The Map of True Places

50

THE INVITATION TO MATTEI and Rhonda’s wedding still sat on the lazy Susan where Zee had left it. She had told Mattei she was coming, but she called the office now, just to confirm that she would not be bringing anyone. At some point Zee would have to go to town to get a wedding present, but not today.

It was cold for the end of August. Channel Five had promised a warming trend by Friday, which would be good for Rhonda, since the ceremony was outside on Sunday night. The reception was at the Boston Harbor Hotel, something Zee would not have predicted. Though everything about this wedding seemed to be much more traditional than she expected, the hotel was a great location for Zee, who could just catch the ferry from Salem and walk across from Long Wharf to Rowes. It also gave her an excuse to escape early. The last ferry of the night left for Salem at ten.

The office would be closed all month, but she knew that Mattei would be checking messages. She hadn’t told her what had happened, that she’d stopped seeing Hawk, or even that Hawk was really Adam. The story was too complicated and coincidental to be believed, much less understood. Mattei was already worried that Zee was preoccupied with Lilly Braedon. If she told Mattei that Hawk was Adam, she was afraid that Mattei’s alarm bells would go off and she would believe that this was something Zee had known all along, something she’d pursued. Zee would tell Mattei eventually-she would have to-but not yet. Not until she figured out how to frame it. She was glad the office was closed for the traditional month of August. She didn’t want to talk.

What Zee did instead was to look into nursing homes. During the last few weeks, Finch had lost a lot of ground. More often than not these days, he called her Maureen, something he’d done on occasion since she arrived but that he was now doing with alarming regularity. Zee knew it was time. She wanted to be proactive, to pick a good place, a facility that treated both Parkinson’s and the Alzheimer’s crossover he was experiencing more and more lately. She interviewed and rejected at least six places before she found one that she actually thought Finch might tolerate. It was a combination of assisted living and nursing home, with a special unit dedicated to early dementia. Finch had taken two falls in the last few weeks. It was clear he needed more care than he could get at home. Unfortunately, the place she liked had a long waiting list. Even full-paying patients like Finch could expect to wait almost a year.

In one sense she was relieved. She knew that it was the right thing to do, but it still made her sad to think of Finch in a home. Zee added his name to the waiting list, but then she took another tack, hiring Jessina full-time and augmenting Finch’s daily care with more help on nights and weekends. Though she was still having doubts about her choice of career, Zee knew she had to get back to work. This new plan would allow her to commute back and forth to Boston.

She’d met Melville for dinner a few times since her breakup, at Nathaniel’s and at 62 on Wharf or at the Lyceum or the Regatta Pub. Melville was still a foodie at heart, and she was glad to join him for a delicious meal when invited. The night Finch fell for the third time, they had been together at the Grapevine, sitting in the outdoor garden and eating their famous chowder when Jessina called Zee’s cell.

By the time they got back to the house, the EMTs were already there. Jessina was crying, and Finch was lying flat on the floor in the hallway, his walker upended. His breathing was irregular, and he was in and out of consciousness.

The EMT suspected a broken rib, maybe a punctured lung.

Zee rode in the ambulance, and Melville followed behind. It took eight hours before they admitted Finch into a room, and Melville waited in the lobby all night.

Finch had two broken ribs. He looked as if he’d been beaten. He had a bump on his right temple.

“He has a scalp hematoma on his right temple, and they were worried about hemorrhage,” Zee said when she finally came out to send Melville home. “He seems confused. But now they’re convinced that his confusion is from the dementia, so they can give him the painkillers he needs.”

Melville went home, but he returned the next morning. He didn’t come into the room but hung back in the hall, waiting for Zee to see him and come out.

“You look terrible,” he told her. “Why don’t you go home for a while and get some sleep.”

“What if he wakes up?” Zee said.

“When did he get his last shot?” Melville asked.

“About an hour ago.”

“I’ll sit with him. If he starts to wake up, I’ll get out of the room quickly and give you a call.”

She wasn’t sure.

“Go,” he said.

She did go home, and she did sleep.

And though Finch didn’t wake up, Melville sat with him for the rest of the day.

IN THE DAYS THAT FOLLOWED, Finch was allowed a few visitors. Mickey came by. He brought Finch a chop-suey sandwich from the Willows and Zee a bag of the popcorn he knew she liked. Finch didn’t wake up enough to eat, and Mickey ended up consuming the sandwich.

Finch slept most of the time, and when he did wake up, he seemed more confused than usual, as much a product of the continuing painkillers as the dementia. Ann came to visit every afternoon, bringing tea and novels from Cornerstone Books for Zee to read. She loaded her iPod with music she knew Zee would like and loaned it to her.

Melville came by every day after work, though he always sat in a chair by the door and didn’t speak much while he was there. Whenever Finch’s eyes blinked awake, Melville would slip out the door so quietly it was almost as if he’d never been there at all.

51

THE LABOR DAY SAIL was scheduled to leave the wharf at 6:00 P.M. on Friday. Hawk got to the Friendship just as they were casting off.

“I figured you weren’t coming,” Josh said. “Thought maybe you’d run off with Zee and gotten yourself married.”

“No such luck,” Hawk said. If there was any way he could have gotten out of this commitment, he would have done it. He didn’t want to be anyplace near Salem. But he’d given his word. They were heading north to the Isles of Shoals for the weekend, stopping for an event on Star Island. Many of the historic tall ships were making the trip, which was essentially a benefit to raise money for the National Park Foundation. There would be pirates and privateers and people singing sea chanteys and telling maritime ghost stories. Same old same old, Hawk thought. The weekend was advertised as “Labor Day Fun for the Whole Family.” There was nothing Hawk wanted to do less. At least they weren’t staying for the Monday holiday. They would be home late Sunday night.

ANN CHASE WALKED ACROSS PICKERING Wharf and back toward her store. Mickey Doherty was being even more ridiculous today than usual. She’d come over to complain about his monkey. Mini Mick had jumped on her cat, Persephone, from the top of the window box where Ann grew her herbs. When he tried to ride the cat, she went wild and dug scratches into the monkey’s face.

