by Rice, Luanne
“And you were so very helpful that time, too. Telling me I'd lose my thumbnail and that when it grew back it would probably be ‘misshapen and grotesque.' ”
Dan lifted her left hand, bringing his face close to it, examining her thumbnail. “Looks like I was wrong. It's very pretty.”
“It was my right thumb,” Bay said.
She drew her right arm out from beneath the sheet, wincing as she did. Her hand throbbed in spite of the shot, and every movement made it worse. But she held her thumb for Dan to see.
“Ah,” he said, as if he were a doctor and knew what he was seeing.
“What?” Bay asked, light-headed with pain, medication, and emotion.
“I'm assessing the situation, young lady,” he said.
“I didn't know you were a doctor.”
“Twelve years as a father gives a man certain expertise,” Dan said, “in the realm of medical care.”
“Eliza,” Bay said, remembering the mysterious message, that she had gone away. “How is Eliza?”
“You're my patient right now—let's not get off track, here.”
“Well, tell me, then. Were you right all those years ago, when you told me my nail would be ‘misshapen and grotesque'?”
“You certainly have a mind like a steel trap,” he said. “To remember the exact phrase I used.”
“When you're a fifteen-year-old girl and you read Seventeen and all the models have perfect, oval nails, the words ‘misshapen and grotesque' carry quite a lot of weight.”
“I'm so sorry, Bay,” Dan said, holding her mangled right hand, staring into her eyes. “I was wrong about what would happen to your thumbnail. Most apprentice boardwalk-builders who smash their thumbs end up with nails misshapen—well, you know. But not you.”
“Not me?” she asked, suddenly, openly, weeping.
“No. Yours is beautiful,” Dan said, bending his head and at the same time raising her right thumb to his lips and kissing it.
Bay cried, dizzy with a million feelings, clinging to his hand and never wanting to let it go. Just then the curtains opened, and a young doctor walked in with a big smile and a very large needle.
“Hi,” she said. “I'm Dr. Jolaine.”
“Hello,” Bay said.
“Hi, Doc,” Dan said.
“You might want to step outside,” the doctor said, indicating the patient and the needle.
“I can't do that,” he said.
“No?” the doctor asked.
“No. I've signed on for the long haul,” he said. “I was here to make sure her right thumbnail wasn't smashed beyond repair, and I think the least I can do is stay to oversee her palm.”
“Well, some people mind being here for stitches, but if the patient wants you, and you don't mind—”
“I don't,” Dan said, laying Bay's hand down on the table, lightly touching the side of her head. “I'm right with you, Galway.”
“Thanks,” she whispered.
So Bay just closed her eyes and tried to be brave, the way she always told her kids to be brave when they got hurt and had to go to the clinic.
And the way—it all came floating back to her—Dan had told her a lifetime ago, when she was fifteen and all of life was a hopeful mystery, when she'd banged her thumb with the hammer, when her worst fear in life was that she would have an ugly thumbnail.
He did it again, right now, his voice soft and sure, reminding her that she was strong, and that she wasn't as alone as she thought she was.
“Be brave, Bay,” he said as the doctor shot her hand full of anesthetic. “You can do it.”
Bay wasn't at all sure of that; but she would certainly try.
16
IT WAS A WEEK LATER, JUST AS SCHOOL WAS STARTING and summer ending—not the calendar summer with its final segue into the autumnal equinox, but the real summer, the summer of the beach and crabbing and Good Humors and endless free time—when Annie finally got together with Eliza. Dan had driven her over to Black Hall so the girls could spend the day together.
Eliza was paler than ever.
That was the first thing Annie saw. The second thing was that she was also, impossibly, even skinnier. And the third thing was that she had fine scars, like the almost invisible tentacles of jellyfish, crisscrossing her forearms and the backs of her hands and the calves of her legs. Some scars were old and white and others were fresh and red. Billy was right: Eliza was a cutter.
