The Map of True Places

by Brunonia Barry

  Before Hawk’s mother had moved back home to Marblehead, to the house on Salem Harbor where she’d grown up, there had been several restraining orders. Not only had they not helped, but they seemed to simply challenge the man she was living with after her divorce, a man who was not Hawk’s father. Thank God that Hawk’s grandfather had taken them in when he did. In Hawk’s opinion restraining orders weren’t worth the paper they were written on.

  “Make sure you stay out of Marblehead for a while. The good news is that I hear he’s planning to move to New Hampshire,” Hawk said.

  “Why is he so angry with you?” Zee asked.

  Hawk didn’t answer at first. He was trying to figure out how to tell her the story he’d been attempting to tell her all along, and now he didn’t know where to start.

  As they passed Waterside Cemetery, where Lilly was buried, she stopped him. “You were sleeping with her.” She’d heard Lilly’s stories about Adam in almost as much detail as she’d heard Maureen’s stories. Now it made her sick to think about what Lilly had described.

  “We were friends,” he said. “I can’t tell you I didn’t think about it. When I first met her…But no. I never slept with her.”

  They drove in silence for a moment.

  Then she remembered contacting the police. “Mattei and I called the police in Marblehead to file a report. Because Lilly told me that a man named Adam had threatened her.”

  Hawk finally understood why the police kept driving by his house, why the cop had acted so strangely the last time he was in town. After Roy had jumped him that day, Hawk had beaten him up. They were on the job site when it happened. Everyone on the crew thought it was payback for Roy’s attack, but it wasn’t. It was about Lilly. The cops talked to both of them, then talked to some of the other guys on the crew. They decided that it had been a jealousy thing and let it go. But the police had started watching him after that, which was one of the reasons he left when he did. “What did the cops tell you about me?”

  “Only that you had left town. And that you weren’t the only guy that Lilly was involved with.”

  He’d seen what Roy had done to Lilly when he got her to run away with him and then dumped her back on her doorstep three days later. The whole crew was talking about it.

  “Next time you want to hit somebody,” Hawk told him right before he threw the first punch, “don’t pick on a woman.”

  The guys had just watched as he hit Roy. No one helped. No one came to Roy’s defense or to Hawk’s either, though he didn’t really need it. It wasn’t a long fight. But it was brutal. And it went all the way back to childhood. Every punch he’d wanted to deliver then on his mother’s boyfriend, he delivered that day on Roy.

  Hawk left his job after that. Roy had been there for years and was the foreman, though no one liked him very much. And hell, Hawk was glad to get away. Lilly had taken to sitting on his doorstep sometimes when he got home. It wasn’t safe. He didn’t mean not safe for him. He meant for her.

  The truth was, he was angry at Lilly. Though he’d never met her husband, he’d gotten to know her kids while working at their house, and they were great. He didn’t understand why she would risk everything, especially for someone like Roy. It was too close to what he’d seen growing up.

  But he could also see how frightened she was. There wasn’t anyone else she could talk to about this, she said. She felt safe only when she was with him. “I’m afraid he’s going to do something terrible,” she said.

  “Has he threatened you?”

  He couldn’t tell if she was lying when she said no, or if she was just backing away because she knew he would take it to the next level, either to Roy himself or to the police.

  In the end, feeling bad for her, Hawk gave her his cell number. He promised he’d come get her if she got into trouble, but he told her to go back to her husband and children, not to go near Roy again.

  “You think I want to go near him?” She was crying.

  The last time he saw her, she was in his apartment. He wasn’t certain, even now, how she had broken in. He was living on his boat, and the place was empty. He’d come home one afternoon to find her there. She was wearing one of his T-shirts, and her hair was wet as if she’d just gotten out of the shower. From the look of things, she’d been there for a while.

  “What’s going on?” he said.

  “I’m leaving William,” she said. “I want to live with you.”

