Chapter Two

Claire

I drove into Sea Cliff with no trouble at all. It was so wildly pretty and old-fashioned, I couldn’t understand how I’d never been to this place; but we were South Shore people, I supposed, my Irish mother drawn to the bleak, raging, free-to-the-public ocean. This was shady and remote, off the beaten path. Only one road in and out. It was almost another world, yet it was just a mile or so this way and that with hedges and mammoth rhododendron sufficing as borders instead of fences. I was transported by the light, the mood, the screened-in porches, the names of the lampposted streets: Winding Way, Dubois Avenue, Bathway, Littleworth Lane. Even the trees were preposterous: oversized and elderly. I thought of Enoch, who loved trees, and for a moment before I remembered, I missed him. But I did remember, and I would be jolted into heartbreak often in the near future, I knew, until I’d gotten used to the idea. But somehow, a broken heart never seems to hinder my appetite. I parked and looked around for a place to eat. The deli looked all right. There was a good, sturdy fellow in there and he hooked me up with an eggplant, mozzarella, and roasted red pepper on brick-oven olive bread. Coffee, you helped yourself. I took it outside and passed up the benches on the square of grass before the library, instead taking the short walk past the shops to the overlook. Benches were placed there, too, jutting out over the blue sound. The air was charged with particles of ozone and silt and though it was cold, it was just warm enough in the steady sunshine so you could sit and eat. But the sea! Oh, it was glorious and navy blue.

When I finished my sandwich and coffee, I just sat there for a while. You couldn’t read the paper—it was too windy—so I decided I’d make my way down the breathtakingly steep steps to the beach. At the very bottom it was almost still, protected as it was in a cove. I took off Carmela’s shoes and went out to the beach. There was no one in sight. It was cold and the wind blew fiercely, which I enjoyed. I didn’t stay there long, but I could imagine what summers here would be like. Early morning walks. Picnics on the beach. I returned to my shoes and hunched over to put them on, leaning against a sizable boulder. The sound of someone playing piano drizzled from one of the far-off houses. You can always tell if it’s a real piano rather than a tape or the radio. I don’t know how but you can. I thought of Enoch, warmhearted and courtly. I tried to conjure up some melancholy again but, at the risk of sounding frigid—which my sister tells me I am—I didn’t feel it in this early morning change of scene. I didn’t feel anything. If I was honest with myself, I had to admit to a certain coldness on my part as well. For hadn’t sex between Enoch and me been, if friendly, also somewhat utilitarian and singular, like two pals getting off? You can’t be someone’s back unless they are your front. And there’s a safety to that. I wondered for how long I had been this numb. Since I’d seen the light for another woman in my husband’s eyes? Yes, that could have done it. That had hurt. So much so that I’d closed myself off. I looked up at the bright sky with its promise of spring and I remembered that at that moment I felt almost glad. I don’t know what it was—getting away from Queens, maybe just being in such a dramatically pretty place—but I felt free. I heard the tight, intense hum of bees. Bees indicated life, and I was struck by the heady, almost sickening fragrance of hibiscus. Out in the bay, a picturesque little orange boat, empty, bobbed up and down in the fast churning sea.

I took the steep footpath, stopping to catch my breath, and at the very top, edging over the side, a stab of red wobbling color caught my eye. A For Sale sign, meant to be seen from the beach, had come loose and was wriggling and about to fly off its hook. I leaned out and hitched the sign back up and looked at the tiny house. It was pale blue, no, gray, a pale gray but with a hue of blue and it had peeling white painted sills. An old-fashioned porch stole the show. The house wasn’t in the least bit fancy or beautiful. Except for the porch, it was plain. Tiny. Solid. It had to be, clinging to the edge of the cliff like that. A small bird landed on the front gutter with a gathering of weed in its beak. Just beneath the porch light was a battered plaque, the way some houses announce and portray themselves. It was spelled in an antiquated hand: the great white. I smiled—someone had a sense of humor—and hoisted myself over the steps to the walkway and then something in me turned me back around and I thought what the heck. … I scribbled down the number.

A gray-haired woman next door on the inland side was hanging a rug over the hedge. She peered at me suspiciously.

“Just taking down the number,” I called.

She tipped her head in understanding and proceeded to swat her rug with an antiquated beater.

I ventured a little closer. “I don’t suppose you know what they’re asking?”

“Better not be much,” she said in a heavy Italian accent. “She was a clutter bug. Place is a mess.” She gave me the once-over, sizing me up. “Needs new gutters, too. And the boiler’s all the time on the blink.” We both listened to the chirp of the nesting bird.

How cold could it get? I asked myself. After all, spring was here. Why, it would soon be summer. I asked the woman if she thought they might rent. “I’d love to get a look inside.”

Swatting abated, she squared her stance and scrunched her face up. “Might have missed your chance. I think the son’s fed up. Said he’s looking to sell. Told me he gave the house to a realtor just the other day.”

“Oh.” Acquiring a house on the water, even a paltry one, would be way above my budget. Feeling oddly let down, I thanked her and started to walk away.

“Of course, if you want to go talk to him, he’ll be down the marina. … Still might be there.”

I hesitated. My better judgment warned me, Don’t you go starting all over again with one of your harebrained schemes.

“Hey!” The woman put one hand up to shade her eyes and another heavily on my shoulder and she gasped, “Look there! It’s a blue heron!”

Just above our heads an impossibly heavy, prehistoric-looking bird flew low above us in a slow-motion, long-stroked way. It looked right at us. “Wow!” I said.

“Madonna mia,” the woman said as she grabbed hold of me. “You don’t think it’s a spirit of someone?”

“I’ve never heard that. I’ve never even seen one!” I cried. “And so close!”

“Did you see? She looked right at us!”

We stood watching the empty sky long after it had passed, both of us enthralled. I looked back at the little house. This whole place would be transformed by summer to a tourist town. Suppose I could think up some sort of business. … Well, what? Stranger things have happened. Let’s face it—nothing wonderful was waiting for me back in Queens. I dug into my purse for a pen. “What’s the man’s name?”

“The man?” She was still frightened by what seemed to her a mythological apparition.

“Who owns the cottage?” I prompted.

“Oh. Donovan,” she said, returning to the real world. “Noola’s son, Morgan Donovan. You ask anyone for Noola’s son’s—Morgan’s—boat. He owns the house now. But I got to warn you. Noola’s ghost”—she thought she’d help me out by adding—“she’s come and go with the fog. Late at night, I hear …” She leaned in, close and garlicky. “… something bad!”

The first happy aspect of being on my own took shape. No sensible man to put an end to my dream just because of something so provincial as a ghost. After all, I harrumphed to myself, knowing more at that time than I realized, it’s not of the dead we must fear, but the living.

In no time at all I sat in the Once Upon a Moose and waited for Jenny Rose. You’ve never seen a place like the Moose. There are antiques and white lattices and climbing ivy, glittering curiosities and collectibles, and ladies’ old-fashioned hats along the walls. This afternoon it was practically empty; one elegant couple sat at a wrought-iron table at the other side of the room. The man, I noted, was prosperous looking, gleamingly Rolexed, a certain sort of handsome. Norwegian looking. A scant portly. I couldn’t see his companion as she had her back to me, but she wore a green loden mantle and hat, the sort of thing you’d see in Germany. Very attractive, I thought idly, and then was amused to see him glance furtively to the side and pass her a short stack of bills. She took it without hesitation. At once I turned away discreetly. The young woman in the loden mantle stood, slipped out the door, and hurried up the street. I’d chosen the cozy bay-window seat at the far end that looked out at the town square, had ordered tea, and was thinking Jenny Rose was going to take one look at me and her face would fall. That’s basically what happened.

The glass door sprung open, jingling with a rope of bells, and in she walked. Her eyes took several seconds to adjust to the dark, then swept the room and she caught sight of me. Her face didn’t change, but her hazel eyes went sort of dead. She looked so young. Well, she is so young. I stood up, tripped over my own two feet, and made it across the room to give her a hug. She hugged me back all right. But on her way to my shoulder she let her guard down and I caught a clear glimpse of her disappointment. It didn’t take her long to adjust her face into a pleasant expression. We sat down. I took my time explaining, giving her a chance to get herself together. Jenny Rose chewed her lip and listened as I rambled on. Finally she shrugged. “I didn’t really expect her, you know.”

You knew the kid was lying and her nonchalance was put on. “Well, she didn’t know,” I defended Carmela.

“Yeah, I just thought I’d take a chance.” She lit a cigarette and the owner—an interesting-looking lady with Veronica Lake hair and red lipstick—clicked her tongue and frowned pointedly.

“You can’t smoke in restaurants,” I hissed.

“You’re joking. How do you eat?”

I patted my hefty tummy. “We manage.”

Jenny Rose stomped out her cigarette and, still pulling herself together, stared out the window. I tried not to focus on the henna bracelet and the chipped blue nail polish, the black eyeliner and mascara. Actually, I was relieved there were no piercings other than the three in each earlobe. “I see you got a new tattoo.” I sighed, regarding the colorful rock star on her arm.

“Actually I painted it on, with makeup. Looks real, right?”

“Yes, it does,” I marveled. “Listen, Jenny Rose, Carmela’s expected back in a couple of weeks,” I said hopefully. “My sister Zinnie got married to a fancy Italian, I must say. Carmela was having a difficult time finishing a book, and Zinnie invited her there to work on it. Do her good. You know.”

“Uh-huh.” She whittled away at a last strand of blue nail polish with her teeth.

Together our heads turned to the empty piazza across the way. We watched the flags and window-box petunias ripple in the high wind. “Doesn’t feel much like spring yet, but Memorial Day’s coming up,” I encouraged. “Everything changes.”

We both moved unfamiliarly in our chairs. Outside, the cold sun glared on the empty road. Here in the Moose it was dark and cozy and smelled of butternut soup. A young man brought the tea in a sweet pot with roses. The cups were delicate, thin lipped and roomy.

“Oh, at last.” Jenny Rose smiled gratefully. She drank it down scalding hot.

I sipped my tea. I’d had enough of polite discomfort. “Jenny Rose, I’m not glad this happened, that Carmela wasn’t here, but I’m so incredibly pleased to see you. My children are both away at school and—well, your coming happens at a perfect time for me—”

Suddenly she took out her pad, knocking half the contents of her bag onto the floor in the process then scrambling to throw them back in untidily, and I thought she was going to write down my number, but instead she began sketching the interior of the restaurant. She did this with one foot up on the rung of a chair but otherwise inconspicuously and with an almost furious intent, reminding me of myself when I was just starting out, always photographing everything, no matter where I went. At last she said, “Wait until you see Twillyweed—the house where I’m working. There are onion-heads on turrets! It’s a trip.”

“May I come? Are you settled in?”

“Not really. They’ve stuck me in the basement. Well. It’s not as bad as it sounds. It’s just—”

“My sister said that you’ve taken a job as an au pair.” I realized I’d said my sister instead of your mother, but no need to start things off on the wrong foot.

“Yeah. They hustled the little boy off to bed before we could have much of a gab.” She scratched her cheek. “Cute as a button. They have him in school all day, can you believe it? At four! Well, almost five. He’s adopted. No sign of the mother. And no one about but the help. Where do people get off having kids if they’re not going to stick around and bother with them?”

We both thought of Carmela, who’d done neither.

She frowned. “And it’s kind of creepy. Like there’s a secret up there or something.” She shrugged dismissively then glanced at her watch.

I cleared my throat. “Do you have to get back right away?”

“I must stop in and show my face to a Mrs. Lassiter at the rectory, Deirdre’s old kick from back home. I ought to bring her flowers or a bottle of perfume, what do you think?”

“Oh, flowers are always nice.”

“Yeah, right. And I thought I’d look around for some drop cloths and turpentine and rags.”

“I passed a hardware store coming into town,” I said.

“That’ll do for a start.”

The good thing about somebody else’s troubles is that you quickly forget about your own. Watching her swift movements with the pencil, I mentioned, “When I met you, you were just a teenager, but even then you showed the promise of becoming a really talented artist.”

“Yeah. Real talented. Couldn’t even pay the rent it turns out.”

“Jenny Rose! I can still remember that painting of three fish you did! So full of imagination and color and depth! Please don’t tell me you’re not painting all the time!”

She shrugged. “I’m painting. I’ve just lost my cocksureness, I guess.” She grinned, looking me dead in the eye. “That would be a good thing, you’ll be telling me.”

