The Map of True Places (18 page)

Maureen's hands were shaking as she turned the key in the ignition. She flooded the engine several times before the car finally started. Zee fought the urge to tell her mother that she wasn't doing it right. She'd already said far too much.

 

O
N HIS WAY BETWEEN SHOPS,
Mickey had spotted Zee talking to Ann in front of her store. He walked over to join them. “What?” he said. “You're stopping to see her before you say hello to me?”

When Zee looked at Uncle Mickey's eyes, it was like looking into Maureen's. It had always been disconcerting. Uncle Mickey had the same deep blue Irish eyes that his sister had had, though the look in his had always been much more playful.

He lifted her up and spun her around. “How's the little bride-to-be?” he said.

“Good. Fine,” she said. “A little dizzy, actually.”

He laughed and put her down, winking at Ann. “How's Finch?”

“I think you know,” she said.

“I've been meaning to get over to see him,” Mickey lied.

He'd been saying the same thing for years. Zee didn't challenge him.

“I need a carpenter,” she said. “One who can put in some railings. I thought you might know someone.”

“Sure,” he said. “I know a couple of people who could probably do that for you.”

He thought about it for a moment, then they said good-bye to Ann, and he walked her over to the next wharf, where the
Friendship
was moored.

At 171 feet, the tall ship was impressive. It had always seemed an odd coincidence to Zee, with so many ships having sailed out of Salem in the age of sail, that the
Friendship
of Maureen's book was the same historic vessel the city had later chosen to re-create. There had been no real connection between the
Friendship
and Maureen's book, no record that she had ever been used for the young lovers' escape. As it turned out, the very voyage that Maureen had chosen, the only one that would have accurately fit with history, had been the
Friendship
's final one. On that final voyage, the East Indiaman had been captured by the British,
and its entire crew had been taken prisoner. Maureen's choice of vessels had rendered her desired happy ending impossible.

When they got to the rigging shed, Mickey put two fingers to his mouth and gave a loud whistle.

Zee spotted the man Mickey was whistling at, perched high in the rigging of the
Friendship
's forward mast.

When the man didn't turn, he whistled again. Then yelled, “Hey, Hawk, come down here a minute, will you?”

The man started down the web of rope. At first glance Zee thought he had fallen, his descent was so rapid. It was only when he got closer that she saw the way his arms and legs moved in rhythmic coordination. Like a dancer. Or a spider.

He walked over to where they stood. He looked very familiar. She had seen him before.

“What's up?” He glanced from Mickey to Zee and back again.

“This is my niece, Zee. She needs someone to do some carpentry work.”

“I'm not a carpenter,” he said. “I'm a rigger.”

“Rigger, carpenter, navigator—this guy can guide a ship home just by looking at the stars.”

“That's a slight exaggeration,” Hawk said.

“Seriously, he's a jack-of-all-trades,” Mickey said to Zee.

“And master of none,” Hawk said, laughing.

“And he's modest, too,” Mickey said, slapping him hard on the back.

“Thanks a lot,” Hawk said, and Mickey laughed. Hawk turned to Zee. “What do you need done?”

“Just railings,” Zee said. “And some more grab bars in the bathroom.

“It's for my dad,” she added.

“I guess I can do railings.” He looked at Zee for a long moment. “I know you,” he said. His eyes did a body scan, and he clearly liked what he
saw. He squinted at her face, analyzing. “Where do I know you from?”

“She's engaged,” Mickey said, lifting her hand to show him the ring, not realizing he'd already seen it. “And she's a shrink. Meaning she's far too smart to fall for a tired old line like that one.”

“A shrink, huh?” Hawk said. He grinned and shrugged. But he kept looking at her, as if he were still trying to figure out where he'd seen her before.

She knew immediately where she'd seen him, though she didn't want to say so. It had been just a few days ago, at Lilly Braedon's funeral. And before that on the bridge as she watched the television the night Lilly jumped. He was one of the eyewitnesses, the one in the blue van who hadn't wanted to talk to the reporter.

“When can you do the railing?” Zee asked.

“I don't know. Maybe tonight or tomorrow night. Are you in a hurry?”

“It's not urgent, but it is important.” She wrote down the address and handed it to him.

“I'll get there my first free night,” he said.

