CHAPTER SEVEN

Eve thought she’d be tired enough to sleep after Catherine and Willow left Chance Harbor, but she was restless and finally got up with the sun.

She had taken Catherine and Willow to Charlottetown the previous afternoon for their flight to Boston. Catherine was skeptical when Eve said she wanted to stay on the island alone for another week to finish sorting through things and find workmen to do repairs before putting the house on the market. But she’d hugged Eve hard and left without looking back.

Now that Eve thought about the conversation with Catherine about her own marriage, she wished she’d been more honest. She could have at least shared the same story she’d told Russell. Maybe then Catherine would have a less absolute, black-and-white view of marriage and adultery. Of “good” husbands and wives.

But Catherine didn’t ask whether you were faithful, Eve reminded herself. Only her father.

What had held her back from confessing her own infidelity? Shame, partly. And Eve knew that telling her daughter the truth had the potential to shatter their relationship.

Catherine had adored her father. They’d had a special bond, those two. Sometimes Eve had even been envious, watching as Andrew showed Catherine how to bait a fishing line or taught her how to change the tire on her bicycle.

That close relationship between Andrew and Catherine had also bothered Zoe. Sometimes Eve wondered if that was why she’d been so protective, and perhaps too forgiving, of her younger daughter. Andrew, meanwhile, was often impatient with Zoe’s silly antics, her dramatic flair, and later with her risk-taking. He had no time for such nonsense, he said.

“Maybe I’m just too Scottish and practical to have an artistic daughter,” Andrew said with a sigh.

Of course, it was her own fault that Andrew couldn’t really bond with Zoe. Eve knew that. She had come close to explaining all of this to Catherine but had pulled back at the last second. Why sully Catherine’s memories of her father? Of their family?

Had she really trusted Andrew, as she’d told Catherine? In the big things—in sickness and health, for richer or poorer—absolutely, yes. She and Andrew had looked out for each other while he was building up his business and, later, as she was getting her career off the ground. They’d propped each other up through the early years of parenthood, his skin cancer treatments and her own breast cancer scare, the deaths of his parents and grandmother, her father’s dementia and the deaths of her own parents, too. There had been challenges with their extended families as well, like the MacLeish cousin who was perpetually in jail and asking Andrew for money, or her own sister, a hoarder and recluse in Wisconsin.

But Eve did not trust Andrew to be faithful. What she didn’t tell Catherine was this: after finding those hotel receipts and confronting Andrew, after hearing his story and his vow to end the relationship with his German colleague, she had met Marta.

It was at a company function where Andrew was receiving a major award. Eve hadn’t expected Marta to be there, but by then Marta was one of the company’s vice presidents—a promotion approved by Andrew, no doubt.

After Andrew first told her about his affair, Eve had imagined Marta as the sort of brisk, tailored, older woman who would be a top administrator at a high-tech company. Instead, Marta had been—how else to put this?—luscious, an ample brunette with creamy breasts spilling out of a red cocktail dress. A woman who spoke not with a clipped German accent, but in soft murmurs that caused everyone—the men, especially—to lean closer, to practically pillow their heads on her bosom, as if Marta were reading them bedtime stories instead of reciting sales figures.

Marta lived in New York, Andrew told her after that party, speaking dismissively, literally waving Eve’s questions about her away with one hand as they drove home. “You have no reason to worry or feel jealous. Marta and I scarcely have reason to run into each other anymore,” he said. “Anyway, that’s all over now.”

She had believed him.

After the affair, Andrew had insisted on scheduling regular weekend getaways. They both loved to cross-country ski, and so, for Andrew’s birthday in January, she surprised him with a weekend at a hotel in Vermont. They’d spent the day skiing and had returned to their room exhausted, sore, and happy, making love in that languid way of couples who know there is nothing to interrupt them.

Afterward, Eve had gone down the hall for ice. When she returned, Andrew was sobbing in the shower, his body folded nearly double.

Alarmed, she’d opened the shower door and turned off the scalding water, worried that the red stains on his pale, freckled back might actually be burns that would blister. Andrew had been meek and quiet once she arrived, letting her bundle him into one of the hotel’s plush white towels.

She’d ordered a hot toddy from room service, scotch with orange juice and hot water, a pat of butter melted on top. Once Andrew had drunk it, once he had collected himself and his teeth had stopped chattering, Eve had promised him that, whatever he had to tell her, it would be all right. They would get through it together.

