. I’m even more pushy as a friend than as a therapist.”

Mattei listened while Zee told her the story of Hawk, the whole story: from the dream to her walk to the Friendship, to the night on the island, to pulling Finch out of Salem Harbor and their breakup.

“Interesting,” Mattei said.

“Textbook,” Zee said.

“In what way?”

“Isn’t it obvious?”

“Enlighten me,” Mattei said.

“The unfulfilled dreams of the mother. I’m acting out my mother’s story,” Zee said.

“Her story, maybe. I don’t know if it was her unfulfilled dream.”

“Of course it was,” Zee said.

“It’s a pretty dark story,” Mattei said. “Not the part you’ve been acting out, but the rest of it.” Mattei thought about it for a minute. “I would have thought that your mother’s unfulfilled dream was rescue. First by a man, and later, when it was clear that it wasn’t going to work out, by you.”

Zee just stared at her.

“Any chance you just really like this guy?”

Zee sat silent.

“It’s okay if you do,” she said. “I never thought you were right for Michael.”

“You were the one who fixed me up with Michael,” Zee said.

“That was before I knew you very well.”

Zee was frustrated. “Were you ever going to tell me that?”

“Of course not. And remember, you and Michael were speeding down the track to marital bliss. I wasn’t going to derail that based on a vague hunch. But now that you’ve split up, I’d urge you to consider the opposite.”

“What are you saying?” Zee asked.

“I’m asking you to consider what you want for a change. You have a pattern of doing what is expected of you, what other people want you to do. It’s not an unusual pattern for women, but it’s more extreme in your case, first with your parents, then Michael, and even with me, with this job. You go along and go along, but then you begin to act out. Stealing boats, sabotaging your wedding plans, not telling me everything about Lilly Braedon. All little acts of rebellion that lead to big consequences you blame yourself for. But I would argue that the acting-out part might just be a natural aspect of you that needs expression. You were a pretty willful kid, from the stories you told me. You did what you wanted until events in the family changed the situation. Then you stopped choosing things for yourself and just did what you thought other people wanted you to do. Until now. This time you mutually initiated the relationship. That might not mean it’s the right relationship for you, but it does indicate a change.”

“Doesn’t it occur to you that maybe I didn’t choose, that I was just acting out my mother’s story?” Zee said, frustrated.

“I don’t think so,” Mattei said.

“It matches.”

“It seems to match by coincidence. You didn’t ask Hawk to climb up the side of the building, or to let you into a house you’d locked yourself out of.”

“I knew he could climb.”

“You didn’t go to the Friendship that first time looking for him. You went to Mickey looking for a carpenter. Again coincidence.”

“On some level I must be playing out the story. The one my mother wrote and that the psychic told her belonged to me,” Zee said.

“Is that how you feel?” Mattei asked.

“It’s what I sometimes think.”

“I’m not talking about thinking, I’m talking about feeling,” Mattei said.

“I don’t know what I feel,” Zee said.

“Sure you do.”

“I feel that there’s something wrong with this whole scenario, but I don’t know what it is,” Zee said.

“Stick with that.”

“My Aunt Ann told me to watch out for Hawk, that he’s not who I think he is,” Zee said.

“Ann the witch?” Mattei made a face. “Psychics, witches…”

“Good point.”

Zee went back to her original statement. “I feel that there’s something wrong here, but I don’t know what it is.”

“It’s uncomfortable for you,” Mattei said.

“Yes.”

“Why do you think it’s uncomfortable?” Mattei asked.

“Because I can’t figure out who he is,” Zee said.

“What do you mean by who he is?”

“I can’t figure out what he wants. I mean, besides the obvious,” Zee said.

“And can you usually figure out what people want?”

“Probably not,” Zee said. “I’m not sure anymore.”

