“What could happen to me that hasn’t already happened?” she said.
He could think of a million things. Things he’d had in his mind since she was a kid, a parent’s worst nightmares. He offered to walk with her, but she wanted to be alone. Sometimes he would follow her to the beach, where he watched her looking up at the stars as if searching for something.
He was pretty sure she knew he was following her, but she never said so. A few times she looked back in his direction, but she didn’t acknowledge his presence, and he kept his distance, often planting himself on a nearby dune and looking up at the sky in an effort to see what it was she was looking at.
One cold night in mid-October, she stood up and brushed the sand from her jeans. Then she walked over to him and sat down.
“Did you find what you were looking for?”
“Some of it,” she said. She pointed up at the sky. “There’s Gemini,” she said. “There’s Cassiopeia. Virgo has completely disappeared.”
“Where has she gone?” he asked.
“South for the winter, I’d say.”
“Smart lady,” he said.
They walked back to the room together. Bowditch, who had been pacing and whimpering, met them at the door. When he saw her, he dragged himself over and leaned against her leg. She reached down to pat him. He collapsed at her feet and sighed.
66
ZEE AWAKENED JUST BEFORE dawn. Her nose was cold. She could hear the sound of the radiators creaking and groaning, coming on for the first time since spring. The smell brought back a sense memory of the house on Turner Street when she was little. Tears came to her eyes, but they didn’t fall. It wasn’t a sad memory, rather one of security, but she couldn’t place it. While Maureen was alive, maybe? But no, she’d been older than that. She stayed with it for a moment, hoping to pull it forward, but it dissipated like harbor fog. Still, she found herself grateful for that image and not the one of Roy she’d been waking to for the last month and a half, an image she’d had to work hard to push from her consciousness every morning.
From her bed she watched as the horizon line started to appear. A few stars were visible, but she couldn’t identify which ones. She wondered how many navigators were taking sights at this moment, jotting down notes, cross-referencing them as backup to the elaborate systems the ships carried now, ones that weren’t ever supposed to fail but sometimes did, leaving the navigator forever more to take sights every dawn and dusk until he reached his final destination.
She watched the stars along the horizon. Then, remembering something Hawk had told her, she opened the mahogany case and pulled out the sextant. She looked at the star chart. She didn’t have an almanac and wouldn’t really have known how to use it if she had, but she’d been looking at Virgo for so long now that she knew its path across the sky. She moved the bureau in front of the window and set the sextant on top of it, pointing it at the spot in the sky where Virgo should be if she were visible. Then she waited.
Spica’s rising was not as dramatic as the sunrise a few minutes later. It appeared on the horizon as a sparkling dot, stayed there for just a few minutes, before its light was consumed by the illumination of the rising sun. But for those few minutes, it was brighter in the sky than any other star on the horizon, and Zee knew without a doubt what it was she was seeing and how fortunate she was that today was clear and that she just happened to be awake and just happened to unpack the sextant and take a look. Spica would disappear now until next year, when Virgo would again be visible in the northern night sky, but she had seen it, found it for the first time, and for now that was enough.
She watched for a very long time, until the stars disappeared and the sunlight through the wavy glass of the window grew bright and strong. She wondered what time it was. In the doorway between the rooms, Bowditch snored loudly, the rhythm regular on the intake and the exhale, like an old clock or a slow and steady heart. Beyond him she could see Melville, still asleep, with just his blond hair sticking out above the covers. She stood in the window, letting the sun warm her.
There were already a few people on the street below. “It’s Wednesday,” she said aloud, surprised that she knew and surprised again that she hadn’t seemed to know what day it was for a long time.
She pulled on her jeans and Melville’s old sweater that he’d been letting her borrow, then took the back stairs to the street.
When had it turned from summer to fall?
There were pumpkins everywhere. She thought of Salem and Halloween, and she felt a twinge of homesickness. She stood in line at the coffee roasters, bought herself a macchiato, and took it to one of the outside tables. She looked on as the woman opened the bookstore and put a sandwich sign outside.
She watched as people came in to get their coffee, then left again. She wondered about their lives. Mothers walking kids to school, people rushing to work, life as usual, as if nothing alarming were happening, had happened. She wondered about the unfulfilled dreams of the young mother who sat across from her, then realized she hadn’t wondered about anyone for a while. She thought about Finch, and a twinge of something went through her. It took a moment for her to realize what the feeling was. Longing, she thought. It was longing.
When she finished her coffee, Zee went back inside and asked if she could use the phone to make a collect call. She dialed Mattei’s office number and left a message. Then she bought Melville a pumpkin latte and Bowditch a coffee-flavored scone and walked back to the inn.
Bowditch was in Melville’s room.
“Our boy was worried about you,” he said. Both Melville and Bowditch looked relieved to see her.
“Sorry,” she said. Then, hoping to make it better, “I brought coffee.” She handed the latte to Melville and put the scone in Bowditch’s bowl.
Bowditch did as much of a dance as a thirteen-year-old basset hound can manage.
