by Susan Wilson
Toby, a washashore, was only vaguely aware of the divide between the old Covers and the newcomers who had brought suburbia with them. His perspective was one of the immediate; unlike those who called themselves natives, he had only a minimalist’s sense of history. And he employed it only when it suited his needs, as when an historic house came on the market. Then he would trot out his “local knowledge” to plump up its selling points against the condition of the roof or the limited view.
Toby’s sense of Hawke’s Cove history was building-centric. He had no concept of human history, the old grudges, griefs and secrets that lay behind the faces of those ordinary men he greeted every morning at Linda’s Coffee Shop. And he could never have imagined the effect his words might have on Grainger when he casually mentioned that the woman whose actions forever altered Grainger’s life was coming back.
“It’s rare for these places to go up for sale, the shingle-style houses on the bluff. Almost never.” Toby was on the verge of salivating. “But I guess they’re not in good health. And the wife said the daughter, Kitty or Cathy or something, doesn’t want it. So they want it sold. Pronto.”
“Kiley.”
“Beg pardon?”
“The daughter’s name is Kiley.”
“Right. Whatever. Anyway they’re in a hurry.”
As they walked out together, Grainger’s dog, Pilot, waited patiently in the truck, his chin resting on the steering wheel. Toby’s immaculate Lexus was parked next to the ’99 Ford half ton. He was still going on about the Harris house, and Grainger felt an uncharacteristic urge to give him a good shove against his car and smack him into silence.
“Mrs. Harris said her father-in-law bought the place for five hundred dollars. Now it’s valued at over a million. She said something about wanting to put her grandson through college. I told her even if they send the kid to Harvard, they’ll still have loads of money left over.”
The news of a grandson surprised Grainger. But it made sense then, this sudden desire to sell the place after all these years. Kiley had never come back to use it. If Grainger ever felt a twinge of something that might have been hurt, or anger, imagining that she’d successfully gotten on with her life, he’d stifled it pretty quickly. Just because he had been incapable of trusting anyone with his heart, certainly didn’t mean that Kiley was similarly afflicted.
“…and she says, no, he’s been accepted to Cornell. As if Harvard had been an option…”
Not a little kid, but a college boy.
Grainger was very good at math. It was nineteen summers ago that they had last been together. He knew the last day they had ever seen each other: August 24, 1984.
As Toby nattered on, Grainger walked away from him without another word and climbed into his truck, pulling away from the curb a little too fast, ignoring the look on Toby’s face as the loose sand dinged against his white car.
He drove in the opposite direction from his boat shed and up Seaview Avenue to Overlook Bluff Road. Pilot wiggled on the seat beside him, loving any departure from routine that might result in a walk.
The Harris’s house, waiting for the arrival of its long absent daughter, sat behind its scraggly privet hedge. Still shuttered, as it had been for the last year, the house was unchanged from his boyhood memories of it. The porch looked in need of a new coat of deck paint, and the roof was a year or so away from needing replacement, but for all that, the place looked pretty good.
Although he had passed by a thousand times, he’d always kept his eyes on the view below the bluff. Now Grainger pulled off to the side of the road to stare at the house, trying to imagine that something besides the tragic implosion of their friendship might have taken place back then—but he could only think of the first time he’d set foot on that property.
By the time Kiley Harris entered their lives, the summer the boys turned eight, Mack MacKenzie and Grainger Egan had been buddies for what seemed like forever to two little boys, from about the time Mack and his family had moved year-round to Hawke’s Cove. Mack’s physician dad set up his general practice in the professional building, making the leap, as he called it, from big-city impersonal practice, to a small-town practice in the place he had summered all of his life. A move that meant that, although he certainly wasn’t paid in chickens and eggs, he knew his patients very well. Hawke’s Cove in the early seventies was still a small place, only just building into the summer resort it would become by the turn of the millennium.