Mattei nodded. She paused for a moment before continuing. “I think what’s uncomfortable for you is not this guy. Let’s set him aside for a minute. I think what’s getting to you is not that you can’t figure out Hawk’s motivation, but that you can’t figure out your own. You just broke off an engagement. You’re faced with caring for an ailing father. You started something up with someone new. In every scenario you have to think about what you want, and it makes you very uncomfortable. Because you don’t know what you want. How could you? For a long time you’ve been doing what other people wanted. So when you actually wanted Hawk, it was a first. It doesn’t really matter how authentic the relationship is, or where it goes. What matters is that you went after something that you wanted, and then you couldn’t handle it.”

Zee sat for a very long time. “You’re right. ‘Simple, simple, case closed,’” she said, quoting Mattei.

“You, my friend, are far from simple.” Mattei smiled.

Zee tried to smile.

“Of course there’s another possibility we’ve neglected to talk about,” Mattei said.

Zee was surprised. Mattei had so clearly nailed it that there didn’t seem to be any other possibility. “What’s that?”

“There’s the possibility that the psychic your mother dragged you to was right, that the story Maureen wrote was really your destiny. That you and Hawk were the young lovers in the story.”

Zee stared at her. Never in all her time with Mattei had she heard anything so out of character. “You don’t believe that for a minute,” Zee said.

Mattei threw her a “gotcha” smile. “Of course I don’t.”

47

ZEE DIDN’T KNOW HOW she felt about her lunch with Mattei.

She was tense and confused. Still, she knew that something had changed. She felt the way people often feel immediately after a breakthrough in treatment, more at odds and more vulnerable than ever.

And, if the truth were known, all she could think about was Hawk.

It took several days before she decided to do something about it. She was hoping the urge to see him would go away. Or that he would call. When neither of those things happened, she decided she had go to him.

She was nervous boarding his boat. What was she going to say to him? That she’d made a mistake? She wasn’t altogether sure that she had. But the fact was, she wanted to see him again.

She let herself onto the boat and started down the steps when she came face-to-face with Hawk’s friend Josh. She recognized him from the Friendship.

“Is Hawk here?” she asked.

“No,” Josh said. “He quit. He rented me his boat for the rest of the season.”

“Do you have any idea where he is?”

“I know,” Josh said. “But I’m not so sure he wants me to tell you.”

“Please,” she said. “I really need to talk to him.” She took a breath and tried to compose herself. “I made a mistake.”

He thought about it. He looked around and found the address. Still skeptical, he copied it down and handed it to her.

“Thank you,” she said.

AS SHE DROVE TO MARBLEHEAD, she tried to figure out what to say. He had every right to hate her, but she hoped he didn’t. Maybe she would say that, she thought. She tried to figure out what she wanted from the relationship, but it was too early to know. If he asked her, she’d have to admit she had no idea. All she knew was that she couldn’t stand the prospect of never seeing him again.

His apartment was on a busy part of Pleasant Street. She couldn’t find a parking space on the right side of the street, so she turned around in the bank’s parking lot and parked in front of the Spirit of ’76 Bookstore. She waited for the light, then crossed in front of the Rip Tide and walked down a few houses until she found the number Josh had written on the paper. There was a seamstress shop on the first floor of the building and an outside staircase leading to an apartment on the second floor. Hawk’s van was in the driveway. The upstairs windows were open. He was home.

She told herself to calm down as she climbed the stairs and rang the bell. The name on the mailbox read MOHAWK.

She couldn’t tell if the doorbell had rung-she couldn’t hear it. She waited. When no one came to the door, she decided to knock. Her heart was pounding.

Hawk opened the door and stared at her. “What are you doing here?”

“May I come in?”

He held the door open, and she walked into the room.

“I went to your boat… You weren’t there.” It was probably the stupidest thing she had ever said.

He looked at her. He said nothing.

“I’ll go, if you want.”

“No,” he said. “Just give me a minute.” He walked to the other room and finished a phone call. “Have a seat,” he said, gesturing to a plush green couch against the back wall.

She took a seat. The couch was more comfortable than it looked. She sank into it. She sat there, looking around the room, surprised by how familiar it seemed to her, how it made her feel. Though she was nervous about what she was going to say to him, she felt something different here. Safe, she thought.

A few minutes later, he came back and took a seat across from her in a straight chair that looked anything but comfortable.

