13
Dear Lily,
I know you said not to write to you, but who cares what you think?
So guess what? I’m working at the clinic on Scupper for the summer. Yesterday, a lady came in with a brand-new baby, and the smell of his head made me think of Poe when she was tiny. She was the most beautiful baby I’ve ever seen. Still is. She misses you. I do, too.
Love,
Nora
There was the bowl of six lemons on the counter. The red gerbera daisies on the coffee table. My pretty little apartment, just as tidy and lovely as I’d left it. My perfect home.
But this time, the glass slider was open, and I already knew he was here. I pretended not to know, thinking that if I could pretend hard enough, he’d disappear. I could hear him in the bathroom, getting into the shower, the hiss of the rings as he slid back the curtain. But I was sure, I was so sure that if he thought I didn’t believe he was here, he’d somehow disappear.
Then the shower curtain opened, and this time he already had the knife.
I jolted awake from the nightmare, drenched in sweat, panting like Boomer after a run.
Speaking of, where was my dog? What about the guy in the woods last night? Was it really Luke, or had Voldemort found me?
Holy shit, where were the girls?
I burst out of my room, and there they were, at the kitchen table, Poe sprawled out, Audrey sitting across from her. They both looked up at me.
“Are you all right?” I blurted.
“Shockingly, yes,” Poe said.
“Want some coffee?” Audrey asked.
My heart clattered and banged in my chest. “Um...sure. Thank you.”
Audrey brought me a mug. She’d set the table with the sugar bowl and creamer already.
“Bad dream?” Poe suggested, eyes flicking up and down my form.
I nodded.
“You talked in your sleep all the time at Gran’s.”
“Sorry,” I muttered. I wondered if I’d said anything that would make her worry. Then again, worry for her aunt didn’t seem to be one of Poe’s problems, and that was good. I wanted to help her, not add to her burdens.
“Want me to make waffles?” I asked. Collier Rhodes’s houseboat was equipped with every appliance known to Williams-Sonoma.
“I have to work,” Audrey said. “I’m gonna walk down to the boatyard. But thank you so much for having me over,” she said to me. “And, Poe, it was nice hanging out.”
“Yeah. Same here.” She gave an awkward smile, and my heart tugged. I was almost positive that under her tough-girl act was a lonely kid.
I hugged Audrey. “Thanks for coming, honey. Drop by anytime.”
“I will! Thanks. This was really fun. Bye, Boomer.” She ruffled my dog’s fur, then grabbed her backpack and left.
“She’s so nice,” I said, sitting down.
“Bet you wish she was your niece instead of me.”
I took a sip of coffee. “Nah. She doesn’t have blue hair, and I love blue hair.”
Poe rolled her eyes, practically dislocating them, reached for the coffee and winced. There was a damp mark on the shoulder of her T-shirt.
“How’s that tattoo?” I asked.
“Fine.”
“Mind if I look at it?”
“Yes, I do mind. Too pervy.”
“I’m thinking it might be infected. I’m a doctor, remember?”
She hesitated, then pulled her shirt up.
Yep. Those angel wings were oozing. “I’ll get some bacitracin. Hang on.”
Once, when I visited and Poe was about four, she had loved pretending to be sick so I could fuss over her. She’d hold up her little hand and I’d put a Band-Aid on her finger and give her a Hershey’s Kiss to make it better, then take her temperature and prop her up with pillows. “You just rest,” I’d say, “and Auntie will rub your feet.”
That had been the best visit. I’d really thought Lily and I would be close after that one. She even hugged me when I left.
When I’d called a week later, she didn’t answer or return my call or answer the subsequent email.
I went to the bathroom and got the first-aid kit and a clean facecloth, then ran it under hot water and wrung it out. Poe sat at the table, her back to me. Her shoulder blades were those of a little girl’s, it seemed, thin and fragile.
“Is it gross?” Poe asked, and for once, there wasn’t any snark in her tone.
“Not to me,” I said, gently pressing the cloth against her tattoo. “I’ve seen gross, and this doesn’t even come close.”
“What are some gross things you’ve seen?” she asked. Gasp! Interest in her aunt’s profession!
“Well, there was this woman who came into the office because she had bad breath. And I’m not talking onions-at-lunch bad breath.” I eased the hot compress off and put on some bacitracin, covered it with gauze and taped it in place, then held an ice pack against it to help with the swelling. “Her breath smelled like feces. Actual sewage.”
