by Jean Stone
She clenched her jaw and forced herself to turn over another clipping, to not be lured by reading the local news that she had missed while she was on the mainland in seclusion, having Kyle.
A new development allowed on the west side of the island.
The July Fourth regatta race won by a pair of college boys from Boston University.
A record crowd at Illumination Night in Oak Bluffs.
No reports of children kidnapped, missing, or killed.
Rita rubbed the back of her neck and wondered if her mission was a waste of time.
TEN
Because it was still April, Katie did not hesitate going to the pier to meet Miguel’s boat. It was too early for tourists, and others might not recognize her because they would not expect to see her there in public, without her rhinestones and her makeup, or with her very pregnant belly.
She was nervous. More nervous than the first time when she went up onstage, when she was ten and Cliff had introduced her as “The Great Joleen’s Only Child”; more nervous than when Katie found out she was pregnant for the third time, silly, unthinking Katie who had not used birth control, but who had held a secret dream that a baby would make her life complete. There had not been time for nervousness when she learned that she had cancer; it had happened way too fast.
The boat bumped against the pier. She clenched her hands inside her jacket pockets as the giant flap came down and the cars and trucks of another world waddled onto land. Her fingernails dug uneven crescent moons into her palms.
And then she saw Miguel. He walked down the ramp and she took one look at his handsome, Latin skin, and she longed to feel him hold her, to be protected by his love.
She pushed past those around her and went straight into his arms. She folded herself into him, into his warmth, into his lightly musky scent that was so wonderfully familiar. He kissed her hair and her face and her mouth; she felt him grow hard against her thigh.
She quickly reminded herself that they stood on the pier, that other people were close by including … Miguel’s mother?
Katie did not need a double take to know the elfin woman in the large sunglasses was Ina, Miguel’s mother, Katie’s right hand and her left.
“Ina,” Katie said weakly, because Miguel’s embrace had, indeed, made her weak, and because she could not feign excitement that he had not come alone. Oh, God, did Ina know about the cancer?
Her eyes flashed to Miguel. Did he know, too?
Ina said, “How are you, dear,” and Miguel pulled away his warmth and his erection.
Katie tucked a loose tendril under the floppy hat she wore. “Fine,” she said, “I’m fine.” But she was not fine, not any longer.
“I’m not going to intrude,” the woman said, giving her a quick hug. She looked down at Katie’s middle and she smiled. “But I had to see for myself that you are okay.”
Had Katie’s father told her? Had Doctor Ramos? Wasn’t it illegal for a doctor to betray a confidence? Katie’s thoughts raced as quickly as sandpipers on the beach.
“I’m fine,” she repeated, then added as she rubbed her belly, “we’re both fine.”
Miguel smiled that electric smile and touched his hand to the baby. He cocked his head a bit as if expecting to hear something, a cry perhaps, or soft baby words.
She tried to smile and pretend that she was happy to see them, both of them. But how could she be happy when her plans had just unraveled?
They could not walk along the beach now. They could not share a hamburger at The Black Dog or be alone at the house, even though Joleen had gone up-island painting for the day. They could not do those things; they could not make love, because Ina was there.
“I’m not going to get in your way,” the woman said as if reading Katie’s mind. “Point me to a beach. It’s been years since I spent a whole day at the beach.”
“You’re not going to sit anywhere alone,” Katie said. “You’ll come out to the house. My mother’s not home, but you’ll be comfortable. And if you want a beach, there’s one right there.”
“No,” Ina said, “you two don’t need me. I’ll enjoy being alone, honestly I will.” She patted her bag. “I even brought my lunch. A Cuban sandwich from home.”
Katie laughed. Of course Ina would have brought her own lunch, just the way she took the bus across town instead of a cab. A lifetime of self-sufficiency had not changed simply because she now had the means to do otherwise.
“Point her toward the beach,” Miguel reinforced. “She’ll be much happier, and, cara mia, so will we.”
