Beach Plum Island (32 page)

“So that’s good news, right?”

“It is, yes.” Ava bit her lip. “The thing is, I didn’t tell her we’d found Peter in the yearbook. I didn’t want to upset her and, I don’t know, make her relapse or anything.”

Gigi thought about this. What Ava was really saying was that she wasn’t sure they should keep looking for Peter, not right now, with this happening to Elaine. Gigi got that. But she wasn’t about to stop. Ava could take a break, sure, but now that they had a last name and a birth date, Gigi had been Googling the shit out of everything, trying to track down her brother. So far, nothing had popped up. But it would. She was sure of that.

“I’m going to keep looking for him,” Gigi said. “But I understand why you might need to quit.”

“I’m not going to quit,” Ava said. “I’m just taking a break. For Elaine’s sake.”

Gigi nodded. “I know,” she said, and then they went back to work and didn’t talk about it anymore.

Ava went to play tennis with Olivia after lunch. Evan and Sam had gone to their dad’s for the weekend, but they were back at the house by the time Gigi went up to try a new song on her guitar. The boys were sitting together on the couch, and the weird thing was that the Xbox wasn’t on and neither was the TV. They were just sitting there like zombies, Sam with his legs stretched out and Evan in his geek yoga pose.

“You look like your dog just died,” she said.

“Hey,” Evan said. Sam just grunted.

Gigi decided to hang around instead of taking off to see if Neal was at the barn. She’d been riding with him most afternoons, and once he’d come to her house and listened to music. He still hadn’t kissed her, but she was beginning to think he wanted to. This was a good feeling; it was the first time ever that she’d felt like a boy was more nervous around her than she was around him. Plus it was great to see Lydia looking all bug-eyed when she and Neal were together.

Gigi picked up her guitar and started working out some chords. Pretty soon, Sam and Evan joined her and they worked out a couple of Cure songs. Then Gigi put down her guitar and said, “Seriously, guys. What’s up? You can tell me. I’m your auntie.”

This made Sam snort. Evan relaxed back against the sofa with his bass cradled between his knees. “Dad’s getting married,” he said.

“Dude! We’re not supposed to tell anybody!” Sam said.

“We’re not supposed to tell
Mom
,” Evan corrected. “Those were Dad’s exact words. He wants to tell her himself.”

“I won’t tell her,” Gigi promised, though she suspected Ava would probably guess on her own. “You didn’t see this coming?”

“No, man, Dad’s dated before, but nobody ever lasted more than a few months,” Sam said. “Dad’s just not the marrying type.”

“He married your mother,” Gigi said.

“Yeah, but that was, like, a million years ago,” Sam said.

“Does his girlfriend have kids?” Gigi asked.

“One. She’s already married, though. We won’t have to live with her, at least.”

“She could be nice,” Gigi suggested. “Maybe your stepmom is nice, too.”

“Yeah, but the point is, we like staying with our dad on weekends because we’re
bachelors
,” Sam said. “We can be slobs and leave things lying around and whatever. This woman, Sasha, she’s like a drill sergeant. Napkins on the lap, chores, the whole bit!”

Evan was nodding. “Yeah, she even makes us make our
beds
.”

Gigi thought about how the boys lived with Ava, like wolf cubs or something, keeping their own hours, eating and drinking whatever. Personally, she couldn’t stand the mess they made. “That will be different,” she said. “On the other hand, if you guys grow up to have, like, jobs, you’ll probably have to learn to put your napkins on your laps at company lunches or whatever. And if you ever get married, your wives will run you over with their cars if you don’t pick up your dirty clothes. I know I would.”

The boys stared at her. “Dude, I thought you’d be on our side,” Sam said.

Gigi sighed. “I am,” she said. “I have your backs, whatever happens. But the thing is, how long will you live with your dad, realistically? We’re all going to college, right? And you don’t want him to be alone forever.”

“Too true,” Evan said.

“So be glad he found somebody, and that she’s not a psycho.”

“We don’t know that,” Sam grumbled. “She seems like the kind of chick who’d go postal if you made a mistake.”

“Better not make any, then,” Gigi suggested. “Meanwhile, I need your help.” She had made copies of the yearbook picture and the only photograph they had of Peter. Now she showed these to the boys and told them the whole story.