“Hey, Hawk, we need you up here!” one of the guys yelled from the rigging.

“I've gotta get back.”

“Thanks,” she said.

He nodded and smiled.

Zee and Mickey watched him walk back to the ship.

“His name is really Hawk?” she said to Mickey.

“It's a nickname. Short for Mohawk, someone told me. That's his boat,” Mickey said, pointing to an old lobster boat tied up at one of the slips. Instead of displaying a name on the stern the way most of the boats did, this one featured a painted image of a hawk in flight. “I hear he's the best worker on the ship. Don't know if he has any Native American blood, but he sure can climb.”

Zee felt her dizzy spell return as she watched him climb back up the rigging. She put out her hand, grabbing Mickey's arm for support.

“I know,” Mickey said. “I can't even watch him.” He turned to her. “How much time do you have?”

She looked at her watch. “About an hour.”

“Come on. I'll buy you a drink,” he said, steering her toward Capt.'s, a waterfront restaurant and bar on the wharf directly across from the
Friendship.

M
ELVILLE STOPPED AT THE
post office to pick up his mail. Then he walked over to Steve's Quality Market to get some of the prime beef he knew Finch liked. Finch could no longer chew very well, and he had trouble swallowing. But the butcher at Steve's would grind the beef for him, and then Zee could scramble it with mushrooms and some garlic and oregano. It wasn't much, but at least it wouldn't be sandwiches. He hoped that Zee was giving Finch his vitamins. He'd have to remind her.

For the first time in weeks, Melville felt hopeful. Maybe it was a side effect of the new drug that had made Finch behave so erratically, he thought. That would explain everything. Why else would something that had almost killed their relationship once before have come back so suddenly, as if the whole thing had happened not more than thirty years ago but just in the last few weeks? Melville hoped it could be explained away by the new drug that Finch was taking, the one that was said to cause hallucinations in some people. It would be great if Finch's rage were mere hallucination. Melville would move back in, and he would never mention the fight they'd had. They would go on as usual, as if the whole thing had never happened.

Finch had been off the drug for several days. It should have cleared
out of his system by now. But if Melville were honest with himself, he'd have to admit that the whole thing had started before the new drug. It had begun a few months ago with an offhand remark about Maureen. Before he knew it, they were fighting about everything, from the dripping kitchen faucet to the piles of newspapers in the hall.

The subject of Maureen had come up many times lately. And just as Finch always did when he didn't know how to say something, he had quoted Hawthorne: “A woman's chastity consists, like an onion, of a series of coats.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“It means what it means.”

“If you have something to say, I'd appreciate your saying it straight out,” Melville replied. He didn't like talking about Maureen. His guilt on that matter had almost done them in. He put a hand on Finch's shoulder. “Tell me what this is about.”

“I don't know,” Finch had said, suddenly realizing how confused he was.

Melville leaned over, taking Finch's face in his hands. “‘This relationship has to succeed, not in spite of what happened with Maureen but because of it.'” He looked at Finch. “Those are your words,” Melville said.

“I know.” Finch was crying.

“You know how much I love you,” Melville said.

“Perhaps you had better keep reminding me,” Finch said.

He was losing Finch to this damned disease. It was a fact he seldom faced directly, yet there it was. He knew the inevitability of demise, but they had been together for so many years, happily together. Even after the Parkinson's, they had been happy. He knew that the illness would rob him of Finch eventually. He'd found himself looking away when the shaking began, not wanting to see it. Luckily, shaking had not become a major part of Finch's case, though there were many other ele
ments of the disease that had taken their toll. He had to remove himself sometimes so that Finch wouldn't see him cry.

He had read all the books, knew that there'd be a time when there was some crossover. If he were to look at things honestly, he would have to admit that it had already happened. Parkinson's patients, if they lived long enough with the disease, often got what was called the “Alzheimer's crossover” and started to show signs of dementia. When Finch had initially presented with a bit of dementia, Melville remembered how relieved they were to find out it was only Parkinson's. Only. That was a joke. To say something was only Parkinson's was like saying that Hurricane Katrina was only in New Orleans for a day. Parkinson's was one of the cruelest diseases out there. If you lived long enough with it, if something else didn't get you first, you'd end up in the fetal position in a bed in some institution, sometimes for years. Melville often wondered—often hoped, in fact—that he would have the strength it took to help Finch end things if it came to that. He knew Finch's wishes, and he also knew that Finch had been saving pills for years against the inevitable.

