The Map of True Places

by Brunonia Barry

  22

  FOUR HOURS LATER MATTEI sat across the kitchen table from Zee. She’d had a hell of a time finding a parking place and ended up leaving her car way down on Congress Street at a four-story public garage, where she still had to wait almost twenty minutes for a space.

  Zee had left her two phone messages that day, the first while she was still at the house, requesting a leave of absence so that she could take care of Finch, and the second two hours later, declaring that she didn’t think Lilly’s death was a suicide.

  MATTEI HADN’T BOTHERED TO CALL Zee back. Instead she had gotten into her car and driven to Salem.

  “I KNOW WHAT I SAW,” Zee insisted as they sat across the table from each other.

  “I’m not disputing that,” Mattei said.

  “He smashed the flower basket,” Zee said. “He’s dangerous.”

  “We don’t know if he’s dangerous. He certainly seems angry.”

  “We know he threatened her.”

  “Yes,” Mattei said.

  “You didn’t believe it before,” Zee said.

  “I never said I didn’t believe it. It was the Marblehead police who were skeptical. And Lilly wasn’t exactly reliable. Or cooperative, for that matter.”

  “She wasn’t suicidal,” Zee said.

  “She jumped off a bridge.”

  “What if he drove her to it?”

  “What if he did?” Mattei asked.

  “Shouldn’t we tell someone?”

  “Tell them what?” Mattei asked.

  Zee looked frustrated.

  “Let’s think it through,” Mattei said. “There’s absolutely nothing anyone can do. You can’t arrest a person for driving someone to suicide. If you could, the jails would be full of husbands, wives, relatives, and employers. Isn’t it always somebody else’s fault?”

  “Even so…” Zee said.

  “She was bipolar,” Mattei said.

  “I’m well aware of that,” Zee said.

  “Well, you know from personal experience that this is how things sometimes end.”

  “You mean my mother,” Zee said.

  “Yes,” Mattei said.

  “My mother was BP1. And unmedicated.”

  “Medication doesn’t always work. Case in point, Lilly Braedon.”

  “I would have known if Lilly was suicidal,” Zee said. Before Mattei had a chance to respond, she added, “I was thirteen when my mother died. And if it happened now, with my training, I would have seen the signs.”

  Mattei was silent.

  “And there’s something else,” Zee said.

  “What’s that?”

  “You didn’t think she was suicidal either,” Zee said.

  “Now you’re telling me what I thought?”

  “You wouldn’t have given her to me to treat if you thought so,” Zee said. “Admit it. She was as much part of my treatment as I was of hers.”

  “Interesting theory,” Mattei said.

  “You knew she reminded me of my mother. You thought I could treat her and make it turn out differently. Hell, that’s what I thought.”

  “As in, ‘They all lived happily ever after’?”

  “As in, ‘Work out some issues.’” Zee was clearly getting agitated. Her hands were shaking. She clasped them together, trying to steady them.

  “Take a breath,” Mattei said.

  Zee looked frustrated. But she obeyed. She took a deep breath and held it as long as she could. Then she slowly exhaled.

  “Are you okay?”

  Zee nodded.

  “This is all very predictable. You just lost a patient. One who was important to you. You broke off your engagement. Your father is very ill. I don’t want you to underestimate any of this,” Mattei said.

  “I’m not,” Zee said. “I’m well aware of the effect all this is having on me. I just think that we should tell someone about Adam.”

  “‘We’ already have.”

  “Then we should tell them again.”

  “Again, let’s think it through,” Mattei said, more forcefully this time. “Think of the family. Do you really want to put them through more than they’ve already suffered? Lilly was having an affair with Adam. And from what the police told us, there were other men she was involved with as well. Is this really something you want to pursue?”

  Zee remained silent. Mattei was right.

  “If it’s any consolation,” Mattei said, “you were right. I didn’t see it coming.”

