Beach Plum Island

by Holly Robinson

  “It’s complicated,” Gigi said, and told them about Elaine. As she’d suspected, they knew about Elaine’s bouts with alcohol and understood she might have put pressure on their mother not to look for Peter. Gigi loved how Sam and Evan were immediately ready to defend Ava, to go to battle for her whether it was to find a lost brother or put a surly aunt in her place. She wished, not for the first time, that her dad could have known them better.

  This thought made her shadow of guilt return, knowing that she was the real reason her father had left this family for her own. But, as she’d told Sam and Evan, sometimes all you could do was accept what happened and find the good in it.

  It was Sam who found Peter Winslow online. Gigi had tried every social media site she could think of except the obvious: the online white pages for Maine and Massachusetts. There were two Peter Winslows in Maine and four in Massachusetts; only one of the six names matched the age they’d estimated her brother to be. Unfortunately, that address was unlisted.

  “No worries,” Sam said with a grin, and typed in a credit card number to access a full report. There he was: Peter Winslow, age forty-three, with a home address in Cambridge. Next, Sam typed her brother’s name into LinkedIn. There were thirteen professionals listed with that name, but only one was in Massachusetts. Dr. Peter Winslow was a clinical psychologist with an office in Cambridge.

  Sam printed out the information. “Wow,” Gigi said, staring at the paper in her hand. “You scare me. Want to take a field trip?”

  They left a note for Ava, saying only that they’d gone out for the afternoon and would be back by dinner. Sam had a license but no car; they rode their bikes to the train station in Newburyport and took the commuter rail into the city.

  They had decided to stake out Peter’s office in Cambridge. From North Station, they took the green line to Park Street, then changed to the red line to Central Square. This wasn’t an area Gigi had been to before, but Sam and Evan had been to a used-guitar store here with Les, so they weren’t intimidated by the traffic or the homeless guys holding out cups or squatting on blankets in doorways, some with trembling, sad-faced little dogs. Most had cardboard signs saying things like WILL WORK FOR FOOD. Gigi gave away most of her money before Sam stopped her, saying they were probably just going to buy booze with it.

  Peter’s office was upstairs from a busy coffee shop with college students parked at outdoor tables and along a counter just inside the window, most with their laptops open and headphones dangling from their ears. The three of them bought coffees and took up positions around a metal table on the sidewalk with a sweet view of the doorway to Peter’s office. The simple gold plaque on the door read PETER WINSLOW, PHD, CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST, along with three other names of psychologists who must all be in the same practice. By the Braille letters beneath it, Gigi knew they had to be in the right place.

  Sam and Evan seemed as nervous as she was, checking the time on their phones about every five minutes and jittering their knees under the table. Most of the customers looked like students; the guys wore skinny jeans and black glasses, the girls Daisy Dukes or flowing colorful skirts, tank tops, and sandals. Evan and Sam fit right in, but Gigi felt suddenly awkward in her cutoffs and T-shirt. At least she’d put the rings back in her nose and eyebrow.

  Nobody came and went through the doorway next door, which made Gigi worry that maybe Dr. Peter Winslow didn’t see clients on Mondays. Then, around three o’clock, a woman went inside, and every hour after that, another client appeared. She and the boys continued to sit there—nobody in the café seemed to mind, or even notice—and eventually Gigi bought them sandwiches to help pay for their time at the table. The boys gobbled the food down in three bites, but Gigi was too nervous to eat.

  Just after seven o’clock, Peter came downstairs. It was so unexpected a sighting after so many tedious hours that Gigi didn’t know whether to believe it was him, until Evan nudged her sharply in the ribs.

  “Hey,” Evan hissed. “That’s our guy.”

  Gigi’s mouth went dry. Peter was walking toward them, tapping a white cane on the sidewalk. His hair was dark, almost black, with a few gray streaks. His face was lined but otherwise the same as the face in the yearbook. His brown eyes were so familiar that Sam said, “Wow. He looks just like Aunt Elaine.”