“I wanted to apologize,” she said.

“You don’t need to,” he said, shrugging it off.

“Yes, I do,” she said.

He looked at her.

“I’m really sorry,” she said.

“Okay,” he said.

She had no idea what to say next. She looked around the room. “I feel as if I’ve been here before,” she said. Then she searched for something else to say. “I thought you lived on the Salem Harbor side of town.”

“I grew up there. My mother lives there now.”

She nodded. “I have the weirdest feeling I’ve been here before.”

“So you came all the way over here just to tell me you’ve been here before?”

“I came to apologize.”

“No need,” he said again.

“You want me to leave?”

“I don’t know what I want,” he said.

“I don’t know what I want either,” she said.

They sat for a long time. “I’m lying,” she said. “I do know.”

“And what is that?”

“I want to see you again.”

“You sure about that?”

“I’m not sure about anything,” she said. “I’m just trying to go with my feelings here. Forgive me, it’s all rather new.”

A sound from outside interrupted the conversation: something slamming, metal on metal followed by the sound of breaking glass. Hawk rushed to the window. “Damn,” he said, running to the door. “What the hell are you doing?” he yelled down the stairs.

“Stay here!” he yelled back at Zee as he rushed down the front stairs.

By the time Zee got to the doorway, Hawk had someone pinned against the van. His passenger-side window was smashed, and his tools were scattered in the driveway. A crowd from the Rip Tide was gathering to watch.

Her heart began to pound, and she had to hold on to the doorframe to fight the dizzy feeling that was overtaking her.

The soothing music from the ballet school across the street was the wrong sound track for what was happening in the driveway.

Hawk released the man he had pinned against the car.

The man cursed. “You owe me a fucking hammer,” he said, swiping one out of Hawk’s tool kit and starting down the driveway.

“Nice,” Hawk said. “Very civilized.”

As the man left the driveway, he paused and looked up at Zee.

It was Adam.

He spotted her before she had a chance to step back into the shadows. He stared up at her, then looked at Hawk. Then he started to laugh. “That fucking figures,” he said, slamming the hammer against the side of Hawk’s van as hard as he could, leaving a huge dent in the door. He looked up at Zee one more time and pointed the hammer at her to make sure she had understood the threat. Before Hawk had a chance to get to him again, he was out of the driveway.

Hawk rushed up the stairs. “Are you okay?”

Zee nodded, stunned.

“He knows you,” he said.

“He came to my office and made some threats,” she said.

“His name is Adam.”

Hawk looked at her strangely. “His name is Roy,” he said.

She looked at him. “What?”

“My name is Adam.”

THE GREEN COUCH. THE SIGN in the window. The music from the ballet school across the street. The safe feeling she’d had a few minutes ago, the one she realized now had been the feeling of safety that Lilly had described when she talked about this room, had completely disappeared. Safe was the last thing she was feeling now.

48

THAT AFTERNOON THEY HAD closed the job site early. It was the Thursday before the long weekend, and Roy was leaving for Weirs Beach the next day and needed to cash his paycheck. He had asked Lilly to go with him, but she couldn’t get away. He couldn’t get over the feeling that she was messing with him, trying to fuck him up. She was clearly trying to end things-she had told him that-but there was no way. If anyone was going to end things it would be him, and he would be the one to say how and when. Not that it was such a bad thing. Lately she’d been crying a lot. And guilty about what she’d been doing to her kids and to the man she had started to call “Sweet William,” which bugged the shit out of Roy. Sweet William was just some rich fuck who’d been lucky enough to snag one of the prettiest girls in town and now couldn’t keep her in his bed.

Roy’s construction crew had done some work at her house. Well, not his crew, really-it was owned by a general contractor, another rich fuck, but a working guy, so he wasn’t so bad. And he let Roy run the show, stopping by only to do the bids and pick up the checks. When they worked on the Braedon house, they never saw the husband. They just dealt with Lilly, and she did things like make lemonade for the crew if it was a really hot day, or maybe some cookies, even. All the crew got a little crazy when she walked through the house, though Hawk hadn’t been part of the crew then, but the other guys just went wild for her. When Roy had finally nailed her, they’d made him talk about it for a week, and they were coming in their pants just hearing him tell how wild she got the first time out, taking her clothes off in his truck in broad daylight down by the Marblehead Lobster Company and doing him right there.

