Thankfully, Carol Ann’s Nissan was an automatic. Ben balanced the bulk of his right arm as he parked at the Gay Head lighthouse and emerged from the small car. He looked up into the sky: its indigo background was swabbed with its familiar streak of pink; a few gentle, gray gulls glided across it, calling out to awaken their senses, readying their lives for another day.
On the ancient cliffs, Noepe sat, silhouetted against the dawn.
“My friend,” Noepe said into the wind, without turning to know it was Ben.
“Noepe,” Ben replied, then walked to the old man and squatted beside him. “There has been trouble.”
Noepe nodded. “It was expected.”
Ben stared off toward the Elizabeth Islands. “I no longer think Dave Ashenbach’s the one trying to stop me.”
“Do your plans interfere with his land?”
“Not interfere. Just abut it. I don’t think even Ashenbach is stupid enough to try to kill me over that.”
Noepe folded his arms and closed his eyes, the lines of his face curving toward his long, white ponytail, the bronze patina of age soft on his cheeks. “You do not sound like a man who is going to give up.”
Ben sat on the ground and kicked a small piece of shale from the cliff. “I’ve thought about it.”
“But?”
“But I’m not sure that the attack on me was connected.”
“Where did it happen?”
“In my workshop. At home.”
“Have you been attacked there before?”
He laughed. “No. Of course not.”
Noepe opened his eyes, his gaze fixed on the horizon. “Great books have many thoughts on the theory of coincidence. That there is no such thing. That it is part of the greater plan.”
“Do you agree?”
A small smile crept across his salt-white lips. “The question is, do you?”
A lone gull landed on the clay-colored cliffs. It pecked at a sliver of stone and raised its head, its tiny black eyes connecting, for a moment, with Ben’s. Then it took flight once again.
“What emptiness inside you are you trying to fill, Ben Niles? Is it the loss of your wife? Are you still trying to replace her being?”
Ben looked at Noepe in disbelief. He had never thought he was creating Menemsha House to replace Louise. He had don it to pass the time. He had done it to do something for the kids. Not to replace Louise.
He quickly blinked and gazed out to sea again, wondering why he felt as though he wanted to cry. He wanted to answer Noepe, but the lump in his throat dared him not to.
“I am sorry if my words upset you,” Noepe continued. “But has there been no woman for you since your wife? Has Menemsha House become your woman? These are questions you must answer only to yourself. Only then will you be able to determine if it is worthy of your death.”
Ben remained silent, letting Noepe’s words linger in the air, float into his thoughts. Perhaps, he realized, that was exactly what he had done: tried to harness a dream to fill his soul, to prove to himself that it had been Louise, not him, who had died. Somewhere along the line his grief had subsided, but Menemsha House had taken on a spirit of its own, tapping into his rebellious nature, rousing his anger to a dangerous place, fueled by his, yes, his emptiness, his loneliness.
“I must leave you now,” Noepe said, rising from the rocks and drawing in a deep sea air breath. “The new day has begun.” He smiled. “I must again become a boring accountant.”
Ben smiled back but did not respond. He listened to the soft sounds of Noepe’s moccasins as they tread across the cliffs, moving, without effort, from one world to another. But Ben remained seated, studying the sea, until the sun had climbed in the sky, and the ache in his gut had calmed.
When he arrived to work at Jill’s, Ben was surprised that Kyle’s truck wasn’t in the yard. He’d stayed at the cliffs longer than he’d planned: it was now eight-twenty, and the only vehicle around was that god-awful white Range Rover that looked like it belonged on a safari, ready to hunt down big game, bigger, certainly, than the skunks and raccoons that called the island home.
City people, he muttered under his breath, then remembered how nice Jill had been to him last night, how uncelebrity-like, how civilized. Slipping the car into a space on the street, Ben realized that he missed his old Buick, with its obstinate steering and weighty bulk: a car that you could depend on in a world that had become undependable. He walked around to the back: the house was quiet; Kyle was nowhere around.
Pulling off his baseball cap, Ben scratched his head. Maybe Kyle’s mother had told him about the broken arm. Maybe Kyle thought if Ben couldn’t work, he wouldn’t be needed.
“Damn,” he sputtered, and hated the fact he was sputtering like an old man. But if this job was ever going to be finished by Labor Day, Kyle had better get over here. Fast. And it looked as though the only way that was going to happen was if Ben called him.
He went onto the back porch and peeked in the window. Jill sat at the table, a lacy robe around her, her hair uncombed. A mug sat in front of her, which she appeared to be ignoring. Instead, she stared into space, much the same way Ben himself had just done out at the cliffs. He wondered if her problems were as grave as his, and if her dreams—or her life—were at stake.
