The snow continued. The cold continued. Though the days were about to pass into March, it seemed that the sun had forgotten that it needed to shine a little bit longer. It still got dark before Evening Meal.
On the last day of February, Meryl Lee was knitting a couple more inches of bright yellow while sitting next to Jennifer on her green satin duvet, when there was a knock on the door. Jennifer opened it.
Bettye stood in the hall with a coconut cream pie.
Really. A whole coconut pie.
“My father watched the Evening News with Walter Cronkite last night,” she said. “Mostly about Vietnam. He bakes whenever he gets nervous, so he made six of these. Would you like one?”
Jennifer looked at Bettye, and then she looked at Meryl Lee, then she looked at Bettye again. “Won’t you come in?” she said.
Bettye looked at Jennifer and she shook her head. “I only . . .”
“Please,” said Jennifer.
This is what it looks like when things start over again.
They all sat on the green satin duvet, eating coconut cream pie, and Bettye told stories about Jonathan.
About how Jonathan kissed Melinda DuChenney when he was eleven and the slap she gave him that everyone heard even though they were in the church basement when she slapped him.
About how Jonathan fell into the Christmas tree when he wouldn’t let Bettye put on the star, and how when he fell, he knocked down every Christmas ornament. Not a single one left.
About how Jonathan once met Willie Mays and Willie Mays said Jonathan was a better hitter than he was when he was Jonathan’s age.
About how Jonathan asked Reverend Buckminster—his grandfather, not his father—how Lazarus got out of his tomb if he was all wound around with sheets and bandages so he couldn’t move his legs or his arms or even see, and how his grandfather told him to try it his own self and so Jonathan did, and he fell two flights down the stairs, and the next Sunday his grandfather preached on “The Perils of Unbelief” while Jonathan stood by the pulpit of First Congregational as a sermon illustration with a black eye and a broken arm and how he smiled like he was the star the whole time.
And Jennifer and Bettye and Meryl Lee were laughing so hard that Heidi came in with Marian, and then Charlotte came in, and most of the pie was gone pretty quickly.
That’s really what it looks like when things start over.
But not everything starts over.
Late the next afternoon, when Meryl Lee was heading to Putnam, she saw Ashley walking out of Lesser Hoxne. Ashley saw her, hesitated, then came toward Meryl Lee.
Meryl Lee waited—even though she wanted to run into Putnam.
Maybe she should have.
“I want to ask you something,” said Ashley.
“Okay,” said Meryl Lee.
“Who do you think you are?”
Meryl Lee was pretty sure Ashley didn’t expect an answer.
“Do you really think you’re someone who should even speak to Jennifer Truro? Really? You’re nobody. You’re nobody at all.”
Meryl Lee stepped back, as if something had collided against her.
“We’re just friends,” Meryl Lee said.
Ashley put her hands on her hips. “Is that what you think you are?” she said. “Friends?”
“Yes.”
“We’re friends—Jennifer, Charlotte, and me. We’re friends.”
“Can’t we—”
“No, you can’t. Not when she’s what she is and you’re what you are. Someday she’s going to marry Alden Windsor Leighton, from one of the best families in Scotland. You have no idea what that means, do you? You’re just someone trying to worm your way into being friends with someone whose life you wish you had.”
“You don’t understand,” Meryl Lee said. “It doesn’t matter that—”
“And maybe that works with someone as stupid as Charlotte. But don’t think it’s going to work for a minute with Jennifer Truro. And don’t think for a minute it’s going to work with me, because”—she leaned in close—“I hate you. I hate the way you have to have everyone to yourself.”
“That’s not fair,” said Meryl Lee.
Ashley—who suddenly looked as if she was about to cry—turned and headed back to Netley.
That night, Matt settled in with Oliver Twist, while Mrs. MacKnockater enjoyed Edna St. Vincent Millay. She tried to get him to listen to “Passer Mortuus Est,” but Matt wasn’t interested. “It’s poetry,” he said, and got up to stoke the wood stove.
Mrs. MacKnockater drew an afghan over her legs and turned the pages.
She read. She nodded. She closed her eyes, opened them, closed them. Her mouth opened a little.
And Matt watched Mrs. MacKnockater fall into sleep, still holding the poetry of Edna St. Vincent Millay, him holding Oliver Twist, and he imagined many nights doing that, again and again. If only . . .
