Now you know what I haven’t been able to tell you all these months. You know my secrets. I wanted to tell you, almost since
the day that we met. I have been grieving for such a long time, and I couldn’t be comforted. So I kept my past from you.
You,
of all people. There are words from a poem about the local fishing boats and their crews that have been carved into the bar
of Docks Tavern on the Vineyard.
The longed-for ships / Come empty home or founder on the deep / And eyes first lose their tears and then their sleep.
I saw the words one night at Docks, when I couldn’t cry anymore, and couldn’t sleep, and I was almost crushed by the awful
truth in them.
Matt
That was all that he wrote, but Katie needed more. She had to find Matt.
S
HE HAD
always been a fighter. She’d conquered her fears to come to New York by herself. She’d always had the courage to do what
she had to do.
Katie took the shuttle to Boston first thing in the morning. At Logan Airport, she was met by a car service that would take
her to Woods Hole and the ferry to Martha’s Vineyard.
She entered the Steamship Authority terminal in Woods Hole, bought her ticket, and got on a two-decker ferry called the
Islander.
She had to talk to Matt. It was wrong not to let him know everything. It was just plain wrong, and she couldn’t live that
way. Matt needed to know about the baby.
During the seven-mile, forty-five-minute ride, she thought of Suzanne, and
her
arrival on the Vineyard after she left Boston. She wondered if Suzanne had been on board the
Islander,
too. She remembered the last words Suzanne had written to Nicholas:
I can’t wait to see you in the morning.
Katie realized she hadn’t brought a manuscript to read on the plane or the ferry.
Work is a rubber ball,
she thought.
Yes, it is.
God, look at what she would have missed if she had brought along paperwork: the rhythmic chop of the waves against the ancient
ferry’s bow, the picturesque island of Martha’s Vineyard getting closer and closer, the queasiness in her stomach every time
a big wave splashed into the ship.
Matt was a glass ball. He had been scuffed, marked, damaged, but maybe he hadn’t been shattered. Or maybe he had been.
The mystery would never be solved unless she found him.
As the
Islander
got closer and closer to the Vineyard, Katie couldn’t take her eyes off the old Oak Bluffs ferry terminal. It was a gray
clapboard building, a one-story structure that looked a hundred years old if it was a day. She could see a beach on one side
of the terminal, and the small town of Oak Bluffs on the other.
Her eyes searched the terminal building, the beach, the town—looking for Matt.
She didn’t see him anywhere.
T
HE TOWN
buildings of Oak Bluffs were across the street from the ferry terminal. There were several odd-colored taxis parked out front.
And, of course, Matt wasn’t waiting there for her to appear. He didn’t know she was coming, and even if he had, he might not
have come.
Katie spotted Docks Tavern as she started toward the taxi stand. Her heart skipped a beat. This had to be a sign, no? Had
to be something. She walked toward the bar instead of searching for a cab.
Was Matt in there? Probably not, but Docks was where he had read the lines carved into the bar, which he had included in his
note in the diary.
It was dark inside, a little smoky, pleasant enough, though. A Bruce Springsteen song played from an old Wellington jukebox.
About a dozen patrons were at the bar, and several people were seated in the weathered wooden booths on either side. Most
of them looked up at her as she entered. She knew she was having a bad hair day, bad clothes day, bad life day.
“I come in peace,” Katie said, and smiled.
She was incredibly nervous, though. She had decided she was coming to Martha’s Vineyard about three in the morning. She had
to see Matt again. She wanted to be in his arms and to hold him, even if that might not happen. Katie needed a hug badly.
Her eyes roamed slowly over the faces, which seemed right out of
The Perfect Storm.
Her heart sped up some. She didn’t see Matt. Well, thank God, he wasn’t a regular at least.
She went looking for the poem carved into the bar. It took her a few minutes to find it at the far end, near a dartboard and
a public phone. She read the words again:
The longed-for ships.
Come empty home or founder on the deep.
And eyes first lose their tears and then their sleep.
“Help you with something? Or is your interest wholly literary?”