Grainger was sitting in Dr. MacKenzie’s waiting room, his nose running and his mother handing him tissues. Mack was cheerfully healthy, playing with a set of plastic trains on the floor of the well-child side of the room. Grainger was remanded to the sick-child side and sat despondent and rheumy, sure that he’d never have a chance to play with those marvelous trains. In his family, well-care wasn’t an option. Without health insurance, only persistent coughs and fevers got medical attention. As long as Grainger’s mother remained with them, at least he did see a doctor when really sick. After she left, his friendship with Mack provided care on several levels.
Seeing Grainger’s obvious desire to touch those brightly colored cars, Mack began to push the train in his direction. One by one the cars passed across the invisible divide between them until Grainger was in full possession of the toy.
“I’m Mack.”
“I’m Grainger.”
“Is that your first name or your last name?”
“First. Egan is my last name.”
“Grainger Egan. I’m not sick. I just have to play here when my mom’s busy. My daddy is the doctor.”
“My daddy is a fisherman.”
“I wish my dad was.”
“My dad can teach your dad.”
“Okay. When you get better, do you want to play?”
Mack lived close by the Overlook Bluff Road neighborhood, in a neat, old, viewless Cape-style house that had two bathrooms and a den. Such a place was palatial to Grainger, who then lived above LaRiviere’s Market in three rooms. Very soon Grainger became a fixture in the MacKenzie household, even having his own hook by the door to hang his coat on when they came home from school. As it grew dark, Mrs. MacKenzie would say, “Grainger honey, can you stay?” She knew dinner for him might be hot dogs or cereal, not pork chops or roast chicken.
If his father was out at sea, fishing on one of the big boats out of Great Harbor, he’d shake his head and say no thank you. His mother was home alone and would expect him. If Rollie Egan was home, either between trips or unemployed owing to the vagaries of the fishing industry, Grainger would nod yes. Please. Later he would run home in the dark, timing his arrival to occur just as his father fell asleep in front of the television, the three or four beers he’d consumed guaranteeing he wouldn’t notice Grainger’s coming in after supper. Occasionally Grainger would mistime his return, and Rollie would berate him about ingratitude and getting above himself. Depending on the degree of success his last fishing trip had brought, he might keep his abuse verbal. If the fishing had been poor, Grainger might expect the belt. His wide open eyes would fixate on the movement of his father’s hairy hands to his belt buckle. Rollie knew that, and would tease the boy by touching it, just to see the fear Grainger tried so hard not to show.
Sometimes, though, he had already taken out his frustration on Grainger’s mother. Regret and guilt are strange bedfellows, and that often made Rollie more dangerous. The less he brought home, the more he bullied. If Grainger could hear his mother’s weeping through the thin walls of the building, he would sit in the hallway, waiting until his father’s loud snores proclaimed it safe to go in. Sometimes Mrs. Katz in the other apartment would open her door and pull him inside. She’d never say a word, but give Grainger a slice of pound cake and a glass of milk, and tsk tsk her tongue as he ate.
As spring daylight increased playtime, one of his and Mack’s favorite games after supper was “trespassing.” They’d visit unoccupied summerhouses and scamper over porches, climb trellises, and dare each oth
er to peek in windows. Once school let out, Grainger stayed at Mack’s four nights out of five.
The long June sunset lingered until eight o’clock, giving the pair time to move through the neighborhood for new dares. The closer it got to true summer, and the arrival of summer people, the more exciting the game.
One evening they drifted into the Harris yard from the back, and moved around to the great wraparound porch with its tipped-over rocking chairs. In those days people didn’t lock up their outdoor furniture, simply tipped the chairs forward to prevent rain and leaf mold from building up. In the evening half-light, the rockers looked like people bent over in prayer, foreheads touching the porch rail. The chairs beckoned to two small boys looking for mischief. They crept along the hedges, speaking in a code of their own devising as they scouted the territory. Mack dared Grainger, and he ran up across the porch to tip upright each of the four big chairs, then stepped on the rockers to get them to moving in a chaotic dance. The sudden appearance of headlights coming along Overlook Bluff Road made the boys quickly duck behind the wide, shingled balustrades. When the headlights didn’t pass but instead pointed right at where they were hiding, Grainger could feel his pulse race with the same intensity as when he ran home those nights his father was there.