Ann was an animal person, and she certainly felt bad about the monkey’s injuries, but maybe this time Mini Mick would learn a lesson.

“Sounds like my boy got what he deserved,” Mickey said, putting the monkey into the cage he’d fashioned out of an old supply closet, its door removed and replaced with chicken wire. As the cage doors closed, Mini Mick began to masturbate enthusiastically.

Mickey chose that moment to ask Ann out to dinner.

It was unfortunate timing, and she frowned in response.

“Is that your answer?”

For a long time, Mickey had been telling Ann she should ditch the guys she usually favored and go out with him.

“Come on, time to give up the crunchy granolas and the weird war-locks and give me a go,” he said. “I’ve been asking you out for the last three years.”

“More like five,” she said.

“Okay, five. I’m clearly quite persistent.”

She turned back to face him. “Oh, for God’s sake,” she said. “Will you leave me alone if I say yes?”

“Maybe,” he said. “That depends on how it goes.”

“Forget it,” Ann said, heading for the door.

“Okay, okay, just one date and I’ll leave you alone.” He crossed his heart.

“Saturday at five. Finz,” Ann said, naming a local restaurant she favored.

“Five? What are we, senior citizens?”

“Take it or leave it,” she said.

“Okay, okay, Finz at five.”

“And leave the damned monkey at home,” she said.

52

ON SATURDAY MORNING ZEE moved Finch to rehabilitative care at one of the nursing homes she had interviewed and rejected.

If Finch minded, he didn’t say so. His bruises had started to yellow, and his breathing was easier. But his injuries had left him unable to stand. He would need a lot of physical therapy before he could walk again.

Zee checked him in, then sat while they tested him. That he recognized Zee’s face was a relief to her, though he couldn’t seem to recall her name. He failed his cognitive-skills test.

“That could be the drugs,” the nurse said. “He’s still on a low dose of oxycodone.”

The nursing home told her they would quickly wean him off the drug.

“Won’t he need something for the pain when they start physical therapy?”

“Yes, but probably something milder.”

She didn’t want Finch here. But for now it was the only choice. He couldn’t be cared for at home as yet, that much was clear.

She followed the administrator to the office to fill out more paperwork.

“Does he have a health-care proxy?” the admitting nurse asked.

“I don’t think so,” Zee said.

“Does he have a wife?”

“She’s deceased.”

“Any other children?”

“Just me,” she said.

“What about a DNR?”

“A Do Not Resuscitate form?” Zee asked.

The nurse nodded.

“I don’t know.”

“If he doesn’t have a health-care proxy, he probably doesn’t have a DNR.”

She thought about Finch’s skills as organizer. He had a tendency to let things slide.

“Probably not,” she said.

“It’s a good thing to have,” the nurse said. “In cases like this. You can’t do anything until the doctor declares him mentally incompetent, though. After that you can probably sign a DNR for him.”

Zee thought about the AMTS test they had just taken. Finch had been able to pass about a third of it before. This time he hadn’t been able to answer a single question.

“I plan to bring him home when he’s better,” Zee said.

The nurse looked doubtful but didn’t comment.

ZEE DECIDED TO KEEP JESSINA on even after Finch left the house. Sometimes she asked her to go to the nursing home so that Finch would have more company, and sometimes she had her work on the house, cleaning out and sorting the years of papers Finch had collected.

Over the last months, Zee had become friends with Jessina and Danny, whom she sometimes brought to work with her if they needed help cleaning or moving things around. Jessina kept baking, taking Finch cookies or cupcakes every time she went to visit, sharing the extras with the nursing staff. These days the old house on Turner Street always smelled like a bakery, which provided a comforting feeling that Zee appreciated a lot. In a way it was too bad they weren’t selling the house, Zee thought. The aroma of baking alone would have brought bidders to the table.

One day when they were cleaning out, Danny found a pile of eight-by-ten black-and-white photos under some old school papers Finch had saved. He was showing them to Jessina when Zee came into the room.

“These are beautiful,” Jessina said. “Why did he not hang them up?”

Zee looked over their shoulders at the photos. “Finch took those,” she said. There were several pictures of Zee and of Melville and many more of the House of the Seven Gables taken from the street, all with dates and descriptions. Zee couldn’t answer Jessina’s question. For some reason Finch had never displayed any of his photos.

“Look at this one,” Jessina said, holding up a picture of Maureen. “That’s your mother, yes?”

Maureen was young in the photo, early twenties if she was that. She was dressed in a stylish suit, and around her was a halo of mist. Her smile seemed so innocent and full of promise that it startled Zee.

Jessina turned the photo over. The label on the back read simply Honeymoon. Niagara Falls.

“This should definitely be in a frame and put out for everyone to see.” Jessina held it up to a shelf to indicate a possible display location.

“No,” Zee said, taking the photo.

She stared at it. Though she had always known that Maureen’s stories were embellished, it shocked her to think that her mother had lied about her honeymoon. Maureen had looked so happy in the photograph that it seemed odd she would have bothered to create a whole fantasy around Baker’s Island. Had Finch been telling the truth when he said he’d never been there? Zee had dismissed his statement as part of his dementia, but now she was inclined to believe him.

In a flash, Zee realized the real reason she kept getting Maureen and Lilly mixed up. It wasn’t that they were both bipolar. It wasn’t even that they had both committed suicide. It was something else that they had in common, and it had nothing to do with their illnesses. Mattei’s old adage came to Zee’s mind now: Everybody lies. Maureen and Lilly had both lied to Zee. That was no big surprise. But it was more than that, she realized now. The lies or stories that Maureen and Lilly told were not lies they were telling Zee, they were the mythology they were creating for themselves. When they were no longer able to believe their own fairy tales, they lost all hope.

It was a huge revelation, and it explained a lot.

THAT NIGHT JESSINA AND DANNY stayed around until they were certain that Zee was all right. It surprised Zee to find that she was not only all right but that she was better than she’d been for a long while. She was understandably sad about everything that had happened that summer. But something had changed inside her when she saw the happy picture of Maureen. Something had lifted.

