by Mia March
Like John Smith does for you, she knew he was thinking.
She turned away, confused. Until she noticed a picture of her and Charlie, taken two or three Christmases ago, on his desk. She remembered that day. She’d had to escape the inn and her sister and Edward. Henry had come to the rescue, building a snowman with Charlie and then having a snowball fight. He’d taken the picture of her and Charlie making snow angels, their smiles as bright as Charlie’s orange down jacket and snowpants. No matter what, Henry had always been her “person,” the one she turned to first when she needed something. Someone.
“We’ve had some very good moments, the three of us,” Henry said, standing behind her.
The three of us. He never forgot Charlie. Ever. She turned around and looked at him. She had no idea what she would do without him. Even as she and her family got closer, Henry remained as vital as air to her. He was her person.
He looked at her, and a montage of moments flitted through her mind. Henry rubbing her back when she was nine months pregnant. Henry rocking Charlie as an infant. Changing his diaper and getting squirted. Henry holding her as she cried over the absence of John Smith, the weight of her life, the uncertain future. Henry.
“Do what you need to do, June,” Henry said.
I’m very lucky to have you, she wanted to say, but she found she couldn’t speak.
The next morning, as June was in the kitchen, preparing Charlie’s snack and lunch for school, Lolly slipped one of Kat’s famous chocolate-chunk cookies into the Spider-Man lunchbox and eyed her niece. “You look happy, June. Being back here, your job—even if it’s not the same store—must make you happy.”
June almost laughed. Happy here in Boothbay Harbor? Granted, she was happy that Charlie was happy, and boy was he. He loved living with family. Having a dog, even if it was really Isabel’s. He took his job of walking and brushing Happy—for which Isabel paid him $2 a week—seriously. He was so excited about school, which started up today. But with his hopeful expression, he continued to ask if she’d made any progress with finding his father. He’d asked five minutes ago.
“I’m going to do some more research this morning at the library,” she’d told him, and instead of the shimmer of disappointment that usually crossed his sweet face, he’d said, “Okay, maybe you’ll find out something today,” then rushed outside to play with Happy in his final minutes before they’d have to leave for the bus stop.
He was happy here. Surrounded by relatives who adored him, who sneaked cookies in his lunchbox. Who wrapped him in impromptu hugs in the hallways and bought him Red Sox T-shirts with his favorite player’s name on the back. He had family here.
It was nice to wake up to people. To not have to be so responsible for every little thing. Like replacing toilet paper. Fixing flat tires. Stopping a bloody nose at 2:00 a.m. Last night, she’d already been wide-awake when Charlie had called out that his nose was bleeding all over the place; she’d been thinking about Henry, about what he’d said. I have always loved you, June. Her Henry. That someone she loved so much, admired so fiercely, could have such feelings for her boosted her inside in a way she couldn’t remember ever feeling.
You look so happy this morning…
Because of Henry? Even though she did hold out hope for John?
Or because she was happy here? Here with her family, which would always include Henry. Last night, as she’d been holding tissue after tissue to Charlie’s poor nose, Isabel had gone to his dresser to pull out a new pajama top and get some wet wipes for the blood on his cheek and collarbone. And Kat had changed Charlie’s bloodstained pillowcase. To one with little blue and red robots.
For the first time really, she and Charlie had family in the full sense of the word. They were among people who cared about them. Somehow, in these weeks of being here, of worrying late at night about Lolly, of bearing witness to the small and big things that made up their days, their lives, the four of them had gotten closer when June hadn’t been looking.
June moved over to the screen door. Charlie was tossing Happy’s favorite little rag toy in a game of fetch. “Ready, sweets?” she called.
“Ready. Bye, Happy!” he said, giving the dog a vigorous rubbing all over.
