Beach Plum Island (33 page)

Peter’s door was a deeper plum color with his nameplate screwed onto it. She knocked, and when he said, “Come in,” she slowly pushed the door open.

“Yes?” he said.

Gigi opened her mouth but no sound emerged. She was face-to-face with her brother. There was no doubt in her mind, and even less in her heart. Peter had the same solemn expression he’d worn for the photograph taken of him as a little boy on Aunt Finley’s couch. His hands were folded on the desk, too, the same way that little boy’s hands had been folded for the camera, as if he were holding himself in place.

She cleared her throat. “I’m not really your friend,” she said. “We’ve never met before.”

Peter’s lip twitched, but he didn’t smile. He cocked his head at the sound of her voice. “Is this one of those situations where I’m going to need to call security to remove you from my office?”

“No!” It took Gigi a minute to realize he was teasing her. She tried to laugh but didn’t succeed. Every sound stuck in her throat like a burr. “I need to sit down,” she said.

Peter came around the desk, not using his cane. He must know where his furniture was, Gigi realized, as he took her elbow and guided her to a couch against the opposite wall. It was the twin of the couch in the waiting area, puffy and white, an unexpected color for an office, Gigi would think, but then, white went with everything.

“I’m sorry,” she said, “but this is scary, seeing you.”

Peter didn’t return to the desk, but sat next to her on the couch and patted her hand. “I can hear how upset you are.”

Her brother must be a great therapist, Gigi thought, and then she couldn’t help it: his voice was so much like Dad’s that she started crying. Her eyes and nose and even her mouth began gushing water, like she was one of those fountain statues that had sprung leaks in unexpected places.

Peter must have been used to situations like this, because he calmly gathered tissues and pressed them into her hands, murmuring soothing words she mostly didn’t care about but needed to hear anyway, like “Let it out” and “It’ll all get better with time.”

“Maybe for me it’ll be better, but not for you,” Gigi mumbled miserably into one of the tissues when she’d finally dried out enough to speak. “You might be sorry you didn’t throw me out.”

“You’re not here to take care of me,” Peter said. “That’s my job, to care for people.”

She looked up at his brown eyes, seeing herself mirrored there, wondering what it would be like, knowing people only by their voices and footsteps and smells. Maybe, she thought, you could understand people better, see more into their hearts, if you didn’t have to first get past how people looked.

“I know,” she said. “It must be an interesting job.”

“Especially when strange girls show up claiming to be my friends.”

This made her laugh, finally, and Peter smiled, too. “Now,” he said. “Why are you here?”

•   •   •

When Ava had seen the note from Gigi and the boys, her first thought was to wonder where they were, of course, but knowing they were together made her worry less. They would take care of one another.

That left her free to worry again about Elaine, who had called to say she was home from the hospital and “determined to dry out.” Ava hoped it was true. She wished Elaine would let her come down to the condo, to take her to dinner at least, but Elaine had gently but firmly refused. “Let’s wait to see if I’ve really pulled myself together,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

At loose ends, Ava called Simon to tell him what was going on. He stopped her midway through her tangled explanations of going to Thompson with Gigi, finding Peter’s picture in the yearbook, and hearing that Elaine had been hospitalized for alcohol poisoning. “Come to Boston,” he said.

“What? I can’t do that!”

“Sure you can,” Simon said. “Just jump in the car and come down. I’ll take you to dinner if you don’t feel comfortable coming to my place. Besides, I have something to tell you. Something good.”

Nervously, Ava glanced around her empty but messy house, as if someone else were here, eavesdropping. She could use some good news right now. And what the hell. Elaine had pushed her away, and probably for good reason: Elaine needed to find her own way in the world, without Ava’s help. If Elaine became more responsible, and Ava slightly less, wouldn’t it make sense that someday they might find common ground?

“I’ll be there in an hour,” she told Simon.

He took her to a small Italian wine bar on Newbury Street, a place with copper-topped tables and sleek waiters dressed in black who glided around the patio. They lingered over tiramisu and thimble-sized glasses of port after dinner. It was still early, not quite seven o’clock, and Newbury Street was crowded. They sat side by side facing the street and watching the crowd, thighs touching, until Ava couldn’t stand it any longer. “How long would it take us to get to your condo from here?” she whispered.