He slid his hands from her belly around her thickened waist and looked deeply, so deeply, into her eyes. Then he hugged her again. This time Katie closed her eyes and did not care that the world might be watching or that his mother stood there. She only knew that, for the first time in weeks, she was not scared, because she was back in Miguel’s arms.
The scones were no longer warm, but Faye’s intentions still were good. She had finished her baking, taken several long, rejuvenating breaths, then bravely picked up the phone to call Rita for Hannah’s address. Though Faye had tossed out the card Rita had distributed at the first support group meeting, the red-haired woman’s name was listed in The Island Book. Perhaps Rita had never felt she’d had anything to hide.
Rita was not home.
How could a woman with twin toddlers, a twelve-year-old, an elderly mother, and a husband be out in the middle of the day? Somehow, Rita had not struck Faye as one who had “help.” Who did the laundry and cleaning and cooking for that brood, and why did Faye care?
Because Rita had not been home, Faye had called Doc.
“I can’t give you Hannah’s address,” Doc had said. “The group is anonymous, remember?”
“Oh, for godssake, Doc,” Faye had replied. “I baked some damn scones. I thought you wanted me to be nice.”
She told him she did not need Katie’s address.
Faye went there first, down the winding drive that had enough overgrowth to suggest no one lived there, that this was just another summer home closed up until June. The Mercedes bumped over the ruts in the hard-packed sand, then finally arrived at a clearing. She stopped the car in front of a house not much more than a cottage, more befitting of a lobsterman than a rock star who’d been famous once upon a time. The house was not closed up, but it sat in seclusion, staring toward the sea.
With her clutch purse in one hand and a tinfoil pack in the other, Faye left the car and went to the front stairs, which simply were flat rocks, the kind of place a black snake or two had been known to live. There was no doorbell, so she knocked.
No response.
No sounds from within of footsteps or of talking; no indicators of life, which did not mean no one was home. With a small sigh, Faye tucked one of her business cards under the flap of the foil, then set the package between the screen door and the wooden one, with hopes that snakes did not feed on fresh-baked Irish scones.
Back in the car, she headed for Tisbury, following the directions Doc had given her. It was a side street, a lane, really, like so many lanes on the Vineyard, not much more than a path, where people somehow managed to live year in, year out.
Her eyes fell to the remaining foil package that sat on the seat. “Neighborly” was the word that came to her mind, a word that worked on the Vineyard but no longer did in Boston, because neighbors there now kept eyes straight ahead, intimidated by the constant clash of cultures that had consumed the once old-Yankee city.
Suddenly the driveway appeared. It was marked with a mailbox in the shape of a Canada goose, which bore a sign on the top that read JACKSON GARDENS, and one that hung from shiny chrome S hooks on the bottom: OPEN 7 DAYS.
Unlike Joleen’s driveway, Hannah’s was paved. Unlike Joleen’s house, Hannah’s seemed to say “Welcome.”
Faye parked between a blue pickup truck and a gray-shingled Cape Cod-style house that could have been any of thousands, maybe tens of thousands, of lookalikes from there out to Provinceto
wn—P’ town—and up to the North Shore. She breathed deeply and remembered her mission: to be neighborly, to be nice. She’d do it for Doc. She’d do it because she really had nothing else in her life except a business that no longer interested her and a cat that barely bothered with her and a sister who would not, in a million years, understand. She’d do it because somewhere out there in the world, she still had a son who might one day come home.
• • •
She lay in the bedroom with the shades pulled and drapes drawn.
It had been Hannah’s third treatment. The other times she’d been invigorated afterward, cleaning the house and doing laundry and sweeping through the rooms with drug-enhanced, domestic bliss. She’d decorated dozens of flowerpots. Once she’d even run, not two miles, but one.
She had not retreated to her bedroom and pulled the drapes closed.
She could not stop thinking about Riley. Her daughter hadn’t spoken on the cab ride home.