  Hawk was taken by surprise. He’d known for a while that something had shifted, that she had somehow transferred any feelings she’d had for Roy to him, but he didn’t want that. Not that he didn’t have feelings for her, too. Hawk had always been a sucker for a woman in trouble, especially a beautiful woman like Lilly. But he wasn’t about to break up a family. He’d had too much experience with that as a kid. And he’d also begun to realize just how much was wrong with her. He was happy after that when she called and told him she was seeing her therapist again, and she called him a lot. Too much, really, because the guys on the Friendship had started to tease him about the number of calls and texts he got from her.

  “I’m sorry if I gave you the wrong idea,” he’d said. “That was never what I intended.”

  “I’m afraid,” she’d said.

  “Go home to your husband,” Hawk said. “Tell him what happened between you and Roy. Then go to the police.”

  “I can’t do that,” she said.

  THE LAST DAY SHE CALLED, when she told him she was going to jump, he’d gone after her. Tried to talk her out of it, to get her to meet him somewhere, but she was already headed to the bridge. He’d gotten her to pull over for a while, into the McDonald’s parking lot on the Lynnway. He’d told her to wait for him there, that he was on his way. She tearfully agreed. But then she got scared. Said she couldn’t wait. Someone was after her, she said. There was nothing anyone could do.

  He drove so fast. He would have called the cops, but he didn’t want to get off the phone with her.

  When she jumped, he was only six cars behind her.

  “I can see you,” he said. “Pull over and I’ll pick you up.”

  She did pull over, but she didn’t look back. When she went up and over the side, he was still on the phone with her. He could see the phone fly out of her hands as she went down. It all happened so fast.

  He wondered every day what he could have done differently. He went over it and over it in his mind. It bothered him so much he had considered seeing someone to talk it through. But then he met Zee, and everything seemed different. The fact that she felt as guilty as he did about Lilly’s death had actually helped him feel a bit better. She hadn’t told him how she felt, of course—she was far too professional for that. But he knew.

  HAWK TOLD ZEE THE WHOLE story. At the end of it, she told him what she’d told the Marblehead police.

  Hawk’s blood chilled. He didn’t move. Lilly had been troubled, he’d always known that. But her jump up and over the railing had begun to make sense to him in a way it hadn’t before. He knew that Roy was a dangerous guy, an abusive guy, and he also knew that the most dangerous time for a victim is when she tries to break up with her abuser. He’d read an article about it in the Salem paper just last week, something that the local shelter had put out, or maybe it was that woman on Yellow Dog Island, May Whitney. He couldn’t remember.

  Hawk sat very still. He looked directly at Zee in a way that made sure she wouldn’t look away. He didn’t reach out to her, just said as calmly as he could, “I never slept with Lilly Braedon…. And I sure as hell never threatened her. I was trying to do the same thing you were,” he said. “I was trying to save her.”

  He’s not who you think he is. Ann Chase’s words came quickly back to Zee.

  THEY DROVE THE REST OF the way to Salem in silence. Hawk pulled Zee’s Volvo into Finch’s driveway and shut off the engine. He turned to her. “I need you to believe me.”

  No one spoke for a long time.

  “I do believe you,” she fin
ally said. “But I can’t see you anymore.”

  PART 4:

  August 2008

  Only when one learns to determine his true location by looking at the stars will he be able to chart an accurate course to his final destination. The tools needed are simple enough: the chronometer, the sextant, the almanac, the charts, and some relatively simple method of mathematical calculation.

  50

  THE INVITATION TO MATTEI and Rhonda’s wedding still sat on the lazy Susan where Zee had left it. She had told Mattei she was coming, but she called the office now, just to confirm that she would not be bringing anyone. At some point Zee would have to go to town to get a wedding present, but not today.