“Gross.”
“Yes. It was hard not to gag.”
“So what was wrong with her.”
“Fetor hepaticus. Breath of the dead, they call it. Late-stage liver failure that basically meant her liver enzymes were oozing into her lungs.”
“Oh, God!” Poe made a gacking sound. “Did she make it?”
“No. She died a few hours later.” Beatrice LaPonte of Dorchester. My second fatality.
“Is it hard, seeing someone...you know?”
I took off the ice pack and pulled Poe’s shirt back down. “Yes.”
She was quiet for a minute. Her neck was slender, the blue hair oddly complementary to her fair skin. I couldn’t resist and reached out to touch the back of her head.
She jumped up. “What are you doing? Don’t get weird, okay? Jesus.”
I closed my eyes briefly. “You want to come to Boston with me today?” I said.
“Why?”
“I’m bringing Boomer to see Bobby. My ex-boyfriend. We could go shopping, maybe? Or see a movie?”
“I’ll pass.” The sullen teenager was back.
“Okay, but before I take you back to Gran’s, I want to show you something, okay?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“You do not. I was just being polite.”
* * *
Fifteen minutes later, we were in the car, Boomer in the back seat, crooning his joy, his enormous head out the window. Poe had turned down the chance to drive, so I did the honors. Down the bumpy, sandy road till we hit pavement, then into town. Already, traffic was starting to pick up a bit with weekend visitors. The line was out the door at Lala’s, I was glad to see.
We went west of Penniman State Forest and up Eastman Hill, where Dad had brought Lily and me so many times. The Hill of Thrills, Dad had called it.
It was steeper than I remembered.
My little car automatically downshifted to a lower gear, lumbering up the hill, which was a good half mile long. At the top, there was the huge granite rock, surrounded by pine and oak trees. The oaks were just starting to bud out, and though the air was cool, the sun was warm.
“You brought me to see a rock?” Poe said, hauling herself out of the car, Boomer on her heels.
“This is a place your mom and I used to come. Our father would put our bikes in the back, and we’d come up here at night. We’d sit on this rock for a few minutes, and our father would give us a pep talk.”
She glanced at me, interested against her will. “About what?”
“About not being afraid. Having adventures. Living life to the fullest.” Had I done that? Fulfilled his hopes and expectations? Would my father approve of me as an adult? Or would Lily’s lifestyle be more what he’d had in mind?
Not that he was a great role model, ditching his daughters the way he had. But love for him had been carved into my heart at a young age, and erasing that was easier said than done.
Well. The point of this little trip was to show Poe that her mother and I had been close once upon a time, maybe give her a sense of a time when Lily had been...different. Boomer licked my shoe encouragingly. “It’d be so dark,” I said, “and we’d sit here and look down at the town and see the lights, and nothing ever looked cozier. But to get back home, we had to conquer the hill.”
Silence from Poe.
“So we’d get on our bikes—well, Lily would have to go with my dad, because she was too small—and we’d go down this hill as fast as we could.”
More silence, then. “Did you ever crash?”
“Almost.” But I’d been afraid every time, pep talk or no pep talk.
Looking down the hill, I remembered how each time, I’d be terrified I’d lose control of the handlebars, hit a bump and go flying. Each time, the horrible flash of fear shot through me, the noise of the gravel scraping as I swerved, the sting of sand and rocks hitting my shins.
The euphoria—and relief—when we reached the bottom.
“Your mom loved it,” I said. “She would sit on our dad’s handlebars with her arms out, like she was flying.”
“She likes speed, all right.”
I wasn’t sure if the double entendre was intentional or not.
“Is she a good mother?” I asked.
“She’s in jail, Nora. What do you think?” But even as she said the words, her lips trembled.
I wanted to put my arm around her. “Still, you must miss her.”
“I need to do homework. Can you please end this journey down memory lane?”
“Sure.” I sighed, and we got back in the car. The rest of the short trip was in silence. Poe got out the second I pulled into Mom’s dirt driveway.
“Poe?” I said, getting out after her.
“What?”
“Wash that tattoo three times a day with warm water, and put bacitracin on it every time. You don’t want it to get worse.”
She didn’t look back.
* * *
Four hours later, the Boston skyline came into view, and my heart leaped. Boomer, too, seemed to know we were back home; of course, he could smell Boston well before I could. His big tail wagged, and I smiled at him and rubbed his head.