He hesitated a moment, then raised his good hand and rapped on the window.
She snapped her head up, startled from wherever her thoughts had been. Seeing him, she rose from the table on what looked like wobbly legs, then shuffled toward the door and opened it.
“Good morning,” she said, but the day-old mascara encrusted on her lashes and the red webbing that threaded through the whites of her eyes told Ben that her morning definitely was not good.
“Sorry to bother you, but could I trouble you to use the phone?”
“No trouble,” she said, stepping away from the door. “Come in. You know where it is.”
He nodded and went into the hallway. “I can’t figure out why Kyle’s not here yet. I thought I made it clear to his mother last night that my broken arm can’t hold things up. The show must go on,” he said with a chuckle, hoping to ease whatever was on Jill’s mind. She was far too nice—and far too pretty, even in her obvious state of disarray—to have such heaviness on her mind.
He picked up the receiver as Jill stepped into the hall.
“Hang up the phone,” her voice said, its “good morning” pleasantry now gone.
“Pardon me?”
“I said hang up the phone.”
He did not ask her to repeat it again. He’d heard her. Loud and clear. He put the receiver back in the cradle. “Is something wrong?”
“Look, Ben, this is nothing against you. But if the only way you can finish the work here is to have Kyle do it, then I’ll have to fire you. That boy will not step foot on my property again.”
Ben stared at her. He could not imagine what had happened. He could not imagine why she didn’t want Kyle around. Had he ruined something? Stolen something?
“Look, Jill, Kyle’s worked for me for a long time. If something has happened …”
She folded her arms across the tie of her robe. “It’s none of your concern.”
“Excuse me, but Kyle is my employee. If one of my employers is upset over something he’s said or done, then it damn well is my concern.”
Jill was quiet a moment. Then she moved back into the kitchen. “Please,” she said so quietly Ben had to strain to hear her, “just go away and leave us alone. I’ll see that you’re paid in full.”
He took off his cap and rubbed the brim between his fingers. “I don’t take money for a job not done. And I don’t leave a job until it’s finished.”
He watched as she picked up her coffee mug and pretended to drink from it. She clutched it so hard, her knuckles paled. Coffee spilled over the rim. Quickly he reached out with his left hand. “God, Jill, you’re shaking.” He took the mug from her grasp and set it on the table. “What’s going on? And what does it have to do with Kyle?”
She looked into his eyes, took a deep breath, then let it out slowly, painfully. “Walk with me down to the water,” she said at last. “I’ll tell you everything.”
Ben wanted to kill him. This was the kid he had spent so much time training, this was the kid he wished had been his son. Now, all he wanted to do was tear him apart, limb by limb, starting with the thing that Kyle hadn’t been able to keep in his pants.
He stepped on the accelerator of the Nissan and aimed it toward Beauford Terrace. His heart ached for Jill—a frightened mother, who had witnessed her daughter’s innocence crash down around her, shattered in the centuries-old darkness of the 1802 where the ghosts of her ancestors still roamed.
The worst part was, it was Ben’s fault. If he’d never allowed Carrie to hang around Jill’s while Kyle was working, Amy wouldn’t have met her, wouldn’t have tried so hard to be like her. It was his fault, goddamnit.
He ripped the Nissan onto the shoulder in front of Kyle’s house, got out of the car, stomped up the walk, and pounded on the door. Within seconds, Rita opened it.
“Let me talk to Kyle,” Ben seethed, fighting to keep his voice under control and his temples from exploding.
“He’s asleep.”
Ben pushed past her into the house. “Then I’ll damn well go and wake him.”
“Hold it right there, mister,” she said, grabbing the sling on his arm. “You have no right busting in here.…”
“It’s okay, Mom,” came Kyle’s voice from the top of the stairs. “Send him up.”
Rita yanked her hand away, exhaled her anger, and disappeared into the kitchen.
Ben tromped up the stairs, his arm throbbing under the white plaster cast, his shoulder pounding where the chisel had been rammed.
In the doorway of one of the bedrooms stood Kyle, wearing pajamas and a pitiful look. Among other things, he was obviously hungover.
“Why, Kyle? That’s all I want to know. Why?”
“I’m sorry, Ben. I know I let you down.”
“Let me down? Are you crazy? The girl is fourteen, Kyle. Fourteen. There are laws against this. Is that what you want? To spend the best years of your life behind bars?”
“She said she was sixteen. Almost seventeen.”
Ben banged his hand against the yellowed wall. Plaster crumbled to the floor.
“I was only trying to make Carrie jealous. We had a fight …”
Ben snorted. “A fight? You had a fight with your girlfriend so you were trying to show her you didn’t need her? Is that how it went, Kyle?”