“I’m okay,” she said to Jessina. “I really am.”

MATTEI AND RHONDA WERE GETTING married on the Sunday of the long Labor Day weekend. As fate would have it, Sunday was both the last day of August and Zee’s birthday, and somehow she had let this slip to Jessina, who was busy at work making her a birthday cake when Zee had to leave to meet Melville.

“I’ll put it on the table when I go,” Jessina said. “It’s chocolate with white vanilla frosting,” she said. “Your favorite.”

“Sounds delicious,” Zee said. “Thank you.”

Zee had to leave earlier than Jessina had planned. Melville made her promise to meet him for an early birthday dinner at Finz before she caught the ferry into Boston for the wedding. Though there would be dinner at the wedding, she agreed to meet. She needed to talk to him about Finch’s advance directives.

53

STAR ISLAND WAS CROWDED with spectators. Many had come in their own boats to watch the tall ships sail in, and even more had come by ferry for the festivities on the island.

After the Friendship was anchored and her sails finally lowered, Hawk went onto the island with the rest of the crew.

He followed Josh through the crowds, past the encampment where the pirates had spent the last three days without breaking character. A wench in a low-cut top smiled at Hawk and asked if he’d like some grog. He smiled a weak smile and kept walking.

“Oh, man,” Josh said. “You’ve got it bad. That wench was a fox.”

They grabbed two beers at the concession stand.

“Come on,” Josh said, spotting a tent at the far end of a line of buildings. “This is the one I was looking for.”

The tent was hot and crowded. Inside, people sat cross-legged on the grass as a tag team of sailor storytellers engaged in a game of one-upmanship. Right now they were trading sailing superstitions.

“Never sail on a Friday,” one of the sailors offered.

“Hey, we all sailed up here on Friday,” Josh said aloud as he and Hawk sat down.

“A very bad omen,” the host said, and the crowd laughed.

“Never bring a woman on board,” another sailor declared.

“For any number of reasons,” someone else said.

“Never allow a preacher on board,” the first sailor said.

“I would have thought a preacher would be good luck,” the host said.

There was a loud chorus of noes.

“It annoys the devil.”

“You don’t want to do anything to get him too riled.”

“The preacher or the devil?” the host asked, to more laughter.

“The preacher if you’re on land, the devil out at sea.”

One of the sailors stood up and took off his shirt to reveal a cross tattooed on each arm. “This’ll keep you safe,” he said. “But only if you have it on all four limbs.” He started to drop his pants.

Howls of protest rose from the audience. “For God’s sake!” one of the mothers yelled. “There are children present.”

The sailor shrugged and sat back down.

“I take sand on the ship with me,” another sailor said. “To throw at the devil. Like Ahab did.”

“Which worked so well for him,” the host said.

“You can’t say the word ‘pig’ once you’re on board the ship,” another sailor offered. “It’s very bad luck.”

“But if you tattoo a pig on your knee before you get on the ship, it’s good luck.”

The host looked at his watch. “It’s four o’clock,” he said. “We should switch to the storytelling competition, since the ferry’s coming at six.”

“That’s what I came to hear,” Josh said to Hawk.

Two of the more talkative sailors in the group spoke first, recounting stories about the wrecks that had taken place in these waters. The first was the story of a ship called the City of Columbus, which had run aground on a reef off Martha’s Vineyard aptly named the Devil’s Bridge. The ship carried an interesting group of passengers, mostly invalids trying to head south in an effort to escape the harsh winter of 1884. The captain’s attempt to free his ship from the reef only put the craft in more peril, and a rogue wave swept most of the women and children from the deck into the ice-filled waters, where they died almost immediately. The rescue of the remaining passengers was performed by a group of Wampanoag Indians. Unable to get close enough to the ship, they urged the passengers to jump into the frigid waters, and the Indians picked up what survivors they could.

The second story was a more local one that had happened very close by, where the wreck of a Spanish ship had become an early grave for fourteen unfortunate sailors. That wreck took place in the group of islands they were on now, between the two isles of Malaga and Smuttynose.

The minute that Smuttynose was mentioned, another storyteller was on deck waiting to tell the story about the famous ax murders that had happened there back in the late 1800s. Two women were murdered on the island while a third escaped into the rocks, where she hid until morning. The event had inspired a number of books, including Anita Shreve’s The Weight of Water. Today the grisly details of the murders elicited a shudder among the crowd and another warning that there were children present. The storyteller then switched to describing the worn thole pins found in a stolen dory, which became part of the evidence that convicted the killer.

“What are thole pins?” someone in the crowd asked.

“Oarlocks,” the host said.

“More or less,” the storyteller said. “They were usually wooden in some of the older ships.”

“Oarlocks,” the host said again.

“Yes, but made of wood,” the storyteller said. “Kind of like two dowels,” he said. “The man who owned the dory that the killer stole had just replaced them. The fact that they were worn out was evidence that someone had rowed a very long distance.”

One story led into another, and soon a member of the crew of the Friendship was next up. “I have a story about thole pins, or oarlocks or whatever you want to call them, and mine happened earlier than the one on Smuttynose, but worn thole pins were the primary evidence in that case, too.”

Hawk listened as the sailor told the story of the house on Turner Street and of Zylphia and her sailor, a story he’d never heard before.

“That’s your ex-girlfriend’s house he’s talking about,” Josh whispered.

When the sailor detailed the part about the young sailor climbing the side of the house on Turner Street to make love to Zylphia on the widow’s walk, Hawk stood up.

“You okay?” Josh asked.

Hawk didn’t speak, but he listened to the rest of the story, about the beatings from the captain and how it was believed that Zylphia and her Haitian housekeeper had poisoned him, how Zylphia had made her escape, the worn oarlocks on the stolen dory found on the Miseries becoming the evidence that she’d gotten away. The lovers had simply and very mysteriously vanished, leaving behind only the dory with its worn thole pins.

The women in the front row loved the story, which led to teasing from the sailors. “It’s so romantic,” one of the women said, putting a hand to her heart.