What did Hannah expect? She had lied to Riley; now Riley was angry. But there were so many lies … so many secrets that not even Evan knew … Hannah pushed down the nausea that swelled inside her stomach. What would they all think of her if the whole truth ever emerged?
“Mom?” Riley’s voice called from downstairs.
Hannah rolled onto her side and slowly opened her eyes.
“Someone’s here to see you.”
She did not want to see Donna or Sally or Melanie. She turned onto her back. “I’m not feeling well,” she wanted to reply. “Please say thanks for coming and I’m sorry.” But she couldn’t very well shout it down the stairs.
And then another voice came from the hall outside her room. “It’s me, Hannah. It’s Faye. From the support group. I’ve brought Irish scones to brighten up your day.”
Faye? From the support group?
Hannah propped herself on one elbow and stared back at the door. “Faye?”
The silver-haired woman stepped into the room. “Are you okay?” she asked. “Sometimes after chemo, all I really needed was someone’s hand to hold.” She sat on the edge of the bed and wrapped her long, dry fingers around Hannah’s soft, moist hand.
Hannah didn’t say a word. The comforting felt nice, the kindness of a stranger.
And then, “Mom?” Riley’s voice called again, not from downstairs but from the doorway where she stood, looking quizzical. “Mom, you have a phone call. It’s Mr. Arthur. From the school.”
Katie picked up a foil package from between the front doors. She looked at the business card and frowned. BOSTON MARCOM. MARKETING SOLUTIONS FOR BUSINESS AND INDUSTRY. FAYE RANDOLPH, PRESIDENT.
“What is it?” Miguel asked.
Katie only knew one person named Faye. She quickly slipped the package under her jacket, as if Miguel might know that Faye was from the breast-cancer group, as if he might figure out that she was one of them. “Just something from a neighbor,” she said, unlocking the door and going inside.
She dropped the foil package on the kitchen counter, then hung their jackets on the pegs by the back door. She moved in slow motion, as if they had forever, and not only this day, this one day together.
Suddenly Miguel was behind her, his arms encircling her, his hands resting once again on their baby. “Cara Katie,” he whispered. “We must get married. I want to marry you, Katie. Please.”
She closed her eyes and savored his nearness, the warmth of his body moved against hers. How could she doubt his love for her? “Maybe soon,” she answered. “Maybe soon, but not right now.”
He burrowed his mouth into her hair, then lifted it gently. He kissed the back of her neck. “Now,” he said. “I want to marry you now, before our baby’s born.”
His hardness was there again, touching her back. He moved his hands down toward the moistness that tingled beneath her stretch jeans, between her thighs. With a kind of primal instinct that she could not control, Katie arched her back and pressed herself against his need.
He slid his hand between her legs. He pushed the thick denim against her flesh. He rubbed the seam firmly. She moaned. She arched back again and felt the bulge of his hardness move back and forth, straining against fabric, want against want.
Then his hands moved up from her crotch, over her belly to her breasts. His fingers groped her shirt, he quickly found her flesh.
He didn’t know.
He couldn’t know about the breast cancer or he wouldn’t touch her … there.
Katie grabbed his wrists and pushed his hands away. She forced herself from him and crossed the kitchen to the counter. She tried to bring her breathing back to normal; she did not dare look at Miguel.
“What?” he asked. “What’s going on?”
“I can’t,” she said. “The baby.”
She sensed him move toward her. “We won’t hurt the baby,” he said. “Please, Katie, I love you.”
She shook her head. She cried. She couldn’t help it, but she cried. She clutched her stomach as if that were the problem, as if it was the baby and not breast cancer between them.
“No,” she replied. “I can’t. That’s all.”
• • •
Hannah told her daughter to tell Mr. Arthur that she would call him back if he would leave his number. She couldn’t, after all, talk to John Arthur with Faye sitting there, not to mention Riley. They might notice a slight blush in her cheeks and guess why it was there.
Once she finally was alone, Hannah made the call.
“Would you like,” John asked, “to activate a leave of absence?”
