Meredith watched Rachel sleep, her head fallen back into the pillow as if thrust by a strong hand. She wasn’t pretty at first glance, but upon knowing her, the collection of her features—squat nose and high forehead, small chin, freckled cheeks, and lush pink lips—gathered into a lovely portrait. When she fixed her eyes on you with her listening gaze, her interest enlivened her face, and that was when she became beautiful. Rachel’s company had enriched Meredith’s days, which were usually spent managing the maids, visiting her mother, or working with the church ladies on a volunteer project such as organizing a clothing drive for the less-fortunate families on the south side of town. With Rachel in her house, Meredith felt her maternal instincts and grief for the children she would never have. She wanted Rachel to stay. She imagined a life where the girl went to the schoolhouse each day and came home with books to read and math homework. She’d never thought to ask Rachel if she could read or if she’d gone to school.
When the girl woke up, she glanced around the room as if displaced, then getting her bearings, she said, “I never know where I am when I wake up. I’m so comfortable.”
“I’m glad,” Meredith said. “You’ve been sleeping for a while. It’s good. You need the rest.”
Rachel pulled herself up on the pillows and rubbed at her eyes. “I feel a little better today. I’ll be leaving soon, I promise.”
“I think you need to stay a while longer,” Meredith said, slightly panicked at the thought of the empty house and an end to Nathaniel’s visits.
As if reading Meredith’s mind, Rachel asked, “How do you know Nathaniel?”
Meredith paused, as if assessing the question, then she spoke. “We knew each other from school when we were younger, but then we fell out of touch. Nathaniel moved out of his father’s house to that island, which I’m sure you’ve heard about.”
Meredith had seen him row out of the harbor with a dog in the boat. The rhythm of his stroke against the water and the way he held his head upright when he pulled back on the oars let her know it was him. In the low morning light, the dog appeared like a sentinel, searching the sky for birds, looking across the water for the shiny flecks of bass or the light water that meant a shoal, but the dog could not see these things; it was only what Meredith wished for Nathaniel: a devoted friend looking out for him.
The sound of an approaching horse in the driveway startled her from the window.
“What is it?” the girl asked, alarmed by the man’s commanding voice easing the horse to a stop.
“It’s my husband, Theo.” Meredith didn’t know how he would respond to Rachel. He liked to have Meredith’s attention to himself.
Rachel sat up in her perch amid the pillows and blankets. She brushed her hair back from her forehead and ran her fingers through the tangles.
“I’ll be back in a while. You rest,” Meredith told her and pressed her palm gently to the girl’s forehead.
In the foyer, Theo kissed his wife and dropped his coat on a chair by the door. “I’m so glad to see you, dear.” He held Meredith by the arms and leaned back to take her in. Then he let her go, and he straightened the front of his frock coat and pulled his collar into place. He pressed his hair flat on either side of his part.
“You look concerned about something, Theo. What is it?”
Theo looked toward the bedroom, then distractedly, he said, “My poor father is not himself. He just can’t work at the rate he’s used to, and when I try to help him, he gets so angry. He wants to go to Boston to meet with a broker, but the trip is too much. When I talk to him about it and offer to go, he gets furious.”
“You need to go with him.” Meredith looked at her husband’s graying hair, the paunch that pressed out against his shirt. She listened to his complaining and his stress, and she wondered what had happened to the man who’d taken her sailing when they first met. He’d had shining eyes that took her in as if he was happy with her in her entirety. This other man, the one who worked for his father and focused himself on ambition, had taken his place, and standing before him now, she wasn’t sure how she felt. “Come in. You’re late for dinner,” she said.
They sat at the head of the long Shaker dining-room table that he ran his hands over as if he’d hewn the wood himself. He loved this piece of furniture because he’d gone with his father to buy it at auction when he was a boy. His father had let him carve his initials in the pedestal, since one day the table would be his. Meredith knew how proud Theo felt to have grown into the table and his role working with his father, his role as a businessman.
Theo stretched his long legs in front of him and waited for Dot and Rose to serve their meal. He wore his hair shorter now, and the firm line of his jaw was scattered with gray and sandy-blond beard. He was a man who needed to shave twice a day, and he enjoyed this as he believed it spoke to his virility.
“So who’s this girl you’ve taken in? Is that her in the other room? I heard about it on my way through town, from Max Ballard. Nothing in this town is private.”
“Her name is Rachel,” Meredith said. “She sailed from Boston with the Boyds, then fell overboard and hit her head. She had twenty-six stitches, and she’s quite banged up.”
“How’d she come to be here?”
“I brought her,” Meredith said. “She was badly injured, Theo.” She didn’t want to hide the truth, but she knew how Theo would react to the mention of Nathaniel’s name, never mind the fact that Nathaniel had been in their home.
