He was right, she supposed. And besides, she might be too shaky to drive. “All right. But could we just act like friends?”
Simon kissed her. “We are friends.”
They took Simon’s Mercedes and followed the GPS directions to the address in Cambridge that Ava had gotten from Sam. It took them all of fifteen minutes to pull up to a modest bungalow, painted brick red with a yellow door, in one of the funky student neighborhoods off Mass Ave between Harvard and MIT. This particular street seemed mostly upscale, a mix of tidy brick apartment buildings, two-family homes, and small bungalows like this one, suggesting it was where students moved after they’d kicked their professional lives in gear.
Ava peered at the neat yard with its picket fence. There were rocking chairs on the porch like the ones you saw all over Maine, painted white. Children’s toys cluttered the yard.
She checked the address against the one Sam had texted her to be sure it was the right place. “Where are they?”
“Probably inside.”
“You think they convinced Peter to let them inside? Two teenaged boys and a girl? What was he thinking? My brother’s blind!”
Simon gave her an amused look. “That doesn’t make him stupid.”
Ashamed, Ava got out of the car and slammed the door hard enough to make the car rattle. Simon climbed out, too, pocketed the keys, and offered her his arm. She took it and they crossed the street together.
Of all of the possible reunions she’d imagined for herself and Peter, this wasn’t one of them: on a poorly lit street in Cambridge, on the porch of a bungalow after having just made love with her stepmother’s brother, hoping her sons and half sister were inside. Ava felt faint with the sheer craziness of her misshapen family life.
“Are you going to ring the bell, or should we just wait until he comes out to get the morning paper?” Simon asked.
She punched his arm and knocked on the door.
A woman opened it. She was in her forties, small but curvy, streaked short hair. She smiled. “You must be Ava,” she said. “Come in. I’m Charley Winslow, Peter’s wife.” She stuck out her hand.
“I,” Ava began, but couldn’t say anything else, because Peter appeared in the hallway, Gigi at his side, and behind them Evan and Sam.
“Surprise!” Sam said. “Hey, who’s that with you? And how did you get here so fast? Way to go, Mom!”
“Uncle Simon?” Gigi said.
“Oh!” Ava said, staring at Peter, at a face so like her father’s and Elaine’s, so like her own and Gigi’s, that she burst into tears.
Charley and Simon led her like an invalid to the futon sofa in the snug living room. Charley brought her a cup of mint tea and sat cross-legged in front of Peter, who sat in a mission-style chair across from Ava. She stared at him while the kids told her about their detective work, and how Peter had let Gigi in his office. Meanwhile, Ava’s mind buzzed with questions she couldn’t ask yet: Had Peter looked for them? Had he been happy and loved as a child? Did he know, now, that he wasn’t ever forgotten, no matter how many people tried to erase the past?
“How did Gigi convince you that she was really your sister?” Ava asked once she’d collected herself enough to speak.
“Gigi didn’t need to work too hard,” Peter said, his voice gentle. “I wasn’t adopted until I was eight. I knew I had another family.”
“Where did you go?” Ava asked when she could trust her voice. “After Finley, I mean. Do you remember her? Aunt Finley, our mother’s sister? Mom wanted her to raise you.”
Peter nodded. “I have a couple of memories of that house. Mostly of being kept in one room and wanting so much to go outside. I used to think of ways to escape.” A smile flashed across his handsome face. “Once, I even made it out the window and down the street before she caught me.”
He told Ava then about the cause of his blindness—his optic nerves hadn’t developed, “just one of those things, nobody’s fault”—his foster homes, a series of them in Maine, and about the family in Portland that finally adopted him because his adoptive mother’s own brother had been blinded in Vietnam. “She was on a mission to adopt a blind child, and I got lucky,” Peter said simply. “She and her husband were good to me, and I had two sisters who didn’t seem to mind a little brother tagging along. My uncle was a big role model for me, too, showing me that being blind doesn’t have to define or limit who you are.”
Charley reached up from where she was sitting to take his hand. “I always wanted him to find his birth mother,” she said, “but Peter didn’t want to hurt the family he had by making them think they weren’t enough for him.”
“Your family sent you to Thompson?” Ava asked. “I’m sure Gigi told you that’s how we found you, through the yearbooks.”
“My family couldn’t have afforded a school like that. Luckily, I was in middle school in Portland, in a special program, and I got a scholarship. That changed my life and meant I could go to college, live on my own.” Peter laughed. “I can’t believe you found me because of South Pacific. Man, did I love to sing when I was in school.”
“Me, too,” Gigi said. “Evan and Sam and I have a band with another guy, a drummer, and I’m the singer.”
“Dad loved to sing,” Ava said.
Peter cocked his head at her. “A family thing, then. And you, Ava?”
“Can’t carry a tune.”
“Are there any more of us?” Peter asked.
Ava thought he must be asking about other people in the room, since he couldn’t see them. Then she realized he meant family. “We have another sister,” she said.
Peter glanced around the room as if he could, indeed, count heads. “Where is she?”
“She lives in Boston,” Ava said. “Her name is Elaine.”
“A half sister or full?”