  There was a sound at the kitchen door. Someone was on the deck. Jessina let herself in with her key, then looked at them.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “Do you want me to come back later?”

  “No, you’re fine. Jessina, this is my friend Mattei. Mattei, this is Jessina. She takes care of Finch.”

  “Nice to meet you,” Mattei said, extending a hand.

  “I was going to make cookies for him,” Jessina said, holding out a bag of flour she’d brought.

  “Jessina is a great baker,” Zee said.

  “From scratch, not a mix?” Mattei asked.

  “I never use a mix,” Jessina said.

  “Very impressive,” Mattei said.

  ZEE AND MATTEI MOVED OUTSIDE to the deck off the kitchen. From here there was a great view of the harbor, only partially blocked by the boatyard to their left. The house straddled two streets, Turner and Hardy. It was long and narrow, with an entrance on either end.

  “This is a really old house, isn’t it?” Mattei said, looking back at the twelve-over-twelve windows, the central chimney.

  “Except for the deck,” Zee said. “And the widow’s walk.”

  Mattei looked up. “I don’t see a widow’s walk.”

  “Just the remains of one. See, up there? That flat part on top of the roof?” She pointed. “This house was purchased by a sea captain back in the late 1700s. Eventually he added the widow’s walk, then reportedly chopped it down in a fit of jealous rage.”

  Mattei walked over to the historic sign posted on the side of the house: HOME OF ARLIS BROWNE, SEA CAPTAIN. “Wasn’t that the captain in your mother’s story?” Mattei asked.

  “The very same.”

  “Nice guy,” she said.

  “Yeah, right,” Zee said.

  A double-decker tour bus pulled out of the Gables’ parking lot and got itself stuck trying to make the right onto Turner Street. It backed up, then went forward, and then finally all the way back into the parking lot, where it did an exaggerated U-turn and exited the wrong way onto Derby Street, leaning precariously as it emerged, sending tourists scattering.

  “There are a heck of a lot of tourists in this city,” Mattei said.

  “Boston has tourists,” Zee said.

  “Not dressed in witches’ hats, we don’t.”

  They sat in silence for a few minutes, gazing out at the harbor. The sun was bright and playing on the water, making it look as if the light were emerging from the water itself, a million random bubbles of silver popping to the surface and then disappearing.

  “What’s that over there?” Mattei pointed across the harbor.

  “That’s Marblehead,” Zee said.

  “Ah, the infamous Marblehead.”

  Jessina brought out some lemonade and two glasses, placed them on the table without saying a word, and then turned to go back inside.

  “You didn’t have to do that,” Zee said. “But thanks.”

  Jessina smiled, closing the door carefully so it wouldn’t slam.

  “She seems great,” Mattei said.

  “She’s a treasure. Melville hired her. She was a nurse in the Dominican Republic. She’s raising a son by herself and trying to finish a nursing degree at Salem State. All that with English as a second language.”

  “I’m in awe,” Mattei said. “Aren’t you?”

  “Every day,” Zee said.

  Mattei sat and considered for a moment before speaking. “So I take it Melville’s not coming back.”

  “He tried. Finch kicked hi
m out again.”

  “Why?”

  “I have no idea. I know they had some kind of disagreement, but Melville said it was an old argument that had been settled a long time ago.”

  “Evidently not,” Mattei said.

  “That’s exactly what I said,” Zee said.

  “So that leaves you as caregiver.”

  “Pretty much,” Zee said. “At least until I can figure something else out.”

  Mattei looked at her.

  “I want to do this,” Zee said.

  “That’s very noble.” Mattei paused. “But caregiving is very difficult.”

  “I have Jessina,” Zee said.

  “Even so.”

  “It’s been okay,” Zee said.

  “And you’ve been doing this for what? A week?”

  “Nevertheless,” Zee said. It was meant to end the conversation, and Mattei knew it.

  “Just promise me one thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Promise me you’re not just hiding out here.”