She had believed this with all her heart. But she was blindsided when the truth turned out to be that Andrew hadn’t stopped seeing Marta after all. They had met many times since then, in Europe and New York, even in Latin America, Andrew told her. “Now she has left her husband, and Marta says I have to leave you, too,” Andrew said dully, pulling the towel around his shoulders like a cape.

“And what do you want to do?” Eve asked. “To stay with me, or be with her?”

“Stay,” he’d said. “Oh, my love. You’re the one who has my heart.”

Eve had closed her eyes, trying to feel whether he was telling the truth. He was. Andrew had always loved her. Loved her, still. She knew that in her bones. She opened her eyes again. “All right, then. If you stay with me, you must promise to never see Marta again. Do you understand? This is your last chance.”

“Yes,” he said. “I understand.”

“What’s her number?” Eve demanded.

He’d looked up at her then. “Eve, you can’t.”

“I can. And I will.”

Andrew had given it to her finally, and Eve had dialed Marta. There was a brief, terse conversation, where Eve told Marta that just because she was ready to end her marriage didn’t mean Eve was ready to end her own. There would be no more threats, Eve added, or she would go to the police.

It had taken months. A year, maybe, before Eve would let Andrew touch her again. But she and Andrew had gotten through all that, and through Eve’s affair with Malcolm a few months later. At the time, her own infidelity had seemed to be a far more serious betrayal than Andrew’s; whereas he had always said he wanted to be with her, Eve couldn’t honestly say the same to him. That was the real reason she’d gone to Cape Breton Island and left Andrew in tears: to decide.

•   •   •

Wednesdays were definitely going to suck big-time, Willow thought as she waited in front of the school for Nola to pick her up.

For some reason, Catherine was insisting on this stupid custody arrangement, and Willow now had to spend time with Russell every Wednesday. “It’s important for you to keep up your relationship,” Catherine had explained.

When Willow said no way did she want to waste even one more minute of her life with Russell, Catherine brought out some legal document about a gazillion pages thick to show her: the separation agreement.

“I’m sorry, but this is what he and I have agreed, and it’s a legally binding document,” Catherine said, pointing to the actual page where it supposedly said that. “Look on the bright side, can’t you? I have to work late most Wednesdays. This way you’ll get dinner. And it’s the least you can do, if Russell’s going to take care of that dog while you’re in school. It’s only fair.”

Fair. Had Russell considered what was fair when he screwed Nola? He made her sick.

How was Russell so different from Tom, Mr. Real Deal, with his cold hand on her leg, sliding up her thigh? She was ten when that happened. Tom must have been, what, like twenty-nine? Nineteen years older than she was. Almost the same difference between Nola and Russell. Gross. Willow wanted to gag, thinking about how Russell might have put his chalky fingers up Nola’s skirt when she was bending over his desk, asking for help on a history essay.

Except, knowing Nola, she’d probably worn a thong and put Russell’s hand there herself. Last year Willow had a study hall with Nola. She remembered the effect Nola had on that Latin teacher who monitored the room, a guy with a name so long everyone called him Dr. Q. All Nola had to do was sit in the front row in a short skirt, crossing and uncrossing her legs, and the poor guy stood in front of her like he’d been turned to stone by a wizard. Once Nola had paralyzed him, she could use her cell phone all she wanted. Her hotness factor was like some kind of spider’s web or magnetic force field. Guys could only make it in if she let them, and then they couldn’t get out.

Nola was pulling up to the curb now, looking like a bitch in charge in her black Range Rover. The car was a present from her dad for her sixteenth birthday.

Willow scowled at a group of girls staring at Nola and the car. The only upsides to this whole custody thing were that Russell had picked up her dog earlier today, so now Mike greeted her by leaping from the backseat into the front, and people in this new school would leave Willow alone if they saw her with Nola, imagining Nola was her sister or cousin or whatever.

Or stepmother. Ew.

Willow focused on rubbing Mike’s ears as the car slid noiselessly away from the curb.

“So how was school?” Nola asked, steering with one hand on the wheel and texting with her other. Willow had hoped Russell would pick her up, but apparently he had some kind of job interview.

“Fine.”

Nola glanced at her. “Fine, fine? Or really fine?”