  “And Grandpa,” Evan said. “Weird.” He turned to Gigi. “Think he’d recognize you?”

  Sam snorted. “He’s blind, you douche bag.”

  “Shut up!” Gigi hissed, because Peter was coming closer.

  He walked right past them, a handsome man whose only flaw was that his brown eyes jittered a little from side to side with the motion of his walk. He had a square jaw and high cheekbones. He looked like a perfect blend of Ava, with her sharp cheekbones and strong build, and Elaine, with her exotic features and pale skin. Nothing but the cane and those eyes would have clued anybody in to his inability to see.

  “What now?” Sam asked once Peter was inside the café.

  “We should totally ambush him,” Evan suggested. “Surround him and start talking.”

  “What if he doesn’t believe me?” Gigi said, suddenly panicking.

  “He’s going to believe you, dude,” Sam said, rolling his eyes. “Nobody could make up a story like this.”

  “Yeah, but what if he doesn’t even know he’s adopted?” Gigi whispered back. “This might ruin his life.”

  “He’s got to know,” Evan said. “He was already in school by then, right?”

  “Right,” Gigi said.

  “Do you want to call our mom? Maybe come here another day with her to talk to him?” Evan said. He was thinking hard about the consequences of their actions, Gigi could tell. Evan was like that.

  “No,” Gigi said. “I’m going for it.” She stood up, brushed off her clothes. She was tired of waiting, of thinking What if? Her first priority was to do what Dad wanted. “I don’t think I should do it here, though. I should go up to his office, where it’s more private.”

  “Dude, he might think you’re a psycho stalker if you corner him,” Sam said. “Besides, we should be with you.”

  “No, she’s right,” Evan said. “No guy wants to get all emo on a street corner. And he won’t freak if she goes in alone.”

  “What if he’s the psycho, and we let her go in alone?” Sam demanded.

  Evan arched an eyebrow. “I’m pretty sure she could defend herself against a blind man,” he said. “Besides, we’ll be right out here with our phones. We’ll give her fifteen minutes, max, to call us and say she’s all right.”

  Peter came out again after a few minutes, carrying a cup of coffee. He tapped his cane past them and went back through the doorway to his office, walking like a man who wasn’t in a hurry.

  “Go,” Evan said, nudging her. “We’ll be right here.”

  “Yeah, I can drink coffee all night long,” Sam said. “And if the café kicks us out, we’ll pretend we’re homeless and camp out on the corner.”

  “Okay,” Gigi said. “But, before I go, can I just say I love you guys?”

  “Only if you want to make me gag,” Sam said, but he ducked his head and grinned.

  Evan gave her a one-armed hug. “We love you, too. Now go in there and get ’er done.”

  It was a modest entryway, a pale gold hallway tiled in black and white. Peter’s office was on the second floor; Gigi climbed the stairs with her chest hurting, knowing her feet were falling where her brother’s had been just minutes before.

  She hadn’t expected a receptionist, but an Asian woman with delicate features and a punk haircut sat at a desk in the common waiting room shared by the suite of offices. The waiting room was empty, the magazines too neatly arranged, a basket of children’s toys gathered neatly in one corner. They must have seen their last patient of the day, Gigi guessed. Good.

  “Hello. May I help you?” the woman asked.
r />   “I’m here to see Dr. Winslow,” Gigi said.

  “Do you have an appointment?”

  She should have thought to make one, Gigi realized. “No. I’m just a friend stopping by to say hello.”

  “A friend?”

  The receptionist clearly didn’t believe her. It was a pretty lame thing to say. Well, there was always the truth.

  But, before Gigi could say more, the receptionist was picking up the phone and dialing. Peter must have answered the phone, for the woman said, “Dr. Winslow? There’s a young woman here to see you. She says she’s a friend of yours.” She looked up at Gigi. “What’s your name, please?”

  “Gigi.” Gigi didn’t use her last name, suddenly afraid that Peter might have looked for them after all, maybe discovered who his parents were and didn’t want to have anything to do with them. He might recognize their father’s name.

