The Map of True Places

“Nevertheless,” she said, ending any possibility of continuing the meds. It seemed astounding to Zee when she thought of the side effects some doctors expected their patients to contend with. Any television ad for pharmaceuticals these days came with a list of contraindications so long it sometimes seemed amazing to Zee that people would dare to take so much as an aspirin.

The doctor stood up. “Can you walk for me, Professor Finch?”

Finch stood shakily. Her first impulse was to help him, but she willed her hands to stay at her sides.

With great effort Finch shuffled fifteen feet across the doctor’s office. Zee could tell how difficult his effort was only by his breathing. His face was masked, a classic sign of Parkinson’s.

Once a reserved New England Yankee, Finch had become more emotional with the progression of his disease. But his emotion showed neither on his face nor in any vocal inflection. It was a more subtle energy that told Zee how frustrating and impossible this short walk had become for her father.

She had often wondered at the fact that Finch didn’t have the shaking so common to Parkinson’s. Ten years into the disease, he had only recently developed any kind of resting tremor, and even that was so slight that anyone who was not looking for it would never notice.

Curiously, none of these symptoms had been the first signs of Finch’s illness. The first cause for concern had happened in a restaurant in Boston, the night Finch had taken them all out to dinner to celebrate the release of his new book based on Melville’s letters to Hawthorne. The book was aptly titled: An Intervening Hedge, after a review that Melville once wrote for one of Hawthorne’s books.

Finch had been working on the book for the better part of ten years. The fact that he had finished it at all was cause enough for celebration; the fact that someone had actually published it represented job security. Finch didn’t need to work. His family had left him money. But teaching was something he loved, and teaching Hawthorne and the American Romantic writers was his greatest joy in life.

Finch presented a copy to both Zee and Melville, the name of the man for whom Finch had left Zee’s mother. That’s what Zee often told people who asked, though neither statement was very accurate. Actually, Finch never left Maureen, though he had met Melville for the first time during one of Maureen’s extended hospitalizations. And Melville’s name was really Charles Thompson. Melville was a nickname Finch had given him, one that stuck.

Zee opened her book to the title page, which he had inscribed to her. To my sweet Hepzibah, he had written in a hand that was much diminished from the one she remembered. A million thank-yous. Zee was contemplating just what those thank-yous might be for when she caught the dedication that was printed on the following page: FROM HAWTHORNE TO MELVILLE WITH UNDYING AFFECTION.

Zee had always had mixed feelings about the book, which hinted at a more intimate relationship between Hawthorne and Melville than had previously been suspected. Though even Finch admitted that the men of the times had been far more accustomed to intimacy than those of today, often writing detailed letters of their affection for each other and even sharing beds, the fact that Finch had tried to prove that there was something deeper there bothered Zee more than she liked to admit. In espousing this theory, it seemed to Zee that Finch was attempting some strange form of justification for his own life choices, justification that was, in Zee’s opinion, both far-fetched and unnecessary.

That Finch and Melville were the real thing, Zee had never doubted. Not only were they clearly in love, but because they were so happy and devoted to each other, they had provided for Zee the kind of stability that Finch and Maureen never could. So despite any damage their love might have caused to the family, Zee would always be grateful for that stability.

But the relationship between Hawthorne and Sophia was a legendary love story, the kind Maureen had always wished she could find for herself. The fact that it was a true story, and one her mother had loved so much, made it sacred for Zee. Although her father was one of the country’s preeminent Hawthorne scholars and, as such, had more intimate knowledge of Hawthorne than Zee would ever have, that didn’t make it any easier for Zee to handle. From the time she was little, Finch’s love of Hawthorne had made the writer’s life almost as real to her as her own, but until recently she had never heard Finch’s theory about Hawthorne and Melville. Maybe it was some kind of misplaced loyalty to her mother, or the desperate hope that The Great Love really did exist, but Zee hated the idea that Finch was messing with the story of Hawthorne and Sophia.

She felt her face getting hot. She could see Melville watching her. Not wanting to ruin the evening, she excused herself from the table. “I forgot to feed the meter,” she said, standing too quickly, almost knocking over her glass of wine. “I’ll be right back.”

She walked out the front door and onto the street. The truth was, she had parked in the lot and not at a meter. She walked halfway down the block before she stopped.

It was Melville finally, and not Finch, who caught up with her. She could feel him standing behind her on the corner. He didn’t speak, but she could sense his presence. At last she turned around.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

She just stared at him.

“I had no idea he was going to write that dedication.”

“Right,” she said. She realized as she looked at him that it was probably true. She had noticed the expression on his face when he opened the book, the quick glance that passed between them. Finch loved him. That was the truth of it. They loved each other.

“Hawthorne adored his wife,” she said to him. “There are volumes dedicated to that fact.”

“I don’t think anyone is disputing that,” Melville said.

“His whole book is disputing that.”

“I’ve read it,” Melville said. “It isn’t.”

They stood together on the sidewalk. People walked around them.

“It’s possible to truly love more than one person in this life,” Melville said. “Believe me, I know.”

She regarded him strangely. It was the first time she’d ever heard Melville say anything so revealing about his past.

She had no idea what to say.

“This night means so much to him,” Melville said.

He wasn’t telling her how to feel; he was just telling her what was true.

She felt stupid standing here, like a kid who had just thrown a tantrum. It surprised her. “I don’t know why that got to me.”

“I think it’s fairly obvious,” Melville said.

“You know that I believe you two belong together.”

“Of course,” Melville said.

“It’s just the way he does things sometimes. It brought everything back.”

“I know,” Melville said, putting his hand on her shoulder. “Come on inside with me.”

They walked back together. Finch was sitting alone at the table, looking confused. She kissed his cheek.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “My car was about to be ticketed. Lucky for me Melville had quarters.”

Finch looked so relieved that Zee almost cried. The book sat on the table where she had left it. She picked it up and turned it over, reading the blurbs on the back. A picture of a younger-looking Finch stared out at her from the jacket cover. He was standing in front of the House of the Seven Gables. “To those hedges,” she said, raising her glass.

She could see Melville’s amusement at her toast. As much as she resented him sometimes, Melville was one of the only people in the world who truly got her.

They ordered dinner and drank several glasses of wine.

Since the celebration was in Finch’s honor, Melville had planned to pick up the tab. But Finch wouldn’t hear of it and insisted on paying. The bill came to $150, but Finch laid down $240 in cash, unusual for him, as a frugal Yankee. Melville reached over and retrieved three twenties. “I think these bills were stuck together,” he said, handing them back to Finch. “Damned ATMs.”

Finch looked surprised and then slightly embarrassed. He stuffed the returned bills into his pocket.

Zee could see that he was genuinely confused.

“What’s the matter with my father?” she called to ask Melville the next morning. She was moving between classes, and the reception on her cell phone kept cutting in and out.

“He had a lot of wine,” Melville said.

“He always has a lot of wine.”

“Maybe the bills really did get stuck together.”

“Right,” Zee said.

At Melville’s insistence Finch had already made an appointment with his primary-care physician. Zee said she would prefer for him to see a neurologist in Boston.