“Full. She’s five years younger than I am,” Ava said. Then, after a minute, she felt compelled to add, “Elaine knows we were looking for you, but she’s not sure she’s ready to meet you yet.”
“I understand,” Peter said, and Ava thought, from the grave expression on his face, that Peter was probably used to hearing people say they weren’t ready for changes in their life. It’s what he did for a living, after all.
“She’s a good person,” Ava said. “She’s just going through a hard time since Dad died.”
“Are the three of you close, now that our dad is gone?” Peter asked.
Gigi met Ava’s eyes, giving her permission to speak the truth. But what was the truth? “We’re family,” Ava said finally. “We look out for each other. That’s why we’re here. Dad wanted us to find you and tell you he made a mistake by not looking for you once Mom told him about the pregnancy. If things had been left up to him, he never would have given you up in the first place. He always regretted losing you.”
Peter lowered his head. “That’s nice of you to say.”
“It’s true,” Ava said.
“And even if it weren’t for Dad, we’d feel like that,” Gigi added. “We hope you’re glad we found you, too.”
Peter turned his head in Gigi’s direction. “I am,” he said. “Unbelievably glad.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Six days sober now. Five days, so far, of wretched AA meetings. Elaine had called in sick with the flu even though it was August, the entire city was shut down, and she was owed about three weeks of vacation.
Now it was Sunday. Tony had returned from his golf trip to North Carolina and he’d be back in the office on Monday; she had to tell him the truth before then. Alcoholics Anonymous was all about asking for help, getting on your knees, telling the truth, making amends, staying sober one day at a time, etc. Great advice if you could follow it. Which she totally could. Maybe.
Her AA sponsor, Greta, said it was probably too soon to try making amends, since that was step eight and she’d just started her personal
journey—Christ, the worst phrase ever, one she’d banned from college admissions materials the first week she started with Tony’s company—but Elaine was in no mood to wait. She’d take her sobriety vows seriously, but some things she had to do on her own terms, her own schedule.
Elaine called Tony early to see if he was going to the usual spin class; when he said he was, she said she’d meet him there. Then she asked if he’d go with her to the pool at the North End. She’d chosen that spot because it was one of her happiest memories of the summer.
“You’re so pale,” Tony said when they emerged from their respective bathhouses in their swimsuits and met on the concrete walkway around the pool. “Are you sure you feel well enough to be here?”
Elaine had caked on concealer and makeup to cover the black eye. She’d hit her head hard on something when she fell in the pub bathroom, fracturing her skull. The bruising on her head had caused blood to pool down her face and gather around her eye until she looked like a battered wife. The weird thing was that nobody asked what happened to her, not in restaurants, coffee shops, or gas stations. No wonder women didn’t like to admit being victims of domestic violence: they felt invisible. The bruising had gone from green to blue to deep plum and then violet and yellow, which is what it was now beneath the makeup.
“I’m sober,” she said.
Tony laughed. “Yeah, you should be, sweetie, after that killer workout this morning. Sweated every drop of alcohol right out of you, I bet.” Then he saw her expression and reached for her hand. “Tell me,” he said.
Elaine related everything that had happened while he was away: the failed date with Gabe, Ava getting even closer to Gigi as the two of them looked for their brother, and Elaine’s own irrational rage and sorrow. And drinking. Drinking more than she ever had in her life, even during their party years at Tufts.
“I screwed up,” she said. “Big-time.”
Elaine told him about drinking vodka and cranberry juice in the car—not the first time—and about her night at the pub drinking martinis with the twin Irishmen, which had led to her being sick in the bathroom and falling. She’d made the call and been taken to the hospital by the woman who came to her rescue, Greta, who was now her AA sponsor.
“And yes, before you ask me, the ugly rumors are true: those meetings really are held in awful church basements,” she said.
“I know,” Tony said quietly.
“What? Who told you about me?”
“Nobody, you ninny.” They were sitting on the edge of the pool, their legs dangling in the lukewarm water.
“How did you know I’d joined AA, then?” she asked.
“I didn’t,” Tony said. “It’s not like anything you did made Fox News or caused people in the office to say you were a falling-down drunk. I just know about the church basements because George is in AA. He’s been sober for ten years.” Tony said this with pride.
Elaine was stunned. “George? Your George, who loves to cook four-course meals and wear Armani? Why didn’t you tell me?”
Tony shrugged. “Not my dirty laundry to air, honey. But I’m sure George would be okay with you knowing this, given the circumstances.” He smiled and feathered his fingers across her cheekbone, just below her black eye. “You’re very brave, both of you.”
Elaine wanted to cry; she was so grateful that Tony hadn’t made her feel like more of a loser than she already was. Instead she kissed him and pulled him into the water. After their swim, they ate ice cream at the snack bar, moaning about the hour of spin class they’d have to do tomorrow to work it off.
They had brought separate cars to the pool because Elaine had one more thing to do today. She drove to Gabe’s house in the South End and parked down the street from his brownstone, admiring the flowers blooming in the tidy postage stamp lawns in front of the buildings.
Outside his door, though, she began to lose her resolve. Maybe Greta was right and it was too soon to make amends with everyone on her list. Another, cynical voice inside her head demanded why she even cared what this guy thought of her. It wasn’t like she planned to date him.