Lolly and June walked Charlie to the bus stop just a half block away, and June thought her heart would burst as Charlie bounded on the school bus after a hug for his great-aunt and mother. On the way back, Lolly told June stories of how she used to tear up when she’d put Kat on the big yellow school bus and watch her baby go off into the world alone. They walked back arm in arm, June too aware that her aunt was walking much slower than usual. After two bracing cups of coffee and Lolly assuring June she was just fine and “go do your research,” June headed to the blessedly cool, quiet library to use the communal computers.
As if the different environment, the library opposed to Lolly’s office or Kat’s laptop, would bring forth something new. But she didn’t know what else to try that she hadn’t already. Aside from a private investigator.
Perhaps that was what she had to do. She’d never gone that route because she’d never had the several hundred extra dollars it would cost. She had once consulted with a PI, who’d told her if she didn’t have anything, such as a Social Security number or a birthday, it would be difficult to track down a commonly named man. And that she could do what he could do online and save the initial $250 “look-see” fee.
She heard kids’ voices singing and followed the happy sound to the children’s room. A group of ten or so toddlers sat in a circle on their caretakers’ laps, a librarian leading the way in “Itsy Bitsy Spider.” June smiled, remembering singing the song to Charlie as a toddler, making the hand movements.
She got a computer pass and headed upstairs to the community computers. As she passed the nonfiction section, she spotted Marley, in dark sunglasses and a floppy sun hat, on an overstuffed chair, a stack of books wedged spine-side-in beside her. June’s heart lurched at how she used to feel the need to hide, disguise herself in town. Not anymore.
She went over to say hi to Marley, who was reading What Your Baby Really Needs and making a list of essentials.
“Have you heard from Kip?” June whispered.
Marley shook her head. “I told my mom, though, and she wants me to stay in Boothbay and look for a teaching job here. She said she’ll be my free nanny. My ganny.” She smiled. “I don’t feel as desperate anymore.”
“And it’s nice that you’ll be here—Kip’ll come around, surely. Even if it’s not till the baby is born.”
“I hope so. I guess this is just a stupid fantasy, but I keep thinking he’s being offered this amazing gift, a family—a woman who’s madly in love with him, a child—and he couldn’t be less interested.”
“We’ll see,” June said. “With time. Once it sinks it.” After making plans to meet for dinner this week and go over what June thought every new mother should have and what was nonsense (such as baby-wipe warmers, in her opinion), she left Marley to finish her list and headed to the one open computer.
She went through the usual searches. A half hour later, she realized the few sites she was reading through were ones she’d already pored over. Another half hour later, she was going through hit after hit, mention after mention. Nothing jumping out.
But then she came across something promising. Very promising. When she typed John Smith, Colby College, 2003, 2004, 2005 into Google Blogs, a short piece—and a grainy photo—came up about a college jazz band, a foursome called the Jazz Experience, in 2005. Her John Smith had talked about loving jazz, but he hadn’t mentioned being in a band. Still, the caption noted John Smith as second from the left, and that guy, the one on bass guitar, did have that straight, floppy dark hair. He was looking down at the guitar, his hair hanging over his eyes.
It could be him. The year was right.
But now what? Contact the thr
ee other guys and ask, Uh, you went to college with a John Smith with dark, floppy hair. He played guitar with you in the Jazz Experience. Do you know if he dropped out in his senior year to travel?
At least she had someone—three someones—to ask. It was a start.
“I’m sorry, but your time was up ten minutes ago, and someone else is waiting for the use of the computer,” a library clerk said.
June leapt up. “Sorry! All yours,” she said, then rushed toward the stairs. She finally had something to follow up on.
I’m going to find him. This was it. She felt it. She would finally know what happened, why he hadn’t shown up, despite what they’d shared the nights before, despite how he’d looked at her, held her, made her feel that he was as in love with her as she was with him. And maybe, no matter how much of a sliver of maybe it was, there was a chance for her and Charlie’s family of two to become three.
After dinner, June googled the guy in the blog post with the most unusual name. Only one Theodore Theronowki was listed. One! Thank you, Theodore Theronowki, for having that name! She typed the name and the words white pages into the search engine, and an address and telephone number came right up. He lived in Illinois.