“No. You need to be brash in this world of hope dousers.”

“Yeah.” Her voice was bitter. “There’ll be plenty a them.”

Together our heads turned to the empty piazza across the way. Funny, I thought, she doesn’t have Carmela’s knockout beauty, but she’s captivating. She has charm. She’s not burdened with self-consciousness but has that sporty, boyish way about her—not masculine, though she is graceful as a young boy is graceful. She just didn’t have girlish airs, probably because of the ways of those two Irish lesbians from the countryside who had raised her. There was something about her. It made me furious to think she’d been hurt. I knew Jenny Rose was quick to answer back. She had a sassy edge and a fresh mouth that was sure to get her into trouble, but she was a good-hearted kid. You could never say she wasn’t.

I thought of something else. I ventured, “There was a guy, I seem to remember?”

Jenny Rose shook her head. “Ach. There was him and there was me and there was the girl I was painting. This all was in the south of France, mind. Him speaking French and me not.” She gave a false laugh of bravado, then her eyes clouded, childlike and vulnerable. “Aw, I might as well tell you. I’d been having a terrible time of it, got turned down by a gallery in Cannes, the one gallery I really wanted. Like I had this dream my stuff would hang there in the window, you know? The gallery owner held my paintings up and ridiculed them.” Her eyes glazed over in misery at the memory. “And then I came home, really down, see, only to come in and find them not talking. You know what I mean … that loud silence that says something’s been going on before you walked in. Then there’s the bed made that’s never been made before.” She shrugged. “And the smell of it. It was there in the room like a thing. Ach. I just knew.”

“What did you do?”

“I beat her up.”

We looked at each other for a long moment and then I burst out laughing. I love the Irish part of my family with all my heart. I really do. I wiped my eyes. “So where is he now?”

“Oh, wait. Here’s the best part. He was so worried about the poor dear—Chantal, that’s her name—when I knocked her about, he drove her to the hospital. And there’s me standing there watching him drive her away.”

“Well … er … how badly was she hurt?”

“Sure, it was nothing. A couple of teeth. It was my hand he should have been worrying about, my selling my pictures was what kept us in baguettes and Brie if the truth be told.” She looked at her fist. “I was dead certain I’d busted it.”

“But it’s all right?”

“Yeah.” She turned it around admiringly. “No harm done. It was his ring knocked her teeth out, not me poor knuckles. I left the fuckin’ thing in one of his shoes and the both of them to it. Took my painting stuff and hitchhiked around the Mediterranean, got a job as an au pair down there with a lovely Turkish family, on the southern coast near Ephesus. Side, the town was. I thought he was out of my system by Christmas and I went home. Don’t you know he was there in Skibbereen with her! They’d opened a pub. A pub!” She snorted with disdain. Then she muttered, “His mother had set them up. She never did like me, the mother. Never thought me good enough, me coming from a house of raging lesbians and no money to speak of. And him with all his talk of becoming a great chef! I couldn’t bear to walk past their bloody love nest. And there’s everyone boasting about how grand it was. Even my own adoptive mum, Deirdre. ‘Ooh, you’ll get the tastiest salmon in three ports at the White Tree!’ She’d rave about the place! That’s what they called it: the White Tree. After his mother’s family.” She paused and added, “Protestants,” and I hoped she wasn’t going to spit. But she only gave a morose shrug and said, “That’s when I got to thinking it was time I looked up my blood mother.” She put her tongue in her cheek and winked. “She might be bad and all, but I can’t imagine her eating at the White Tree. I had this feeling it would stick in her throat.”

I said a silent prayer that when Jenny Rose did meet Carmela, she wouldn’t be too disappointed. Carmela had a way of making you think you were going to be best friends and then you might not see her for months. I suppose it would have been the perfect moment to confide what had happened to me with Enoch. But I didn’t. I’m not sure why. Still very raw, it was, I guess. And—you know me—a part of me feeling guilty, maybe, like I was involved in a conspiracy. I kept it in.

Jenny Rose busied herself with her pencil. “And here I am. So.”

“Well, how did you come upon Sea Cliff anyway?” I changed the subject.

“That was because my adoptive mother, Deirdre, is pen pals with the rectory lady here, and Mr. Cupsand—that’s my boss—needed someone because the wife took off with another man!”

“The old story,” I interjected bitterly.

“Yeah.” She lowered her voice. “And on top she made off with the family jewels!”

I gave a low appreciative whistle. “Want something to eat?”

“Nah.” She made a face.

I leaned across to the neighboring table for some more of the tasty honey. But with the gesture I caught sight of what Jenny Rose was doing. She’d dashed off the whole other side of the restaurant in deft strokes, capturing all the curious paraphernalia in perfect detail.

“Your turn,” she was saying. “Did you make your comeback as a photographer like you planned?”

“Well, no. I guess you heard about my divorce and my catastrophe of a bed-and-breakfast?”

“No.” She looked up, frankly interested. “Not a bit of it.”

“Nothing’s turned out exactly as I’d planned, either. The truth is, I’m unemployed. I have no idea what I’m going to do with the rest of my life and I just found out my fiancé is gay.”

“You don’t say!”

“I do.”

“Couldn’t you tell, Auntie Claire? How daft can you be?”

I’m embarrassed to say my mouth quivered. “It seems you can live with a person and never know a single thing about who they really are!” I could feel the tears getting ready to let loose down my cheeks.

But Jenny Rose encouraged, “That’s it. Cry. It will do you good.” With permission, it’s almost impossible to cry so I did not. I blew my nose into my napkin. Jenny Rose made a face. “We’re a fine pair, we are.” But my news seemed to have cheered her up. Together we had a rueful laugh, and I knew things were going to be all right between us. I noticed the young fellow who’d served us the tea was banging his tray lightly against his knees while he stood watching us. He had a handsome face with light blue eyes and dirty blond hair.

“British, are you?” he asked us.

“Fuck, no.” Jenny Rose scowled. “We’re Irish.”

“Oh,” he said.

The other customer, disgruntled that the server was paying him no attention, threw his left arm out to examine his watch in a display of irritation, gave an adamant call for his check, paid, and left. Then three more customers came in so the young man didn’t say any more, but when we were about to leave, he came over and asked Jenny Rose if he could see the drawing she’d done.

“Sure,” she said, handing it over as she stood.

“But,” he marveled, “this is wonderful!”

“Keep it.”

“Oh, but I didn’t mean—”

“No, really. Keep it.”

“Thank you,” he murmured wonderingly. He stood watching her go, she oblivious to his admiring expression. She sauntered off in that way she had, generous and carefree and good in her skin, unself-conscious­, a kid on a soccer field.

“He was very keen,” I remarked when we stood squinting at each other outside in the sunshine, “and good looking.”

“Sweet.” The way she said it explained him away with all the world-weary offhandedness of the young. I looked back at the young man, conscientiously returned to his work now. He wore no earrings or tattoos or other bad boy accoutrements to signal and lure a young girl artist like Jenny Rose. He wasn’t cool, but serious and intent. Nice. The kiss of death.

“Well …” Jenny Rose hoisted her backpack up onto her shoulder and smiled. “It was grand to see you. Do you think you’ll come out here again?”

“I was thinking I’d poke around Sea Cliff.” I remembered the cottage but decided it would be silly to mention it. It would most likely come to nothing. I shrugged. “Wait around for you to get off tonight. Take you to dinner, if you’re not too tired.”

Her hazel eyes lit up. “I thought you said you had no money.”

“Oh, I have money. I just don’t have money.”

“Oh. Okay. Yeah, that’ll be great.”

We traded cell-phone numbers and the both of us hurried off, the young man watching us go from the window.

Jenny Rose

She took the long way down to the pier. Her knees were trembling, and her heart thudded with disappointment. She’d just lollygag pointlessly around the marina, she told herself, having no heart to go shopping or visit the rectory. Aunt Claire was great, a real doll, but—Jenny Rose stopped on the shore and lit a cigarette—she’d been so sure she’d get to meet her mother. So sure! She pressed her back against a piling, sank down onto the dock, and looked up at the moving sky. There was no comfort. She felt nothing but desolate. If she’d had a joint, she’d have smoked it. Feeling herself watched, she looked up. There was that guy again. That cute guy on the pirate ship, now tethered to the dock. With something like rebellion, she jutted her chin out and stared right back at him and with no more encouragement than that, he hoisted himself over the prow of his boat and came across to her, moving with an elegant, catlike poise.

“What’s your name?” was the first thing out of the side of his mouth. The emphasis was on the your. Like she was next in line.

“Jenny Rose,” she answered, her eyes on the level of his worn, black jeans, “Jenny Rose Cashin. What’s yours?”

“Malcolm McGlintock. But you can call me Glinty.”

She looked him up and down with more coolness than she felt. He was, she smirked to herself, right up her alley.

“Here on vacation?”

You could get arrested for working without papers. “Sort of,” she replied, smiling.

He tipped his head. “Irish?”

“Yeah. Scots?”

“That’s right.” His eyes circled her slowly, assessing her, taking in the tattoo, the devil-may-care eyes. She was thin, but curvy. Suddenly the sun broke through. Liking what he saw, he said, “Wanna see my boat?”

She let him pull her up. “Why not?”

They walked together across the reach, the glare so bright you could hardly see. Jenny Rose followed him along the heaving dock and onto his sloop. The boat was a two-master, painted all black, The Black Pearl Is Mine, with a white stripe of a railing, pine-colored wood on the deck with faded Moroccan red sails when they were unfurled, tied up neatly now. Jenny Rose felt herself go weightless with the ebb and flow of the deck, the sound of the bay sloshing against the prow. She followed him, this perfect stranger, beautiful as he was, down the hatch and into the cabin, with his long, lustrous black hair, and for a moment she thought of her mother, never there, never there for her, not even now after she’d come so far across the ocean. She touched his sleeve and he turned around and she raised her chin and opened her mouth and, understanding what she wanted, he kissed her. Through the grinding cloth she felt the stirring of his erection. Their eyes caught in the dark and now, winding into the rickety tight galley and before she could catch her breath, he fell with her onto the bunk, pinning her under him, kissing her neck while they undid each other’s jeans. His skin was milky white and dense, almost silver, with a fray of black hairs in a silky trail leading down. She saw him only swiftly, his pendulum toward her, as he lifted her leg and moved forward into her, his wet eyes catching hold of hers in the dark cabin. There was a moment when she flew away, propelled, and then, brought back to that elegant moment of staggering bliss, erupted. She’d felt that before, but never with someone, always alone under covers in her bed, and she pivoted into a frenzy of stillness, a clenching and then a gush without warning.

“Jenny Rose,” he whispered and flinched.

She was still in a spasm. She locked her knees up and she rattled again. “Oh, my God,” she breathed out, trickling down.

“Wow,” he said, turning her face. “Most girls don’t get there so quick.”

And she shuddered again.

“That was awesome,” he said, getting up. He went into the head.

She got sober quick. “Fuck,” she said, remembering. Patsy Mooney would be waiting, wondering what she was up to. She reached for her jeans. He was still in the loo. “I’ve got to go,” she called in.

“Okay,” he called out. No Hold on, I’ll walk you home.

She felt in the dark for her boots, grabbed her jacket, still trembling with the spinning of it, into the blinding brilliant sunlight. Just get away quick was all she could think. On the ladder over the side she hesitated. Just in case he would call up to her. No. No sound. She’d left her panties on the floor. Damn. Nobody around. A crass sound made her jump and she looked up on the prow, but it was only a crane, a small rangy one, watching her. A baby one, maybe. She buttoned up her jean jacket. She ran, footfalls muffled on the deck, past the spot on the beach from where she’d first seen him, alluring and smirking. The wind hit her and she was cold again now, so she continued running, under the cover of sunlight and end-of-May wet wind, up the hill, way, way up the hill to somewhere else, anywhere but here and who she knew she was.

Claire

I hung around, spent the day poking around the town, exploring the shops and the library, thinking I might run into Jenny Rose, but I never did. The low clouds had moved along and the evening was sunlit by the time I made my way down to the marina. It was a good way by foot and I was reminded again just how out of shape I’d become. There was a parking lot and then seven or eight rows of boats. I went into a restaurant called the Hideaway that catered to the sailors and occasional townies. It wasn’t serving dinner yet but someone who looked like he might be the owner—collared shirt and mildly prosperous looking—was sitting there with another man, a delivery man in a route uniform.