“Carrie …” Kyle began, then shook his head. “Never mind. We had a fight, that’s all.”
Ben bored his eyes into Kyle. “I can’t believe how stupid you are. I can’t believe how stupid I was for trusting you.”
“I didn’t fuck her, Ben.”
He raised his fist in front of Kyle’s face. “Only because you were interrupted.”
Kyle shook his head. “That’s not true.”
“Of course it’s true. I wasn’t born yesterday.” He stared at the boy, his rage still pumping. But Ben didn’t know what to do next.
“I suppose this means I’m fired,” Kyle said calmly.
He quickly thought about all the work that lay ahead. Jill’s house. The estate on Nantucket. The others. Then he remembered the look on Jill’s face. The look of shame, the look of hopelessness. “Yes,” he answered before he let himself think any longer. “You’re fired, Kyle. Don’t bother to come to my house. I’ll put your check in the mail.”
With that, he spun around, marched down the stairs and out the front door, knowing he had done the right thing, and hoping to hell the pain in his gut would go away.
Rita leaned against the counter in the kitchen, wishing she had a drink, wishing she’d never been born, and wondering if she and her only child would be imprisoned in the same jail.
Jill wanted to go back to Boston.
“You can’t,” Christopher said when she called him that morning.
“I have to,” she answered. She was lying on the bed of her parents’ room, the phone cord stretched from the hall, the door closed. Slowly, she told him what had happened. When she finished, he was silent. “I have to get off this island,” she said.
“Look, honey, I know this is upsetting, but it’s not the end of the world.”
“Not the end of the world? Christopher, she’s fourteen.”
“Kids are faster today. Their world is faster.”
“Well I think it stinks.”
“So do I. But you have teenagers, Jill. You were going to have to face this sooner or later.”
She wove her fingers through the black coils of the cord. “I would have preferred later.”
Christopher sighed. “Listen, honey, Labor Day weekend is only a couple of weeks away. Can you hold out until then?”
“No. I want to leave today.”
“It’s not that easy. I’ve made some plans.…”
“What plans?”
“With Maurice Fischer. I promised him a weekend on the Vineyard.”
Jill squeezed her eyes closed. “I wish you’d talked to me about it first.”
“I didn’t think it mattered. You knew I was coming for the long weekend. You’re coming home with me, remember?”
She opened her eyes and looked past the Boston rocker in the corner, toward the white curtains adrift in the morning breeze.
“Besides,” he continued, “won’t you need more time to work with Sam Wilkins?”
Sam Wilkins. Her stomach rolled. “If it weren’t for Sam Wilkins, Amy wouldn’t be in this mess. If I’d never driven her over there to see Carrie—to make friends with Carrie, for God’s sake—it never would have happened.”
“Jill, that’s ridiculous.”
“Is it? It’s because of my damn work that this happened. I sacrificed my daughter for the sake of a story.” She didn’t add that the story had been his idea. “This is all happening too fast, Christopher. I have a responsibility to my kids. I probably never should have agreed to the Lifestyles spread. And I’m not altogether sure L.A. is the right place for them. Certainly not Amy.” It wasn’t until she said it that Jill realized how much this had been on her mind.
“Wait a minute, Jill. You’re overreacting.”
His words stabbed her.
“Amy had a small escapade with some island boy,” he continued. “Are you going to let that ruin the rest of our lives?”
Her head ached, her mind felt as though it had left her body, her breathing became shallow, painful, labored. Overreacting? He thought she was overreacting? It was the same thing he’d said when Jill was upset over Amy’s too-mini-miniskirt. Would he feel she was overreacting if Amy were his daughter?
“I’m sorry if that sounds a little strong,” he continued. “But you’ve got to think about reality.”
Up from her heart, tears rose. “The reality is I want to get off this damn island. I want to come home. I want to go back to work.”
“Your work right now is there. I suggest you take a shower, clean up, and track down Sam Wilkins. You need to get your mind on something else, something productive. If you can pull the story together by Labor Day, it will impress the hell out of Fischer.”
She didn’t answer because she was afraid she would scream.
“Have you talked with Amy since last night?”
“No. She hasn’t come out of her room.”
“Go easy on her, Jill. This is a tough age for her. And she’s facing a lot of changes. Us included.”
Jill wondered if there was any age that wasn’t tough, forty-three included.
“Now pack up your notebook and go to Sam Wilkins. It will give both you and Amy a chance to cool down.”
She turned on her back and stared up at the canopy ceiling.
“Okay?” he asked.
She pressed her hand to her forehead. “Sure,” she answered, “I guess.”
“It’s for the best, honey. Everything will be fine.”