She could see Melville watching her. Something had definitely changed.
“How are you doing?” he asked.
“Okay,” she said.
They sat sipping their coffee and watching the sunlight play off the water in the harbor. From here you could see Melville’s boat, still at the mooring where they’d left it.
“It’s almost Halloween,” she said.
“That it is,” he said. “Salem is the place to be on Halloween,” she said. “Very true,” he said.
They sat silently for a few more minutes. “Let’s go home,” she said.
EPILOGUE:
MAY 2009, MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND
If one knows the latitude of home port and can locate the North Star and keep it at a constant angle, it is possible simply to sail down the latitudes to find the way home.
THE HOUSE ON BAKER’S Island had just been opened for the season. Zee had packed away her mother’s chenille bedspread in the old cedar trunk. She would want to see it again one day, but not now. Today she was having a party on the island.
She’d spent most of the year in Boston, back working again, but only part-time. On weekends she’d been volunteering on Yellow Dog Island, counseling some of the women and children who had been so badly abused. She was good at it. She’d just received an offer of full-time employment from May Whitney, who ran the shelter out there, and she was seriously considering it.
Zee made herself a list of things she’d forgotten to pick up for the party and headed into town, leaving the door open for any guests who arrived early and a welcoming note on the table.
She and Melville were going to see Finch. There was a Memorial Day party at the nursing home today, an event that was doubling as a going-away party for Finch, who would be coming home next week. He didn’t know her name anymore. Didn’t know Melville either. He thought that Melville was someone who worked at the nursing home, someone who came to read to him every afternoon, almost always from Hawthorne, though lately he’d begun to favor Emerson and the other Transcendentalists, who seemed more cheerful to Finch than Hawthorne and seemed to make him happier.
That he clearly loved his new caregiver was apparent to anyone who watched him light up in Melville’s presence. The staff at the nursing home had been happily surprised by Finch’s improvement under Melville’s care. Though they knew it wasn’t the best practical decision, there had been no one who disagreed with the decision to take him home as long as he would be cared for by such an attentive home health aide.
The plan was for Melville to move back into the house, pretending he was a hired caregiver, with Jessina as daytime help so that Melville could keep his job, which he did only at Zee’s insistence.
Finch hadn’t been able to use his walker again; he was in a wheel-chair permanently now. Zee knew only too well what a toll the role of full-time caregiver could take, and she wasn’t about to let Melville do it alone. That was the deal, take it or leave it, she said. “You’re as much a father to me as Finch is,” she said. “I need you to be around.”
Melville took the deal.
Today they said prayers for the veterans of World War II, many of whom were residents of the nursing home, and for Vietnam and Gulf War vets as well as for the soldiers now fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. They sang “God Bless America” and drank ginger ale and ate cake that was decorated with red, white, and blue sugar. Zee drank the ginger ale but passed on the cake.
When Finch fell asleep, they wheeled him back to his room and helped him into bed. They kissed his forehead and walked out together. He opened his eyes and smiled at Melville.
Zee picked up a few last things for the party. Since Mickey’s boat was too small for more than two people, Melville had loaned him the lobster boat. This way Mickey could transport most of the guests out to Zee’s party on Baker’s Island. Zee and Melville planned to take the water shuttle out to the island when Finch’s event was over.
They waited for the water shuttle for almost an hour. When she couldn’t stand it any longer, Zee turned to Melville. “Come on,” she said.
She drove back to Derby Wharf and parked in Mickey’s space. Then she went to the slip where the dory was kept.
“Please tell me we’re not taking the dory,” Melville said.
“Why not?” Zee said. She’d taken the dory many times.
“Because it’s a heap of junk, to say nothing of Mickey’s elaborate security system.” Melville pointed to the wires and ropes and padlocks.
“Piece of cake,” Zee said.
She had the boat unlocked in less than a minute. Then she shorted the wires to start the engine.
“Get in,” she said to Melville.
“I don’t believe this,” he said. “You’re back to stealing boats.” But he was smiling.
MELVILLE WATCHED ZEE AT THE controls, guiding the dory out over calm waters. About two-thirds of the way out, the motor coughed and died.
She choked the engine, tried several times to restart it, but it was dead.
“Damn,” he said. “He never did take decent care of this thing.”
He was looking around for someone to flag down when Zee started to row.
“You don’t need to do that,” he said.
“It’s okay,” she said, liking the idea. “It’ll be fun.”
He started to protest, but she was so into the idea that he just let it go. “Let me know when you want me to spell you,” he said.
It took her more than an hour and a half, but she never asked him to take over. Melville put his head back and closed his eyes, enjoying the sun.
When they finally got to the wharf, Mickey and Ann were waiting.
“You stole my goddamned boat!” Mickey said. “I didn’t tell you that you could take my boat.”
“Why were you rowing?” Ann asked.
“Your goddamned boat’s engine broke down,” Melville said.
“No way,” Mickey said, climbing in to see for himself.
“The water taxi didn’t show up,” Zee said to Ann. “So we borrowed Mickey’s dory.”