“Excuse me.” I approached their table in the sudden dark and asked if they knew Noola’s son’s boat. They both shrugged. Behind the bar a wiry old fellow in an undershirt was carting a full pail of calamari entrails. He dumped the slimy lot into a bin, covered it, and shut it tight, then pulled a stogie from his mouth, and said to no one in particular, “That’ll be Morgan Donovan’s boat.”

“Oh, Morgan!” they both said at once, sitting taller with the sure air of respect. They pointed me over toward the third dock. “He’s got that forty-foot sloop out there, the Gnomon. She’s docked right next to the schooner, the For Sail. Get it?” The route guy spelled it out. “For S-A-I-L?”

“Ha-ha. I get it. Thanks.” I took off down the walkway and checked off the names of one pretty boat after the next. I don’t know anything about boats except I like to be on one. This sloop was navy blue and white and clean as a whistle. The Gnomon. It rocked gently in the flood of evening gold. “Hello!” I called. “Mr. Donovan!” There seemed to be no one there. I didn’t like to peek below deck. There was a bell, a big brass one, up on the deck and I climbed on board and pulled its cord so it clanged.

A man’s head popped up, surprised, and whacked on the beam. “Jesus Christ!” he shouted, rubbing his head. He was a onetime redheaded, now amber-haired fellow, weathered tan from years of sun and fuzzed with gold. My first thought was, Uh-oh, he looks like a golfer.

“What the hell’s wrong with you?” he yelled, and in what sounded to me like a Scottish accent he raved on, “Can’t you give a cry out before you come on board? You scared the crap out of me!”

“I did.” I took two steps back. “You’re wearing earphones!”

“What?” His eyes were greenish gold.

“I said you’re wearing earphones!”

“Oh!” He slipped them off and threw them violently down on his bench. “Well, you’ve done a fine job messing up me varnish!”

I looked down and behind me and saw my own footprints. “Oh my gosh! I’m so sorry.”

“Women.” He shook his head scornfully. And with that he picked me up bodily, flung me over his shoulder, and put me over the side.

“Hey! Let me go!” I protested, but he already had.

“It took me two hours to finish that job!” he flashed angrily.

“Well, you should have put up a sign!” I shrieked with injured pride.

He held up the pertinent sign he must have been working on when I’d surprised him. Only the last N and T were missing. His face was all sucked in with fury. “What the hell do you want, anyway?” he growled.

I spat on a tissue and wiped his red paint print from my arm. “I was wondering what you’re doing with the cottage up on the cliff.”

He searched my eyes for a long moment and held them. Then with this crushed look he turned from me. He sort of sagged.

I remembered what the neighbor had said. His mother only dead three weeks. “Look …” I stammered, “I’m really sorry. I sure know how to start off on the wrong foot. I’ll come back later.” I don’t know what I thought he’d do. Say something conciliatory, I guess. But he whirled on me and shouted, “Just don’t come back at all. Just leave well enough alone!”

“Okay. Okay.” I tried to sound soothing and I tripped, backward, away up the deck. Sheesh, I thought, rubbing my arm, what a grouch! I cleared the marina and stomped back up the beach road, but for the life of me I couldn’t remember which cliff stairs I’d come down. All I could think was what an unnecessarily rude, cantankerous man he was! And so strong, picking me up like that! He’d made me feel like a foolish little girl. I realized I was trembling. I stopped walking and sank down onto the nearest bottom step and as I did so I heard a harsh ripping sound. It was my pants. Or should I say, Carmela’s (that I hadn’t yet mentioned to her that I’d borrowed) good interview pants. They were split soundly up the back. If I’d have had a cigarette, I think I’d have smoked it. And now the best part, Carmela’s fancy shoes—the ones she was so finicky about—were absolutely crusted with varnish. They looked caramelized. It all seemed to catch up with me. My marriage. Now Enoch. I let my head down and this time I did cry, cried my heart out, my face cradled on my knees at the bottom of the dock shelf. I just collapsed and crumpled into a mush of mascara raccoon eyes and tears. Then, just to make everything perfect, the man from the boat, Morgan whatever his name was, came up the road. He was carrying my purse.

“I believe this belongs to you,” he said and plunked it down at my feet, removing his eyes from the sorry sight of me. But I was beyond caring. My nose, he didn’t have to tell me, was running like a hose. A hose! I collapsed again into wretched sobs.

He handed me his handkerchief and squared his fists to his hips, seemingly oblivious to my hysterics. “I keep telling you people to leave me alone. Don’t you have any respect?” he went on. “You people think all I’m interested in is the lure of your money.”

I reared up in dismay. “Hold on a second.” I snorted disdainfully, for I, too, am (or was) a hotheaded red-head. “While we people demystify our-our-our tantalizing allure.” I gave a meaningful good honk into his pristine handkerchief, dredged up what was left of my shreds of dignity, and stood to go. My feet, however, were already stuck to the ground with his quick drying varnish and I fell like a tree on my nose.

Jenny Rose

She hung up the phone. No answer. Again. All evening she’d been calling, and here it was night. This was odd. She wouldn’t have pegged Auntie Claire as one to let you down. She went upstairs to the kitchen. Wendell was still sitting at the table with Patsy Mooney. He was eating creamed corn with a spoon and picking at a saucer of torn-up little bits of deli ham. He was having trouble with the spoon, however, and the creamed corn leaked onto the tablecloth.

“Not like that.” Patsy Mooney picked his little hand up and smacked it.

The little boy did nothing. Said nothing. He was locked in a shell.

Jenny Rose strolled in. “Hello.” She smiled and sat down next to him.

“He don’t like to be talked to while he’s eating.” Patsy Mooney leaned over and mopped the table around Wendell’s plate. “Don’t you get up until you finish every bit of what’s on that plate, mister,” she said, aiming her pointer finger at the boy.

“Oh, go soak your head,” Jenny Rose said.

“Excuse me? What was that?”

Jenny Rose batted her eyelashes innocently. “What? No, nothing. So. Wendell. Would you like to go for a stroll?”

“A walk?” Patsy Mooney shrieked. “In the dark? He gotta finish his supper!”

“Where’s your jumper, cookie?” Jenny Rose took the boy by the hand. “Your sweater?”

“And he got his programs to watch!”

Wendell slipped to the floor and they went out into the hall where he pointed to the mackintosh hung on the coat tree.

“Close enough,” Jenny Rose said and unhooked the thing and put it on the boy. It practically reached the floor, but he’d be warm.

Patsy Mooney trotted after them and ranted on, “I’m not taking this crap just because Mr. Cupsand is in the city and isn’t here to see! You doing whatever you feel like! Radiance taking off without even asking! Mr. Piet taking the car! What the hell do I look like? What’ll Mr. Cupsand say?” She sank onto the hallway chair. “Now Noola’s dead it’s all gone wrong.”

He wasn’t sure what would happen next, the boy, but Jenny Rose had the distinct feeling he was game. He watched them both from behind his thick glasses, his bad eye dancing with the stress and his lips pulled tight, like closed purse strings. Jenny Rose put her own soft beret on the boy’s feathery hair and out they went, down the great steps. They walked along, hand in hand, under the glittering branches. Jenny Rose could smell the earth, rich and loamy. She wasn’t going to bring up the stones. Not yet. One thing at a time. There were plenty of houses to look into. The moon was a sickle but bright. “That’s an American sky, Wendell. And a new moon,” Jenny Rose informed him, remembering her Sikh driver. “Good luck.”

She began to hum. And then, just when she thought the kid had started to cry and she felt her heart sink, she heard the shred of a tinny sound of a sort of a hum. Like a song. Not a song, but almost.

Claire

He’d driven me very swiftly, I must say, to the hospital. I’d telephoned my mother on the way to tell her I’d be staying out here with Jenny Rose.

“Jenny Rose, is it?” My mother flew into a rage. “You’ve been drinking! I can hear it in your voice. Drinking and driving! What kind of a good influence is that?!”

I’d shifted the paper towel wad soaked with blood from my nose so she’d understand me. “Yes, Mother,” I’d agreed, just to spare her a sleepless night, “that’s why I can’t be driving anywhere. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

Morgan had stuck me on top of a blanket in his car—his precious upholstery to be protected—maneuvered me into the emergency room, stayed at my elbow while they’d signed me in, and then he’d walked out and left me there. He should have called an ambulance because then they take you first. I was good and sorry for myself, let me tell you, and I wanted, for the time being, to stay that way.

They did their battery of outlandishly expensive, agonizingly long tests that go on sporadically through the night and always just when you’re dropping off. I checked my cell phone. Not one message! I yearned for a toothbrush and a change of clothes. It was my second day, now, in Carmela’s go-to-the-city-look-for-a-job clothes. But I couldn’t call her. Both my sisters were in Italy, remember, dining on anchovies and Gorgonzola. Drinking wine from Orvieto. I was all alone. Nobody cares, I thought as I sniveled. I waited and waited, crackers from painkillers, for the plastic surgeon to come and have a look at me. Sprawled on my creaking gurney, I floated in and out of a doze while the night passed in white emergency light North Shore noise.

Jenny Rose

She woke up with a start. Something … God! What was it? From the scant green luminescence of the clock she could make out the form of the big cat on her chest. He was standing on top of her, looking into her face. Sam. For one groggy moment she looked back at him. “Jesus!” she cried out and knocked him off her. “What the fuck are you doing in here?”

She’d been dreaming she was standing on a chimney and the chimney was going to give way. There’d been a squirrel in there, making a terrible sound. The chimney had melted, sort of, and then crumpled beneath her. It must have been the cat making that sound. She looked at the clock. Five thirty-three. She’d never get back to sleep now. She sat up, swinging her legs over the side. Was it morning or night? She hated this room. Hated it. You couldn’t tell if it was dark or light out! She threw off her bedclothes and shivered, then dressed in a pair of jeans and a warm sweatshirt.

She crept up the stairs and creaked open the door. It was almost morning but too early to go bonking around the kitchen. She’d wake someone for sure. She put her socks and sneakers on. The cat streaked past her, almost knocking her over. She went to let him out the back door, bumped into a stool, tried again for the door, but then a sixth sense made the hairs stand up on her neck. “Hello?” she whispered. She waited. No one. Outside the wind sent up a pale whistle. “Shite, I’m daft!” she cursed and went to open the door. The knob would not turn. She looked over her shoulder then tried the knob again. The cat waited and slunk between her legs. She remembered you had to turn the lock left. It made a crunching sound and opened. The fog slipped in. The cat went out and disappeared into the dark and she followed. For some reason she felt safer outside. She kept a cap crumpled in her sweatshirt pocket and popped it on her head, then stood still for a moment getting her bearings. The rose garden was loopy with fog shrouds. She found the cliff with her eyes and went the other way toward the road. It had rained and a sense of relief filled her as her feet sunk into the drive; she broke into a run. That was it. She’d have a fine run before the day began, one up on the rest of the world. She took the beach steps down and wangled her way over the salmon-bright rafters of buoys left out there to dry, then trod with heavier footfalls along the sand.

Jenny Rose ran for as long as one could go without coming to the outward jut of the marina, the end of the point, then circled and made her way back to the cliff. A wisp of light in the east congratulated her. She was in fine shape. Wherever she’d lived, she’d run whenever she could. You had to make yourself—that was the thing. The madder you were at the world, then the faster you ran. She scanned the marina for The Black Pearl Is Mine but it wasn’t there. Good. A loose sailor, that’s what he was. She must have been out of her mind. She hoped to God he hadn’t given her syphilis. Of course it was better this way. What kind of a girl would he think she was? The kind she indeed was, it turned out. She laughed out loud with caustic unfamiliarity and heard herself. The light was coming swifter now, a dull and unconfirmed color. A dog was out in the bay swimming in the lapping waves. A golden. She smiled, running, and sparked her step. No, it wasn’t a dog. She stopped where she was, bent from her waist, gasping hard now. She was tired. It wasn’t a dog. She stepped forward, her head before her, trying to make it out … A momentary flash of something. It looked like … a person!

Whoever it was disappeared and for a moment. She told herself it must have been a seal. That was it. No one swam in this weather. But she peered harder, straining her eyes and craning. Then, far out, an arm came up, reaching. A glint of bracelet caught the light then dropped and was swallowed up. Jenny Rose scudded forward. It was a woman. Drowning!