The next week in Mr. Wheelock’s class, Matt asked Meryl Lee if she wanted to go down to the shore with him on Saturday and maybe out with Captain Hurd, and she said yes, and Matt went home that night praying for fair weather. Praying, praying, praying for fair weather. And probably because of that, Saturday dawned with sunlight that began to heal the bruised sky and melt the icicles around Netley and Newell and sweat the piles of snow that bulked around Greater Hoxne and beside the great wall of St. Elene’s Preparatory Academy. Matt and Meryl Lee met at the main gate and together they walked down toward the docks, as quiet and still as the low waves between the tides, and the Captain was waiting at dockside—“Miss Kowalski!” he called—and he helped her board Affliction as the waves chucked the boat under its chin, and Matt jumped in afterward, easy as coconut cream pie (the last two pieces of which Meryl Lee had brought with her), and they were out into the bay.
Captain Hurd and Matt laid out only one string of traps—“Just to say we did something,” said the Captain—and Matt warned her not to step too close or get her hand tangled in the lines—“You can’t believe how quick you can get drawn overboard if you get your hand tangled”—and then they began to chug around the islands. Captain Hurd took the wheel and told Matt to go up front with Meryl Lee so she didn’t fall over the bow, and he did, and they stood there together in the cold off the ocean, wiping at their teary eyes and holding on to each other when Affliction chunked into a wave, and Captain Hurd felt something between happiness and envy. Their whole lives, he thought. They have their whole lives ahead of them.
And they did.
And maybe that’s what Matt was thinking when he took Meryl Lee’s hand and did not let go, and he looked at her and wondered, Suppose two people start out at very different places, and one heads in a small boat to a small cove in a small harbor from one direction and he’s running because he has to, and the other heads to that same small boat and that same cove in the same harbor from a completely different direction and she’s not running but she goes anyway. How long will it be before they find each other?
The answer?
It didn’t matter, as long as they found each other.
And he thought, Could that really be the answer?
And Meryl Lee closed her eyes against the wind and she listened to the thrumming of the engine, the chunk chunk of the waves, the churning seawater at the stern, the gulls whose calls came and faded as they yawed into the wind. When she opened her eyes, she pushed her hair back—all to no good at all.
When they came down from the bow, Captain Hurd asked if she’d been out on the water much.
“Only with you,” she said.
Captain Hurd pointed at Matt. “You’d do well to watch this one, then,” he said. “He was born to be on the water.”
Meryl Lee looked at Matt.
“How come you were born to be on the water?” she said.
Matt shrugged. “I guess I don’t stay in one place very long.” And, for the first time in what felt like a long time, Meryl Lee felt the Blank rush upon her, as real and as solid as a wave rearing up over the boat.
“You okay?” said Matt.
“Why . . .” she began, “why can’t anything stay in one place?” And Matt suddenly, fiercely, completely, wanted more than anything to say, “I will now.”
And just as suddenly, fiercely, completely, he wanted to kiss her again—right there in front of Captain Hurd, who had decided to lay out another line of traps after all and Matt should stop fooling around with Miss Kowalski and get to the stern if he was going to be any help.
Matt went back to the stern.
But he’d decided. He was going to stay in Harpswell for as long as he could. Especially if Meryl Lee would be . . . Well, he was going to stay in Harpswell.
That evening, deep in the South Bronx, certain elements of the FBI closed in on a beat-up apartment house that no one in the neighborhood ever went near. They moved in pairs, some gathering by the back entrances, some by the ruined front entrance, and some along the alley that ran beneath the first-floor windows and ended in an abrupt and high rear wall. At exactly 8:05 p.m., they stormed inside.
The exchange of gunfire lasted less than two minutes, though well over a hundred bullets sparked the air.
Three of those bullets found a huge guy that the FBI had identified as one of the ringleaders. One bullet in his left calf spun him around. One in his right shoulder blade blew him upright against a wall. One in his left ear flew into his brain. His body fell, his eyes went dark, his heart thumped on for twelve seconds, and his consciousness ceased entirely—just like that.
Soon after the two minutes, the FBI men opened the door to the upstairs loft, where eighteen boys had backed into a corner. The littlest ones were crying. Some of the older ones, too.
By midnight, most of the identifications had been made—both at Family Services and at the morgue.
A phone call woke Lieutenant Minot not long after.
He asked one question.
“No,” said the FBI man. “No one we can ID as Shug.”