“So, where were you?” Annie asked as the two girls walked down the sandy road toward the beach. Not to actually go to the beach, of course. They both hated the sun, and kept to the shade. But just for something to do, to get away from parental observation.
“Your mom's hand is still bandaged,” Eliza said, as if she hadn't heard.
“Yes, she cut it.”
“I know. My dad told me. He drove her to the clinic.”
“Just like he did when they were young and she got hurt helping him build the boardwalk.”
“He's a regular freaking knight in shining armor.” Eliza chuckled. “Is the boardwalk he built still here? I want to see it.”
“Where were you?” Annie asked again.
“My dad likes your mom,” Eliza said bluntly, once more dodging the question.
“She likes him, too. She loves her old friends.”
“But what if they really like each other? What if they end up falling in love with each other? What if we end up being stepsisters? You don't want to move out of your house and I don't want to move out of my house, so we'll all end up fighting and hating each other.”
“You're crazy,” Annie said, laughing. “They're just friends. That's all.”
“Bingo! You got it right!” Eliza said.
“That they're just friends?”
“No, that I'm crazy. That's where I was—in the bin.”
“‘The bin'?”
“The loony bin. The nuthouse,” Eliza said in a loud voice, even though they were passing people in their yards. She might just as easily be saying she'd been at school, at camp, on vacation. Annie swallowed hard, looking at Eliza to see if she was kidding. She wore a long slinky black dress with an artificial flower pinned to the bodice, and a floppy yellow hat.
“You're joking,” Annie said.
“Nope. I was at Banquo Hospital in Delmont, Massachusetts. My alma mater. I kind of have D.I.D. and P.T.S.D. and I've been there . . . a few times.”
“Why?” Annie asked.
“Because . . . sometimes I can't keep myself safe,” Eliza said.
Annie scrunched up her face. Now, that sounded crazy. How hard could it be, to keep herself “safe”?
“What do you mean?” Annie asked, but she found her eyes moving to the scars on Eliza's arms.
“Don't you ever do it?” Eliza asked, her eyes shining. “Hurt yourself?”
“On purpose? Why would I do that?”
“To let the real pain out!” Eliza said. “You know, you have so much inside . . . like I do . . . doesn't the pressure ever build up so much you have to let it out?”
“By hurting myself?”
“Sticking yourself with pins, writing on your skin with a razor blade?” Eliza asked, as if it was the most normal, sensible solution in the world. “Putting your finger in a candle flame?” At that, she showed Annie the tip of her right index finger: dark and thickly callused, as if it had been passed through fire over and over.
“Eliza, you ARE weird,” Annie said.
“Actually, everyone else is,” Eliza said, shrugging huffily and walking ahead, a straight pencil line of a girl, so thin she could almost be taken for the shadow of a bare branch. When she turned around, she was grinning, as if she had something really great to say and couldn't keep it in another minute. She cupped the flower pinned to her chest.
“I love this,” she said. “It was my mother's. And she got it from her mother. Isn't it beautiful and old-fashioned?”
“It is,” Annie agreed.
“No one wears flowers pinned to their dresses anymore, rig
ht? Isn't it original, for someone our age?”
“Very.”
“They wouldn't let me have it at the hospital. Because of the pin,” Eliza said. “No sharps.”
“Sharps?”
“Pins, needles and thread, even the silver spiral on spiral-bound notebooks. No razors in the shower—all the girls there have the hairiest legs you've ever seen.”
“Gross!” Annie said.
“I know. The first thing I did when I got home was say ‘Dad, you're getting me an electric shaver, or I'm out of here on the next tide.' ”
“Did he get it for you?” Annie asked, bending slightly and lifting Eliza's long skirt, to view her smooth legs. “Looks like he did.”
“Yeah. I love my dad,” Eliza said. “Even if he hates me.”
“There is no way he hates you.”