Plus—and this was the smallest, most insignificant concern, but couldn’t be ignored—did she really want anyone other than Tony or hospital orderlies seeing her without makeup, especially with a black eye? She’d come straight from the pool and had barely combed her hair, which still hung straight and wet and cold on her shoulders.
In the window, there was a movement behind the curtain. Elaine nearly jumped out of her skin, thinking it was Gabe watching her spy on his house. Then she realized it was the psycho kitty, Tommy, parting the curtains with his big round head. He looked like the Cheshire cat, sitting like that between the curtains with just his head showing. She imagined his grin and nearly waved to him.
Then the door opened and Gabe stepped outside. He wore the same cotton bathrobe she’d borrowed the night of the mugging and he was blinking at her in the bright sunlight. It took her a minute to realize he wasn’t wearing his glasses, which must be why he was squinting like that.
“Oh!” he said. “I thought you were the woman who delivers the Times. I called them to say the paper hadn’t arrived.”
“I didn’t steal it. I promise.”
Gabe came down the steps and padded toward her on the sidewalk on bare feet. He fished his black glasses out of one pocket of the robe and put them on. “Wow.” He peered at her eye. “What did you do to yourself?”
“You should see the other guy,” Elaine said, hating the wobble in her voice.
Gabe didn’t laugh. “You’d better come in. Looks like you could use a cup of coffee.”
Coffee was just what she needed, even if Gabe had probably suggested it because he’d jumped to the conclusion that she’d been out carousing last night. Elaine followed him meekly up the sidewalk. She had gone through spin class and swimming at the pool on nothing more than a peach yogurt and that ice cream sandwich. Her head felt stuffed with cotton and her pores were oozing chlorine at a time of day when they should have been oozing caffeine.
“I’m sorry to barge in on you like this,” she said as they made their way down the cool dim hallway to the kitchen.
“Who’s barging? I invited you in,” Gabe said with a waggle of his fingers over one shoulder. “I’m barely out of bed. Looks like you’ve been running or something.”
“Spin class, then swimming.” Again, she heard the unspoken accusation and felt the questions he wasn’t asking, saw them written in the tension across his shoulders. “Gabe, I was home and in bed at nine o’clock last night. And all I had to drink was water.”
He went to the cupboard, took out a pair of mugs without looking at her. “Why? Who died?”
“That’s not funny,” she said.
“No? Well, neither are you.” He turned around, and for the first time Elaine saw how angry Gabe was. His brown eyes were fierce, sparking gold behind the thick frames of his glasses, and his shoulders were squared, his bare feet centered beneath him. He looked like he could pick up the refrigerator next to him and toss it out a window.
“I’m so, so sorry,” she whispered, and sank into one of the kitchen chairs, her head in her hands. “I never meant to hurt you.”
“You pissed me off, that’s what you did,” Gabe said. “I didn’t realize how much until I saw you just now. I thought I’d written you off as one more crazy I can’t save, like pretty much every damaged woman I dated in high school and college. That’s me, the sappy Jew, always attracted to girls who need saving. Not your fault, me and my do-gooder habits. I expect to get my heart stomped on, that’s my MO, and, well, somebody’s gotta be the schmuck in every relationship. But for some reason—silly me—I really thought we were developing a friendship. And then you turned on me because I was honest. Because I was trying to help you. Well, screw you!”
Elaine lifted her head and stared at him. “Whoa,” she sai
d, genuinely impressed. “Nice rant. Maybe you’re way less nice than I thought. Good job. I really feel like crap now.”
For a minute, she thought Gabe might hurl the coffeepot at the wall. Instead, he glowered at her but set the coffee down carefully on the counter. Then he brought the mugs to the table and put those down, too.
He pulled out the chair next to hers with one foot and sat down, wrapping the robe around his legs. He was staring at her the whole time, his dark eyes gradually lightening to warm hazel, and then he was smiling and rubbing his eyes under the glasses, shaking his head. “Jesus,” he said. “What the hell are you doing here, Elaine?”
“I came to apologize.” She reached over and touched his hand to make him look at her. “I came to say you were right. I was drinking and it was screwing up my life. I ended up at Mass General last weekend with alcohol poisoning.”
He took a sharp breath. “Why didn’t you call me? I put my number in your phone for a reason.”
Elaine shrugged. “I had to call somebody else. Somebody disconnected from me and my family. Now I’m in AA. End of story.” She smiled. “Or the beginning, I hope.”
“Just tell me who gave this to you.” Gabe touched her face, his finger cool on her warm cheek.
She shivered a little but didn’t pull away. “I did,” she said. “I blacked out and fell. I had a lump on my head the size of an orange. This is the residual bleeding under the skin, apparently. I didn’t even hit my face.”
“You were lucky you weren’t concussed.”
“It would have been hard to tell if I was, the condition I was in,” Elaine said. “It scared me, though, so it was a good thing it happened.”
“I wish it hadn’t come to that.”
“Me, too. But things go the way they do, right? And all we can do is get back up again.” Elaine sipped her coffee. “Got any toast?”
Beach Plum Island Page 33