“Psycho Pussy” was the best. He’d heard someone say that once. They were right, too, at least at first. For a while he thought she was the best time he’d ever had. It wasn’t so good lately, though. And it definitely wasn’t good since she’d started to give her husband the name Sweet William and talk about her kids all the time. Talk about losing wood.

All year he’d been seeing a new woman in New Hampshire. Lilly didn’t know it, and nobody had better tell her either. It wasn’t serious, just some biker chick he’d met last June. A bleached blonde with stand-up tits bought for her by the guy on the bike she rode in on. She’d had a catfight right there on the boardwalk with some girl who’d been flirting with the biker. Roy hadn’t seen it, but everyone was talking. From what he heard, she left the other girl with four stitches across her right cheek, and he didn’t mean her face cheek either. She walked out on the biker after that, and when Roy met her, she was in the bar at the end of the boardwalk, and she was looking to make the guy jealous, so she took up with him. Left the guy there, too, taking off in Roy’s truck-or really the company truck, a good one, though, top of the line, a Ford F-350 with four-wheel drive and an extended cab.

The next time he came up, she told him to make sure he brought drugs with him, the good kind that came in on the boats, not the kind that left you with a headache and a bloody nose, which was pretty much all you could get around here, especially now that she’d left her biker, who was her only good connection. She was class in that department, didn’t do crank the way he’d heard some of the biker chicks did. She didn’t want to rot her teeth, she said. And she didn’t smoke crack either, just liked the good stuff the old-fashioned way. Anything smooth, that you can snort through a straw, was what she told him when he asked what she liked. She wore a twenty-four-karat cross around her neck that hung low into her best assets and had a straw built into its stem. When he told her how clever he thought it was, disguising the coke straw that way, she got mad and told him she was a Christian, too, and never to assume otherwise. Then she sat on his lap and undid his fly and hopped onto him right there in the truck, which was a little too much like what had happened with Lilly, though he wasn’t complaining, not at all. He just hoped he hadn’t picked another psycho.

It made him really angry when he thought about Lilly, even angrier when he heard about Lilly and Hawk.

It had happened the afternoon he’d gone to get the check cashed. She’d come into the Rip Tide, looking for Roy. She’d been wearing a T-shirt, one of the guys on the crew got some great pleasure telling him, and it was wet because of the rain, and you could see everything. And she didn’t even seem to notice. But the rest of the crew noticed. Especially Hawk.

Hawk bought her steak tips. He didn’t know why the guy told him that part, except to lead to the next. That Lilly had left with him. The guy had gone out to have a smoke, and he saw her go into Hawk’s apartment with him. Stupid shit.

He already had an issue with the guy. Adam Mohawk. What kind of name was that? That he called himself “Hawk” pissed Roy off. He hated these college types who worked construction. They weren’t good at it, and they were always complaining.

They’d had a lot of trouble that summer with crews. Hawk was hired by Roy’s boss and sent over to do some finish carpentry at the Braedons’. Roy hated him on sight. Not because of anything he did-his work was good enough-but because Lilly had taken a liking to him. She wouldn’t admit it to Roy, but everyone could see it. Roy had recently had to fire a couple of people and was dangerously close to being understaffed, or he would have found a way to get rid of Hawk. When Roy’s hammer disappeared on the job site, he had accused Hawk of stealing it. Actually, it wasn’t Hawk, it was another guy, someone Roy had already let go, but he needed someone to blame. As payback, Roy took Hawk’s hammer, which was a twin to his.

“You should write your name on your tools,” he heard one of the other guys say to Hawk.

“This isn’t the first time,” another said.

The next day the hammer was gone from Roy’s box. He went over and grabbed it from Hawk, who pointed to his name and phone number scratched on the side.