They said good-bye, and Jill hung up the phone. She sat on the edge of the bed, rocked back and forth slowly, and realized that even if she wanted to leave today, she couldn’t. She hadn’t finished weeding out her parents’ things, and now there was the problem of making sure the work around here would be done.
The Sam Wilkins story, however, could wait. Right now the most important thing Jill could do was to try to talk to Amy, try to get this out in the open—face the problem, then move past it—the way Florence Randall never would have done.
But first, she had to figure out what the hell she was supposed to say.
She didn’t blame Jill for wanting her out of her life. Rita parked her car, walked to the front door of the nursing home, and wondered if oral sex could be considered rape. She had no idea if Jill would press charges, and the worst part was, Rita wouldn’t blame her for that, either.
Walking down the long corridor toward Mrs. Parker’s room, Rita realized the only person to blame was herself. She was to blame for setting a bad example for Kyle, for being no better role model than her own mother had been, for allowing him to think that screwing the tourists was fine, as long as it got you what you wanted.
She clutched the small box of fudge and knocked on the door of Room 114, not knowing whether Mrs. Parker or Rita was the one who needed cheering up.
“Come in,” came a faint whisper.
Rita straightened the front of her short lavender T-dress and went into the room.
The first thing that struck her was how dark it was in there. Dark and stale, with, thankfully, no nursing home urine smell.
“Mrs. Parker? It’s me. Rita Blair.”
The shadowy bump on the bed responded. “Rita Blair? Oh, my, what a surprise.”
Rita navigated around the clutter of chairs and tables. “I brought you some fudge. Penuche.”
“How sweet you are, Rita,” Mrs. Parker said as the motor of the bed whirred, elevating her head. “I’ve always said what a sweet girl you are.”
A lump rose in Rita’s throat. “I hope I didn’t wake you.”
“Not at all. I was daydreaming. It helps to pass the time.”
Rita remembered when the term “passing the time” horrified her, as though people were eager to make the minutes, hours, years fly by, as though they were excited about growing old. Looking at the frail woman in the grayed light now, she supposed that no matter what anyone did, time was damn sure going to pass anyway. Might as well daydream if it took the edge off your problems; might as well stay up all night making fudge.
“Would you like me to open the drapes?” Rita asked. “It’s a beautiful day.” She set the box on the tray table and walked to the window.
“That would be nice. How is your mother?”
“Fine,” she answered, pulling the cord to the traverse rod. Light flooded into the room. She reached over and cranked the window, letting in a gentle, warm breeze.
“I had so many good times with Hazel. Remember the summers you spent with us? Two or three, wasn’t it?”
“Three summers,” Rita said. She looked at the garden of get well cards thumbtacked to the small bulletin board across from the bed, then sat in a black vinyl chair. “I was seven, ten, and twelve.” The Parkers’ house had been the one summer retreat she’d enjoyed: Mrs. Parker baked cookies and pies and taught Rita how to make fudge—how to “pass the time,” until Rita and her mother could go home.
“I miss your mother,” the old woman said.
Rita lowered her eyes to her lap. Two tears spilled out, tiny dark spots of sorrow staining her dress.
Mrs. Parker stretched a blue-veined hand toward her. “What’s the trouble, dear?”
Rita shook her head. “No trouble. I guess I miss my mother, too.” Until that moment, Rita hadn’t known just how much she did miss Hazel—missed having her to talk to, even missed taking care of her. She could have talked to her mother about Kyle and Amy; she could have talked to her about the IRS, about Joe Geissel, about his pain-in-the-ass wife. But somehow, these weren’t the kinds of conversations you had by way of Ma Bell. She wondered if that had been the real reason she’d come today: because she’d needed to connect with an older woman, a mother’s love.
“I still miss my own mother,” Mrs. Parker said.
Rita looked up. “You do?”
She nodded, her pink scalp peeking through her thinning hair. “Imagine that. I’ll be eighty-two this year, and I still miss my mother. She’s been gone thirty years. Nearly thirty-one.” She sighed a shallow, small-lunged sigh.
“Thirty-one years …” Rita said.
“Sometimes, when I have problems, I close my eyes and talk to her. She always listens, and I always hear what she tells me to do.”
Rita’s gaze fell back to her lap.
“What would your mother tell you now?” Mrs. Parker asked.
Raising her head, she smiled. “My mother would tell me I should visit Mrs. Parker more often.”
The woman nodded again. “Have a piece of your penuche, dear. It will make you feel better.”
Three pieces of fudge and an hour later, Rita walked into the sunlight of the parking lot and knew what she had to do. It was too late to change what had happened between Kyle and Amy, but maybe it wasn’t too late to help herself. She would begin by putting an end to the lies.