“Remind me not to go out with you,” the host said.

“You can go out with her,” her friend said. “Just don’t marry her.”

“Fair enough.”

Hawk was standing now, a nervous feeling overtaking him. He didn’t find the story romantic-he found it brutal and horrifying. His mind wandered to Roy and what he’d done to Lilly. And how there hadn’t been anything he could do to stop it. And then he thought about Zee, had been thinking about her all along, really.

Roy had recently moved to New Hampshire. Not to this part of New Hampshire, but a couple of hours from here on the other side of the state. Hawk had made sure Roy was long gone before he left town. He couldn’t do much for Zee, but he could do that.

Still, he didn’t feel better. He was very agitated. It was hot in here. He needed to get some air.

Josh caught up with him outside. “I thought everyone knew that story,” he said.

“I didn’t,” Hawk said.

54

SIGN THE DNR IF they let you,” Melville said to her. “But I’m not certain that a doctor can declare him incompetent. I think you might have to go to court to do that.”

“It sounds as if you’ve looked into this,” she said.

“I thought it might come to this, yes.”

Zee kicked herself for bringing it up. “I don’t want to sign a DNR.”

“But it’s what he would want.”

“If he wants it so much, why didn’t you have him appoint you as his health-care proxy?” she said.

“Probably for the same reason that we didn’t make marriage plans,” Melville said. “We always thought we had time.”

“I’m sorry,” Zee said. “I wish you had gotten married.” She thought about the wedding she was going to tonight, and how lucky Mattei and Rhonda were by comparison.

“Let’s change the subject,” Melville said finally. “Happy birthday.” He held up his glass and toasted her. She smiled.

“Virgo,” he said. “Very neat and organized. Great at detail work. Observant. Picky. You can think a thing to death. The phrase ‘analysis paralysis’ comes to mind.”

“You’re quite the little astrologer,” she said.

“Happy birthday,” he said again. “To better things in the year to come.”

She looked up in time to see Mickey and Ann walk into the bar. Mickey held a chair for Ann, and she sat down. Melville and Zee exchanged looks.

“Is that a date?” Zee was amazed.

“It sure as hell looks like one,” Melville said.

“I don’t believe it.”

JESSINA SEARCHED THE CABINETS FOR cake decorations. She had used most of the colored sugar on the Fourth of July cookies. Now she found some green shamrocks, which she rejected, and some heart confetti, which would be perfect to scatter lightly about. But she needed something more. Climbing up on a kitchen chair, she looked deep into the baking cabinet and spotted the amber bottle with the silver dragées. The little silver balls would be perfect, she thought.

She placed them around the perimeter of the cake, spaced every inch or so. Then, with enough left, she spelled out HAPPY BIRTHDAY ZEE in the middle. When she was finished, she covered her creation in plastic wrap, using toothpicks to hold the wrap away from the frosting.

She cleared everything off the lazy Susan and placed the cake in the middle, spinning it just enough so that the birthday message would be clear to Zee the minute she walked into the kitchen.

ZEE LOOKED AT HER WATCH while Melville signed the check.

“Thank you for dinner,” she said.

“Are you going to be okay at that wedding all by yourself?” he asked. “I could go with you if you have time for me to run back and change into a suit.”

“I’ll be fine,” she said. “But thanks.”

They stopped by the bar on the way out to say hello to Ann and Mickey.

The bar was packed with diners waiting for tables and a preppy-looking group of sailing types. Some guys turned to check out Zee as she passed.

“So what are you two up to?” Zee asked Ann and Mickey.

“Don’t ask,” Ann said.

Mickey smiled widely and stood to offer Zee his seat.

“We’re just heading out,” Melville said.

“Mattei and Rhonda are getting married tonight,” Zee said.

“Oh, I forgot about that,” Ann said. “Should be fun.”

“My boss,” Zee said to Mickey by way of explanation. Then, knowing Mickey’s feelings on the subject, she added. “And her girlfriend.”

Everyone waited for Mickey’s reaction. “Hey, if that’s what the good citizens of Massachusetts want, who am I to protest? I’m a progressive guy.”

Ann rolled her eyes. “Sure you are,” she said.

Two seats at the bar opened up, and a young man who had been eyeing Zee found the courage to walk over.

“Hey, we’ve got seats,” the guy said. “If you and your father want to join us for a drink.”

Zee smiled and declined.

“You and your father,” Mickey said to Melville. “That idiot. How did he know you weren’t her date?”

He was being genuine, but it didn’t come off that way. “Older man, younger woman, it happens all the time.” He smiled at Ann.

It was funny, Ann thought, regarding Zee and Melville, how much alike they looked. Ann was surprised she had never noticed it before. They could easily have been mistaken for father and daughter. In many ways Zee looked just like her mother. But if you examined the cheekbones, the eyes…

“I’ll bring the car around,” Melville said, leaving them.

“I thought you seemed a little too dressed up for this place,” Mickey said. “Happy birthday,” he added, kissing her cheek.

“Happy birthday, Hepzibah,” Ann said.

“Don’t stay out too late,” Mickey said.

Zee laughed. She kissed them both and walked to the curb.

“What?” Mickey said, noticing Ann looking at the car as Melville pulled up.

“Nothing,” Ann said.

A big plate of Stoli oysters that Mickey ordered arrived. Ann started to laugh. “Oysters?” she said. “What part of vegan don’t you understand?”

“Hey, you’re the one who picked Finz.”

“And I’m planning to order their vegan dinner,” she said. “To say nothing of that ridiculous cliché. Oysters? Are you kidding me?”

“I took a shot.”

ANN WATCHED THROUGH THE WINDOW as Melville pulled the car up to the curb. She watched as he got out and walked around to the passenger’s side to open the door for Zee. Ann was lost in thought as the car drove off. It took her a moment to realize that Mickey had been trying to tell her something. “I’m sorry. What?”

Mickey gestured toward the frustrated hostess who was waiting to take them from the bar to the restaurant. “I said, our table is ready.”