“This sucks,” Evan said. “We have an uncle and Mom didn’t tell us?”

“It’s complicated,” Gigi said, and told them about Elaine. As she’d suspected, they knew about Elaine’s bouts with alcohol and understood she might have put pressure on their mother not to look for Peter. Gigi loved how Sam and Evan were immediately ready to defend Ava, to go to battle for her whether it was to find a lost brother or put a surly aunt in her place. She wished, not for the first time, that her dad could have known them better.

This thought made her shadow of guilt return, knowing that she was the real reason her father had left this family for her own. But, as she’d told Sam and Evan, sometimes all you could do was accept what happened and find the good in it.

It was Sam who found Peter Winslow online. Gigi had tried every social media site she could think of except the obvious: the online white pages for Maine and Massachusetts. There were two Peter Winslows in Maine and four in Massachusetts; only one of the six names matched the age they’d estimated her brother to be. Unfortunately, that address was unlisted.

“No worries,” Sam said with a grin, and typed in a credit card number to access a full report. There he was: Peter Winslow, age forty-three, with a home address in Cambridge. Next, Sam typed her brother’s name into LinkedIn. There were thirteen professionals listed with that name, but only one was in Massachusetts. Dr. Peter Winslow was a clinical psychologist with an office in Cambridge.

Sam printed out the information. “Wow,” Gigi said, staring at the paper in her hand. “You scare me. Want to take a field trip?”

They left a note for Ava, saying only that they’d gone out for the afternoon and would be back by dinner. Sam had a license but no car; they rode their bikes to the train station in Newburyport and took the commuter rail into the city.

They had decided to stake out Peter’s office in Cambridge. From North Station, they took the green line to Park Street, then changed to the red line to Central Square. This wasn’t an area Gigi had been to before, but Sam and Evan had been to a used-guitar store here with Les, so they weren’t intimidated by the traffic or the homeless guys holding out cups or squatting on blankets in doorways, some with trembling, sad-faced little dogs. Most had cardboard signs saying things like
WILL WORK FOR FOOD.
Gigi gave away most of her money before Sam stopped her, saying they were probably just going to buy booze with it.

Peter’s office was upstairs from a busy coffee shop with college students parked at outdoor tables and along a counter just inside the window, most with their laptops open and headphones dangling from their ears. The three of them bought coffees and took up positions around a metal table on the sidewalk with a sweet view of the doorway to Peter’s office. The simple gold plaque on the door read
PETER WINSLOW, PHD, CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST
, along with three other names of psychologists who must all be in the same practice. By the Braille letters beneath it, Gigi knew they had to be in the right place.

Sam and Evan seemed as nervous as she was, checking the time on their phones about every five minutes and jittering their knees under the table. Most of the customers looked like students; the guys wore skinny jeans and black glasses, the girls Daisy Dukes or flowing colorful skirts, tank tops, and sandals. Evan and Sam fit right in, but Gigi felt suddenly awkward in her cutoffs and T-shirt. At least she’d put the rings back in her nose and eyebrow.

Nobody came and went through the doorway next door, which made Gigi worry that maybe Dr. Peter Winslow didn’t see clients on Mondays. Then, around three o’clock, a woman went inside, and every hour after that, another client appeared. She and the boys continued to sit there—nobody in the café seemed to mind, or even notice—and eventually Gigi bought them sandwiches to help pay for their time at the table. The boys gobbled the food down in three bites, but Gigi was too nervous to eat.

Just after seven o’clock, Peter came downstairs. It was so unexpected a sighting after so many tedious hours that Gigi didn’t know whether to believe it was him, until Evan nudged her sharply in the ribs.

“Hey,” Evan hissed. “That’s our guy.”

Gigi’s mouth went dry. Peter was walking toward them, tapping a white cane on the sidewalk. His hair was dark, almost black, with a few gray streaks. His face was lined but otherwise the same as the face in the yearbook. His brown eyes were so familiar that Sam said, “Wow. He looks just like Aunt Elaine.”

“And Grandpa,” Evan said. “Weird.” He turned to Gigi. “Think he’d recognize you?”

Sam snorted. “He’s blind, you douche bag.”

“Shut up!” Gigi hissed, because Peter was coming closer.