Stupid shit.

ROY HAD BEEN WAITING FOR Hawk that Sunday night after he heard about Lilly. Sitting in the alleyway in the truck, lights off, just waiting. Hit him in the side of the head with one of those hammer staplers he’d stolen from the job site. College boy deserved what he got. Hawk never even saw it coming. Wasn’t back on the job site for almost a week. And when he came back, he had a line of stitches down his right cheek, and this time it was the face cheek he was talking about.

49

HAWK HAD DRIVEN ZEE’S Volvo the back way out of town, heading up Elm Street and cutting down Green Street to West Shore Drive. Even if Roy was following them, Hawk had managed to lose him.

“I don’t mean to scare you,” he said. “But Roy is a pretty dangerous guy.”

“I’m aware of that,” she said.

“Plus, one of my buddies told me they’re laying off some of the crews. After the job he’s working on is finished, Roy will be out of work. So his anger level is pretty high.”

“He doesn’t know that I’m in Salem,” she said.

“Who does know?”

“Just Mattei. And Michael.”

“You need to call them. I’d tell you to get a restraining order, but then he’d find out where you are. Not to mention that they don’t always work.”

Before Hawk’s mother had moved back home to Marblehead, to the house on Salem Harbor where she’d grown up, there had been several restraining orders. Not only had they not helped, but they seemed to simply challenge the man she was living with after her divorce, a man who was not Hawk’s father. Thank God that Hawk’s grandfather had taken them in when he did. In Hawk’s opinion restraining orders weren’t worth the paper they were written on.

“Make sure you stay out of Marblehead for a while. The good news is that I hear he’s planning to move to New Hampshire,” Hawk said.

“Why is he so angry with you?” Zee asked.

Hawk didn’t answer at first. He was trying to figure out how to tell her the story he’d been attempting to tell her all along, and now he didn’t know where to start.

As they passed Waterside Cemetery, where Lilly was buried, she stopped him. “You were sleeping with her.” She’d heard Lilly’s stories about Adam in almost as much detail as she’d heard Maureen’s stories. Now it made her sick to think about what Lilly had described.

“We were friends,” he said. “I can’t tell you I didn’t think about it. When I first met her…But no. I never slept with her.”

They drove in silence for a moment.

Then she remembered contacting the police. “Mattei and I called the police in Marblehead to file a report. Because Lilly told me that a man named Adam had threatened her.”

Hawk finally understood why the police kept driving by his house, why the cop had acted so strangely the last time he was in town. After Roy had jumped him that day, Hawk had beaten him up. They were on the job site when it happened. Everyone on the crew thought it was payback for Roy’s attack, but it wasn’t. It was about Lilly. The cops talked to both of them, then talked to some of the other guys on the crew. They decided that it had been a jealousy thing and let it go. But the police had started watching him after that, which was one of the reasons he left when he did. “What did the cops tell you about me?”

“Only that you had left town. And that you weren’t the only guy that Lilly was involved with.”

He’d seen what Roy had done to Lilly when he got her to run away with him and then dumped her back on her doorstep three days later. The whole crew was talking about it.

“Next time you want to hit somebody,” Hawk told him right before he threw the first punch, “don’t pick on a woman.”

The guys had just watched as he hit Roy. No one helped. No one came to Roy’s defense or to Hawk’s either, though he didn’t really need it. It wasn’t a long fight. But it was brutal. And it went all the way back to childhood. Every punch he’d wanted to deliver then on his mother’s boyfriend, he delivered that day on Roy.

Hawk left his job after that. Roy had been there for years and was the foreman, though no one liked him very much. And hell, Hawk was glad to get away. Lilly had taken to sitting on his doorstep sometimes when he got home. It wasn’t safe. He didn’t mean not safe for him. He meant for her.

The truth was, he was angry at Lilly. Though he’d never met her husband, he’d gotten to know her kids while working at their house, and they were great. He didn’t understand why she would risk everything, especially for someone like Roy. It was too close to what he’d seen growing up.