“You don't have the whole story yet,” Eliza said. “We might be best-friends-to-be, but we have a few secrets from each other still. Can't rush these things. I learned that in the bin, where we're all like drowning people in a lifeboat together, clinging to each other and best-friends-for-life . . . until we walk out the door and never see each other again. ‘Write me, call me, I'll never forget you!' But we do forget . . . Hey, is that my father's boardwalk?”
“Yes, it is,” Annie said.
Together they walked up the steps—in silence, with reverence—as if they were making a pilgrimage. To Notre Dame, Mecca, the Taj Mahal, St. Patrick's Cathedral: a sacred, holy place, the boardwalk at Hubbard's Point.
“Just imagine,” Eliza said, crouching down to brush the boards with her fingertips, “how long it must have taken my father to build this.”
“With my mom helping him,” Annie said.
With tiny steps, making sure her toes touched each and every board, Eliza began to walk the length of the span. As boardwalks went, Annie knew that this one wasn't very long. Just about fifty yards from end to end, with a blue-roofed pavilion in its center, to shade people from the sun.
On one side, the boardwalk gave onto the beach itself, the white strand easing down into the sea. On the other side, the boardwalk was lined with benches backed by a chest-high white fence designed to keep people from pitching into the boat basin, about fifteen feet below.
“What was here before my dad built the boardwalk?” Eliza asked.
“Well, there was always a boardwalk,” Annie said. “I think he actually replaced an old one that washed away in a hurricane.”
“Do you have a boat in there?” Eliza asked, still taking mincingly small steps as she gestured at the boat basin.
“No,” Annie said. “I wish I did. My dad's boat was too big to fit in there; he kept it at the marina in town. But my dad was going to hire your dad to build me a boat,” Annie said.
“I know. He told me.”
“I wish it had happened,” Annie said.
“There aren't many rowboats in there now,” Eliza said, checking out the boats.
“No,” Annie said. “It's pretty funny, actually. My mom said that when she was young, it was totally tidal—filled with water at high tide, but dry at low. The boats were all small and wooden, with a few Boston Whalers. There was an island in the middle, where the swans could build their nest . . .” Annie looked at the ugly corrugated steel forming the basin itself, recalling her mother's description of graceful stone walls. “A lot of the new people at the beach call this ‘the yacht basin' now.”
“New people,” Eliza said. “I'm guessing you and your family are ‘the old people.' ”
“Yep. Been here forever. That's why I wish we had a little boat to go in the boat basin,” she said sadly. “Because it would be so right . . .”
“And you could row me around.”
“Yes,” Annie said, smiling. “I could row you around.”
The two girls stared at the basin's still surface, as if they could both imagine the rowboat, as if they were already rocking on the water. Annie could feel the gentle motion, she could hear the peaceful waves.
“It's nice here,” Eliza said, looking around at the pretty cottages, at the boardwalk along the white beach.
“People fall in love here,” Annie said. “That's what everyone says. The air is filled with magic, or something.”
“I don't want to fall in love,” Eliza said. “Ever. It leads to pain.”
“Well, there are lots of different kinds of love,” Annie said. “And it's all here at Hubbard's Point. A lot of these cottages are owned by different family members. Sisters, brothers, parents, grandparents, kids . . . and they all come back, year after year, to be together.”
“Really?” Eliza asked wistfully.
“Yep. People at the Point call them their ‘beloveds.' It doesn't matter whether you're married, or even related—you can love anyone. My mother's best friend, Tara—you met her—lives right across the creek from us. They've been best friends since they were young.”
“Our age?”
“Even younger,” Annie said. “And their grandmothers were best friends, too—they met on the boat from Ireland. My mother said they grabbed onto each other's hands and never let go.”
With that, she felt Eliza grab hold of her hand, look into her eyes. “Like that?” Eliza asked.
“Yes,” Annie said, nodding. “I think so.”
“Do you think best friends can last forever? Through anything?”
Annie thought back to the mess Tara had made with her mother and Mrs. Renwick, one of the people her father had stolen from. The whole thing had sort of blown up.