55

MELVILLE DROPPED ZEE OFF at the ferry.

“Call me if you need a ride back,” he said.

“I’ll be fine,” she said. “It’s just a few blocks, and it won’t be that late.”

“Happy birthday,” he said again. She kissed him on the cheek.

He sat in the parking lot until the ferry pulled out. Then he sat longer, looking at the harbor and out toward Baker’s Island. He opened the glove compartment and pulled out the book of Yeats.

He’d thought about giving it to Zee as a birthday present. He’d even gone so far as to get a card to go with it and inscribed it with her full name before he decided the whole thing was a very bad idea.

He sat for a long while, just looking at the title. Then he opened to the middle of the book and took out a folded piece of paper.

The paper was what he and Finch had fought about that day when Finch had literally thrown the book at him, the afternoon that had ended their relationship.

Zee had always believed that Maureen hadn’t left a suicide note, and it had been important to Finch that she keep believing that. But it wasn’t true. Maureen had known what she was doing. She hadn’t left the note on the bed where Zee was as likely to find it as Finch. Instead she’d left it in Finch’s study, for his eyes only.

Dear Finch,

By the time you read this note, I will be gone. It is best for all.

Secrets are often carried to the grave, but this is one I will not take with me. Do with it what you will.

The child I bore for you to father is not yours. It belongs to the man you betrayed me with. It happened only once, in a moment out of place and time.

The fates are cruel, they make fools of us all…

Maureen

At the bottom of her suicide note was a message that was meant for Melville, completing the inscription he’d left for her so long ago:

Come away, O human child!

To the waters and the wild.

With a faery, hand in hand.

For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.

56

IT HAD HAPPENED BEFORE he met Finch, back when Melville was writing the article on the Greenpeace splinter group. He was coming back from Gloucester on his boat when his engine died. He knew what was wrong immediately and cursed himself for not having gotten around to fixing it. He also knew he’d never make it all the way back to Salem, so he put in at Baker’s Island, hoping to use a phone or, barring that, to borrow a skiff and go to Manchester Harbor to pick up the part he needed at the marine supply.

It was June. Few of the summer people had yet arrived. The little store was closed, and Melville had to walk to the far end of the island before he found an unshuttered cottage.

He stopped at the door to ask if he could use the phone.

She’d been hesitant to open the door. In retrospect he wasn’t certain why she had.

She stood in the doorway looking at him. Her red hair was tied back, and she had a pencil stuck through it, holding it in place. Her eyes were piercing blue. He stood outside the door just looking at her. It was a long moment before he remembered to ask about the phone.

She told him she didn’t have a phone. When she heard his story, she offered to lend him her boat. He took it into Manchester Harbor and picked up the part he needed at the marine shop.

By the time he got back with the part, it was early evening. It wasn’t a hard fix, but it was in a bad place, and he had to pull up the deck and several of the floorboards to get at it. He’d shorted out his running lights in the process. When he finished the job, it was after dark. He figured he’d sleep on the boat and head out again at first light.

That she appeared on the wharf surprised him. It was chilly, and her house was all the way at the far end of the island.

“I’ve made dinner,” she said. “If you’re hungry.”

His inclination was to say no. He had some food on board, nothing any good, but enough to get him through until morning. However, when he turned to answer, she was already back at the top of the dock, motioning for him to follow. He called after her, but the wind was against him, and she couldn’t hear. He watched her disappear onto the blackening path.

Melville took his flashlight along with him to her house. He could see her lone light ahead, but the path was narrow and hadn’t yet been mowed for the summer. A false step in any direction could sprain an ankle, especially in this darkness.

She was waiting there for him, framed by the doorway. He’d meant to tell her no, that he was fine on the boat, but then he saw the table set for two. The oil lanterns that lit the room cast him back to another place and time, and he suddenly noticed her lace dress. She was beautiful. Her red hair hung wild and curling halfway down her back. Without saying anything he had planned to say, he found himself walking through the doorway to the table. She poured the wine.

Later he would remember thinking it had been as if he were awakening to something possible, something he’d never before considered. He noticed the ring on her finger; she didn’t hide it. Something about his senses heightened, and every movement of her hands seemed like flight. Her neck was pale and long, a swan’s neck, he thought. His thoughts ran to poetry and art, imagery of Leda and the swan, Leonardo’s sensual sketch and the lost Michelangelo. She was beauty of form and movement. The feminine ideal. And he found himself speaking aloud the poetry that came to him:

A sudden blow: the great wings beating still

Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed

By the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill,

He holds her helpless breast upon his breast.

She came to him. He lifted her hair away from her neck and kissed her. And more poetry came to his lips, all the Yeats he’d learned and forgotten came back to him, and he spoke the words in chant as they made love. And when the verses he hadn’t known he remembered ended, all the magical words of “The Harp of Aengus,” they slept soundly in each other’s arms with the innocence of children.

HE LEFT THE NEXT MORNING, not entirely certain what had happened. It wasn’t that he didn’t like women. At one time he’d considered himself not gay but bisexual, but that had been so long ago he’d almost forgotten that early period of his life. He laughed to himself now, thinking he had been seduced by a siren. It was all so strange and dreamlike that he wasn’t truly certain it had ever happened.

For the next several weeks, he wanted to go back to the island. Instead he went to Gloucester and booked on one of the sword boats, then a bigger boat that was going out for several months. He slept with every man he could, in every port, dangerous and nameless sex meant to remind him of who he really was.

But he couldn’t get her out of him. He heard her poetry on the sound of the wind and the tides. He left the ship in Newburyport and hitched back to Manchester. He stopped in the bookstore and bought the white volume of William Butler Yeats. And he inscribed the book to her and scrawled a quote meant for her across the title page: Come away, O human child! To the waters and the wild…

He took his boat to Baker’s Island and walked to the cottage. But he found it boarded up for the season.

Feeling both disappointment and relief, he placed the book between the two doors, hoping it would last through the winter, through the rains and snows that were to come, and that one day, if she existed at all, she would find it.