“Really fine. Nobody’s beaten me up yet or stolen my lunch money, okay?”

“Well, you tell those pricks they’ll have to deal with me if they bother you.”

Willow glanced at Nola, surprised. Maybe because Nola had destroyed Willow’s whole life to get what she wanted, she was going to be her fairy godmother now. Oh, goody.

“Need a snack before we go home?”

This must be Nola’s way of practicing to be a mom. “No.” Willow pointedly took a book out of her backpack and opened it.

She hadn’t seen Nola’s apartment yet. She’d been too busy “getting settled in school,” as Catherine put it, though that wasn’t actually what was happening. No, it was more like she was surviving by being invisible, something that was actually a lot harder to do than she’d thought it would be in a school this size.

Probably because she was the only kid who’d started at the wrong time of year. Everyone asked why. She said her family was traveling. Luckily, in Cambridge that excuse flew. About half the people she’d met in her classes so far had parents who were professors at some college or other; a lot of them had parents who did sabbaticals or were on fellowships.

They drove across the BU Bridge and down Commonwealth Avenue. Then Nola turned left and left again, finally pulling up in front of a brownstone on Beacon Street. “This is it,” she said.

Willow glanced at her, shocked. They were maybe four blocks from Beacon Hill School. For the first time, she wondered what Nola was doing about school. They wouldn’t let her stay at Beacon Hill, would they? Had they only kicked Russell and Willow out? Maybe, if Nola’s dad gave the school enough money.

“How long have you lived here?” Willow asked, grabbing the dog’s leash as she opened the car door.

Nola tossed her goddess hair. “Like, all my life since I was twelve,” she said. “I mean, whenever my dad wasn’t dragging us halfway around the world. He’s in Dubai right now. Before that, my grandmother lived here and I lived with my mom in our house in Geneva, mostly, unless we were in New York.”

“So your dad lets you live here by yourself now?”

Nola arched an eyebrow. “It’s my house since I turned eighteen. It was my mom’s before she died and left it to me. I was thirteen when she died. It was her mother’s before that.”

“Oh.” Willow didn’t know Nola had a dead mother; she had to work hard not to feel sorry about that. “Where does your dad live?”

“He lived here with me until I told him to get the hell out. Now he has a condo in Brookline. Come on. Russell’s probably still at his job interview, but he’ll be home soon.”

Nola said her father’s name like it was poetry. What job interview? Willow wanted to ask, but she didn’t want to give Nola the satisfaction of knowing her dad told Nola more than he told his own kid.

Except I’m not his, Willow reminded herself. She had a real dad out there. Mike. He’d want her to stay with him instead of Russell if he knew what was happening. She had to find him.

She followed Nola along a stone path between two miniature but perfect gardens. The gardens still had a few raggedy flowers, and there was a curved stone bench in one of them next to a little pond. A miniature tree with branches falling like soft hair grew next to the bench.

They went through a glossy black door with a brass pineapple knocker. Inside, the house reminded her of the Gardner Museum, where she’d been a bunch of times with Catherine and once with her school: there were more paintings than walls, and the rooms were just as dark and cluttered with tapestries and rugs. None of the furniture looked meant to sit on.

“My mom was kind of an art collector,” Nola explained. She pointed to one wall where the paintings were an inch apart and all had thick gold frames. “They’re real and supposedly worth more than the house. I should probably sell them, especially if Russell doesn’t get a job. But that would be like selling my mom’s soul or something.”

This talk was making Willow want to jump out of her skin. She wanted to hate Nola, but it was hard to hate somebody who was talking about her mother’s soul. She narrowed her eyes at Nola’s belly, trying to hate what was in there, but nothing showed. Nola was wearing a big sweater over leggings like everybody else.

“Go ahead and look around,” Nola said, dropping her keys on one of the living room tables. “I have to pee. Again.”

Willow went upstairs first—three bedrooms, one with a canopy bed, all of them decorated like rooms in a castle; and two bathrooms with black-and-white tiled floors, one with a bathtub big enough for an elephant—then came back downstairs. She followed the same hallway Nola had taken from the living room into a library alcove made to feel secret and cozy with pink silk drapes. No lie: she loved it.