Then they were there, miraculously together in a bed, Simon’s bed, her legs wrapped around his waist, his hand in her tangled hair. They made love twice in an hour. Afterward, Ava felt as though someone had pulled out her bones; to stand, she had to grip the back of a chair, and even then she was swaying a little, drunk with lovemaking, with love.

Simon made espresso and they took the gilded white porcelain cups out to the narrow balcony overlooking the harbor. It was only eight thirty, but it felt like a month had passed. Ava had never felt more transported out of her life, her mind. She wasn’t sure she liked it, but there it was, the truth: this was who she was, too, not just a mother and high school teacher and potter and decent tennis player and lousy housekeeper. She was Simon’s lover. She was in love with Simon.

“What was it you wanted to tell me?” she asked, realizing that was how he’d lured her down here in the first place, as if she’d needed more bait than her own desire. “The good news?”

“I told Katy about us.” Simon’s hand was trembling a little as it held the tiny cup; he had to set it down on the table between them. “She had guessed anyway.”

“How?” Ava’s mouth had gone dry.

“I guess I was maybe less subtle than I’d thought,” Simon said sheepishly. “Katy said she could tell by the way I talked about you, any time your name came up, that something was going on. The good news is that she’s okay with it. She really likes you, Ava. She wants us to be happy.”

He said this last in a rush, as if he was afraid she’d be upset, or disbelieving. Maybe she was a little bit. But she was also relieved. “I’m glad,” she said, just as her cell phone rang in the other room.

“Don’t answer it,” Simon said, covering her hand with his own. “Just be with me.”

She shook her head. “I can’t. The kids,” she said, and went in search of her phone.

It was Sam, sounding excited but otherwise okay. “Mom, we need you to come to Boston.”

“What?” Ava stared out the windows at the terrace and the glittering lights of Boston Harbor beyond it, as if Sam were standing out there. Impossible. “Where are you? What are you doing in Boston?” Immediately, her maternal panic button was pushed. She concocted scenarios, most involving friends who shouldn’t be driving and illegal substances.

“It’s okay, Mom. We’re safe.”

“Where are you, and who’s ‘we’?” she said. “Are you still with Gigi and Evan?”

“Yeah, they’re here.” She could hear Gigi in the background, sounding excited. “Gigi says to tell you we’re all fine and we haven’t done anything stupid. We just need you to come get us. We have something important to show you.”

Then it dawned on Ava: Gigi must have found Peter’s house. She had said she was going to keep looking. At least the girl would have the sense not to try and meet him alone.

Wouldn’t she?

“Hang on. I’ll be right there.”

Then she realized they didn’t know where she was, either. They’d be expecting her to take an hour to drive down. Well, they’d just have to think she drove like hell.

“I’m going with you,” Simon said when she told him her suspicions.

“No you’re not.” Ava pulled on her jeans and T-shirt. “Sorry, but this is something I have to do alone.”

He grabbed both her hands, pulled her to him. “You won’t be alone. The kids will be there. Gigi is my niece. I need to be there for her, as well as for you. This is a really big deal. I should drive you, at least, even if I don’t come inside.”

He was right, she supposed. And besides, she might be too shaky to drive. “All right. But could we just act like friends?”

Simon kissed her. “We
are
friends.”

They took Simon’s Mercedes and followed the GPS directions to the address in Cambridge that Ava had gotten from Sam. It took them all of fifteen minutes to pull up to a modest bungalow, painted brick red with a yellow door, in one of the funky student neighborhoods off Mass Ave between Harvard and MIT. This particular street seemed mostly upscale, a mix of tidy brick apartment buildings, two-family homes, and small bungalows like this one, suggesting it was where students moved after they’d kicked their professional lives in gear.

Ava peered at the neat yard with its picket fence. There were rocking chairs on the porch like the ones you saw all over Maine, painted white. Children’s toys cluttered the yard.

She checked the address against the one Sam had texted her to be sure it was the right place. “Where are they?”

“Probably inside.”

“You think they convinced Peter to let them inside? Two teenaged boys and a girl? What was he thinking? My brother’s blind!”

Simon gave her an amused look. “That doesn’t make him stupid.”