She looked up at the sound of the male voice. She saw a bartender, mid-thirties, red-bearded, ruggedly good-looking. Maybe
a sailor himself.
“I’m just looking for someone. A friend. I think he comes in here,” she said.
“He has good taste in taverns, anyway. Does he have a name?”
She took in a breath and tried to keep the tremor out of her voice. “Matt Harrison,” Katie said.
The bartender nodded, but his dark brown eyes narrowed some. “Matt comes in here for dinner sometimes. He paints houses on
the island. You say you’re a friend of his?”
“He also writes books,” Katie said, feeling a little defensive now. “Poetry.”
The bartender shrugged, and continued to look at her suspiciously. “Not that I know of. At any rate, Matt’s not here today.
As you can see for yourself.” The red-bearded man finally smiled at her. “So what will it be? You look like a Diet Coke to
me.”
“No, nothing, thanks. Could you tell me how to get to his place? I’m a friend of his. I’m his editor. I have the address.”
The bartender thought about it, and then he tore a sheet off his order pad. “You driving?” he asked as he began to write down
a few directions.
“I’ll probably take a cab.”
“They’ll know the place,” the man said, but didn’t elaborate. “Everybody knows Matt Harrison.”
K
ATIE SLOWLY
climbed into a rusted, sky blue Dodge Polaris cab at the ferry terminal. Suddenly, she was feeling tired. She said to the
driver, “I’d like to go to the Abel’s Hill Cemetery. Do you know it?”
By way of an answer, the cabdriver simply pulled away from the curb. She guessed he knew where everything was on the island.
She certainly hadn’t meant to offend him.
Abel’s Hill was a good twenty minutes away, a small, picturesque place that looked at least as old and historic as any of
the houses they had passed on the way there.
“I won’t be too long,” she said to the driver as she struggled out of the backseat. “Please wait for me.”
“I’ll wait, but I have to keep the meter running.”
“That’s fine. I understand,” she told him, and shrugged. “I’m from New York City. I’m used to it.”
The cab waited while she slowly and reverently walked from row to row in Abel’s Hill, checking all the headstones, but especially
the newer ones. During the ride over, the cabdriver had told her that John Belushi and the writer Lillian Hellman were buried
here.
Her chest felt tight, and there was a lump in her throat as she searched for the grave. She felt as if she were intruding.
Finally, she found it. She saw the carved lettering on a stone set on a hill,
Suzanne Bedford Harrison.
Her heart clutched again, and she felt dizzy. She bent and went down on one knee.
“I had to come, Suzanne,” she whispered. “I feel as if I know you so well by now. I’m Katie Wilkinson.”
Her eyes traveled across the inscription.
Country doctor, much loved wife of Matthew, perfect mother of Nicholas.
Katie offered up a prayer, one that her father had taught her when she was only three or four.
She turned to the smaller stone right beside Suzanne’s. She sucked in a breath.
Nicholas Harrison, a real boy, cherished son of Suzanne and Matthew.
“Hello, sweet baby boy. Hello, Nicholas. My name is Katie.”
She began to sob uncontrollably then. She clutched her chest with both arms, and her whole body shook like a weeping willow
in a storm. She mourned for poor baby Nicholas. She couldn’t begin to understand how Matt had survived this.
She imagined him in Nicholas’s room, playing the music box on the crib over and over, trying to remem- ber how it had been
with his baby son, trying to bring Nicholas back.
There were flowers, daisy poms, carnations, and gladiolas at both of the graves.
Someone has been here recently, maybe even today.
Matt had always given her roses. He was a good man, sweet and kind. She’d been right about that. She hadn’t made a bad choice,
just an unlucky one.
And then Katie noticed something else, the date that was carved into the two headstones.
July 18, 1999.
She felt a shiver vibrate through her, and her knees were weak again. July 18 was two years to the day of the party she’d
had planned for Matt on her terrace in New York, the night she’d given him the copy of his book of poems. No wonder he ran
away. And now, where was Matt?
Katie had to see him—one more time.