She looked frantically left and right, but there was no one. “Oh, my God,” she said and waved back. But now there was no wave, no answer. She looked again right and left for someone to help, but seeing not a soul, she skipped to the shoreline, hopping on each foot, yanking off her sneakers and red sweatshirt and jeans, casting them into the sand. The shock of the cold water was nothing in comparison to the fear of what she would do when she got there. What if the person pulled her down? That’s what they said happens. She was so scared she didn’t even think to pray. Getting there seemed to take forever. It was like in a dream when you move so slowly, so slowly. She kept going, giving it all she had. When she got to the place she had aimed for, there was nothing. God. Nothing. She flailed around, feeling for life. Nothing. Nothing. A hank of seaweed brushed her and she grabbed hold of it to fling it away, then pulled it up and screamed with fright when it came with a face like a watery grave, eyes open, gaping at her, then suddenly it vomited bracken and choked with a horrible but living gasp and she saw it was Radiance. Radiance!

Jenny Rose was ready to punch her to keep her from pulling them both down, but then Radiance slunk in her arms, passing out. Jenny Rose grappled for a hold under her arms. She tried to tow her in. She kept going under, though, so she had to hoist Radiance faceup onto her shoulders and tread water toward shore. She was aware the tide was going in. Thank God for that. She couldn’t have done it with the tide against her, she knew it. She kept having to stop and lurch upward for air. Twice she thought it was hopeless, she’d never get her in. Once Radiance half rallied and struggled wildly, but Jenny Rose got hold of her hair and pulled her by it until she dropped, giving Jenny Rose moments to get her hand under Radiance’s chin and then, sideways, she swam them both in.

When she got near the shore, she thought they’d be safe, that someone would come, but no one was there. Her heart sank. She could just see the sun breaking into the eastern sky—it was just coming up—and she staggered, pulling them both onto dry ground. They lay there for moments, maybe minutes, Jenny Rose gasping and Radiance now waking with the feel of solid ground beneath her, stunned, retching onto the sand on all fours then collapsing. Jenny Rose staggered down the stretch of beach to where her jeans and red sweatshirt lay, praying her cell phone was still in her pocket and not landed in the water when she’d flung it off. She flinched, her foot cut by something, but she staggered on, crab-walking, crouched over, to get to the red fabric landmark. The phone was there. She was trembling, shaking so hard now, the slippery wet cell phone lurching up into the air the moment she clutched it. She caught it by reflex alone, barely able to hold on to the thing while her purple-and-yellow cold finger frantically hammered out 911.

Claire

It was early next morning when the plastic surgeon finally arrived, looked me over, and declared me fit without professional reparations. The medics were bringing in a drowning and the whole place was in an uproar, so I gathered my stuff and moved to the waiting room. I was about to call a cab to get me back to Sea Cliff, when the reason for all my troubles strode into the hospital lobby. He sidestepped and navigated easily through the turnstile door.

“How’s the nose?” he greeted me cheerfully.

“Great. I always wanted a nose job.”

“They said it wasn’t broken.” He frowned, the lines around his eyes crinkling. He’d shaved and showered, it seemed. I scowled at his alert, well-rested self, his clean shirt and leather bomber jacket, his big chunky head and small ears. He was as tan as an overdone biscuit and had eyes the color of … well, I’d never seen eyes just that color. I didn’t know what they were. All I knew was that they weren’t going to get me in trouble. No, sir. I wasn’t sure why I was so mad at him. He had, after all, brought me here after my fall, but he prickled me in some visceral way. I vaguely remembered hollering crazily at him yesterday. And he’d then left me here. Well, he didn’t know me from Adam, did he? But, I realized, he must have called to inquire about my nose. All right, so it wasn’t broken, but I did have two black eyes. My pants were still ripped. I was glad, at least, that I was wearing a long blouse under my jacket, untucked now, pregnancy style, which covered my tailpipe. The young lady at the information desk was tapping her hair—always a giveaway. She twinkled admiringly at this, this big lug, and he smiled charmingly back. I had no idea why such behavior would catapult me into a rage. I clung to my prescriptions and my purse and drooped unhappily. She could certainly have him. All I wanted was to get out of the place and go—where? Where was I going?

“C’mon.” He hoisted me into an about-face and escorted me out the swivel door.

“Stop doing that!” I yanked my arm away from his, but I went along with him. He did owe me a ride if nothing else.

Not bothering to park in the lot, he’d left his car right in front of the ER. He drove an old black Saab 900 convertible and hadn’t bothered to put the top back up.

“It might have rained while you were in there,” I scolded sanctimoniously.

“Nah. Won’t rain. Rain’s over.”

“Ah.” I looked up at the filthy sky and shivered. “And you know this because …”

“Got one a those weather sticks from Maine. Never wrong. So. Where to?”

I blinked indecisively, caught between wanting to know about the magical weather stick and wondering where I should go first. He had his brawny arms resting on the steering wheel, the wrists furry with dark gold. He looked about my age. I knew his type. Men like him always dated girls in their thirties. Not that I cared. Yesterday morning at just this time I’d been treated to a visual of Enoch’s diverse tastes. Was it only yesterday morning? No, it was the morning before, two days ago. I must change these clothes, I reminded myself, past tiredness. “If it wouldn’t be too much trouble, back to Sea Cliff.” My cell phone rang.

“Hello?” I shouted.

“Aunt Claire! It’s Jenny Rose. I’m fine,” she shouted back.

“Oh, good. Look, I’m sorry about last night,” I blurted, “but something happened—”

“To my mother?”

“What? No. No, of course not. You sound upset,” I said, covering my ear to the wind.

“I waited for you. I’ve been calling and calling! So much has happened!”

“Really?” I held my phone out to look at it. Twelve messages had popped up at once. Then I realized cell phones don’t work in the hospital. “I’m on my way to Sea Cliff. Are you free?”

“I’ve got the kid,” she shouted. “Come over later to Twillyweed, if you can.”

“Okay. Are you sure you’re all right?”

She laughed. “Bloody freezing. I’ve had quite a morning! But I’ll be glad to see you!”

“Me, too.” I closed the phone. “My niece,” I explained but said no more. Once he dropped me off I’d never see him again. We were on open road and the fresh wind made me shiver.

“Too much?” he asked.

“No,” I admitted, resting the back of my head on the leather. It felt wonderful. He handed me a scarf—his handy, girl-of-the-moment scarf, I presumed. I thought of my ex-husband and his actress girlfriend and all the heartache they’d put me through. Enoch and his present fancy. He was a snake. Men. They were all the same. “You can just let me out near the square.”

“I can’t very well dump you in the square, now can I? You’re on painkillers. You can’t drive. Look at the trouble you got in yesterday.”

“Excuse me. What has one thing got to do with the other? And who got me into trouble? You did.” That wasn’t exactly true. I softened my tone. “Look, I’ll be completely fine. My niece—that was she on the phone just now—is here from Ireland working as an au pair right in town, at a place called, if you can believe it, called Twillyweed.”

He burst out laughing. “Of course she is. Where else would a niece of yours be working?”

“I don’t get the joke.”

“You’re right there. There is no joke.” He raked his fingers through his hair, “However, in light of what’s happened to you, I think you do deserve an explanation.”

We both settled into our seats. He began, “Ever since my mom died, these real estate people have been sending buyers over to look at the cottage. I simply mentioned I might want to sell. Jesus. You’d have thought I was giving away platinum bars. I thought I’d go berserk. They won’t leave me alone. The phone always ringing, women like yourself climbing onto the Gnomon.”

Women like myself!

“It was enough to make a grown man cry! Women everywhere. While I was eating. While I was in the head, for Christ’s sake. It started in the funeral parlor.” He evoked a high female voice, “‘I’d just like to get a quick look inside!’ they’d say. Is every woman on Long Island a real estate agent?”

“But I’m not—”

“I know you’re not. But, you see, you certainly looked like one.”

He meant my tailored conservative suit, I supposed. “These are not my clothes,” I protested absurdly. “I borrowed them to go look for a job, but then—oh, what’s the difference!”

He studied me with those unnerving green eyes for a moment and then went on, “I was up at the cottage and spoke to my mother’s neighbor last night. She said you’d noticed the sign. You see, the thing is, I don’t know what I want done with the house yet. I don’t know if I want to sell or keep it or what. What I really need is to rent it. Until I can get it cleared out, though, I can’t.” He scratched his head. In five years he’ll go bald, I thought with satisfaction.

“I live on the Gnomon,” he went on, “but that doesn’t mean one day I wouldn’t want to have a cozy port in a storm. It’s a good structure, that. Built to last. And on the water, isn’t it?”

I said nothing. My brain was going ahead of me a mile a minute. Imagine I could stay there for a while, it was telling me. But of course that would be too good to be true. …

“Suppose …” He hesitated, then finished, “I were to make you an offer?” He glanced at me as we sped along. “Maybe work out a deal where you could stay at the house while I figure things out.”

I straightened my spine. “How long were you thinking?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. Till the fall anyway.”

“But how much were you thinking?”

He looked at me. “I wouldn’t be able to pay much. It would be more like a house-sitting job till I could sort through the tons of stuff she’s got. I’d need a lot of help with that.”

Then idiot me says, “Hold on. Pay? You mean you would pay me to stay there?”

“You said you were looking for a job.”

“I was,” I admitted.

“Well, I’ll be needing a woman’s help. I can’t go through all her things. I just can’t. I don’t like to use the locals. They’re all so nosy. My mother’s death was so”—he paused—“sudden. And people in town love to talk. I thought I’d ask at the convent but now you’ve turned up …” He threw another glance my way. “It’ll take time to sort through all her stuff. She loved antiques, and the place is in a mad bit of clutter.” We’d turned off the highway and the road flew by in bursts of Bradford pear. “To be honest she was turning into a pack rat. I couldn’t accept rent. There’s hardly room in there to swing a cat.” He frowned at me over his shoulder. “But like I said. I couldn’t pay much.”

Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, I thought, sounds like my ship’s just come in!

“However,” he went on, “I think it only fair you see the inside before we talk a deal.” Then, “Is there someone I could call for references?”—he assessed me with those piercing eyes.

“There is my mother,” I joked. “Once you talk to my mother you’ll know all the bad things about me. Or,” I proposed, rambling on flippantly, “there’s my ex-husband and his girlfriend. Or my ex-fiancé and his boyfriend …”

“There must be some sort of official who could give you a character reference?” he said, scrutinizing me doubtfully.

I thought of Swamiji. Nah. That wasn’t what he meant. I shrugged. “Not really.” And then I remembered Jupiter Dodd. Years ago, before I was married, I was a sort of successful fashion photographer. For ten years I poked around the continent and in India. Jupiter Dodd was my New York contact and he’d made quite a name for himself editing several prestigious magazines. I smoothed my lap. “I do, actually, know someone of consequence who would speak for me.”

“Good.”

“I think I might even still have his card somewhere.” I grappled through my purse. “I always have one. I just haven’t— Ah! Here it is. A little dog-eared and bedraggled, I’m afraid.”

“Doesn’t matter.” He took the card and pocketed it without his eyes leaving the road.

“I have to be honest. I thought I’d be paying rent.”

He grabbed a look at me. “As it happens, that’s my one prerequisite—I’ll be needing someone honest. My mother had some valuable pieces amid the junk.” He cleared his throat. “The thing is, the house is in such bad condition—I wouldn’t want you to sue me because I’d rented you an unstable environment.”

“Oh. You mean like if I fall through a hole in the floor, it will be my tough luck.”

“That’s it.” He grinned.

“A gentleman’s agreement, then?”

“Yes.”

Our right hands went instinctively toward each other. They clasped in a perfect fit. For one moment we held on. Embarrassed by what felt unnervingly like intimacy, I pulled away. “It couldn’t be any worse than the house I just lost.” I sighed, gazing out the window.

I blotted my nose. No blood. At least there was that. I told him, “I had a bed-and-breakfast in Queens that burned to the ground. But when I bought it, it took forever to get it livable. I did, though. I fixed it up. My children helped me.” I felt his look. He’d be thinking they would join me. “They’re both away at college,” I said.

“I never had to raise kids,” he murmured. From the way he said it I took it to mean he’d escaped lucky.