He walked right past them, a handsome man whose only flaw was that his brown eyes jittered a little from side to side with the motion of his walk. He had a square jaw and high cheekbones. He looked like a perfect blend of Ava, with her sharp cheekbones and strong build, and Elaine, with her exotic features and pale skin. Nothing but the cane and those eyes would have clued anybody in to his inability to see.

“What now?” Sam asked once Peter was inside the café.

“We should totally ambush him,” Evan suggested. “Surround him and start talking.”

“What if he doesn’t believe me?” Gigi said, suddenly panicking.

“He’s going to believe you, dude,” Sam said, rolling his eyes. “Nobody could make up a story like this.”

“Yeah, but what if he doesn’t even know he’s adopted?” Gigi whispered back. “This might ruin his life.”

“He’s got to know,” Evan said. “He was already in school by then, right?”

“Right,” Gigi said.

“Do you want to call our mom? Maybe come here another day with her to talk to him?” Evan said. He was thinking hard about the consequences of their actions, Gigi could tell. Evan was like that.

“No,” Gigi said. “I’m going for it.” She stood up, brushed off her clothes. She was tired of waiting, of thinking
What if?
Her first priority was to do what Dad wanted. “I don’t think I should do it here, though. I should go up to his office, where it’s more private.”

“Dude, he might think you’re a psycho stalker if you corner him,” Sam said. “Besides, we should be with you.”

“No, she’s right,” Evan said. “No guy wants to get all emo on a street corner. And he won’t freak if she goes in alone.”

“What if he’s the psycho, and we let her go in alone?” Sam demanded.

Evan arched an eyebrow. “I’m pretty sure she could defend herself against a blind man,” he said. “Besides, we’ll be right out here with our phones. We’ll give her fifteen minutes, max, to call us and say she’s all right.”

Peter came out again after a few minutes, carrying a cup of coffee. He tapped his cane past them and went back through the doorway to his office, walking like a man who wasn’t in a hurry.

“Go,” Evan said, nudging her. “We’ll be right here.”

“Yeah, I can drink coffee all night long,” Sam said. “And if the café kicks us out, we’ll pretend we’re homeless and camp out on the corner.”

“Okay,” Gigi said. “But, before I go, can I just say I love you guys?”

“Only if you want to make me gag,” Sam said, but he ducked his head and grinned.

Evan gave her a one-armed hug. “We love you, too. Now go in there and get ’er done.”

It was a modest entryway, a pale gold hallway tiled in black and white. Peter’s office was on the second floor; Gigi climbed the stairs with her chest hurting, knowing her feet were falling where her brother’s had been just minutes before.

She hadn’t expected a receptionist, but an Asian woman with delicate features and a punk haircut sat at a desk in the common waiting room shared by the suite of offices. The waiting room was empty, the magazines too neatly arranged, a basket of children’s toys gathered neatly in one corner. They must have seen their last patient of the day, Gigi guessed. Good.

“Hello. May I help you?” the woman asked.

“I’m here to see Dr. Winslow,” Gigi said.

“Do you have an appointment?”

She should have thought to make one, Gigi realized. “No. I’m just a friend stopping by to say hello.”

“A friend?”

The receptionist clearly didn’t believe her. It was a pretty lame thing to say. Well, there was always the truth.

But, before Gigi could say more, the receptionist was picking up the phone and dialing. Peter must have answered the phone, for the woman said, “Dr. Winslow? There’s a young woman here to see you. She says she’s a friend of yours.” She looked up at Gigi. “What’s your name, please?”

“Gigi.” Gigi didn’t use her last name, suddenly afraid that Peter might have looked for them after all, maybe discovered who his parents were and didn’t want to have anything to do with them. He might recognize their father’s name.

Except that Peter had been given his mother’s name. Did he even know who his father was?

Nearly dizzy now with fear, Gigi perched on the edge of the puffy white sofa across from the receptionist’s desk. After what seemed like an hour but was probably just a few minutes, the receptionist told Gigi to head down the hallway.

“Dr. Winslow’s office is the last door on the left,” she said.

The hallway was carpeted in bright teal and the walls were painted a soothing plum. Gigi supposed this was meant to make people feel more at peace; in art class, she’d learned something about the impact colors have on moods. She wondered if blind people could feel colors, or could at least feel the moods of the people around them as they reacted to color.