From there, she entered a dining room with a massive table and then a narrow green kitchen, where a woman in a maid’s uniform was doing something to a chicken, her hand right up its butt. The woman was dark-skinned and pretty. “Hello, miss,” she said. “Miss Nola is outside.” She gestured with her chin to a door off the kitchen.

“Come on, Mike,” Willow said, and whistled for the dog to follow.

The door led into a pantry with shelves crammed mostly with Trader Joe’s stuff. Through that was another door leading to a courtyard with a stone bench and a taller, but equally droopy tree. The leaves had fallen off the tree in a shower of gold confetti all over the bench and stone patio. There was another, bigger pond here, too, as if whoever had landscaped in front of the house was just practicing to put the same, larger versions of everything back here. Nola was filling a bird feeder; afterward she stood on her toes to hang it from the iron post at the far corner of the courtyard.

As she reached up, Willow was able to see the swell of Nola’s stomach inside her black leggings. She looked away. “So is my dad living here now?”

“Yeah. He kind of had to, since he didn’t have anyplace else to go after your mom threw him out.”

“My mom only kicked him out because of you.”

Suddenly, Nola covered her face with her hands and squatted down by the birdseed bag, sobbing like a rejected singer on American Idol.

What, did Nola actually feel bad now? Hell no. That was not okay. Nola should have felt bad before she spread her skank legs for somebody else’s husband.

Willow wanted to leave, to show Nola that she couldn’t manipulate the shit out of her like she did everybody else. On the other hand, it was sunny and warm in the courtyard, and what would she do back inside the house? Chat with the maid? Who actually had a maid, anyway?

She perched on the bench, crossed her legs, and watched some kind of little gold bird at the feeder. Amazing it wasn’t afraid of people.

Eventually Nola wiped her face on the hem of her sweater and stood up. She put the bird feed away in the pantry and came back outside, where she sat too close to Willow and bent down to pat the stupid dog, who didn’t know the difference between good people and lying, betraying sluts, and wagged his tail. “Sorry,” Nola said.

“For what?”

Nola looked at Willow, her face a train wreck of smeared makeup. “For everything. You must hate me.”

“I don’t hate you,” Willow lied. “I just think you’re a stupid idiot.”

“You’re right.” Nola reached up, broke a little stick off the tree branch hanging above them and tossed it. The dog attacked the stick like it was a rattlesnake, growling and shaking it. “But you can’t always help who you fall in love with. You’ll learn that someday.”

Willow rolled her eyes. “Whatever.”

“I mean it, Willow. Sometimes things just happen.”

“Only if you let them.”

“It’s not that easy to say no to love.” Nola’s lower lip trembled. “Not when it’s a guy as nice as your dad.”

“Oh, no. We are so not doing this.” Willow stood up and glared down at Nola. She wanted to head butt her. “Don’t you fucking dare say you love my dad. You’ve known him for what, like, a year? A year of history class, plus a few special extra-help sessions or whatever? Never mind,” she said when Nola opened her mouth to answer. “Don’t tell me how you got with Russell. You’re pregnant because he couldn’t keep it in his pants and you were both too stupid to use birth control.”

“You’re right,” Nola whispered.

Willow nodded and took a step away from the bench. “I am. And now you’re saying you’re in love so everybody will fucking forgive you or feel sorry for you. I don’t want to hear how in love you are, Nola. Don’t you fucking realize what you did? Jesus. You’re worse than a stupid idiot. You’re like this evil spell cast on my whole family. You make me sick just looking at you!”

“I make myself sick,” Nola said, and pulled her sweater down over her knees, then tucked her hands inside the sleeves. “I’m so, so sorry.”

She was making Willow want to puke her guts out with those fake apologies. Willow took the leash out of her pocket and hooked it to Mike’s collar. “I am so out of here. Tell Dad I came like I was supposed to, like our agreement says, okay? But I have some serious homework. I’ll get home on my own.”

Nola practically jumped up off the bench. “Wait! You can’t just go! How will you even get home? At least let me drive you.”

“No. I’ll take a subway like a normal person—not a fucking Range Rover,” Willow said. “You can cover your ass. Tell Dad that Catherine wanted me to come home early or whatever.”

“You can’t expect me to lie.” Nola looked around the courtyard, her eyes wild.

“Why not? Seems to me like you must be pretty good at it by now.” Willow tugged the puppy back toward the kitchen. “You’ve been doing it long enough.”