MELVILLE LEFT SALEM FOR THE second time the night Finch and Zee brought Maureen home from the hospital. As they helped her into the house, Maureen stopped and slowly turned around to see Melville standing across the road looking at the house. She saw his face just for an instant before he recognized her, and in that moment she understood. Their eyes met, and held. They stood in the moment frozen like statues until Zee and Finch turned to see what Maureen was looking at. Guiltily, Finch hurried Maureen into the house.

Melville had left that same night, this time for California and later north to the Aleutians. He hadn’t come back home to Salem until almost a year after Maureen died.

When he eventually returned, he took the job at the Athenaeum and settled into a quiet life, keeping to his side of town.

When Finch finally found him, he brought the suicide note. “Come back to me,” he demanded.

“I can’t,” Melville said. “It could never work. Not after what happened with Maureen.”

“Don’t you see?” Finch said. “This relationship has to succeed, not in spite of what happened with Maureen but because of it.”

MELVILLE MOVED INTO THE OLD house on Turner Street with Finch and Zee.

Though they were never able to forgive themselves for Maureen’s death, they found it in their hearts to forgive each other.

They loved their daughter, delighted in her in a way that surprised them both. Finch had always wanted to be a father, but Melville had never considered the possibility. Still, he embraced it and was fulfilled by it.

Together they took the book and the note that Maureen had left and placed them where Zee would never find them.

The years had not been easy, but real love rarely is. They learned to put the past behind them. At least it seemed so until the progression of Finch’s disease and his crossover into dementia brought the past back to them as if it had happened not years ago but only yesterday. And the betrayal, once experienced anew, had become real enough for Finch to feel its sting in such a strong way that his anger was able to unravel all the years they had woven together as family.

57

MELVILLE WAS UNAWARE THAT he’d been crying until he saw the teenagers staring at him as they walked across the ferry parking lot. He recognized one of them from Mickey’s store. Melville looked away.

TONIGHT MELVILLE HAD ALMOST MADE a huge mistake. He had almost told Zee that she was really his daughter. Though he would never have given her the suicide note, he had almost given her the book. He had even gone so far as to label the birthday card he’d intended to give her with her full name, Hepzibah Thompson Finch.

He knew he had to talk to Finch, and that it had to be tonight.

MELVILLE CARRIED THE BOOK AND Maureen’s letter into the nursing home. He signed the visitors’ log at seven forty-five.

“Charles Thompson?” the receptionist asked.

He nodded.

“Are you family?”

“Yes,” Melville lied.

“Visiting hours are over at eight,” the receptionist told him.

“I’ll be just a few minutes.”

Melville walked down the long hallway toward Finch’s room. When he got to the door, he paused. If Finch was asleep, Melville would have to wake him.

Feeling himself being watched, Finch opened his eyes.

“Who’s there?” he asked.

“It’s Melville,” he said. “I came to talk to you.”

Finch didn’t move. Then, finally, when his eyes focused, he looked at Melville.

“Could you please put my bed up first?” Finch asked. “I can’t breathe with it so low.”

Heart pounding, Melville walked over to the bed. His fingers found the control buttons, he pushed the “up” arrow, and the head of the bed began to slowly rise, bringing Finch to a sitting position and the two men eye to eye.

“Is that good?” Melville asked.

“Wonderful,” Finch said, and sighed. He looked at Melville for a long time. “This is the weekend, right?” he said, trying to remember.

“It’s Labor Day weekend,” Melville said. “It’s early this year. This is Sunday night, Zee’s birthday. Tomorrow is the first day of September.”

They had done this before. It had become a ritual in the last few years they’d spent together.

“Yes,” Finch said. “September.”

Melville braced himself, waiting for Finch’s rage to surface. When it did, Melville would explain in a way that would make him understand everything that had happened. He’d explain well enough, and he’d ask for forgiveness. Finch would forgive him again, just as he had so many years ago. And if Finch’s rage came back tomorrow, he would explain again. And then, maybe one day, Melville would be able to convince Finch that they should explain the whole thing to Zee.

Finch returned his stare. But the anger wasn’t there.

It’s over, Melville thought, thanking God. This must be the next stage the doctor talked about, when they become less angry and for a while things seem almost normal again. Melville’s neurologist friend had told him about this. The honeymoon period, he had called it. The period before late-stage Alzheimer’s crossover.

“Are you comfortable now?” Melville asked, reaching over to fluff Finch’s pillows.

Finch nodded. Still looking at Melville as if he was trying to figure something out, he finally smiled. “I haven’t seen you working here before,” he said. “You must be new.”

58

THE FRIENDSHIP STOPPED IN Newburyport on its way south. The battery on Hawk’s cell phone was dead, and for some reason he couldn’t get reception using anyone else’s. When they got to town, he walked up to State Street looking for a pay phone.

He hadn’t called Zee the first week after their talk about Lilly. The second week he’d driven over to the house on Turner Street on two different occasions, finding the courage to ring the bell, then losing it just as quickly, as he sat in front of the house. She didn’t want to see him. The connection with Lilly made it too much for her. He could understand that. But at the same time, there were things he needed to say to her and questions he needed to ask. He knew he wasn’t going to let her go without those things being said.

Tonight Hawk wasn’t going to say any of those things. He just wanted to make sure she was all right. The story of Zylphia had done something to him, worried him in a way he couldn’t explain. True, the similarities were strange. But Hawk wasn’t someone who believed in ghost stories or even sea lore. No, this was different. He was worried about her in some exceedingly practical way, yet there was nothing practical he could put his finger on.

There’s a disturbance in the Force, he thought as he dialed.

It was Jessina who answered. She was cautious at first, not wanting to reveal too much.

“Is she there?” Hawk asked.

“Not at the moment,” Jessina said.

“Can you just tell me if she’s all right?” Hawk asked.

Jessina thought about it before answering. She liked Hawk a lot; she hadn’t really understood what had gone wrong between them.

“She’s fine,” Jessina said. “She’s at a wedding in Boston.”

“Right,” he said, remembering the invitation on the lazy Susan in the kitchen. Then he remembered that Zee had told him that the wedding was on her birthday.