I
T TOOK
another twenty minutes for the creaky island cab to bump its way from the cemetery to the old boathouse that she immediately
recognized as Suzanne’s.
It was painted white now. The barnlike doors and the trim were gray. There was a flower garden full of hydrangeas, azaleas,
and day lillies.
She could see why Suzanne had loved it so much. Katie did, too. It was a real home.
She slowly got out of the cab. An ocean breeze played with her hair. She felt the wind gently pat her face and her bare legs.
Her heart was back into its pounding routine again.
“Should I wait?” the driver asked.
Katie nibbled her upper lip, crossed and uncrossed her long arms. She looked at her watch: 3:28. “No. Thanks. You can go this
time. I’ll be here for a while.”
She paid the driver, and he sped off.
Her heart was stuck in her throat as she walked up the gravel path to the house. Her eyes did a once-over of the property.
She saw no sign of Matt. No car. Maybe it was in back.
She knocked on the front door, waited, fidgeted, then used the old wooden knocker.
No one answered.
God, it was so weird to be here.
Her heart just wouldn’t stop pounding.
She didn’t see a sign of anyone at the house, but she was determined to wait for Matt. She could almost imagine him showing
up now: old jeans, a khaki shirt, work boots, welcoming smile.
Would Matt smile if he saw here here? She needed to talk to him, to get some things off her chest. It was her turn to talk.
She deserved that much. She had secrets she needed to share.
So she waited and waited. Then Katie sat on the front lawn for a while, massaging her stomach gently, listening to the waves.
Eventually, she crossed Beach Road . . . where Suzanne’s dog, Gus, had been struck by a speeding red truck.
She sat on the beach where Matt and Suzanne had danced in the moonlight. She could
see
them. And then she imagined dancing with Matt again. He wasn’t a great dancer, but she had loved being in his strong arms.
She didn’t like admitting it now, but it was the truth. It would always be the truth.
She thought that she probably had most of the mystery solved: Matt couldn’t get Suzanne and Nicholas out of his mind, couldn’t
stop grieving. He probably didn’t think that he ever could. Maybe he couldn’t bear the thought of losing someone again. He
had lost his wife and year-old child, and even his father when he was just a boy.
She couldn’t blame him; she really couldn’t. Not since she’d read the diary and understood what he had been through. If anything,
and this really hurt her, she loved Matt more now than she ever had.
Katie picked her head up and saw a small, dark-haired woman in a pale blue dress, but barefoot. She was walking toward her
across Beach Road. Katie didn’t take her eyes off her.
When the woman was close, she said, “You’re Melanie Bone, aren’t you?”
Melanie had the nicest, friendliest smile, just what she would have imagined. “And you’re Katie. You’re Matthew’s editor from
New York. He told me about you. He said you were willowy and pretty; that you usually wore your dark hair in a braid but sometimes
loose strands fell across your cheeks.”
Katie wanted so much to ask Melanie what else Matt had said, but she didn’t, couldn’t. “Do you know where he is?” she asked.
Melanie grimaced and shook her head. “He’s not here. I’m sorry, Katie. I don’t know where Matt is. We’re all worried about
him, actually. I was hoping that he was with you in New York.”
“He’s not,” Katie said. “I haven’t seen him, either.” Late in the afternoon Melanie gave Katie a ride back to the ferry terminal
in Oak Bluffs. The kids rode in the back of the station wagon. They were just about as good-natured as their mother. They
liked Katie right away, and she liked them.
“Don’t give up on him,” Melanie said as Katie was about to walk away to board the
Islander.
“He’s worth it. Matt’s had the worst experience of anyone I know. But I think he’ll recover. He’s a really good person. Handy
around the house, too. And Katie, I know he loves you.”
Katie nodded, and she waved good-bye to the Bone family. Then she left Martha’s Vineyard the way she had come there, alone.
A
NOTHER LONG,
bad week passed for her. Katie fell deeper and deeper into her work, but she thought a lot about going home to North Carolina.
For good. She would have the baby there, among the people she loved and who loved her.
Katie hadn’t been in the office very long that Monday morning when she heard her name being called.