Ashamed, Ava got out of the car and slammed the door hard enough to make the car rattle. Simon climbed out, too, pocketed the keys, and offered her his arm. She took it and they crossed the street together.

Of all of the possible reunions she’d imagined for herself and Peter, this wasn’t one of them: on a poorly lit street in Cambridge, on the porch of a bungalow after having just made love with her stepmother’s brother, hoping her sons and half sister were inside. Ava felt faint with the sheer craziness of her misshapen family life.

“Are you going to ring the bell, or should we just wait until he comes out to get the morning paper?” Simon asked.

She punched his arm and knocked on the door.

A woman opened it. She was in her forties, small but curvy, streaked short hair. She smiled. “You must be Ava,” she said. “Come in. I’m Charley Winslow, Peter’s wife.” She stuck out her hand.

“I,” Ava began, but couldn’t say anything else, because Peter appeared in the hallway, Gigi at his side, and behind them Evan and Sam.

“Surprise!” Sam said. “Hey, who’s that with you? And how did you get here so fast? Way to go, Mom!”

“Uncle Simon?” Gigi said.

“Oh!” Ava said, staring at Peter, at a face so like her father’s and Elaine’s, so like her own and Gigi’s, that she burst into tears.

Charley and Simon led her like an invalid to the futon sofa in the snug living room. Charley brought her a cup of mint tea and sat cross-legged in front of Peter, who sat in a mission-style chair across from Ava. She stared at him while the kids told her about their detective work, and how Peter had let Gigi in his office. Meanwhile, Ava’s mind buzzed with questions she couldn’t ask yet: Had Peter looked for them? Had he been happy and loved as a child? Did he know, now, that he wasn’t ever forgotten, no matter how many people tried to erase the past?

“How did Gigi convince you that she was really your sister?” Ava asked once she’d collected herself enough to speak.

“Gigi didn’t need to work too hard,” Peter said, his voice gentle. “I wasn’t adopted until I was eight. I knew I had another family.”

“Where did you go?” Ava asked when she could trust her voice. “After Finley, I mean. Do you remember her? Aunt Finley, our mother’s sister? Mom wanted her to raise you.”

Peter nodded. “I have a couple of memories of that house. Mostly of being kept in one room and wanting so much to go outside. I used to think of ways to escape.” A smile flashed across his handsome face. “Once, I even made it out the window and down the street before she caught me.”

He told Ava then about the cause of his blindness—his optic nerves hadn’t developed, “just one of those things, nobody’s fault”—his foster homes, a series of them in Maine, and about the family in Portland that finally adopted him because his adoptive mother’s own brother had been blinded in Vietnam. “She was on a mission to adopt a blind child, and I got lucky,” Peter said simply. “She and her husband were good to me, and I had two sisters who didn’t seem to mind a little brother tagging along. My uncle was a big role model for me, too, showing me that being blind doesn’t have to define or limit who you are.”

Charley reached up from where she was sitting to take his hand. “I always wanted him to find his birth mother,” she said, “but Peter didn’t want to hurt the family he had by making them think they weren’t enough for him.”

“Your family sent you to Thompson?” Ava asked. “I’m sure Gigi told you that’s how we found you, through the yearbooks.”

“My family couldn’t have afforded a school like that. Luckily, I was in middle school in Portland, in a special program, and I got a scholarship. That changed my life and meant I could go to college, live on my own.” Peter laughed. “I can’t believe you found me because of
South Pacific
. Man, did I love to sing when I was in school.”

“Me, too,” Gigi said. “Evan and Sam and I have a band with another guy, a drummer, and I’m the singer.”

“Dad loved to sing,” Ava said.

Peter cocked his head at her. “A family thing, then. And you, Ava?”

“Can’t carry a tune.”

“Are there any more of us?” Peter asked.

Ava thought he must be asking about other people in the room, since he couldn’t see them. Then she realized he meant family. “We have another sister,” she said.

Peter glanced around the room as if he could, indeed, count heads. “Where is she?”

“She lives in Boston,” Ava said. “Her name is Elaine.”

“A half sister or full?”

“Full. She’s five years younger than I am,” Ava said. Then, after a minute, she felt compelled to add, “Elaine knows we were looking for you, but she’s not sure she’s ready to meet you yet.”