  Except that Peter had been given his mother’s name. Did he even know who his father was?

  Nearly dizzy now with fear, Gigi perched on the edge of the puffy white sofa across from the receptionist’s desk. After what seemed like an hour but was probably just a few minutes, the receptionist told Gigi to head down the hallway.

  “Dr. Winslow’s office is the last door on the left,” she said.

  The hallway was carpeted in bright teal and the walls were painted a soothing plum. Gigi supposed this was meant to make people feel more at peace; in art class, she’d learned something about the impact colors have on moods. She wondered if blind people could feel colors, or could at least feel the moods of the people around them as they reacted to color.

  Peter’s door was a deeper plum color with his nameplate screwed onto it. She knocked, and when he said, “Come in,” she slowly pushed the door open.

  “Yes?” he said.

  Gigi opened her mouth but no sound emerged. She was face-to-face with her brother. There was no doubt in her mind, and even less in her heart. Peter had the same solemn expression he’d worn for the photograph taken of him as a little boy on Aunt Finley’s couch. His hands were folded on the desk, too, the same way that little boy’s hands had been folded for the camera, as if he were holding himself in place.

  She cleared her throat. “I’m not really your friend,” she said. “We’ve never met before.”

  Peter’s lip twitched, but he didn’t smile. He cocked his head at the sound of her voice. “Is this one of those situations where I’m going to need to call security to remove you from my office?”

  “No!” It took Gigi a minute to realize he was teasing her. She tried to laugh but didn’t succeed. Every sound stuck in her throat like a burr. “I need to sit down,” she said.

  Peter came around the desk, not using his cane. He must know where his furniture was, Gigi realized, as he took her elbow and guided her to a couch against the opposite wall. It was the twin of the couch in the waiting area, puffy and white, an unexpected color for an office, Gigi would think, but then, white went with everything.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, “but this is scary, seeing you.”

  Peter didn’t return to the desk, but sat next to her on the couch and patted her hand. “I can hear how upset you are.”

  Her brother must be a great therapist, Gigi thought, and then she couldn’t help it: his voice was so much like Dad’s that she started crying. Her eyes and nose and even her mouth began gushing water, like she was one of those fountain statues that had sprung leaks in unexpected places.

  Peter must have been used to situations like this, because he calmly gathered tissues and pressed them into her hands, murmuring soothing words she mostly didn’t care about but needed to hear anyway, like “Let it out” and “It’ll all get better with time.”

  “Maybe for me it’ll be better, but not for you,” Gigi mumbled miserably into one of the tissues when she’d finally dried out enough to speak. “You might be sorry you didn’t throw me out.”

  “You’re not here to take care of me,” Peter said. “That’s my job, to care for people.”

  She looked up at his brown eyes, seeing herself mirrored there, wondering what it would be like, knowing people only by their voices and footsteps and smells. Maybe, she thought, you could understand people better, see more into their hearts, if you didn’t have to first get past how people looked.

  “I know,” she said. “It must be an interesting job.”

  “Especially when strange girls show up claiming to be my friends.”

  This made her laugh, finally, and Peter smiled, too. “Now,” he said. “Why are you here?”

  • • •

  When Ava had seen the note from Gigi and the boys, her first thought was to wonder where they were, of course, but knowing they were together made her worry less. They would take care of one another.

  That left her free to worry again about Elaine, who had called to say she was home from the hospital and “determined to dry out.” Ava hoped it was true. She wished Elaine would let her come down to the condo, to take her to dinner at least, but Elaine had gently but firmly refused. “Let’s wait to see if I’ve really pulled myself together,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

  At loose ends, Ava called Simon to tell him what was going on. He stopped her midway through her tangled explanations of going to Thompson with Gigi, finding Peter’s picture in the yearbook, and hearing that Elaine had been hospitalized for alcohol poisoning. “Come to Boston,” he said.

  “What? I can’t do that!”

  “Sure you can,” Simon said. “Just jump in the car and come down. I’ll take you to dinner if you don’t feel comfortable coming to my place. Besides, I have something to tell you. Something good.”