  Zee thought about it. “I’m not,” she said.

  “Okay,” Mattei said. “Take a leave of absence. But I don’t want to lose you. You’re too good a therapist.”

  “Recent evidence to the contrary.”

  “Stop it,” Mattei said.

  MATTEI LEFT ZEE WITH THE name of a caregiver-support group at Salem Hospital and a prescription for sleeping pills.

  “I don’t need the pills,” Zee lied.

  “You told me you weren’t sleeping,” Mattei said. “It doesn’t hurt to fill the prescription. If you don’t need them, don’t take them.”

  “Thanks,” Zee said.

  Zee thought about it before bringing up the next subject. “There’s one thing we haven’t talked about,” Zee said.

  “Really? What is that?”

  “I’m assuming you talked to Michael.”

  “We’ve spoken, yes.”

  “Just tell me one thing,” Zee asked. “Is he okay?”

  Mattei thought carefully before she spoke. “He’ll be fine. Given the right amount of time and enough red wine.”

  Zee nodded. She didn’t want to know any more.

  23

  HAVING FORGOTTEN THAT HE’D agreed to teach the class tonight, Hawk had planned to go to Zee’s after work to install the railing.

  As part of his employment contract for the summer, he was to co-teach a celestial-navigation course sponsored by the National Park Service. Though most of the Friendship’s navigation was done by GPS, Hawk was the only member of the crew who was proficient in celestial skills, and the captain wanted each of the ship’s journeys logged as if it were still the early 1800s, when all navigation was done by the stars.

  This would have been fine with Hawk, except that many of the classes, which were taught at the Visitors’ Center and not at sea, conflicted with his duties on the ship. When he had agreed to teach, he’d assumed that the classes would be held on the Friendship as she sailed, allowing the students to learn to take the twilight sights. What he didn’t know at the time was that the Friendship rarely sailed at all, and when she did, she sometimes carried a few VIPs, but almost never any regular passengers. Though she was coast guard–certified to sail, as a general rule the Friendship stayed in port except when she served as Essex County’s or the National Park Service’s flagship for maritime festivals up and down the coast. Most days she sat at the wharf while large groups of tourists boarded and disembarked.

  Recently an application had been made to the coast guard to commission the ship, which, if accepted, would allow the Friendship to take passengers out to sea and provide students and any other groups with a firsthand experience of Salem’s sailing history, something they were unlikely to understand any other way. But commissioning was a slow process. Hawk was able to bring the class aboard the moored ship to practice noon sights and learn to determine latitude, but he hadn’t been able to take them out to sea. For the most part, this summer’s celestial-navigation course had been confined to the classroom, something Hawk found appalling, and he didn’t hesitate to say so.

  He was no less vocal the night of the first class when the other instructor, a man who had been teaching the course for the last five years, espoused the theory that sun sights alone were sufficient for navigation and that he had made several trips across the Atlantic taking nothing but sun sights.

  “What other instruments did you have?” Hawk sounded doubtful.

  “Well, we didn’t have GPS, I can tell you that much,” his co-teacher huffed.

  Hawk’s co-teacher was an older gentleman named Briggs, a seasoned veteran with good credentials, who had once crossed the Atlantic solo from Plymouth, England, to the United States in a sixty-five-foot multihull. Hawk thought the guy was lucky to have made it. He didn’t criticize Briggs in front of the class, but he later expressed a strong opinion that the class should be taught using more than one navigational technique. Sun sights were certainly a part of celestial navigation, but so were moon, planet, and star sights, and Hawk could not conceive of teaching a course without all of them.

  “They will learn to use a sextant,” Briggs said. “And for this beginning class, sun sights are quite satisfactory.”

  In an odd twist, this year’s class consisted entirely of women. The other crew members kidded Hawk because the online brochure for the class had featured photographs of both instructors, and they were certain that this was the reason for the exclusively female enrollment.

  “He looks like a young George Clooney,” one of the crew said, referring to Hawk’s photo.

