Now That You Mention It

Another week crept by. Mom came home on Saturday morning and told us she’d switched her hours so she’d be able to be home with us after school.

“No one wants you here,” Lily said, her voice so cold and cruel I flinched.

“No one asked you,” Mom said mildly.

And that was the end of our deep family discussion.

What if Mom had killed Dad? Was that possible? She could lop the head off a sea bass, slide the knife down its belly and gut the thing in seconds... She could use a gun... We lived on an island, so she could dump his body anywhere and let the tides do what they would. I regretted reading the Patricia Cornwell novels I’d been sneaking out of the library, not to mention Stephen King, the patron saint of Maine. Was my father down the well, like Dolores Claiborne’s husband?

We didn’t have a well. Mom didn’t talk to the police.

He had packed. Left his wedding ring. Sure, Mom could’ve faked it, but she didn’t. I knew.

He was simply...gone. But Lily and I were the lights of his life. He told us that all the time. He wouldn’t just leave us. He would obviously come back for us.

He didn’t. He didn’t come back, he didn’t write, he didn’t call.

The weeks turned into months. I tried to console Lily, asked if she wanted to do things together, but she ignored me, alone in her grief, which she clearly viewed as deeper than mine. I’d lost my father and his buoyant, exhilarating love, and it seemed I’d also lost Lily’s.

I’d lay awake at night, heart pounding, tears slipping into my hair, missing them both with an ache in my heart that blotted out everything else. My childhood had ended, and I never even had the chance to say goodbye.

4 (#u3ec61b32-5ed6-5084-bdec-d56c97ffb0c1)

Jake helped me off the ferry. It was a three-hour ride, and I felt a little seasick. Or a little nauseous from my throbbing knee.

Or maybe it was just being back home.

Without a word, he got my bags and led Boomer off the boat, leaving me to crutch it alone, hobbling awkwardly up the gangplank, then onto the old dock.

Though it was mid-April, spring had not yet come to the island. My mom wasn’t here yet, and the downtown was quiet. A raw wind blew the smell of fish and salt and donuts from Lala’s Bakery, and with it, childhood memories. On cold winter Sundays, my father used to wake Lily and me at 5:00 a.m. to get the first donuts Lala made, almost too hot to hold, the sugar crusting our faces, the heat steaming in the wintry air.

I would see her soon, my sister. I would set things right again. That was the chance Beantown Bug Killers had given me, and I would make good on it.

And I would find out what happened with my parents. Where my father was. If he was still alive, I was going to find him, damn it.

When I was in my first year of residency, I’d stitched up a former Boston cop who did private investigations. I hired him to find my father, but he’d come up empty. With such a common name—William Stuart—and nothing else to go on since the day he left, the cop didn’t turn up anything. It was time to try again, and this time, start from square one.

But for now, I had to get down the dock. One thing at a time.

With the sling, the brace and the crutch, I had to think about every step, and the rough, splintered wood of the dock didn’t help. Step, shuffle, crutch. Step, shuffle, crutch. It was slow going.

Jake was already tying Boomer’s leash to the bike rack; I was only halfway there. He walked back to his boat. “Thank you so much, Mr. Ferriman,” I said as he passed. He grunted but didn’t look at me, the charmer.

Slightly out of breath, I got to the end of the dock and patted my dog’s head. A seagull landed on a wooden post, and Boomer woofed softly. Otherwise, the island was quiet, and ominously so, like one of Stephen King’s towns. I missed the cheerful duck boats of Boston Common, the elegant shops of Newbury Street. Here, nothing was open.

Scupper Island Clam Shack, where I had worked for two summers, sat at the end of Main Street, right on the water. It wouldn’t open until Memorial Day, if it was the same as it used to be.

I’d worked there with Sullivan Fletcher, one of the two Fletcher boys in my class. Sully had been in a car accident our senior year shortly before I left Scupper, and I wondered how he was. I’d wondered often over the years. Word had been that he’d recover, but I’d never asked for details (nor was my mother the detail type).

I looked to my right, and there was my mother’s elderly Subaru turning onto Main Street. I waved, not that she could miss me; I was the only one here. She pulled over, turned off the engine and got out, looking the same as ever, and unexpected tears clogged my throat. “Hi, Mom,” I said, starting to move forward for a hug.

She nodded instead, then hefted my two suitcases into the back of the car. “I didn’t know you were bringing your dog,” she said. Boomer wagged his fluffy tail, oblivious. “He better leave Tweety alone.”

Tweety was Mom’s parakeet (and favorite creature in the world). “Tweety’s still alive, then?”

“Of course, he is. Where’s that dog gonna sleep?”

“It’s good to see you, too, Mom,” I said. “I’m fine, thanks. In a lot of pain, actually, but doing okay. After being run down in the street. By a van. Sustaining many injuries, in case you forgot.”

“I didn’t forget, Nora,” she said. “Get in the cah.”

Boomer jumped in at the magical words, filling the entire back seat.

A thickly built woman with hard yellow hair approached our car. “Hey, Sharon. Who you got there?” Who y’gawt they-ah? Good to see the Maine accent was alive and well. The speaker was Mrs. Hurley, mother of Carmella Hurley, one of the mean girls from high school. I’d called them the Cheetos back then (not aloud, of course)—the popular, mean girls who’d go to Portland to woo cancer at tanning salons, resulting in a skin tone not found in nature.

“It’s my daughter,” Mom said.

“Lily, you’re back, sweethaht?”

“Uh, no. I’m Nora. Hi, Mrs. Hurley. Nice to see you. How’s Carmella?”

Her face hardened. Right. I was not an islander who had brought pride to my hometown. I was the girl who stole the prince’s crown. Also, I looked a lot different from the olden days, when I’d been a fat, lumpy teenager with bad hair and worse skin.

“Cahmeller’s wonderful,” Mrs. Hurley bit out. “Well. You have a good day, Sharon. Nora.”

It would soon be all over town that I was back.

Mom got into the driver’s seat, and I flopped gracelessly in mine, ass first, bumping myself in the face with the crutch.

“So how is Carmella?” I asked, fastening my seatbelt.

“Good. Five kids. Cleans hotel rooms in the summer, bartends at Red’s. Hard worker.” Hahd wehrkah. Man, I guessed my accent had faded more than I realized. That, and I hadn’t talked very much to my mom these past few years. Perfunctory phone calls, her annual twelve-hour visit to Boston.

“You’ll be sharin’ your room with Poe,” she added.

“I will?”

“Well, where do you think she’s sleepin’?” Mom pulled away from the curb.

Good point. I suppressed a sigh and looked out the window. Main Street had gentrified a bit. There was a bookstore I’d never seen, called The Cracked Spine. Cute name. Lala’s Bakery, which would have a line around the corner every day in the summer, was fairly deserted now. A kitchen goods store. Huh.

“How is Poe?” I asked. I hadn’t seen my niece for five years.

My mother shrugged.

“Mom, could you actually tell me?” I snapped. Five minutes, and already I was irritated.

“She’s grumpy. Hates it here.” She turned onto Perez Avenue, renamed for the man who’d sent a Scupper Island kid to college every year for the past quarter century...including me. We passed the ubiquitous made-in-China souvenir shop, unimaginatively called Scupper Island Gift Shoppe (I always hated the spelling), a restaurant I’d never seen, an art gallery, another restaurant.