“Really?” was all I could think to say. I watched his profile. It was a fine, manly nose he had. But despite my scrutiny, he gave nothing away but the facts, ma’am, no sign of emotion; still, I sensed a cool retreat. I said, “Look, if it makes a difference that I have children just tell me now because I can go back to Que—”

But he interrupted me. “You don’t have to apologize for being a woman. Some people have no idea what that takes. Some people think in order to be a lady one has to give up being a woman.” He shot me a reluctant look. “And in the end it does nobody any good.”

At the time I thought he was talking about his mother. Only later would I find out what he meant. And my thoughts had turned to coffee. I checked my watch. “Look, I’m free until eleven.”

“Anyone else you want to call?” he asked. “Your ex-husband? Your gay fiancé?”

I gaped at him. What did he think, it was a joke? My life was a joke?

“Why don’t we go see it, see how you feel about it,” he suggested. “Figure out if it suits us both.” He gave me the once-over.

I must have blushed. I knew what I must look like. My two black eyes. No doubt by now I smelled of perspiration. I moved a little farther away from him. He was probably thinking I would go very well indeed with that dilapidated cottage.

We drove up and down the unfamiliar hills, then approached the cottage from the roadside, which was an experience in itself. It went almost straight up. The steep lane had my stomach in a knot as we reached the top. I held on to the door and was prepared to jump out when the car slipped backward, which I felt sure it would. He glanced at my hand on the door and laughed. And then we were there. We pulled the car onto the drive and came to a halt. He literally jumped over the door like someone in a movie. The cottage could hardly be seen from the road, barricaded by low-hanging branches dripping with white petals. The path was strewn and covered with things grown wild. Braided wisteria husks the size of saplings lounged across the roof. Thinking to show off my house-hunter savvy, I suggested, “If you’re thinking of selling, you might want to clear the front. That way, people can see the cottage.”

He searched his pockets for the key. “Some people treasure privacy,” he said in a cold tone.

I shut up and followed his broad back down the overgrown path. What had once been a garden in rows had fallen to plunder. A verdigris sundial sat prettily on a pedestal and I trailed my fingers across its cruddy surface.

“Sundials have been telling time for three thousand years,” he remarked. “She’s missing her gnomon, that one,” he muttered. Then, “Never got around to repairing it.”

“Gnomon?” I tasted the word. “The name of your boat, right?”

“That’s right. Shows the direction.”

There was a ruckus of birdsong. It stopped suddenly when we came to the door. “Damn key,” he muttered and then dropped it. He winced and grabbed hold of his wrist. I saw that he was wounded somehow, so I knelt and retrieved the key from a drowsy of chamomile between the slates. The birds went back to singing. He swatted his arms. “Cold enough,” he grumbled, embarrassed by his clumsiness.

“When I hear the birds singing, I don’t mind the cold.” I slipped the key in. “I always figure if they can take it, so can I.”

“They’re cold-blooded,” he said wryly.

“Oh, so am I,” I assured him, acting big.

The door hesitated then swung open easily. It was dark inside, but a huge window across the cottage was filled with the lit-up sea. I’d never seen anything like it. It was utterly magical.

“Hang on,” he said as he reached for the light switch.

The house tipped to one side, into the direction of the sea. Along one wall a series of silent clocks hung in disorganized rows like in an old-fangled clock shop, abandoned and neglected. Unlocked cabinets on the land’s side swung open as if on a tilted ship.

“What the—!”

“The place looks like it’s been ransacked,” I said.

He cut straight across the room to a particular standing closet, one of those Bavarian stenciled cupboards, struggled with the painted cabinet door, and seemed relieved when he got it open. Inside was a funny-looking instrument. He picked it up, cradling it.

“What on earth is it?” I came up behind him.

“It’s a gilt bronze dial,” he said. “Polyhedral. Do you like it?”

“I guess so.”

“It’s from France.” He smiled at the thing admiringly and blew the dust from its pointed top. “About 1660. Luckily, not everyone knows how valuable it is.”

There was a lot of dust and I sneezed. He lowered the dial gently into a leather bag, zipped it up, went to the kitchen windows and opened them, then went around shutting the opened drawers and cabinets. A fresh cold breeze traveled in, fluttering the worn faded curtains. They were made from lawn. Lawn, I thought. Such old-time stuff. He moved to the other side, to the west-facing windows and opened them too. The fresh air was a relief. “Do you believe this? This is what I’m talking about.” He strode about, outraged, picking up things that had obviously been thrown around. “I leave the cottage unlocked one day and this is what happens!”

I touched some upside-down herbs in bunches that were tied to a line of ribbon. The flowers crumbled and I sniffed and flinched. “Valerian,” I said, watching the dust of the petals land on a pair of brass jewelers’ magnifiers.

“My mother,” he explained wearily, “was thought to be something of a witch.”

“Really?” I looked up, interested.

“Yes, but it wasn’t organics, it was things; people would bring her old broken watches and she would fix them, presto chango—like magic … things no one else could fix. She could repair any clock until recently. And of course she was more than that.” His arm swept the wall. “She was a first-class collector, as you can see. She’d studied clock making at Eton, you know. That’s where she met my father. They’d both come specifically to study horology.”

He saw my puzzled expression.

“Oh. That’s the science of precision timekeeping. She even taught some of the locals. Her eyes were good until the end. She could count the hairs on the back of a fly. Just … she began failing of late …” He cleared his throat, reviving himself. “And a great sailor she was. At one time, anyway.” He caught the look on my face. “Of course if that bit about sorcery changes your mind about staying here, I’ll fully understand.”

“On the contrary,” I admitted. “It only makes it more compelling. I wear my white light around me anyway.” I asserted, looking around. In such a crammed space, it was hard to make anything out. I tried to disassociate myself from the incidentals and see through to the essence. Basically it was an almost square room with two adjoining walls solid with books and a kitchenette. In the opposite corner was an adequate pantry. The old stove was small but gas. I like gas. A collection of dusty but unchipped English teapots decorated the shelf above. There was a record player, an old one but that at least seemed in good repair. At least there was no dust on it. In a small drawer I discovered dozens of pen tops and no pens. I pushed aside some boxes and found iron pans, six of them, one fitting into the next. They were gritty but could easily be scoured out with sea salt and steel wool. Now some people like to go to the gym and lift weights. Me, I’ll take a couple of iron pans to swing around the kitchen any day.

Across the room—if you could see past the rubble—was a full-size bed with a wonderful rosewood headboard, with harps and ten-stringed lyres carved into it. It would look incredible if someone took the trouble to clean and oil it, I thought. Rugs were piled in varying layers, and I lifted one to check the condition of the floor. It was very bad, pitted and uneven; I didn’t think much could be done for that, but as I lifted the rug, the thickness and texture of it struck me. I recognized it right away as Tibetan and of the first caliber: silk and wool. There were lots of them, smaller ones piled on top of one another on one side of the room, evening out the tilt of the floor, some of them precious dark red Afghanis—really old. If they were aired and given a good swatting, they’d reveal their magnificent jewel-like colors, I had no doubt of it. I might have had no knowledge of clocks, but first-class carpets from particular obscure villages make my heart go pit-a-pat. Did I mention I once drove in a van from Munich to India along the Silk Route? Oddly, as I stood there in this cockeyed little house perched on the edge of a cliff I had the same shiver of excited anticipation as when I started out back then. Like I was going to have fun.

On one edge of the room were some doors, each of their faded frames hand-stenciled. I opened the first. A tiny bathroom appeared with an ancient claw-foot tub. This, at least, was in good condition. The eaves were crooked and rugged as a pirate ship’s cabin. I’d never seen anything like it. I went in and turned on the faucet. A glob of rust sputtered out but soon ran clear. There was an actual porthole for a window. I crumpled some toilet paper and swished around the dust until you could see through. You could sit on the toilet and feel as though you were in a ship of olden days, look out and on a good day see clear across the sound. Wow. I opened the latch and pushed the window out. Down on the otherwise deserted beach below, a young woman walking past was singing. I craned my neck to look. She was walking, crooning to a newborn baby. Too cold for a baby, I thought. But it was a strange and lovely sound. I sat down to listen. There was a little two-tiered white metal table beside me with cat’s paws at the bottom and little women’s heads at the top. Books were wedged onto each shelf. And the toilet seat was padded. This, I thought, laughing to myself, is what I call living.

I shut the porthole and went back to the main room. Morgan Donovan had his back to me, looking over a stack of papers on a very promising-looking French writing desk. Evidently his mother had a good eye. All the stuff, once attended to, held promise. There was a weird sound and we both looked up at once. I remembered the Italian woman’s words. A ghost? I wouldn’t mind a ghost. Or at least a mystery. But no, of course it was nothing. Old houses on the sea are filled with noises.

We gazed together at the rows of books askew, crowded in upright and every which way. “She never could get rid of a book she liked,” he said. “She’d loan them to anyone, but she never gave them away.” He confided unnecessarily, “She was a hoarder,” then pulled a little ceramic box from a top shelf and opened it with a worried click of the tongue. “She never kept this up here! Lord knows what else is missing,” he groaned. “Not that anyone would ever know. She had so much crap.” He gave up with a heave and a rueful smile and parked himself on the arm of the bumpy sofa.

I looked through the old journals, labeled with pictures of clocks and watches, some of them very old, and some with the innards hand drawn and personal remarks scrawled beneath.

“She certainly seems to have been a good witch.” I tried to smile.

“A timely witch,” he joked wryly.

I smiled gently. “How did she die?”

“Heart,” he answered quickly. Then, “Well. The truth is she took too much of her medication. Overdosed.” He looked at me. “I might as well say it first—there are those who will say it was intentional.” I noticed his hands tighten on the book he held. “But”—he hesitated—“she never would have; that was so against her religion. And she was staunch in her beliefs. If I’d been here, of course—” He stopped himself. “She got confused sometimes, you see. Forgot.” He sighed. “Forgot everything. Spent the last months in a terrible muddle. Drove everyone crazy.”

You know me. My ears perked up. She wouldn’t be the first troublesome elderly person to be disposed of medicinally. Easily enough done. But no, I thought of my own parents. If they didn’t stick to their little categorized cubes of pills marked with the days of the week they might overdose as well. Morgan Donovan stayed put where he was. I don’t think he could move. He just stood there, every once in a while emitting a huge sigh. I remembered that such sighs accompany grief. I turned away, trying to busy myself so as not to embarrass him, but I realized he’d simply forgotten me. There was a part of the wall not obscured by clocks and I guessed it was a door. A wood knot halfway up turned into a doorknob, and I attempted to open it. It stuck but gave way after a hearty yank, opening onto a horrible green-moldy shower curtain. I was already dirty and swished it aside. There was nothing behind it, just a wall. And then I thought, That’s not right, from outside the cottage must reach the side porch. There had to be a reason for the door. I gave the wall a shove and, sure enough, it moved, opening onto—goodness! What was it, a tiny notions room? There was a sink and a ceiling lamp and then the entire addition was given over to tiny wooden porticos, square drawers, really, from floor to ceiling, and each one had a button, an old-fashioned button, sewn onto a loop to pull on. I pulled one of the buttons and the drawer slid out to reveal a handful of the same buttons inside. But they were wonderful! I opened another, this one green and glittery, making me think of my mother’s old coat she still kept from when she was a girl. Sure enough, inside was the rest of the set. I rolled it back into its cubby and went for a red Schaffhausen—a sort of Heidi-in-her-dirndl button. There they were, eleven of them. And next to that was a brass Knopf of edelweiss. There must have been thousands of buttons. She even had them sorted by country! “Mr. Donovan!” I called. “Come look at this.”

He put down the paper he was reading. “Yes”—he strode across the room—“I know all about them. That used to be a mudroom. Sink still works, I think.”

“They’re a trip!”

A pained, half-humorous, half-wincing expression took him and he turned away. “She used to let me play with them when I was little,” he murmured. “Took them away, though, when I tried shooting them from my cannons.” He scratched his head, dazed by the childhood memory. Perhaps stirred by these childhood memories, he became suddenly the host, venturing back to graciousness and hospitality. “Oh, and,” he added with sudden charm, “be so kind and call me Morgan. The only one calls me Mr. Donovan is Patsy Mooney up at the big house.”

Embarrassed by this sudden warmth, I turned away and dislodged two fancy buttons left on the top of the cabinet. They dropped to the floor and I picked them up, saying, “They seem to be all sorted and labeled, except for some in a basket and these two.” I held them up to the light. “But aren’t they lovely? Like little jewels!” We watched them glimmer in the half-light.