Her heart beating like mad, she grabbed her phone and dialed.
“John Smith, John Smith,” Theodore Theronowki said after she explained why she was calling. “From the Jazz Experience? I don’t remem— Oh, wait, yes. When Parker got mono or something like that, his friend John filled in for him on bass for a couple of months. I transferred to BU at the end of that year, so I didn’t get to know John too well.”
He remembered him. June closed her eyes in silent thanks. She was close.
“So you don’t have an address for him? Even an old one or an old number? Something that I could use to maybe link back to him?”
“Nope, sorry. I do remember that he lived on Haywood Street or Place or whatever, though. Haywood’s my middle name and some buddies call me that, and I remember him once saying he grew up on Haywood something. Don’t know where, though.”
Haywood Something. In Bangor. It was all she needed.
That would lead to his parents. Which would lead to him. Thank you, Theodore Theronowki. Thank you.
After she and Theodore hung up, she typed Haywood, Bangor, Maine into Google Maps and there it was, Haywood Circle, a cul-de-sac. Of course, his parents might not still live there. But a quick search of Smith, Haywood Circle, Bangor, Maine, brought up Eleanor and Steven Smith, 22 Haywood Circle.
Tears sprang to her eyes and she covered her mouth with her hand, shocked that she’d finally found him—or almost—after all this time, all this looking. She had her way back to him. But now what? Did she call his parents? Say she was an old friend and would love to get in touch with John? What if they didn’t forward the message? What if they were estranged? What if John was engaged or married and his parents didn’t want to give his contact information to an old friend? An old girlfriend. How much should she say to get the ball rolling? How little?
Hello, Mrs. Smith. My name is June Nash, and I knew your son, John, seven years ago when he was traveling in New York. I lost touch with him, and I’d love to have his contact information.
That sounded reasonable.
She’d talk it over with Isabel and Kat, get their opinions on her opening. For the hundredth time she was grateful they were right here, available for important talks at all hours of the day and night.
CHAPTER 12
Kat
Her mother looked so frail. Instead of recovering from the first infusion of chemotherapy—her next would be in another week and a half—Lolly’s body seemed in constant revolt. She was often nauseated and fatigued, so tired at times, such as right then, that she could barely lift her arm. Lolly lay propped up on the special hospital bed that Kat had ordered for Lolly’s bedroom, and Kat cringed at the effort it took her mother to flip the pages of her Good Housekeeping magazine.
Kat sat on the edge of the bed, the late-afternoon sunshine dappling the yellow quilt, embroidered with faded sea stars, that had belonged to Lolly’s sister, Kat’s aunt Allie. The sight of the quilt sometimes took Kat’s breath. With loss. With strong women taken before their time. Kat remembered her beautiful aunt, how she’d wished she’d had Allie Nash’s long, thick, wavy auburn hair, lit with golden highlights. Isabel had gotten the gold and June the auburn. When Lolly would send Kat over to her aunt and uncle’s to watch her during a busy Saturday or Sunday at the inn, her aunt Allie would sit and brush Kat’s long, light blond hair, so light it seemed colorless to Kat, and murmur that her hair was beautiful, which used to make Kat proud. Her aunt had been so kind, and Kat had loved being sent over to their apartment. On the way there, Kat would peer in the fortune-teller’s window a couple of blocks away. The fortune-teller’s name was Madame Esmeralda, and Aunt Allie had told Kat that though she and Kat’s cousins didn’t believe Madame Esmeralda could really see into the future, the woman was able to make a good living just by reading people’s expressions, that everyone pretty much walked around with their fears and wishes right on their face. Once, on a slow winter weekday, when Madame Esmeralda turned town seamstress to make up work, she’d told Kat’s fortune for the price of Kat’s making three deliveries to her customers. She’d sat her down in the little shop with its rich, red draperies and candelabra and told her a bunch of obvious things, except for one line that had always stayed with her: “You will surprise yourself in the end.” But days after the accident, Kat had seen Madame Esmeralda in the grocery store and had run up to her and screamed that she was a fake, that she didn’t know what she was talking about, that Madame Esmeralda should have warned her father not to pick up Kat’s aunt and uncle, that a man way drunker than the Nashes would ram his car into Kat’s father’s Subaru Outback just minutes away from their home. Minutes from their all being safe. Alive.