Maybe the reason for his agitation was as simple as that. She would be seeing her ex-fiancé at the wedding. Hawk felt jealous just thinking about it, though he knew he had no right to feel that way. Maybe it was the wedding that was making him feel so tense.

Not knowing what else to do, he decided to leave a message. “Just tell her happy birthday.”

THE CREW HAD GONE TO dinner at the Black Cow and sat outside on the deck. The sailors were rowdier tonight than usual-he could hear them from around the corner as he approached. They were all good guys. He was going to miss working with them.

When Hawk sat down, they were talking about the application that the Friendship had recently filed to officially commission the ship. It was a great idea. If the ship was to be officially commissioned, they could take groups out sailing. And classes full of kids.

Too bad he wouldn’t be around for it, Hawk thought. He would have loved to be part of that.

59

ANN AND MICKEY CLOSED down the restaurant. It was surprising how much they had to talk about when they actually began to speak to each other. Mostly they talked about Zee and Maureen. And Mickey talked some about Ireland and about his brother Liam, the one who had died. They talked so much that they lost track of how late it was and were genuinely surprised when the waitress came over to tell them she was going home and would they please pay the check?

Ann excused herself and went to the ladies’ room. As she washed her hands, she looked into the mirror for a long time, trying to see something in her face, something that had changed.

Mickey paid the check and caught up with her at the door. They walked past the wharf and toward Ann’s shop.

“You want to come in?” she asked.

“Into your store?” he said.

“Yes,” she said. “I’ll make you some tea.”

He looked at her. “What kind of tea?” he asked, thinking about the kind she was famous for.

She smiled at him.

“You sure?” he said.

“I’m not at all sure,” she said. “But I’m feeling adventurous tonight.”

“Okay,” he said, following her into the store, waiting as she locked the door behind them and led him through the beaded curtain to the back room. “But I won’t be needing any tea.”

“We’ll see,” she said.

60

ZEE MISSED THE LAST boat home. It was ten-thirty. She’d stayed until the very end, through the traditional first dance, the cutting of the cake, and the tossing of the bouquet.

She walked back from the wharf to the front of the hotel and the taxi stand where Michael stood with his date waiting for the valet. She nodded to him as she passed.

He excused himself and followed.

“Zee?” he said.

She turned around. They had managed to stay away from each other all night. Mattei and Rhonda had seated them at opposite sides of the room, Zee with her colleagues and Michael with his.

“Happy birthday,” he said.

“Thanks.”

“I was going to ask you to dance,” he said. “But I got cold feet.”

“It’s probably better that you didn’t,” Zee said, looking toward his date.

Michael shrugged. “You’re more daring than I am. I didn’t want to come here alone tonight.”

She smiled.

“How’s Finch?”

“Not very well,” she said.

“Mattei told me he took a fall,” he said.

“He’s in a nursing home,” she said.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“Thanks.”

“I’m also sorry about the way I ended things,” he said.

“It was pretty brutal,” she said.

“And cowardly,” he added.

“Maybe.”

“I’m sorry,” he said again.

“Apology accepted.”

“I was pushing you into something you clearly weren’t ready for,” he said.

“I don’t think what I was or not ready for was clear in any way,” she said. “Least of all to me.”

“And is it clear now?”

It was an odd question to ask, particularly with his new date standing only a few yards away. Still, she knew he deserved an answer and that she had never given him one.

“It is,” she said.

“And?”

“Good-bye, Michael,” she said.

61

ROY SAT AT THE kitchen table counting his money. Four hundred and fifty dollars. Plus the money he’d taken off the girl. He hadn’t counted it yet, really had only taken it to make things look like a robbery. The thought of Hawk behind bars made him laugh out loud. He’d left the hammer with Adam’s name on it right next to the body where they would be sure to find it. Roy knew they’d figure things out eventually, but by the time they did, he’d be long gone.

He spun the lazy Susan around and looked at the cake. HAPPY BIRTHDAY ZEE, it said. The letters were crooked and sloping.

Roy was hungry. He wanted to eat the cake, but he needed something more. He’d already drunk almost two bottles of the wine he’d found in the rack. He wasn’t fond of wine, but it was all he could find. He peered into the refrigerator for some food, but there were only two very old-looking sandwiches that he wasn’t about to touch. Didn’t anyone shop for groceries anymore? Roy found some American cheese in the vegetable bin, individually wrapped slices. He checked the date on the side of the package and unwrapped a piece.

He couldn’t believe they’d laid him off. He’d been foreman at Cassella Construction for almost twelve years. They’d said it was cutbacks, but you don’t fire your foreman for cutbacks. You do that and your whole crew goes to hell, taking long lunches or not showing up to work on time. Stupid fuck didn’t know what the hell he was doing.

Besides the paycheck, the worst part was losing the company truck. He’d had to buy an old, beat-up Chevy with his last paycheck, and the damned thing burned oil like a motherfucker. He’d ditch it as soon as he got out of state, if it even made it that far. The thought of the Chevy as a getaway car made him laugh, and he realized he was drunk. He took out the coke he had bought with the last of his money and drew some lines on the table, sucking them up through the gold-cross straw he’d taken from her neck. Christian, right, he thought. So Christian that he’d walked in on her with another guy. He’d been planning to surprise her, bought the drugs she liked with money he should have been saving. Well, he’d surprised her all right, in the end. As soon as the other guy left the house, he’d surprised the hell out of her.

The coke woke him up. Where the fuck was the shrink? He wasn’t a guy who liked to wait, and for a minute he thought it wasn’t worth it, but then he thought of Lilly and what she had done to her, and his rage flared. How dare she tell Lilly to stay away from him? It was Hawk she should have told her to stay away from, not him. He loved Lilly.