I’d miss him like I’d miss my right arm. But I’d be okay on my own. I had to be. As my father had said so many years ago, life was about taking on fear.
As the ferry pulled up to the dock, I saw Bobby, his hair needing a trim, razor stubble on his jaw, looking like an ad for J. Crew. The guy won by Cute Nora, successful GI doc, the Perez Scholar and McElroy Fellow of Gastroenterology.
He smiled when he saw me. “Hey, stranger,” he said. “You look a lot better.”
Boomer leaped over to him, wagging, slobbering, molesting—the usual Bernese mountain dog greeting.
I went over, too, and Bobby opened his arms for a hug.
A long hug.
He smelled so good. I could feel his ribs, and my cheek pressed against his shoulder.
“Hey,” I said, and my voice was husky.
“I hope you don’t have to go home right away,” he said, taking Boomer’s leash. “I thought we could have lunch.”
“Sure,” I said.
“You really look fantastic.” He palpated my collarbone gently, and a ripple of attraction flowed down my side. “All healed?”
“Pretty much,” I said.
“No lifting over twenty pounds, okay?”
I smiled. “Yes, Dr. Byrne.”
“Where would you like to go?” he asked. “I have the whole day off.”
Now, that was odd. He never took the whole day off. “I have dinner plans with Roseline, but...well, how about a walk? It’s a lot warmer here than it is on Scupper.”
“Is your knee up for it?”
“It is for now.”
“Great.” He took my hand, and a warm, slightly nervous feeling wrapped around me. I was glad I’d worn a nice outfit—jeans and low-heeled suede boots, a bottle green cashmere sweater, brown leather jacket and the vintage Hermès scarf I’d found at a consignment shop for a fraction of its worth.
“How are things at the hospital?” I asked, and he told me stories of patients and staffers and the kid who’d disappeared for twelve minutes because he hadn’t wanted a tetanus shot, causing a Code Adam and complete hospital shutdown. We wove through Boston’s crowds, dodging the ubiquitous Red Sox fans heading for Fenway, the clusters of students talking too loudly, horsing around.
It was nice to be back.
We stopped at a little café near the Contemporary Art Institute and just sat for a little while, watching the people, the wind ruffling my hair. The waitress came over and admired the Dog of Dogs, and we ordered lunch and wine.
It felt so romantic, the sun shining, a breeze off the bay, Bobby smiling his flirty smile at me. Just like old times.
“Tell me how things are on Scupper,” he said after our meals arrived, and I launched into a cleaned-up version of events. Told him about my houseboat and how beautiful it was, how my niece had slept over the night before, seeing old schoolmates, hanging out with my mom.
And as I talked, events began to shape themselves to my words. My mom seemed friendlier, not distant; the noises of the Maine night beautiful, not a reminder of how exposed I felt on the houseboat. Poe was colorful, not angry.
After all, I had never really let Bobby know the truth about my family. There was no reason to start now.
The server brought us the check, and Bobby paid. I glanced at my watch. “You want to come back to my place?” he asked suddenly, reaching forward and tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. That gesture that had always irritated me. I could manage my own hair, thank you. “Our place, I mean?” he added.
“We broke up, Bobby.”
“I know. But I’m not with Jabrielle.”
“You’re not with me, either.” I raised an eyebrow and smiled a little to take the edge off.
“I miss you.”
Good. You deserve to miss me.
He leaned back in his chair, petting Boomer, who was attempting to climb onto his lap. “I mean, of course, I miss you. We were together for a long time. Friends for longer than that. But I guess I didn’t realize how empty life would feel without you.”
He was always so good with words. My wine was gone, but I pretended to sip it, needing a shield.
“Okay,” he said. “No answer is an answer, too. I’m sorry.”
“I appreciate the sentiment. But I think...well. I think at the very least, we need more time apart.” I put down my glass. “I’m gonna go. Take good care of my boy here.” I bent down, wincing as my knee reminded me that I’d been dumb enough to get hit by a van, and kissed my dog. “I’ll talk to you soon, okay?”
“Text me when you get back to the island, so I know you made it safe and sound.” Bobby stood up and hugged me again, kissed me on the cheek.
Then kissed me on the mouth. A quick kiss, but warm and firm. A reminder of life before the Big Bad Event.
“Take care,” I said and walked away as fast as I could manage.
For the first time, it occurred to me that maybe taking a break was exactly what Bobby and I had needed.