He had not called to simply ask how she was doing. It was school business, of course it was.
“Oh,” she lied, “I hadn’t thought of that. I’m feeling fine most of the time.” She sat in the kitchen and twirled a lock of false hair as if it were her own. “Must I?”
“It’s up to you. I thought it might be easier.”
“Well,” she answered, “let me think about it. Let me talk it over with my husband.” She supposed she’d said my husband for a reason: to keep him at a distance, to keep things in perspective.
“You won’t be running,” he said.
The race, she remembered. It was just two weeks from now. Hannah knew her energy must be saved for healing.
“No,” she said.
“I’ll miss you.”
Her eyes traveled the kitchen in case anyone had heard. “Yes,” she said, then gritted her teeth because she knew that sounded stupid. “I’ll miss it, too.” She did not add, “And you.”
In the brief moment between them, she pictured him on the porch at Alley’s General Store, taking a break, swigging green Gatorade, sweat-soaked and smiling.
“Yes,” she said again.
“You could clock,” he said suddenly.
She opened her eyes. She hadn’t realized she had closed them. “What?”
“If you can’t run, you could clock time. Help out. You know.”
“Be there,” she said.
“Well. Yes. If you feel up to it.”
She twirled the silky strands again. “Well,” she replied. “Yes. Maybe.” She rang off and wondered why she’d said that when everything between Evan and her had become so good again.
Faye had to admit that she felt better. She’d never been the type who rushed to help out others; she’d never thought much about it, she’d been so caught up in her own world. But her brief visit with Hannah had helped to raise Faye’s spirits, helped put into perspective the drudge her own life had become.
A drudge? she thought, letting herself into her house. Was that what she now thought of life?
The light on the answering machine was flashing. Gwen, she thought. Back from the RGA presentation, no doubt, filled with the chatter of the business high, the then-I-said, then-he-said discourse of the meeting that most likely had gone well because Gwen knew her stuff.
Faye sighed. She turned from the machine and went to the kitchen to make tea, half-wondering if she’d ever regain her lust for her work
or if the last bout of treatment had irradiated that as well.
Setting the kettle on the stove, she lit the gas jet just as the phone rang.
Gwen again? Did persistence mean it had not gone well, and if not, why didn’t Faye have the energy to offer some support? Baking scones was one thing; conducting business required thought and reasoning.
She stared at the phone across the room. The answering machine clicked on: a voice came on.
“Faye?” It was not Gwen. It was a man’s voice. “I’m leaving the city to chase down a lead.”
She scowled a little.
“It’s R.J. Browne. Sorry I missed you. I’ll try again.”
She leapt across the room, into the dining room. She bumped her hip on the edge of the table and skidded on the hardwood floor. She fought to regain her balance. She finally grabbed the receiver.
“R.J.?” Faye shouted into the phone, but an insistent dial tone told her he’d hung up.
In 1971 a restaurant opened at the five corners in Vineyard Haven. It was called The Black Dog Tavern and planned to specialize in family fare. Patrons, of course, would have to bring their own bottles because no liquor was served in Vineyard Haven, because serving booze was illegal in any restaurant in any town without an “o” in the spelling of its name.
Rita rubbed the back of her neck again. She’d been at The Gazette all morning and had only reached 1971.
“Can I help you with something, Rita?” Nettie Drake asked her now. Nettie had been a few years ahead of Rita in school, but they knew each other as most Vineyarders did. She was straight-laced and proper, the kind of old Yankee that had made Rita decide to have Kyle in secret so he would not be shunned, a bastard of the island, an illegitimate child.
Rita sat up straight. If anyone would know about Faye’s child, it might be Nettie Drake, whose phone line had been known to work faster than a gossip column and was attached to every household from Edgartown to Gay Head, long before Gay Head was called Aquinnah. Rita looked at Nettie. “A child died on the island somewhere between 1968 and 1995. It was during the summer. The kid’s mother was called Faye. Does that ring any bells?”