But he could also see how frightened she was. There wasn’t anyone else she could talk to about this, she said. She felt safe only when she was with him. “I’m afraid he’s going to do something terrible,” she said.

“Has he threatened you?”

He couldn’t tell if she was lying when she said no, or if she was just backing away because she knew he would take it to the next level, either to Roy himself or to the police.

In the end, feeling bad for her, Hawk gave her his cell number. He promised he’d come get her if she got into trouble, but he told her to go back to her husband and children, not to go near Roy again.

“You think I want to go near him?” She was crying.

The last time he saw her, she was in his apartment. He wasn’t certain, even now, how she had broken in. He was living on his boat, and the place was empty. He’d come home one afternoon to find her there. She was wearing one of his T-shirts, and her hair was wet as if she’d just gotten out of the shower. From the look of things, she’d been there for a while.

“What’s going on?” he said.

“I’m leaving William,” she said. “I want to live with you.”

Hawk was taken by surprise. He’d known for a while that something had shifted, that she had somehow transferred any feelings she’d had for Roy to him, but he didn’t want that. Not that he didn’t have feelings for her, too. Hawk had always been a sucker for a woman in trouble, especially a beautiful woman like Lilly. But he wasn’t about to break up a family. He’d had too much experience with that as a kid. And he’d also begun to realize just how much was wrong with her. He was happy after that when she called and told him she was seeing her therapist again, and she called him a lot. Too much, really, because the guys on the Friendship had started to tease him about the number of calls and texts he got from her.

“I’m sorry if I gave you the wrong idea,” he’d said. “That was never what I intended.”

“I’m afraid,” she’d said.

“Go home to your husband,” Hawk said. “Tell him what happened between you and Roy. Then go to the police.”

“I can’t do that,” she said.

THE LAST DAY SHE CALLED, when she told him she was going to jump, he’d gone after her. Tried to talk her out of it, to get her to meet him somewhere, but she was already headed to the bridge. He’d gotten her to pull over for a while, into the McDonald’s parking lot on the Lynnway. He’d told her to wait for him there, that he was on his way. She tearfully agreed. But then she got scared. Said she couldn’t wait. Someone was after her, she said. There was nothing anyone could do.

He drove so fast. He would have called the cops, but he didn’t want to get off the phone with her.

When she jumped, he was only six cars behind her.

“I can see you,” he said. “Pull over and I’ll pick you up.”

She did pull over, but she didn’t look back. When she went up and over the side, he was still on the phone with her. He could see the phone fly out of her hands as she went down. It all happened so fast.

He wondered every day what he could have done differently. He went over it and over it in his mind. It bothered him so much he had considered seeing someone to talk it through. But then he met Zee, and everything seemed different. The fact that she felt as guilty as he did about Lilly’s death had actually helped him feel a bit better. She hadn’t told him how she felt, of course-she was far too professional for that. But he knew.

HAWK TOLD ZEE THE WHOLE story. At the end of it, she told him what she’d told the Marblehead police.

Hawk’s blood chilled. He didn’t move. Lilly had been troubled, he’d always known that. But her jump up and over the railing had begun to make sense to him in a way it hadn’t before. He knew that Roy was a dangerous guy, an abusive guy, and he also knew that the most dangerous time for a victim is when she tries to break up with her abuser. He’d read an article about it in the Salem paper just last week, something that the local shelter had put out, or maybe it was that woman on Yellow Dog Island, May Whitney. He couldn’t remember.

Hawk sat very still. He looked directly at Zee in a way that made sure she wouldn’t look away. He didn’t reach out to her, just said as calmly as he could, “I never slept with Lilly Braedon… And I sure as hell never threatened her. I was trying to do the same thing you were,” he said. “I was trying to save her.”

He’s not who you think he is. Ann Chase’s words came quickly back to Zee.

THEY DROVE THE REST OF the way to Salem in silence. Hawk pulled Zee’s Volvo into Finch’s driveway and shut off the engine. He turned to her. “I need you to believe me.”

No one spoke for a long time.

“I do believe you,” she finally said. “But I can’t see you anymore.”