“Keep them,” he said gruffly. “… if you like them.”

“Oh, I couldn’t.”

“Claire,”—he raised his eyebrows dismissively—“they’re only buttons.”

I felt the blood in my cheeks. He’d not yet said my name. Defensively, I said, “Yes, but someone loved them once.” I realized even as I said it I’d passed the mark. That’s the trouble with me. I give too much too soon. “I’ll make them into earrings,” I stammered. “Thanks.”

He turned away and I, chagrined now, returned to my assessment. But I knew now that he was not entirely mean. I’d seen the crack in that cold shoulder. And I liked it—liked him—that he wouldn’t sell his mother out, belittling her by saying she was crazy. She’d probably been an old dear, just too feeble to keep up. I focused on the buttons in my cupped hands. “It’s a wonderful collection, though. I’ve never seen anything quite like it.”

“Yes. My inheritance. Buttons by the dozens …” He flipped the papers in his hand like a deck of cards and sneezed from the dust. “… and clocks after clocks …”

The scornful way he said it. I turned and busied myself reading the titles of all those books. There were two rows of clock repairman’s guides and a group of herbal and gardening books. There was even a guide called Collecting Buttons. I would investigate them later, alphabetizing and categorizing, I thought, my mind already taking on the job at hand. I spied a pen, an expensive, glistening affair with a golden nib. It lay on top of a pile of decaying antique maps and somehow did not go with the room, too new and shiny to belong here. I imagined someone had left it behind. An intruder, I thought, my heart beating quicker. Shy, I didn’t touch it. I didn’t mention it either. I still don’t know why.

Morgan held his arms up in the air and cleared his throat. “Well, as you can see, it’s not a palatial dwelling.”

I smiled. “No. Not palatial. But so imaginative!”

“So.” He watched my face. “Too big a job you’ll be thinking? They’re not all repair books and research,” he assured me. “Do you care for novels?”

My eye scanned the other shelves of books. There were lighthearted novels and mysteries by the dozens, most of them outdated and romantic. I was surprised to see they were, almost every one of them, my own cup of tea. I ran my finger over the alphabetized names: Brookner, Drabble, Du Maurier, P. D. James, Lively, Mansfield, Maugham, O’Brien, poetry, V. S. Prichett, Jean Rhys, Rohmer, Shaw, Muriel Spark, Steinbeck. Oh, yes. I could stay here. Morgan Donovan and I regarded each other with a strange sort of satisfaction.

With the relinquishment of his crankiness the entire atmosphere had changed, lightened. And suddenly I knew what it was about his house that reminded me in a funny way of the house I’d lost. It needed me. It was old and decrepit, and without me it would never regain its quaint charm. It would be torn down or renovated into something else. What lay beneath the clutter, the dear antique pieces this woman had spent a lifetime accumulating, would be sold at a tag sale, the clock journals cut up for quaint picture frames and then someone else would come along and turn the place into a modern granite beach house surrounded by pavers. “Oh, I love it so,” I cried out emotionally. “I’d love to stay here!”

He gave me a screwy look and I realized he might think me nuts. Well, I am nuts.

And I remembered I must go find my car. But on the floor a box moved. I think we both jumped. It moved again. Both of us half expecting a rat, Morgan stretched a long leg out and lifted the milk crate cautiously with his toe. It was a leggy kitten, milky gray and cowering.

“Oh, the poor thing!” I cried, kneeling down to pick it up.

“A stowaway!” He laughed.

“How long has it been here, do you think?”

He leaned over and I caught his scent, salt and canvas and leather. “I’ve no idea. My mother had a cat. Yellow eyes just like hers. But she went missing just before Mother died. For a moment I thought it might be her, but her Weedy was a hefty size.”

“Ooh,” I crooned and carried it over to the sink. “It’s scared to death!” She just stood there blinking her yellow eyes, shaking her head with outrage. I cupped some water into my palm and held it to her. At last she figured it out and took it, lapping at it with her little pink tongue. I knew I still had the deli paper my sandwich had come in. I’m not one to litter and any small animal could probably live for days on the entrails of snacks in my purse. I opened the white, waxed crumple of paper and scraped the cheese shreds and offered them to her. Very daintily she sniffed them. Surprised, she looked at me as if to sum up my trustworthiness, then nibbled at it skeptically. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard a cat talk. But the little nipper let out something between a yowl of complaint and a sigh of relief. It was the same groaning sound we’d heard when we came in. Mystery solved, I thought. No ghost. I can’t stand cats. I really can’t. I don’t like their torturing ways with mice and birds. But I picked her up into the curve of my arm and she didn’t try to jump away. She sunk in compliantly, no doubt exhausted from trying to right the milk crate. I stroked her back with a knuckle. Pure velvet. She turned over on it and looked right at me as if to say A little to the left, please. I could feel her ragged breath through the skin. I looked up at Morgan, standing there with his straight face, his arms barricaded across his chest. He shook his head, charmed, despite himself. “Well, you can’t leave now,” he said in his gruff way. “Who’s going to feed the cat?”

I became aware that I was alone in a house with a man. Suddenly unsure, I asked him, “Well, what should I do now? Stay here?”

He scratched his ear. “I don’t exactly see how you can. It’s such a mess.”

I shrugged. “Now or tomorrow. No reason for me not to start right in.” I scrunched down on my haunches and peeked into the GE. “Do the washer and dryer work?”

“They should. I had them put in just over a year ago.”

“Well, that’s good.” I stood up, mentally beginning my list. “I’ll drive to a store and buy some new sheets. I can’t bear someone else’s. Oh! I didn’t mean—”

“Don’t worry,” he assured me, “I’m not that sensitive. And neither was she. At least … not when she was well. She’d have been the first to see you set up right.” He hesitated, giving me a quizzical look. “But wouldn’t you like to get yourself some new, uh … duds?”

I stood, self-consciously backing my rear against the wall. “New clothes. Right. That’s just what I’ll do. Because I simply don’t have the courage to go back home and face Enoch.”

“Enoch?”

I tried to laugh. “You know, my gay fiancé.”

This time he didn’t laugh. He shrugged his leather jacket off and rubbed the dirt from his hands. He put them under the faucet in the sink and lathered them with dish detergent. I don’t know why I stood there staring at his hands, the workman’s veins like ropes climbing his forearms, so able and alive, but he looked up suddenly and caught me looking at them with a stupid look on my face. They were beautiful, his hands. Luckily, heartbroken, I was immune to his charms. But evidently I wasn’t blind to beauty. That I never was.

“I’m sorry,” he said in a way that he hadn’t spoken to me before. A gentle way. The mocking tone was gone and I felt for this reason worse. He grabbed a dishtowel and dried himself, then put a strong, brotherly hand on my shoulder.

I was wrong about immunity to men’s charms. I felt his touch right down to my toes.

“It’s only natural that you’re upset,” he said.

“You know, you’re a funny guy. I can’t figure you out.”

He gave me a lopsided grin. “That’s because I’m all mixed up myself.”

“You?”

“When I was in the seminary, I was told—”

“Hold on,” I interrupted. “You were in the seminary? As in studying for the priesthood?”

He made a pained face, “That’s it.”

“Oh” was all I could say, thinking, Aha! That’s why no kids.

He stood abruptly. “But that’s a story for another day.”

“I can’t wait to hear it,” I said, meaning it.

He stood at the open window, looking out reflectively, squinting into the cold light. “Odd,” he remarked at last, “our meeting like this.”

“How do you mean?”

“We’re both at a crossroads, aren’t we?”

I tried to smile. “Yes. That’s it exactly. And I’m sorry if I was rude. Hopefully we can help each other out. Shall we start fresh?”

Again we shook hands. There was the cry of gulls as they swept by just outside the window. What a place! You could hear the waves lapping against the sand. All at once I was so grateful. This sort of opportunity didn’t fall into your lap often. Morgan jammed his hands into his pockets and turned in a circle, looking around the room. “She wasn’t always like this,” he remarked. “It was just this last year … She was always sharp as a tack … then all of a sudden”—he shook his head sadly—“she just went senile. Senile and deaf at practically the same time.”

I waited.

“The thing is”—he bit his lip in an effort to stave off emotion—“I really regret losing my temper with her. I didn’t realize at first what was happening. And you had to repeat everything. I know that’s no excuse …” He looked away.

“I’m sorry,” I said and I meant it. But he didn’t like anyone being sorry for him, you could tell that right off. He grimaced at his chronometer watch. “That’s it for me. I’ve got to meet the harbormaster in ten minutes. Big regatta coming up.”

I shut the window and firmed the latch. “Okay,” I said, “so how shall we do this?”

The shrill of his cell phone cut me off. “Donovan,” he answered. He listened intently to the person at the other end. “Right,” he said, seeming to change his mind about something. Scowling, he hung up. “Well, it seems I’m to dine at Twillyweed this evening. Why don’t you find me there and we can talk about it. I can’t make heads or tails of anything now. I’m too distracted.” He turned abruptly and, becoming the captain again suddenly, ordered, “I’ll expect you no later than sixteen hundred hours. Give you time to see your niece. Will that suit you?”

I laughed. “Aye, aye. Four o’clock.” I saluted. “Got it.”

“Now I really must go. Draw up a list of things you’ll want. Oh. You’ll be needing money.” He reached into his pocket.

Horrified, I pushed his fistful of bills back at him. “Don’t be silly. I have some.”

“Well, then, keep the receipts and I’ll reimburse you.” He took hold of his leather satchel and went out the door, the screen slamming with a friendly bang. He loped down the path. “Bring the list with you to the Cupsands’.”

Scooping the kitten up, I followed down the windy path and called after him, “But I don’t even know the Cupsands!”

“Nobody does.” He laughed with his back to me. “Least of all the Cupsands.”

When the sun leveled with the horizon, he washed out the gray gloves, his agitated hands inside them. He worked them feverishly, with a mixture of mild white soap and fabric softener. It seemed to work. The water ran foamy and clear. He relaxed, leaning on his outstretched arms, his wrists and palms against the old grain sink.

A job well done.

He consulted himself inside the broken mirror and was comforted by the conviviality and composure that greeted him there. He winked. He drew his legs up on the bed and rested now, clicking on the TV to watch the news. He liked channel 2.

Beside him, the gloves lay neatly out to dry—one on top of the other, palms down like hands in repose—away from the heat on a polished table. It was a small, elegant table with feet, each foot holding tightly on to its own mahogany sphere. Each rigid foot had claws painted abalone and verdigris, claws pearly and expectant with their greenish talons.

Claire

I stretched and raised my arms above my head to reach the sky and realign my spine. The wind in the boat sheaves wailed and you could just hear the harbor bells clang. If you had to pick a place in which to be miserable, I thought, stepping over the ruins of daffodils—I must locate a broom—you couldn’t find a better one than this, overgrown and mysterious and far away from it all. What better place to sort one’s self out? And things were looking up. Morgan. Good name. He must be just my age. A little older, I thought hopefully. I didn’t see why I should always be the oldest one around. I’m not going to play coy and say it didn’t occur to me that he might not be someone in my future. A friend. A good friend, maybe. When you reach my age, you know right away when someone is interesting to you or not. Well, just wait and see, I reminded myself. A priest! I couldn’t get over it. I hopped over the puddles. On my way back up the path, I noticed the neighbor, Mrs. Dellaverna, hunched over the fig tree wrapped in potato sacking; her iron-gray helmet of hair stayed in perfect chunky waves despite the wind. I put the kitten in my pocket and leaned on Noola Donovan’s creaky lattice gate. “Hi!”

“Oomph!” She affected a jump. “I didn’t see you there! Was that Morgan?”

“Yes.”

She stood back, an apron over her coat, her crafty brown eyes inspecting her hacked-up square of earth, wiping her brow with her forearm. “I’m not planting yet. Just clearing away the dirt for when it gets warm.” She gave an impish shrug. “I can’t wait to get started.” Then she sat back on her broad haunches, up to her knees in boots, her face still smooth for a gardener’s. “Of course”—here she frowned, shaking her head, looking a bit puzzled—“now that Noola’s gone, it will all be different. We used to have a big competition with our flowers.” She rocked in the hard dirt and her little eyes filled with peevishness. “My tomatoes were always better than hers … and my figs.” She sniffed, then, remembering me standing there, she added, “I never told her my secret.” When I didn’t bite, “Anchovies,” she volunteered, making a shrewd face. “That or sardines. Whatever’s on sale. Now that she’s gone it takes all the fun out. Death,” she whispered. “It’s so final.”