Mack stifled a nervous giggle and pushed Grainger from behind to crawl along to where the verandah turned against the side of the house. From there they were able to creep, on all fours, down the five wooden steps of the porch’s rear access and dart across the darkened yard to the relative safety of the bushes, where they paused to watch the wonder of their mischief. It was full dark now, and they knew they’d be in trouble with Mack’s mother if they didn’t beat it home soon. But it was too much not to watch the puzzlement on the arriving owner’s face, fleetingly illuminated by his lighter as he lit a cigarette. He put out a hand to stop the mysterious rocking of his porch chairs before unlocking the double front doors.
The slam of the car door pulled their attention away as a woman got out of the car and opened the back door of the white station wagon. Then a sleepy girl climbed out, one arm clutching a white stuffed bear, the other rubbing her eyes, for all the world like a child in a Disney movie. She stood alone for a few minutes as her parents busied themselves unpacking the massively loaded car; then she walked across the scraggly seacoast grass and right to where Mack and Grainger huddled, their hands over their mouths to keep the excited giggles suppressed.
“I’m Kiley. Are you playing hide-and-go-seek-in-the-dark? Can I play too?” At that moment her father called her in, and the little girl scampered off, letting the screen door slam behind her.
The morning that Toby Reynolds dropped the bomb of Kiley’s return, Grainger sat for a long time in his truck, opposite the still-shuttered house. He heard her child’s voice, still a little cloudy from sleep. Can I play too?
They should have told her no.
Now he’d seen Kiley’s son. The young man whose future would be assured by the sale of his grandparents’ home. Grainger left the post office in a hurry, afraid that his confusion showed on his face. He had a fleeting vision of grabbing the kid and holding him close in some stagy reunion. “My boy!” But he might as easily not have been his son. The only reliable truth was that he was Kiley’s son. And she had kept him away from Hawke’s Cove.
Grainger’s mind raced with uncontrollable thoughts, even as he tried to recall his half-dozen Saturday morning errands. The drugstore. He forgot the aspirin he’d meant to buy and came out with a can of shaving cream he didn’t need and a bag of M&M’s. The hardware store. What was it he needed? Grainger wandered around, bumping into people he knew, remarking on the decent weather and the Red Sox. He stood in line with just a package of sandpaper and brushes, without remembering he needed to have a key copied or the piece of screening he needed to repair the screen door where Pilot had scratched a rip in it. All Grainger could think of was whether Kiley had been selfish in keeping this boy to herself, or selfless in not involving him. She could have contacted him anytime. The MacKenzies always knew his address, although they might only send a card at Christmas. Grainger had been a moving target for the ten years he’d piloted all manner of craft, from research vessels out of Woods Hole to ferries in Puget Sound, but he’d always dropped them a note to say where he was. Even in those first couple of years, when he was in the Army, deeply regretting his mistake in not joining the Navy, he was accessible. Of course, if she hadn’t wanted to contact him, perhaps she was also incapable of contacting the MacKenzies. With better reason.
Yet neither had he ever reached out to Kiley; he never could have. He’d once hated her for what she’d caused. Over time that had faded, but Grainger still blamed her for costing him everyone he had loved. Perhaps he’d evolved beyond hating her, but he knew he still hadn’t forgiven her, or himself. It was what defined him.
When Grainger was a boy and his mother left, he had experienced the bitter desolation of loss. He had prayed every night that someday she’d come back, prayed until he outgrew the hope. In the opposite way, he’d prayed that he’d never set eyes on Kiley Harris again—a prayer that had seemed answered, until today.