He had loved her on Halloween night when he’d gone to her house to take her with him, though he couldn’t make her believe him. He had taken the gun just in case anyone tried to stop him. He hadn’t meant to threaten her family. He’d only done that because she’d told him she wouldn’t come with him. The cat was something else. He’d always hated that cat. But he wouldn’t have hurt her family. She had to know that. He confessed his undying love for her, something he’d never done before for any woman. He even told her he’d kill himself if she didn’t come, and still she’d refused him. And then something just snapped in him, and he heard himself threatening to kill them all. He only said it so she would believe him, so she’d know how much he loved her. She had to know he didn’t mean it.

In the days that followed, he didn’t mean to hit her either, but she just wouldn’t stop crying, telling him she wanted to go home. Roy didn’t blame Lilly for that. He blamed the shrink.

Roy pounded his fist on the table, and the cocaine dusted upward, then settled back down again in a wide arc, leaving a film on the surface of the old oak table.

He’d been following Hawk for the last week, waiting for the right time. But that time hadn’t come. When he’d followed him here, Roy knew he’d hit the jackpot. Hawk just sat in his van, looking at the house. Drove right by Roy when he left, never even seeing him. A minute later her Volvo pulled into the driveway, and Dr. Finch got out and went into the house. Roy couldn’t believe his good fortune. He’d been trying to get to her all summer, ever since Lilly died, maybe even before.

Roy counted his money one more time and wondered how long he could make it last. He’d already rifled through all the drawers in this house, upturning some of them, making it look like a real robbery. He was searching for money-he was going to need it. But there was nothing here, just books and a few prescriptions in the medicine cabinet upstairs, which he pocketed. There was no cash and nothing decent that he could pawn.

Roy pulled the plastic wrap off the cake and carefully removed the toothpicks that were holding it away from the frosting. When she got here, he would light the candles. Then they would celebrate her birthday, just the two of them. He’d already checked out the house. He thought the upstairs bedroom, her room, was the perfect place for a birthday party.

He took the rest of the bottle of wine up the stairs. He took the cake, too. He was about to go back for the rest of the cheese when he heard her come in.

SHE ENTERED THROUGH THE MAIN door on the Turner Street side. She didn’t stop in the kitchen or in the rest of the house. If she had, she would have seen the broken window, the overturned drawers in Finch’s study, their contents dumped on the floor.

But she was tired. She knew that Jessina had left a cake for her in the kitchen, but she couldn’t face it tonight. The week had been tough, and seeing Michael again had taken its toll. Instead of stopping she walked straight upstairs to the bedroom. She saw the glow from the birthday candles but thought at first that someone had reported the broken streetlight and it had been repaired. Or maybe they had a new light across the street at the House of the Seven Gables.

Roy was quick. He gagged her first, coming up behind her as she stared at the cake. Then he pushed her down on the bed and tied her there. She struggled hard, but he was double her size. When he had her where he wanted, he sang “Happy Birthday,” then went over to get them each a piece of cake. He laughed at the thought, because she couldn’t share the birthday cake with a gag on. She couldn’t even blow out the candles.

He ate the cake slowly, taunting her and seeing the fear in her eyes. He watched her struggle against the ropes he had used to tie her. He’d been careful to use the constrictor knot, one he used for almost everything and one that Hawk would recognize as Roy’s signature, if Hawk was the one who found her.

62

JOHN RAFFERTY, SALEM’S CHIEF of police, was waiting on the wharf as the Friendship tied up.

“I need to talk with you,” he said to Hawk. “You want to take a walk with me?”

Hawk seemed surprised. He stopped what he was doing and walked down the ramp with Rafferty.

“Where were you Saturday night?”

“On the ship.”

“All night?” Rafferty asked.

“We were at Star Island first. Then we had dinner in Newburyport.”

“Can anyone vouch for you?”

“Sure, they can all vouch for me. Except for about ten minutes when I was making a phone call.”

“I tried your cell,” Rafferty said. “You didn’t answer.”

“The battery’s dead,” Hawk said. “What’s going on?”

“The Marblehead police are looking for you. They got a call from Weirs Beach.”

“About me?” Hawk was surprised. He hadn’t been anywhere near Weirs Beach.

“About a hammer with your name and phone number scratched into the handle.”

Now Hawk was interested.

Rafferty watched him.

“What did he do?” Hawk asked.

“Who?”

“His name is Roy Brown. He stole my hammer a couple of weeks ago. Said it was payback for one I took of his at my old job site. Which was a total lie.”

“Did anyone see him take the hammer?” Rafferty asked.

“Yeah,” Hawk said. “A lot of people.” He thought about it. “Zee Finch was there.”

“Let’s go talk with Zee,” Rafferty said.

“I was just going to do that,” Hawk said. “Let me get my gear.”

“Leave your gear,” Rafferty said.

Rafferty called the Marblehead police as they walked to his car and told them to pick up Roy at his last known address.

“What did he do?” Hawk asked again as they got into the car.

“He killed a woman at Weirs Beach,” Rafferty said.

63

ROY SAT AT THE table in her room watching her struggle. He finished both pieces of cake before he got undressed and came to the bed. He wanted to take his time. He was tired, but he was up for this. He folded his clothes neatly and then ripped the strap of her dress. It fell away, revealing her breast.

A shock like lightning went through him. Maybe it was the coke, maybe it was just knowing what he was going to do and how he was going to do it that made him so excited, but the thrill of it shot through him like electricity, up his arms and all the way down his spine.

Zee stared, terrified, as Roy moved closer.

64

HAWK SPOTTED THE BROKEN kitchen window as Rafferty pulled in. His eyes scanned the street for the red truck. He might have felt relief at not seeing it, but he didn’t. He was out of the car before Rafferty had a chance to pull over.

Hawk ran into the kitchen, saw the cross and the coke still on the table.

“Upstairs!” he yelled back at Rafferty, taking the stairs two at a time.

Rafferty got to the top of the stairs as Hawk pulled Roy off of Zee. Hawk threw him with such force that Roy immediately went into spasm, his back arching wildly, bending him backward until his head almost touched the ground as the first wave of the strychnine hit him.

There were eight spasms in all before he died. In between he collapsed limply while his body gathered energy for the next spasm.

Rafferty called for both backup and an ambulance. Beyond that, there was nothing anyone could do but watch.