“Yes,” I agreed. “I wanted to say thank you,” I went on, changing the subject before she ran away with herself, “you know, for mentioning where I could find Mr. Donovan. And to let you know—you won’t believe it—I’ll be staying here for a while!”

I was sure I detected real disappointment in those nut-brown eyes. But she hoisted herself from the soil and brushed the dirt from her knees, out of breath from the exertion. There was something cold and off-putting about her now, and I wasn’t sure if I should back off. But I introduced myself properly, and we shook hands over the hedge. From my pocket, the kitten gave a hearty mew. “Oh,” I explained, pulling her out. “Someone left her in the cottage.”

Mrs. Dellaverna’s expression turned to mush. She scooped her away from me, huddling it to her breast. However cold I’d thought her expression, the iciness dissolved at that moment. “Dio! Una gattina. Noola used to have one looked just like her. Weedy. She never came back.” She narrowed her eyes. “It kind of looks like Sam, too—that nasty big boy cat at Twillyweed. Son of a bitch! Eh!” She stroked the kitten, shaking her head suspiciously. “How come you’re going to live in Sea Cliff, eh? I’d like to know.”

“It’s so funny.” I shrugged. “Everything just fell into place. For some reason it suited us—Morgan Donovan and me—both.”

“But you’re not going to move in yet?” Mrs. Dellaverna sniffed the air. “Place is too crazy.”

“I haven’t decided yet what to do. I might have to drive back to Queens tonight and stay at my parents’ house,” I said, thinking out loud. “I’m not sure.”

“You’re gonna need a team of a cleaning ladies for that place,” Mrs. Dellaverna cautioned.

“That’s a good idea. Do you know anyone?”

“There’s Radiance. She does housework. I wouldn’t trust her, though.”

“Oh? Why not? I’d like someone local.”

“She’s more interested in the showbiz!” She wiggled her nose with distaste. “I’m from Ischia and I know that type!”

I shrugged and gave my own tender nose a tentative feel. “If I could have her number …”

She watched my two black eyes now with interest. It was clear to her they were the traces of the fight she was sure had gone down.

“Oh, this!” I touched my face. “It’s from falling,” I told her.

“Sure,” she said too fast, clearly not believing. She could just see the cad who’d beat me and she’d never mention it again because she knew in her heart that was why I was out here in Sea Cliff, running away from a man, un diavolo of a man. She put one hand on a hip and twirled the other wrist in a Mediterranean flourish. “I wouldn’t worry about anything, cara. Claire, is it?”

“That’s right.”

Her nose wrinkled, and her voice was thick with understanding. “You were right to come here. Get away. You wouldn’t be the first to look for sanctuary here. I have my friend, Patsy, that shit of a motorcycle-­driving husband, he beat her up good. Eh. She came here and she slept on my sofa. Got a good job now and she’ll never go back. Basta. Don’t you worry.”

“Hmm. I’m sorry.” I edged away from her tirade. “I was just really hoping to find someone to clean.” And then I thought, Hell, the woman is right. I am here running away from a man, a devil of a man. Suddenly I was exhausted and just wanted to rest.

Mrs. Dellaverna stood ruminating, inspecting me and sizing me up head to toe. She nodded with a closemouthed smile. “That’s like Morgan to come up with a nice house sitter like you! Out of the blue! Eh?”

“You know him well, I guess. Living next door and all.”

“Sure.” She leaned her chin against the handle of the tall wooden hacker with a thick pick of iron. “When he’s not in Scotland, he’s here. Nice little boy he was.”

“He was in the seminary, he mentioned,” I pushed.

“Ah! No more.” Her tongue clicked. “Noola, may she rest in peace, she drove him to that.”

“So he is a priest?”

She laughed.

I ventured, “So he isn’t a priest?”

“Morgan? Dio, no!”

“Lost his faith, did he?”

“His faith? Ha! More like he discovered the earthly pleasures.”

“Oh.”

“No”—she got rid of her coat—“he never made it that far, to the priesthood. Not that Noola she didn’t try and hound him into it. I shouldn’t speak bad of the dead now, I know. But there was nothing she wanted more than for Morgan to join the priesthood. From the time he was a boy she’d be marching him off to church for one thing or another. First, he had to be a paten boy. Then it was an altar boy. After that he was a—what do you call it?—Eucharistic minister. Nothing wrong with all that, I don’t mean that. But it’s sad, you know, when someone pushes their own ideas onto a child—won’t stand back and let the child find his own way.” She sighed. “Morgan was so heartbroken over the separation, see.”

“Oh. His parents were divorced?”

“Not she!” She gave a snort. “In her mind, you didn’t get divorced. He was from Scotland, the father—they’re Protestants—and she was Irish, the Catholic part. They shared him up, the two of them. Tom couldn’t take her religious ways. Ooh, he hated the Catholic Church! Of course he loved her, he just hated what she was”—she tapped her noggin—“how she thought. Anh. It’s hard to describe.”

But she didn’t have to. My flamboyant mother, convent educated, clandestinely paying for indulgences; my father, intellectual and conservative, spiritual as she was but scornful and wary of the politics within the church, the secret cover-ups, money changing hands. I knew the wars that went on without words. I knew the anguish it could cause in children. There was no divorce in homes like ours. Misery, even, sometimes. But you stuck it out.

“He went back to Scotland in the end,” Mrs. Dellaverna confided, leaning comfortably on her pick. “A piccolo village called Invergowrie, that’s outside Dundie, Noola always tells. Morgan spent half his days there and half here; went to school at Edinburgh, near the father. That was the deal. All the way across the sea in Scotland!” She gave a quick look off to the side as if to see if someone could hear. “The poor boy didn’t know if he was coming or going! The only peace he had was taking out that little boat of his. That’s what he loved most, all the time. Any moment he had to himself, if there was just a bit of a wind, you’d see him scoot right down the hill. Ten minutes later his piccolo boat would be shooting out from the cove. That was what Morgan loved. The wind and the sails.”

“So no divorce …”

She closed one nostril with her finger. “Uh-uh. She was a veramente catolica and wouldn’t even let the word divorce cross her lips. There’d be none of that. She was Mrs. Donovan until the day she died. Sad, really. I think she always thought one day he’d come back to her. I really do. And here she is dead.” She shook her head.

“How did she die?”

“Heart,” she answered quickly. She frowned, looked over her shoulder toward the cottage and chewed her lip. “Too much digoxin. She took too much. I thought one day she’d do something wrong—I worried she’d fall off the porch. You know, she shouldn’t have lived by herself. Not anymore. Bang. She dropped dead.”

I asked, “Who found her, then?”

“Me. I found her. That’s right. You know”—she scratched her chin thoughtfully, wanting to change the subject—“seems like a yesterday Morgan was little, out there sailing around …”

We both looked out over the hedge to the sea, as if expecting to see the small boy and his boat. But the rash wind belted us and there was only the flap of the flag and the clang of the pole links. She threw her apron over her head. “But that’s me, talking about it when it’s none of my business! And all you wanted was the name of a cleaner!”

“If you have it. Or if I might just have Radiance’s number?”

“I have the number.” She turned and, elbows out, took off. She raised an arm. “Come in my house,” she ordered. I followed her in. “It’s cold outside.” She rubbed her arms briskly and kicked off her clogs. “Let me warm up some milk for that puss. Eh?”

The house, after the one I’d just been in, was a pleasant shock. Highly polished Mediterranean furniture and clean windows. Petit point embroideries of violets lined the walls in oval frames. A woman living alone. Mrs. Dellaverna’s house wasn’t dead on the water, but you could see a little chink of it, blue and white capped with wind. “Rest yourself,” she invited, pointing to a thronelike chair at the table.

I sank onto the plush cushions still covered in vinyl. Heavy, amber velvet drapes muffled any sound, and the miniature, expensive furniture gave the room a loungelike feel. There was smell of something wonderful bubbling on the stove. “What’s that, gravy?”

“Gravy? No, it’s sauce!” She paused in the doorway, catching me. “Ay! You look done in.” She eyed me suspiciously, coming back to the table with a recipe box.

“I have had a rough two days,” I admitted.

She frowned, placing a leathered hand gently on top of mine. “I’m gonna make you a cup of coffee.”

Sometimes a perfect stranger is just that—perfect. And so I told her my whole sorry saga. She didn’t bat an eye, just sat there stroking her flimsy mustache until I was done.

“It’s so crazy it’s got to be true. The whole house burned to the ground? Unbelievable!” She shook her head. “All your clothes and all your shoes?”

“Yup. Well. It’s not that tragic, really. After all, everyone’s alive. So it’s just me, really. I suppose it’s up to me now to start a new life.” When I got to the part about Enoch and his, uh, “diversion,” she grabbed her chest and the kitten flew out.

“Mama mia!” she cried dramatically and blessed herself. I almost laughed. She held out her hand and made me hand over my trousers. “I looked at you in these pants”—she held her fingertips against each other and shook them—“and I’m thinking, what’s she doing walking around like a vagabond?”

While I waited for the strong bitter coffee to percolate, she mended the pants on her machine in the bedroom, her knees bobbing up and down from the doorway, the kitten on the floor at her feet tackling a spool of emerald thread. “You gonna have a quick rest on the nice sofa while I finish these off,” she said, snapping the thread with her teeth.

“Oh, I shouldn’t. I have to go to Twillyweed. I’ll never wake up.”

“What time you want to leave?”

“I’m to be there at four.” I gave a lion’s yawn.

“Never you mind.” She led me to the sofa. “I’ll make sure you’re up by three. You can use my shower. Let’s see if I can fix these for you to wear by then. Hey! What’s about you stay here just for the night?”

I supposed she figured if Morgan Donovan trusted me, she could, too. I looked up hopefully.

“Eh. Then you can start up fresh in the morning. Let’s face it. You can’t sleep in a dump like that.” She gave a warning look. “But just for the one night, eh? This is not a pensione.”

“Are you sure?” I lowered my head and yawned again, sniffing with pleasure the percolating coffee and clean linen pillowcase she’d maneuvered beneath me.

“That’s what the neighbors are for.” She smiled, her little acorn eyes glittering with kindness. “Noola—she taught me that.” She went to the stove and stirred her sauce.

I gazed at the beautiful religious souvenirs from Rome on the bottom shelf of her fancy glass armadio, the cloisonné paraphernalia, the ornate gold clock under a glass dome, and I half listened as her voice became muffled and faraway. Enoch’s self-satisfied words echoed in my ears above the shush of the waves beating the shore. These are things that men do. It’s just … release, he’d explained. The last thing I saw before I fell off to sleep was Mrs. Dellaverna folding a copper-colored silky comforter over my shoulders then turning off my cell phone and tucking it into my purse.

Jenny Rose

She waited at the end of the drive for the school bus. At last it came, crunching to what Jenny Rose thought was an excessively rash halt. Anyone sitting unbelted would lurch! Determined to start on the right foot, she smiled hopefully up at the driver, who opened the door with a hefty lever and then sat there chewing gum, looking straight ahead, not signaling the little boy that he should move. Jenny Rose poked her head in the bus. There was no obvious head peeking back down the aisle. She stepped onto the bus.

“Hey!” the driver snapped. “No parents on the bus!”

“That’s good then ’cause I’m not a parent,” Jenny Rose sassed him and marched past. There were no other children. Jenny Rose had to walk to the rear until she reached him, his little arms around his blue knapsack, scrunched up tight as though he were waiting to be smacked.

Jenny Rose lowered her head very close to the child—good Lord, the air was thick as a closed-up car park! Why, it was suffocating! She whispered the start of a song to get Wendell to open his eyes and then gently took him up in her arms. He didn’t weigh a thing! Wendell stayed rigid and stiff, but he let himself be transported. Jenny Rose was thinking if the child left the school at 2:10 and it was now 2:40, he’d been driving around in this wretched air for thirty minutes. Thirty minutes! Intolerable! An agony of time for a child. And God knew how the other little mites had tortured him! She knew how vicious little kids could be. She’d been one herself. As she carried the boy still scrunched into sitting position past the driver she said, “What’s about opening a couple of windows in here, aye? The rear of the bus is claustrophobic! It’s awful.”