Ann nodded, amused.
“Where is he?” Zee asked, looking up at the house.
“He’s working the grill,” Ann said. “We ate already, but he saw the boat coming and started cooking again for you two.”
Zee and Melville walked up the ramp toward the island. At the top of the wharf, she turned right toward the cottage. Melville stood looking down the cliffs and into the ocean below.
“Are you coming?” she asked.
“You go ahead,” he said. “I’ll catch up in a bit.”
Zee nodded and hurried her pace. When she got close to the house, she laughed. Hawk was at the grill, wearing a chef’s apron and the old straw hat with a big hole in the top where the mice had stolen the silk flower.
“Nice look,” she said.
Mattei and Rhonda stood next to Hawk. Jessina and Danny sat at the picnic table, trying to figure out how to make the coffee.
Hawk grinned. “Come here,” he said, kissing her for a long time. “I’ve got the burgers going, but we need either you or Melville to make cowboy coffee.”
He’d already brought out the pot and the egg. She took it and handed it to Danny. “Throw it into the pot as hard as you can,” she said.
“You’re kidding me, right?” the boy said.
“Nope.” Zee held the pot while Danny wound up and threw.
“I’d say you’ve got a future Red Sox pitcher there,” Mattei said to Jessina.
Zee stirred the egg and some water into a paste as Jessina watched carefully. Then she filled the pot with water and put it on the grill.
“ARE YOU GOING TO PLAY mechanic all day, or are you going to join the party?” Ann asked, starting back up the ramp.
“I’m coming, I’m coming,” Mickey said, grumbling something about Zee and Melville wrecking the engine. He took the oars out of the oarlocks, where Zee had left them, and placed them back where they belonged.
“Look at this,” he said to Ann, pointing to the oarlocks, which were worn down almost to bare wood.
“Look at what?” Ann said.
“She wore out my thole pins,” he said.
“Your what?”
Mickey gestured to the wooden pins next to the oars. “These are antiques. She may be my niece, but she’s going to have to pay for them.”
“What are you complaining about now?”
Mickey pointed at the wooden dowels that served as oarlocks. Ann thought of the story, “The Once,” about Maureen and the story of Zylphia and her young sailor. It wasn’t the Miseries—she could see the Miseries just slightly to the northwest—but it was an island. “I’ll be damned,” she said, looking up at the house, where she could see Zee and Hawk standing arm in arm.
“She’s going to have to either pay me or replace them,” Mickey said again.
Still grumbling, he caught up with Ann, and they walked to the cottage.
MELVILLE HIKED TO THE LIGHTHOUSE at the far end of the island. He stood on the cliff, looking out toward Manchester, and thought about the day so long ago when another boat had broken down, and how he had stopped here and what that day had meant. Then he opened the bag he’d brought along and took out the book of Yeats’s poetry. He opened to the title page and to the dedication. He saw Maureen’s suicide note still tucked into the pages of the book, and just as Finch had thrown the book that day, he threw it now.
It seemed as if he’d been sorry forever, but he found he couldn’t be sorry any longer. As he watched the book fall into the blue ocean below, disappearing into the foam, he said the only kind of prayer he knew now, not one asking forgiveness, not anymore, but a prayer of gratitud
e: for Maureen, and Finch, and Zee, and Jessina, and Danny, for Mattei for helping Zee through, and Rhonda, Ann, Bowditch, and even Mickey, and for this new man Hawk who had come into their lives, and for Michael who had left them. He said a prayer of gratitude for the days he had left with Finch, and one asking for the wisdom he knew he would need as those days went on. Then he said a final prayer of thanks for all that had happened in their strange and surprising lives. And for all that was yet to come.
AUTHOR’S DISCLAIMER
Liberties taken. The weather. The houses. With the exception of the House of the Seven Gables, not one of the homes in this book is real. They are for the most part imaginary places set where real houses now stand. Don’t go looking for them, they do not exist. The same is true for the homes on Baker’s Island, which is a private island on which many generations of families have summered quietly. The only way we can visit Baker’s is by having a friend (or family member) who owns one of the cottages. I hope to get a second invitation one day. I have taken liberties of time with the factory in Lynn where Maureen worked when she met Finch. The factory was a real one, Hoague Sprague, and was owned in partnership by my great grandfather, Morton Hoague. It closed in the late 1950s, so Maureen could not have worked there.
I read many books in my research for The Map of True Places. For a suggested reading list as well as book club questions, please visit mapoftrueplaces.com.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
First to Gary, for so many things, and for not letting go of the dream even when I thought it impossible. For research and for the phrases: “How can I help?” and “Whatever makes you happy.”
To Rebecca Oliver, for making it all possible and for her time in Austin and endless reading and rereading. To Laurie Chittenden, who is not only a great editor but who understands and respects the artistic process. To the whole team at William Morrow who have helped every step of the way, and in particular to: Liate Stehlik, Ben Bruton, Tavia Kowalchuk, Andrea Molitor, and Mac Mackie.
The Map of True Places Page 34