  It was cold for the end of August. Channel Five had promised a warming trend by Friday, which would be good for Rhonda, since the ceremony was outside on Sunday night. The reception was at the Boston Harbor Hotel, something Zee would not have predicted. Though everything about this wedding seemed to be much more traditional than she expected, the hotel was a great location for Zee, who could just catch the ferry from Salem and walk across from Long Wharf to Rowes. It also gave her an excuse to escape early. The last ferry of the night left for Salem at ten.

  The office would be closed all month, but she knew that Mattei would be checking messages. She hadn’t told her what had happened, that she’d stopped seeing Hawk, or even that Hawk was really Adam. The story was too complicated and coincidental to be believed, much less understood. Mattei was already worried that Zee was preoccupied with Lilly Braedon. If she told Mattei that Hawk was Adam, she was afraid that Mattei’s alarm bells would go off and she would believe that this was something Zee had known all along, something she’d pursued. Zee would tell Mattei eventually—she would have to—but not yet. Not until she figured out how to frame it. She was glad the office was closed for the traditional month of August. She didn’t want to talk.

  What Zee did instead was to look into nursing homes. During the last few weeks, Finch had lost a lot of ground. More often than not these days, he called her Maureen, something he’d done on occasion since she arrived but that he was now doing with alarming regularity. Zee knew it was time. She wanted to be proactive, to pick a good place, a facility that treated both Parkinson’s and the Alzheimer’s crossover he was experiencing more and more lately. She interviewed and rejected at least six places before she found one that she actually thought Finch might tolerate. It was a combination of assisted living and nursing home, with a special unit dedicated to early dementia. Finch had taken two falls in the last few weeks. It was clear he needed more care than he could get at home. Unfortunately, the place she liked had a long waiting list. Even full-paying patients like Finch could expect to wait almost a year.

  In one sense she was relieved. She knew that it was the right thing to do, but it still made her sad to think of Finch in a home. Zee added his name to the waiting list, but then she took another tack, hiring Jessina full-time and augmenting Finch’s daily care with more help on nights and weekends. Though she was still having doubts about her choice of career, Zee knew she had to get back to work. This new plan would allow her to commute back and forth to Boston.

  She’d met Melville for dinner a few times since her breakup, at Nathaniel’s and at 62 on Wharf or at the Lyceum or the Regatta Pub. Melville was still a foodie at heart, and she was glad to join him for a delicious meal when invited. The night Finch fell for the third time, they had been together at the Grapevine, sitting in the outdoor garden and eating their famous chowder when Jessina called Zee’s cell.

  By the time they got back to the house, the EMTs were already there. Jessina was crying, and Finch was lying flat on the floor in the hallway, his walker upended. His breathing was irregular, and he was in and out of consciousness.

  The EMT suspected a broken rib, maybe a punctured lung.

  Zee rode in the ambulance, and Melville followed behind. It took eight hours before they admitted Finch into a room, and Melville waited in the lobby all night.

  Finch had two broken ribs. He looked as if he’d been beaten. He had a bump on his right temple.

  “He has a scalp hematoma on his right temple, and they were worried about hemorrhage,” Zee said when she finally came out to send Melville home. “He seems confused. But now they’re convinced that his confusion is from the dementia, so they can give him the painkillers he needs.”

  Melville went home, but he returned the next morning. He didn’t come into the room but hung back in the hall, waiting for Zee to see him and come out.

  “You look terrible,” he told her. “Why don’t you go home for a while and get some sleep.”

  “What if he wakes up?” Zee said.

  “When did he get his last shot?” Melville asked.

  “About an hour ago.”

  “I’ll sit with him. If he starts to wake up, I’ll get out of the room quickly and give you a call.”

  She wasn’t sure.

  “Go,” he said.

  She did go home, and she did sleep.

  And though Finch didn’t wake up, Melville sat with him for the rest of the day.

  IN THE DAYS THAT FOLLOWED, Finch was allowed a few visitors. Mickey came by. He brought Finch a chop-suey sandwich from the Willows and Zee a bag of the popcorn he knew she liked. Finch didn’t wake up enough to eat, and Mickey ended up consuming the sandwich.