  Nervously, Ava glanced around her empty but messy house, as if someone else were here, eavesdropping. She could use some good news right now. And what the hell. Elaine had pushed her away, and probably for good reason: Elaine needed to find her own way in the world, without Ava’s help. If Elaine became more responsible, and Ava slightly less, wouldn’t it make sense that someday they might find common ground?

  “I’ll be there in an hour,” she told Simon.

  He took her to a small Italian wine bar on Newbury Street, a place with copper-topped tables and sleek waiters dressed in black who glided around the patio. They lingered over tiramisu and thimble-sized glasses of port after dinner. It was still early, not quite seven o’clock, and Newbury Street was crowded. They sat side by side facing the street and watching the crowd, thighs touching, until Ava couldn’t stand it any longer. “How long would it take us to get to your condo from here?” she whispered.

  Then they were there, miraculously together in a bed, Simon’s bed, her legs wrapped around his waist, his hand in her tangled hair. They made love twice in an hour. Afterward, Ava felt as though someone had pulled out her bones; to stand, she had to grip the back of a chair, and even then she was swaying a little, drunk with lovemaking, with love.

  Simon made espresso and they took the gilded white porcelain cups out to the narrow balcony overlooking the harbor. It was only eight thirty, but it felt like a month had passed. Ava had never felt more transported out of her life, her mind. She wasn’t sure she liked it, but there it was, the truth: this was who she was, too, not just a mother and high school teacher and potter and decent tennis player and lousy housekeeper. She was Simon’s lover. She was in love with Simon.

  “What was it you wanted to tell me?” she asked, realizing that was how he’d lured her down here in the first place, as if she’d needed more bait than her own desire. “The good news?”

  “I told Katy about us.” Simon’s hand was trembling a little as it held the tiny cup; he had to set it down on the table between them. “She had guessed anyway.”

  “How?” Ava’s mouth had gone dry.

  “I guess I was maybe less subtle than I’d thought,” Simon said sheepishly. “Katy said she cou
ld tell by the way I talked about you, any time your name came up, that something was going on. The good news is that she’s okay with it. She really likes you, Ava. She wants us to be happy.”

  He said this last in a rush, as if he was afraid she’d be upset, or disbelieving. Maybe she was a little bit. But she was also relieved. “I’m glad,” she said, just as her cell phone rang in the other room.

  “Don’t answer it,” Simon said, covering her hand with his own. “Just be with me.”

  She shook her head. “I can’t. The kids,” she said, and went in search of her phone.

  It was Sam, sounding excited but otherwise okay. “Mom, we need you to come to Boston.”

  “What?” Ava stared out the windows at the terrace and the glittering lights of Boston Harbor beyond it, as if Sam were standing out there. Impossible. “Where are you? What are you doing in Boston?” Immediately, her maternal panic button was pushed. She concocted scenarios, most involving friends who shouldn’t be driving and illegal substances.

  “It’s okay, Mom. We’re safe.”

  “Where are you, and who’s ‘we’?” she said. “Are you still with Gigi and Evan?”

  “Yeah, they’re here.” She could hear Gigi in the background, sounding excited. “Gigi says to tell you we’re all fine and we haven’t done anything stupid. We just need you to come get us. We have something important to show you.”

  Then it dawned on Ava: Gigi must have found Peter’s house. She had said she was going to keep looking. At least the girl would have the sense not to try and meet him alone.

  Wouldn’t she?

  “Hang on. I’ll be right there.”

  Then she realized they didn’t know where she was, either. They’d be expecting her to take an hour to drive down. Well, they’d just have to think she drove like hell.

  “I’m going with you,” Simon said when she told him her suspicions.

  “No you’re not.” Ava pulled on her jeans and T-shirt. “Sorry, but this is something I have to do alone.”

  He grabbed both her hands, pulled her to him. “You won’t be alone. The kids will be there. Gigi is my niece. I need to be there for her, as well as for you. This is a really big deal. I should drive you, at least, even if I don’t come inside.”