But things were changing, and they were changing fast, with a look, an offhand remark, or a sarcastic tone of voice that he'd never heard Finch use before.

The night he kicked Melville out, Finch threw the volume of Yeats at him, hitting him in the head, leaving a bruise. Melville hadn't seen the book for so many years—he and Finch had put it away after Maureen's suicide, in a place where Zee would never find it.

“Get out!” Finch had screamed. “And don't come back!”

Melville called a doctor he knew in Boston, a neurologist friend of a friend, and someone he'd had coffee with a few years back.

“Dementia is funny,” the doctor said. “Sometimes it's worse when it starts. There's so much anger involved. The patient is trying to hide his symptoms yet is clearly terrified. But then there's a second stage, when
things start to settle down. And usually that gets better for everyone for a while. I call it the honeymoon period. Of course there will also be a time when he may not even know you at all,” the doctor said. “But, hopefully, that won't happen for a long time.”

 

T
HE PLAN THAT
M
ELVILLE AND
Zee had come up with today had been logical enough. He would drop by, ostensibly to pick up some of his belongings. Then they would see how things went. If Finch's anger had been a product of the drugs, maybe he would have forgotten it by now. Melville would move back in and take care of Finch until the end. And if it were something else, some new progression of the disease, then they'd figure out what to do next.

It felt odd to knock on the door. He didn't think he'd ever done that before. When he had first become involved with Finch, when Maureen was in the hospital, he'd almost never come into this house. He and Finch had always met elsewhere, usually somewhere in town. And later, after he'd moved his boat up here, when he thought Maureen wasn't coming home, Finch had started leaving the door unlatched for him and he'd slipped into the house as quietly as possible late at night, so as not to wake Zee. In those first years, they had been very careful.

 

Z
EE ANSWERED THE DOOR.
“H
E'S
asleep in his chair,” she said. Melville checked his watch. “Three-fifteen.” Finch's pill was due at four. He should have timed this better.

She was bundling papers in the hallway, her hands blackened, an old bandanna from Finch's pirate days around her head.

“I'd been meaning to do that,” he said, remembering how Finch had talked him out of it every time Melville started to clear the newspapers. Finch had claimed he was going to read them all, though he
couldn't read anymore, hadn't been able to for quite some time.

Finch was a bit of a hoarder by nature. Such was his respect for the written word that he could never bear to part with any printed material. Even the ad circulars from the weekend papers had to be kept for at least a month, with Melville sometimes sneaking them out of the house and down the street to throw them away, so that Finch, finding them missing, wouldn't raid the trash and bring them back inside.

“Does your father know you're doing that?” Melville asked Zee.

“He knows,” she said. “He doesn't like it, but he knows.”

Melville helped her get the recycling bags to the curb. They were lucky—tomorrow was trash day, and in his current state Finch was unlikely to try to reclaim them.

They sat in the kitchen making small talk, waiting for Finch to wake up. She didn't mention the Yeats book, and neither did he, though he wanted to. Part of him wanted her to have it. But years ago he'd made a promise to Finch, and Melville always kept his promises.

Zee checked her watch. It was almost four. “It's nearly time for his next pill,” she said. “He should be waking up soon.”

As if on cue, she heard the sound of Finch's walker.

“You got him to use his walker?”

“Yup,” she said.

“I'm very impressed.”

Neither of them spoke as they waited while Finch negotiated the long hallway.

Melville willed his heart to slow down. He couldn't stay seated.

“I hired a carpenter to put some railings in the hall,” she said, sensing his nervousness, trying to calm him.

“Good idea.”

He took a breath and held it. He stared at the floor. When the walker paused at the kitchen threshold, Melville looked up at Finch.

Their eyes locked.

“Hello, Finch,” Melville said.

Finch stood still and stiff, his expression masked and unreadable.

“I brought you some sirloin,” Melville said. “I put it in the fridge.”

Finch lowered himself into his chair. Falling the last few inches, he winced. When he finally spoke, it was not to Melville but to Zee.

“I want him out of here,” he said quietly. It was almost time for his next pill, so his voice was gone. The sound scratched as if tearing his throat. But his words were unmistakable.