  Finch slept most of the time, and when he did wake up, he seemed more confused than usual, as much a product of the continuing painkillers as the dementia. Ann came to visit every afternoon, bringing tea and novels from Cornerstone Books for Zee to read. She loaded her iPod with music she knew Zee would like and loaned it to her.

  Melville came by every day after work, though he always sat in a chair by the door and didn’t speak much while he was there. Whenever Finch’s eyes blinked awake, Melville would slip out the door so quietly it was almost as if he’d never been there at all.

  51

  THE LABOR DAY SAIL was scheduled to leave the wharf at 6:00 P.M. on Friday. Hawk got to the Friendship just as they were casting off.

  “I figured you weren’t coming,” Josh said. “Thought maybe you’d run off with Zee and gotten yourself married.”

  “No such luck,” Hawk said. If there was any way he could have gotten out of this commitment, he would have done it. He didn’t want to be anyplace near Salem. But he’d given his word. They were heading north to the Isles of Shoals for the weekend, stopping for an event on Star Island. Many of the historic tall ships were making the trip, which was essentially a benefit to raise money for the National Park Foundation. There would be pirates and privateers and people singing sea chanteys and telling maritime ghost stories. Same old same old, Hawk thought. The weekend was advertised as “Labor Day Fun for the Whole Family.” There was nothing Hawk wanted to do less. At least they weren’t staying for the Monday holiday. They would be home late Sunday night.

  ANN CHASE WALKED ACROSS PICKERING Wharf and back toward her store. Mickey Doherty was being even more ridiculous today than usual. She’d come over to complain about his monkey. Mini Mick had jumped on her cat, Persephone, from the top of the window box where Ann grew her herbs. When he tried to ride the cat, she went wild and dug scratches into the monkey’s face.

  Ann was an animal person, and she certainly felt bad about the monkey’s injuries, but maybe this time Mini Mick would learn a lesson.

  “Sounds like my boy got what he deserved,” Mickey said, putting the monkey into the cage he’d fashioned out of an old supply closet, its door removed and replaced with chicken wire. As the cage doors closed, Mini Mick began to masturbate enthusiastically.

  Mickey chose that moment to ask Ann out to dinner.

  It was unfortunate timing, and she frowned in response.

  “Is that your answer?”

  For a long time, Mickey had been telling Ann she should ditch the guys she usually favored and go out with him.

  “Come on, time to give up the crunchy granolas and
the weird war-locks and give me a go,” he said. “I’ve been asking you out for the last three years.”

  “More like five,” she said.

  “Okay, five. I’m clearly quite persistent.”

  She turned back to face him. “Oh, for God’s sake,” she said. “Will you leave me alone if I say yes?”

  “Maybe,” he said. “That depends on how it goes.”

  “Forget it,” Ann said, heading for the door.

  “Okay, okay, just one date and I’ll leave you alone.” He crossed his heart.

  “Saturday at five. Finz,” Ann said, naming a local restaurant she favored.

  “Five? What are we, senior citizens?”

  “Take it or leave it,” she said.

  “Okay, okay, Finz at five.”

  “And leave the damned monkey at home,” she said.

  52

  ON SATURDAY MORNING ZEE moved Finch to rehabilitative care at one of the nursing homes she had interviewed and rejected.

  If Finch minded, he didn’t say so. His bruises had started to yellow, and his breathing was easier. But his injuries had left him unable to stand. He would need a lot of physical therapy before he could walk again.

  Zee checked him in, then sat while they tested him. That he recognized Zee’s face was a relief to her, though he couldn’t seem to recall her name. He failed his cognitive-skills test.

  “That could be the drugs,” the nurse said. “He’s still on a low dose of oxycodone.”

  The nursing home told her they would quickly wean him off the drug.

  “Won’t he need something for the pain when they start physical therapy?”

  “Yes, but probably something milder.”