  “Shut up,” Hawk said.

  After the first class, Hawk wanted to quit. Not only did he think an inside class was ridiculous, but the conflicts in his schedule left the Friendship shorthanded. And there was another reason. For the most part, the class full of women was fine with him, but there was a small group of them, known well to the other instructor, that the crew had nicknamed the “Yacht Club Cougars.” Three of them attended the first class. By the second, the group had expanded to seven. It wasn’t that he had anything against them, though they were a little cliquish and very outspoken, which tended to keep the other, less outgoing women from asking many questions. But their attempts at humor were fairly bawdy and were usually directed at Hawk, which might have amused him had it not made Briggs envious and argumentative. After one particularly disagreeable class, Hawk decided to talk to his boss. Contract aside, this class didn’t need two instructors, and the two men clearly didn’t like each other. Hawk would volunteer to quit.

  But the other instructor beat him to it. “I can’t work with him,” Hawk overheard Briggs tell their boss. “You’re going to have to choose one or the other of us, and let me remind you that not only do I have seniority, but my family has donated quite a bit of money to this project over the years.”

  Hawk quit the class. But a few weeks later, his boss came back to him. They’d had some complaints from the enrollees, who agreed strongly with Hawk’s assessment that the class should be taught at least in part on the water.

  “Great idea,” Hawk said, happy that the students would finally get their money’s worth. “But why are you telling me?”

  “We have an issue,” his boss said.

  “Yeah? What’s that?” Hawk said.

  “Over the years Briggs seems to have developed a problem with seasickness.”

  “You’re kidding.” Hawk couldn’t help but smile.

  “We were hoping we could convince you to take them out in your boat. It would only be for one class,” he said. “And we do have a contract.”

  Hawk was well aware that they hadn’t docked his pay when he’d stopped teaching the class. “Okay,” he said. “Which class are we talking about?”

  “The one on twilight sights,” he said. “We’ve titled it Rocking the Sextant. The sign-up sheet is already full.”

  “I’ll bet,” Hawk said. Behind his boss, some of the crew were snickering. “You woul
dn’t have had anything to do with that title, would you?” he asked one of them.

  “Not guilty,” his friend Josh said. “But if you’re looking for crew to help out with the Cougars, I’m sure you’ll get some volunteers.”

  “Funny,” he said.

  “So you’ll do it?” his boss asked.

  “Do I have a choice?”

  “Not without a pay cut.”

  HAWK ARRANGED TO TAKE THE class out in his boat, a 1941 Sim Davis lobster boat, a forty-footer with the winch and gear removed, which Hawk had spent last summer restoring and was now living on just a few slips down from the Friendship.

  THERE ARE TWO TIMES A day when it is best to take sights: dawn and dusk. Twilight sights are taken just before the horizon disappears into either darkness or light, in those few minutes when the planets and locator stars are still visible. It’s a moment in time, and it takes practice. For the beginner especially, it would be important to get to a spot where Hawk knew that the stars would be visible along the horizon. Which meant they had to get away from shore.

  They left an hour before sunset in order to make it to open ocean. It was a relatively calm evening, and his boat was sturdy, so they wouldn’t have to deal with much chop. This was both good and bad. The sextant was a durable instrument meant to take vertical angles from a moving ship. One of the reasons for going out was that the students would get used to the movement of the boat and accustomed to taking readings in any conditions.

  The women arrived early, with picnic gear and bottles of wine.

  “I hope you also brought your notebooks and sextants,” he said when he saw the bottles sticking from their L.L. Bean canvas bags.

  They headed out, passing the tiny lighthouse on Winter Island, then the Salem Willows Park with its long wharf lined with men fishing for stripers. When Hawk passed the confines of Salem Harbor, he gunned the engine, heading between the Miseries and Children’s Island and as straight out to sea as was possible in the sheltered waters that ran between Salem and Cape Ann.