“It’s kind of you, Meredith, but doesn’t she have people of her own?”
“No, she doesn’t. She’s not from here. It doesn’t hurt to do someone a good turn.”
Once the food was on the table, Theo focused on eating as if there were nothing else in the house, no Meredith, no Rachel, nothing to aggravate or appease him beyond onion soup and stringy cheese he pulled off the top with his spoon.
“Dot, you’ll bring a tray to Rachel, won’t you?” Meredith asked.
“Yes, ma’am.”
When they finished and Rose came to clear the table, the newspaper caught his eye, and he scanned the pages. “You haven’t asked about my trip,” he said.
“Well, how was it?” she asked.
“An utter failure. The men I met in Duxbury have signed on with a fleet from Gloucester. Father blames me for not pursuing other opportunities to expand our interests and has demanded that I get another contract by the end of next month. He’s just frustrated that he can’t manage these things himself. I don’t take his anger personally, but still—”
“He’s lucky to have you, Theo.”
Theo folded his napkin and tucked it under his plate. He leaned back in his chair and stretched his arms out to the sides in a yawn.
“Come, meet the girl,” Meredith said.
“Not tonight, dear. I’m tired out.”
“It won’t take a minute, Theo. She’s our guest.”
He pushed himself back from the table and groaned as he stood. “If you insist, but only for a minute. I’ve some papers to go through before bed.”
“She’s in the parlor.”
“What if she’s asleep?”
“She’s not asleep, Theo. She’s eating. Now, come on.”
In the parlor, Rachel had finished her meal and left her tray at the end of the couch. She leaned back against the pillows and stared absently out the window when Meredith came in and announced the arrival of her husband.
“Rachel, I’ve someone for you to meet.” She gestured to Theo, who leaned down to shake the girl’s hand, which he held with the utmost delicacy.
“Theo Butler. Rachel, it’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance. I only wish it was under better circumstances.”
“Thank you, Mr. Butler, for your kindness.”
“I’m afraid it’s my wife’s kindness you’re relying on. I’m not home enough these days to offer much in the way of hospitality, but you are certainly welcome here, and I hope to see you up and about soon.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“I’ll let you get some rest now. Meredith, I’m off to my study. Good night, ladies.” With a bow of his head, he left Meredith and Rachel in the parlor while he disappeared to his room on the other side of the house.
He wouldn’t sit with them like Nathaniel had, interested in their conversations, interested in what Meredith had to say. Meredith sighed and returned her attention to Rachel, glad to have someone who needed her.
“He doesn’t want me here,” Rachel said.
“No, he’s just extremely busy with work right now.”
“Do you miss him?”
“You need to rest.” She patted Rachel on the hand and pulled the lightweight blanket up to her neck. “You just call me if you need anything,” Meredith said, and she disappeared down the hallway where Nathaniel had first entered her house. She felt him there as surely as if he stood before her, but it was Theo in her house now, just beyond her reach, and she settled herself into the couch in the parlor with a patchy piece of needlework that bored her.
She worked the needle with her clumsy fingers while her mind drifted to a time when Nathaniel had stopped coming to school. She skipped out herself one day and followed him across the marsh. He didn’t notice her until they were halfway out to the island, then he stopped and waited for her to join him.
“You’re not in school,” he said.
“Neither are you.”
“Well, what are you doing out here?”
“I want to see what you get up to on the island,” she said and took his hand. He carried a string of cod fillets in his other hand and smiled at her firm grip.
“It’s not much.”
“Well, it’s something if it keeps you out here.”
They crossed the big creek and walked across the seagrass to the island. Nathaniel led her through the bushes to the clearing where he’d placed stones for the fire. She saw the lean-to perched beneath one of the few trees, and a black chest. Full of supplies, she guessed.
“So this is it,” she said.
“Not much, I know.” He laid the cod on a bench and gathered some branches for kindling. With the fire going, he placed a metal grate along the stones, then the cod on the metal grate. He indicated the tree stump that Meredith could sit on like a stool.
“That smells so good,” she said.
“Everything tastes better when it’s cooked out here.”
He led her to the lean-to where he unpacked a tarp and a blanket from the chest. He laid the tarp on the moist dirt, then the blanket on top of that. Meredith remembered making love and the way the sunlight fell through the branches of the lean-to, the smell of dried seaweed and dirt, and Nathaniel looking directly into her as if he could see the very core of her.
• • •
She looked into the needlework, a pale collection of flowers with the stitches all different shapes and going in the wrong direction. She laughed at her own lack of skill. Who cares? she thought, and she pushed Nathaniel from her mind and focused on making a perfect little stitch, then another right next to that, until the flowers began to look like flowers and she could put it down, knowing she had at least tried.