Still, he would have wanted to know about the boy. Surely Kiley had known whose child he was, and chosen to keep Grainger away. As punishment? Or out of kindness? He was deeply curious about the boy, but didn’t know how to satisfy that curiosity without encountering Kiley. Without starting a conversation that was nearly two decades too late.
Grainger stood in the checkout line of the hardware store, rubbing a thumb against the coarse sandpaper. They say time is a great healer. That isn’t quite true, but time does dull the pain. No doubt they both were scarred, their lives etched with the disfigurement of their mistakes. His scars were no longer fresh; he had distracted himself with travel and work and even a couple of long-term relationships. If things had turned out differently back then, if their separation had simply been that of growing apart, maybe they could meet cheerfully now and again, as old friends with nothing left in common do. But it hadn’t. They had acted on their desires, and self-destructed.
Yet, Grainger wondered, maybe they did have something left in common. The boy.
Whether he was Grainger’s or not, he was of them. The three of them.
Coming out of the hardware store, Grainger saw the boy again, sitting in a dented blue Mazda. His sunglasses didn’t disguise the fact that the kid was watching him. Something that almost felt like a suppressed laugh tickled his throat. At that moment, Emily Claridge Fitzgibbons called out Grainger’s name. While she chattered about whatever it was she was talking about, Grainger kept thinking about the boy and sneaking looks at him out of the corner of his eye. How dangerous it would be to encourage him. The boy’s look of startled curiosity in the post office convinced Grainger that, at the very least, he knew something. And if Kiley had told this boy about him, she must have told him about Mack.
With a sudden and absolute certainty, Grainger knew that he had to keep this kid at arm’s length. If he was so interested in Grainger that he was following him around town, then they were both in danger of misplaced expectations.
Five
The black desk phone on the marble-topped table rang with old-fashioned shrillness. Kiley answered it, half expecting it to be Will explaining why he wasn’t back yet from the post office.
“Kiley, it’s Pop.”
“Is everything all right?” Kiley’s father never initiated phone calls.
“Fine. I want to talk to you about Random.”
It took a moment for Kiley to draw her thoughts in line with her father’s words. Random, his thirty-six-foot ketch. “Okay.”
“I should sell her, too.” It might have been his struggle for breath, or emotion, but his voice was faint. Random had always been his pride and joy, his ownership of the classic wooden boat defining him in the hierarchy of local sailors.
“Pop, you don’t have to do that. Don’t let go of everything all at once.”
“I’m not able to sail her. What’s the point of keeping her? She needs to be in the water, not stranded in a boatyard.”
“Where is she now?”
“At Egan’s Boat Works.”
A knot began to form in Kiley’s stomach. She knew what was next.
“Will you see to her?”
“I can’t do that.”
“Don’t be so goddamned stubborn.” Merriwell’s voice strengthened in the face of his daughter’s refusal.
“Can’t you do it over the phone?” Kiley rubbed the aching place in her belly.
“No. Someone has to go and see her, get a surveyor over to get her worth. Sign whatever agreements need to be signed. Just like the house. It’s no different.”
“Yes, it is.” Three words, distinct and sharp. Could her father really have no idea that Egan’s Boat Works was owned by Grainger Egan? The same Grainger Egan who had featured prominently in any number of family arguments? Had her father forgotten that Grainger was high on the list of suspects her mother had assembled at the news of her pregnancy?
“Why are you making this so difficult?” Merriwell paused, gathering enough breath to finish the conversation. “Just go down there and see to it.” There was another pause. “He won’t bite.”
Kiley settled the heavy handset into its cradle and sat down on the chair beside the phone stand. Her head dropped into her hands, and she tried to ignore the increasing ache in her stomach. Just like a little kid, with a stomachache on test day. Was her father testing her filial obedience, her maturity, her courage? No, this wasn’t a test. This was an outrageous request. She wouldn’t do it.
Kiley heard the screen door slam and the sound of the car keys dropped on the wooden kitchen table. She pushed herself to her feet and went to greet Will.