“Can’t do it, lady. One a them kids will stick their head out.”

Trying to be reasonable, Jenny Rose suggested, “Well, then, how about cracking a couple of them so the kids don’t suffocate!”

The driver yanked his lever so the door whipped open and the bus lurched and she practically lost her footing. “Go on. Move it.”

Jenny Rose muttered, “I thought we were on the same fuckin’ side here.”

“Wadja say?” The driver leaned toward her back in a threatening way.

Jenny Rose’s eyes flashed and she turned to him, her hand protectively cradling the back of Wendell’s head. “I’ll tell you what I’ll say if you don’t pay heed to the child’s good health! It’s criminal not to, I’ll have you know!”

“That’s it. Off the bus.”

“We’re going. Don’t worry.”

She put Wendell down and the bus took off before they were even clear of it, spattering mud onto Wendell’s hat and Jenny Rose’s rough-cut black hair. It was filthy weather again and difficult to see beyond the road. Wendell stood there, his bad eye veering off in an uncontrollable spasm. Jenny Rose, her foxy face clenched in a glare at the disappearing bus, whispered, “Wendell, do you know what a poem is?”

As he didn’t answer she went on, forcing herself to walk slowly, “You make a word at the end of a sentence sound like a word at the end of another sentence.”

He walked beside her, his eyes on his shoes.

“Listen. It’s fun!

“There was an old man from the west

“He wore a pale plum-colored vest

“When they asked, ‘Does it fit?’

“He replied, ‘Not a bit.’

“That uneasy old man from the west.

“See? That’s from Aesop. It’s a poem.”

“Going home,” Wendell said.

“We’ll be there soon.” She hurried along beside him.

“The cat and the spoon,” replied Wendell.

“Oh,” Jenny Rose realized, catching up. “Huh! That’s very good!” He’d spoken! And not only that, he’d answered in rhyme. They walked along up the short, flat expanse of road. She picked a stick from the ground and swung it casually. “Darlin’, remember you gave me that nice scarf when I came to Twillyweed?”

He smiled. No teeth, but a smile. Then a nod.

“Well, there’s something I’ve been wanting to ask you. Do you remember where you got it?”

“Noola,” he said right away. “Boola boola.”

“Good rhyme!” Jenny Rose congratulated him, “You’ve got the idea, all right! Say. What about the pretty blue stones? Did Noola give them to you to hold?”

Wendell shifted his haversack but he didn’t answer. Oh, well, she thought. Two out of three.

Twillyweed, humped and dark up there in fog, loomed before them and they hiked on, abandoned but together, toward its jutting turrets. Wendell would twist his head to see if she was still smiling. She didn’t seem to mind him at all. The wind blew at their backs and the mist separated, the sun broke through just a crack, and the sea down the hill was a still shimmer of glass. “Tell you what,” Jenny Rose said, changing her mind. “It’s a fine, soft day—not a day to be inside. What do you say?” She crouched to his level. “We’ll take a walk to the shore before you’ve had your nap. Or we’ll bicycle for a treat! How’s that?”

Wendell jumped up and down in answer, and they took all their stuff to the porch then went to the garage for some bikes, of which there were many.

They pedaled along the coast road, carefree, she on a rusty old maroon Schwinn and Wendell on a squeaky bright red tricycle. Wendell, thrilled with the unexpected fun of it, head down, knees out, kept up. At Duffy’s Bait Shop he hopped off his tricycle, determined to go inside.

She pulled their bikes over to the side of the building and followed him in.

Leaning over the cash register and busily counting coins from a purse stood Malcolm McGlintock—Glinty—to Jenny Rose’s horror and delight. Even with his back to them he was slinky. She stopped dead in her tracks, but then, fueled with confidence by Wendell’s presence and resigning herself to Glinty’s taking one long look at her and scramming out of there—for what else did she deserve—she greeted him softly. “Hello,” she said, her cheeks darkening.

It was the girl! The one who’d got away! “Hey!” he cried out before he could stop himself. “It’s you!”

Jenny Rose’s heart took flight at the smile in his eyes. You couldn’t lie with your eyes.

“What’s up?” He smoothed over his delight with a touch of cool.

“Just following my boss here.” She indicated Wendell with a nudge of the head.

“Well, if it isn’t Wendell!” He veered to the side with a grimace.

“You two know each other then, do you?” Jenny Rose said.

“Oh, aye. We’re old chums.”

“He seems to like the place. What about you?”

“Readying to pay for a new mizzen. Just doing a jury rig.”

“What’s that?” Wendell pushed his way through Jenny Rose’s legs.

Surprised, Glinty glanced up at Jenny Rose. “Talking, you are now, is it?” he leaned over and said to Wendell. “Well, now. That’s fine. A jury rig is a sort of a temporary repair, mate.” He rose back up to the shopkeep and said, “Oh, and give me one of those cleats, will you? That’ll be it. What’s the damage?” He paid up, carefully doling out the bills with almost comical care, and the three of them walked from the store into the daylight. “So, little man”—Glinty crouched down to be on Wendell’s level—“what is it you’ve been up to?”

Wendell thought for a moment. “I can tell a rhyme,” he boasted.

“Really? Hmm. I’ve got a couple of them up the sleeve, meself.” He lifted his eyebrows at Jenny Rose. “Got a couple a good filthy ones, too.”

“Take hold of yourself!” She smacked him playfully.

“Say, how would you two like to go for a ride?”

“Yeah!” Wendell shouted. “Yes! Yes!” He arranged himself into an obedient little boy and looked pleadingly at Jenny Rose.

“What about that fog?” She eyed the distance, unconvinced.

“Aw, we’ll just stay close to the shore.”

“He’s supposed to be having a nap …” She wavered.

“He can have one on board.” Glinty looked in her eyes. “We can all have one.”

“Don’t be silly.” she retorted. “It’s hardly the weekend.”

He stared at her. She had the spookiest eyes. “You’re a wee sheedie, you are.”

“Oh? And what would that be?”

Disarmed, he smiled at her crookedly, “A faerie, you might be.”

“I should have guessed you’d be superstitious,” Jenny Rose sallied, pleased despite herself. “You’ve got to get us back in time for supper, though.”

Glinty rested his burden on the ground and looped up the length of a rope he always seemed to be holding. “We can manage that.” He watched her with his eyes like slits guarding against the sun.

“And no funny business,” she warned, still unsure.

He grinned and opened his hands beseechingly. “What do I look like, some sort of a monster?”

She hesitated a moment, just to tick him off and then smiled. “All right. We’d love to.”

“Here, mate.” Glinty handed Wendell a bag. “You’ll have to work for your pudding.” He scrounged around in his pocket and came up with a whistle. “Here you go, laddie. Keep this with you at all times, now. A whistle can save your life if you’re lost in a fog.” He slung his package romantically over his shoulder and started toward the dock. They hauled out their bikes. Jenny Rose whistled a tune and Glinty whistled, too. Wendell, his one good eye eager with trust and hero worship, cheerfully lugged Glinty’s brown paper bag in his backpack and pumped along squeaky as an engine at the rear. They went the beach way, passing the row of shabby, old-time cottages.

An unkempt hand wiped circles on a dirty pane, alert eyes observing their progress.

Claire

My new neighbor woke me up as she’d said she would, then gave me two wrung-out tea bags to soak my eyes. After that she pointed me to the shower, which was terrific. When I emerged, I saw that she’d lain out a shimmering blue-green sheath. I stared, uncomprehending, at the old- fashioned dress. Was she going out? I looked up and there she was, her hands clasped across her belly, her eyes twinkling. She spread her fingers wide and circumnavigated her middle. “You won’t believe it now, because look at my belly, but once a long a time ago, it fit me bellissima!”

I stared at her, still not getting it. Had she imagined it would suit me?

“It will make you look like a real jezebella!”

I was speechless. What was I to do? She’d gone to so much trouble.

She leaned so close I could smell yesterday’s broccoli rabe. “You’re going up to Twillyweed you better look like you got some bumpalena, eh? Like you’re somebody!”

I sat down on the bed. Already it seemed we were in cahoots. She removed the dress from the hanger and attacked me with it forthwith, roughly picking up my arms and negotiating it over my head. Don’t ever tangle with an Italian woman, I thought, stifling a laugh. I saw that the seams were beautifully sewn. All by hand. Simple but elegant.

She’d even lain out a pair of black tights and sturdy shoes. These were, however, flats, which, surprisingly, almost fit. A little snug for my gondolas, plain as they could be, but good. On closer inspection they turned out to be vintage Salvatore Ferragamos. When I stood up to see myself in the Venetian mirror, I feared I looked like the queen done up for tea—but I didn’t care, not really. The dress was nice and clean, had good lines, and at least was slenderizing. The hem reached below the knee, a flattering if dated style. I don’t know what I was worried about. Anything was an improvement. And it was heaven to be clean. Then I struggled into the tights. I knew this would be trouble because I’ve got these long pegs. However, due to the miracle of modern fabric, when I pulled hard enough, they just about reached my crotch. I couldn’t go bare-legged, I’d freeze. I gave them another good yank so they’d stay up. There. Not bad. I said, “I don’t suppose you have a shawl?”

“I got a thousand tablecloths,” she said, throwing open the sideboard, wild-eyed with relish. “Take your pick.”

“Hmm.” I knelt down and sorted through the neatly ironed, squeezed tight piles. They were white or ecru lace, but one was fringed antique gold, sort of velvety. I yanked it out and unfolded it. It was nice and soft. “May I borrow this?”

“Sure. They don’t like you, come back and we’ll have a bowl of macaroni and gravy.”

“I thought you called it sauce.”

“No. When I’m making it ready, she’s sauce. When she’s all dressed up with the meatballs, the braciole, the sausage, she’s gravy.” She gave me a nice smack. “What’s the matter? Don’t you know nothing?”

I threw the tablecloth around my shoulders and snuggled into it. It still looked like a tablecloth, but it was warm and a feeling of well-being overtook me. I looped the buttons Morgan had given me onto the small hoops I always wore in my ears and they hung perfectly. The truth was, they dressed my ears with the glitter of a new set of earrings and I admired myself in the bathroom mirror. There. Refreshed from sleep, I would have looked almost terrific if I didn’t have those two black eyes. I thought of my landlord seeing me now in a different light. For there was one thing of which I was sure, Morgan Donovan was not gay.

Jenny Rose

Here it was evening. Jenny Rose and Wendell sat on the floor in a small corner of her basement apartment. Wendell had lugged down the plaid bolster pillow from his bed and arranged it like a counter. He had his toys lined up across the top as if for sale. Jenny Rose bought several of these toys, paying him with bobby pins and sample packages of Q-tips and wipes and pretzels she’d got on the plane and which Wendell seemed to covet. When she ran out of these, he required she pay him in limericks, which she ran off easily. Her mind was somewhere else … worried about whether or not she’d get the boy in trouble. When she thought he was relaxed and happy, she thought she’d try again. “Oh, by the way, where was it you found the fancy blue jewels, Wendell?” she asked him in a casual way. “Remember the pretty stones you gave me, Wendell? When I came here? You slipped them in the silky scarf. Bright blue and sort of moving with light—as blue as the sky.”

Wendell frowned and went back to concentrating on sorting his merchandise.

Jenny Rose remembered a documentary film she’d seen once of a neglected baby who’d lain with no human contact in a crib all day long. All the child could see from morning to night was a moving construction crane out the window. And all the child would do, with grand sweeping gestures of one arm and then the other, was imitate the long moving arm of the crane, gliding in majesty against the cold gray sky. Every time Jenny Rose remembered this black-and-white documentary her eyes would fill with tears. It was like that with Wendell, she thought. Poor kid. All he did was prepare shelves of merchandise. Was that all he’d witnessed from the deserter Annabel? Shops?

Wendell looked up suddenly. “Wiggly, wiggly, just like my eye.”

“What?”

Impatiently, he pursed his lips. “As blue as the sky! Wiggly, wiggly, just like my eye!”

At last, she understood: He was rhyming her last words again. He was very good at this rhyming game. She leaned over his make-believe store and grasped him in her skinny arms and rocked him. Surprised, Wendell let her hold him. She wouldn’t let him go, she promised herself with passion. The room was strange, so strange. She heard herself crying like a child until she realized it was he who was holding her.