Madame Esmeralda had looked so shocked, so sad, that day in the grocery store that Kat had gone still for a moment and blurted that she was sorry before running away. She’d written off the line of Madame Esmeralda’s that she’d liked, that she would surprise herself in the end, since she didn’t believe a word Madame Esmeralda said anymore. And of course she’d surprise herself. Life was full of damned surprises.
Kat looked away from the faded sea star that had brought on the memory and focused on cutting bite-size pieces of the strawberry shortcake she’d made for her mother. Kat wasn’t crazy about strawberry shortcake, but it was one of Lolly’s favorites.
“Mmm, this just melts on my tongue,” her mother said as Kat forked small bites into Lolly’s mouth. Her mother sighed, then stared at her. For the third time in the past fifteen minutes.
“Mom, c’mon. Something is obviously bothering you.”
Lolly eyed her. Clamped her lips tight. Finally she said, “I was hoping you might have something to tell me.”
“About what?” Kat asked, fork poised in midair.
“About a diamond ring?”
Oh, no.
“Earlier, I was about to come into the kitchen, but I saw you through the little window on the door, standing by the stove, holding what looked like a diamond ring. I didn’t want to seem like I was spying, so I pushed at the door to come in and you looked over and shoved the ring in your pocket.”
“Oliver gave it to me,” Kat whispered, so low she wasn’t sure her mother heard her. Almost two weeks ago and it still feels as strange as the day he slid it on my finger.
“Did a question come with it?”
Kat nodded.
“And?”
“And I said yes, but I… I just don’t feel right being engaged and making a fuss over it when you’re going through all this, the chemo, and having a full house. I’ve… just kept it quiet.”
Lolly stared at her for a moment, so hard that Kat had to look away. “Kat, you know I don’t li
ke to poke my nose in anyone’s business, including my own daughter’s, but I need to say things now that I normally wouldn’t.”
Uh-oh.
“Nothing would make me happier—nothing—than to see you and Oliver married and settled.”
Kat turned back to Lolly. “Why?” So you don’t have to worry about me? Because you think I want to get married? Because you and Dad had Oliver picked out for me at age five?
“Because you love each other. Plain and simple.”
Love is plain and simple? Kat wanted to say. But she couldn’t. She couldn’t talk to her mother. Not ever and not even now.
Kat cut another piece of shortcake to have something to do with her hands. “I just don’t want the focus taken off you, Mom. How can I think about headpieces and guest lists when my mom is…”
As the words came out of her mouth, Kat realized they were true. Ambivalence about Oliver aside, she didn’t think she could give a fig about a wedding gown when her mother was dying.
Her mother was dying. The truth of it clawed into Kat’s stomach. I never really had you and now… An image slammed into Kat’s mind, of Lolly finding Kat crying about something that had happened in school, mean girls calling her an orphan. She’d been picked on before, and when she’d dared confide in June, June had told her it was because she was so pretty and nice, and some mean girls wouldn’t like that, and since those idiot girls clearly were too dumb to know what an orphan was, Kat should surely ignore them but tell her guidance counselor on them. That had made Kat feel a little bit better. But these were things she’d always talked to her father about, bullies and slights and C’s on tests that she’d studied for, and her father always knew what to say. Lolly would only tell her to buck up and add a “For goodness’ sake” for extra salt in the wound, and once her father was gone, Kat hadn’t turned to Lolly to talk. In fact, when Lolly did ask her what was wrong, Kat would mutter, “Nothing,” and run away. Sometimes she’d talk to June, who was three years older and smart. But mostly Kat stuck with Oliver.