And her mother had been so humiliated, she had managed to bang her head and cut her hand while trying to get away without making Mrs. Renwick even more upset. Although her mother could have been really mad at Tara for it, she just kind of laughed and said she'd figure out a way to get her back, after she strangled her.
“Yes,” Annie said. “I do.”
“Then, if I never let go of your hand,” Eliza said, “do you think we can be like the beloved grandmothers? And have little white houses together here at Hubbard's Point?”
“The beloved grannies,” Annie said, smiling at the thought. “I think we could!”
“And in a hundred years,” Eliza said, “our granddaughters will be standing right here in this same spot, talking about rowboats and imagining how their families got here. And it will be from this very second—where we decided to be best friends.”
“Forever,” Annie said.
“Forever,” Eliza said. And with that, another generation of Hubbard's Point beloveds was born.
17
MOM, WHAT'S D.I.D?” ANNIE ASKED JUST BEFORE she was leaving for school the next Monday.
“That's how you spell ‘did,' ” Billy called from the breakfast table. “As in, ‘Did you know I really really don't want to go to school?' ”
Annie ignored him with such impressive equanimity that Bay had to smile.
“Seriously, Mom. What do the letters D-I-D stand for?”
“I'm not sure, honey.”
“Then, what's P.T.S.D.?”
“I think that's ‘post-traumatic stress disorder,' ” Bay said. “People who've been through trauma sometimes suffer from it.”
“Like Vietnam vets,” Billy said. “I saw it in the movies. Why? You know someone who's been to war?”
“Not that kind of war,” Annie said softly. “I wonder what D.I.D. is, though. I'm going to look it up at the school library.”
“It's great to hear you wanting to learn something new,” Bay said, knowing that the questions had to do with Eliza.
Annie's eyes met her mother's. “She's my best friend,” Annie said. “I want to know everything about her.”
Bay hugged her just as the bus pulled up outside and the phone rang. Kissing all three kids good-bye, she answered the phone, pulling it with her as she waved at them from the door.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Bay.”
“Dan! Hi,” she said, Annie's questions fresh in her mind.
/>
“Last time I checked, your hand was healing nicely. You were almost ready to grab a hammer again.”
Bay smiled. “Almost,” she said, flexing her palm, looking down at the bandage. “How are you?”
“I'm great. Listen, I'm almost finished restoring an old catboat, and I wondered whether you'd like to come out for a sail.”
“A sail?” Bay asked.
“The sea trial,” he laughed. “Where I make sure she's seaworthy. You know, I figured it would remind you of walking the boardwalk for the first time, checking to make sure all the boards were secure.”
“Sure,” Bay said, looking out the kitchen door at the black car driving past. Joe Holmes had taken the surveillance off her family, but she was pretty sure he still patrolled once in a while. What other unmarked black car with two guys in suits would go sliding through Hubbard's Point?
“When would you like to go?” Dan asked.
“Well, I need to make some job search calls today,” she said, “and if I get something, I'll have to start right away . . .”
“Keeping that in mind, what about trying for Saturday?” Dan asked. “The weather's supposed to be mild, and maybe we'll have some better wind than today. Late afternoon? Five or so?”
“Sounds good,” Bay said. “See you then.”
She held on to the phone, glancing down at the classifieds covering her kitchen table. Across the marsh Tara's house gleamed in the sunlight, her hollyhocks and morning glories waving in the breeze. Bay dialed the number.
“Hi,” Bay said.
“Hi. I saw the bus. Are they off?”
“Yep—it's just me and the classifieds. Though Danny just called to ask me to go sailing.”
“Really? That's great, Bay. The classifieds, though . . . I'm sorry.”
“It's not your fault.”
“But I feel it is,” Tara said. “I should have known better. It's just that I know you separately, you and Augusta, and I love and adore you, and like and respect her, and her gardens need help, and I know that Sean hurt you both, and I just thought—”
“I know. Please, Tara—don't,” Bay said quickly, to stop the apology, and because she still couldn't stand thinking about how distraught Mrs. Renwick had been.