“Dottie McPherson had a stroke a year or two back,” Charlie said now, bringing Eliza back to the present. “Not sure she makes it up every year, but her kids do.” Eliza still remembered Mrs. McPherson’s bosom, her perfume, the half bathroom, the noises.
She took a bite of cutlet. They were delicious, if she did say so herself. She might have to bring these into her Barton repertoire after all, no matter the concerns Evie had about the chickens. Surely she could find cutlets from free-range chickens if she looked hard enough.
Her father had eaten only a couple of bites. “Dad. They checked you out for a concussion, didn’t they?” She closed her eyes and tried to recall everything she’d learned about concussions in med school. All that came to her was the irrelevant and nonmedical instruction to feed a fever and starve a cold.
He shrugged. “I think so.”
“Does your head hurt now?”
“Little bit. Not much.”
She squinted at him. Charlie never admitted to being in any kind of pain. She nodded at the sling. “When do you think they’ll let you get back to it?”
Charlie cleared his throat. “Don’t know. Soon, I hope. My traps must be full to bursting.”
“Well, when’s your next appointment?”
“Don’t have one,” he said. He smiled his famous crooked smile.
“That smile made my heart stop the first time I saw it,” her mother told her once. Eliza knew the story, of course: her mother sitting on the wharf with Val, watching the boats come in, love at first sight, etc., etc. She herself knew what it was like to sit there, waiting, heart slamming against her ribs, the heat rising from her skin like it had a life of its own. Eliza was not sure she believed in love at first sight, though she did, of course, believe in love. She believed in love so deeply that she felt her heart do a double twist now, thinking about Rob, her girls.
But, boy, love got complicated. She thought about Phineas Tarbox; she thought about sitting at The Cup with Russell, and about all the things that were still unsaid, so many years later. What she had felt the night before with Russell, she didn’t know if it was desire or simply the memory of desire. Or maybe the distinction was unimportant: maybe the two were one and the same, interchangeable.
“Dad, you have to go back, get the stitches out, get the arm looked at.”
“Can’t you take out the stitches? It’d be cheaper.”
“I’m not a doctor. I’m not a nurse. I’m not supposed to be doing that stuff!”
“You’re nicer, though. Than the ones that are. You come close enough for me.” He grinned.
Charlie Sargent could charm the shell off a lobster, Eliza’s mother used to say. Joanie was very proud of that description: she’d made it up herself.
“A follow-up visit should be covered,” she told her father. Last she knew her father was paying monthly for basic insurance with a sizable deductible.
He stopped grinning.
“What? Dad? What is it?”
“I’m not insured now.”
“What?”
“The premiums were so frickin’ expensive, and then with the deductible it wasn’t worth it…”
“Dad. You can’t do that, you can’t be uninsured.” A little globule of panic bubbled up inside Eliza’s throat. The year before she’d wanted to buy him more and better insurance but he wouldn’t let her.
“I never get sick,” he said. “Healthy as a horse.” He returned the fork, still full, to his plate and placed the flat of his hand over his chest as if to indicate the robustness of what lay beneath.
“I know, but. Dad. You can’t not have health insurance. Rob and I can help you with that, you know we want to.”
Charlie set his mouth in a thin straight line. As if for show he cut a large piece of meat and brought it in one valiant motion to his lips. “Don’t need help, Eliza.”
“But.”
He chewed and swallowed slowly and deliberately and then he said, “You know you’re always welcome here, Eliza, but I’m sure your family needs you more than I do, so you can go on back home when you’re ready.”
“Are you kicking me out?”
He laughed. “Course not. I’m just giving you permission to kick yourself out.”
“No,” she said stubbornly. “I’m not leaving until we make you a follow-up appointment.”
“Eliza, I’m fine. It was a knock on the head and a bump on the arm. Never should have called the Coast Guard, that made it seem worse than it was. Soon enough I’ll be out on the boat and you won’t have to worry about me.” But there was something behind Charlie’s eyes, something fleeting and dodging, and his gaze didn’t meet hers.
Her phone dinged again. The Barnes family had a strict no-screens-at-dinner rule but since she was far away she allowed herself a peek, in case she was missing a fire or an earthquake or a playdate invitation that required immediate response. Evie, again. HOW ABOUT THIS ONE. This time she’d included a photo directly in the text, a skinny, semi-bearded, vexed-looking terrier mix who looked like he’d left some of his hair at whatever home had given him up. Exactly Evie’s style. HE’S 9 AND HIS NAME IS COLUMBO, said the next text. HE’S AT A SHELTER IN CONNECTICUT.
Eliza, who was in no mood for sugarcoating, texted back 9 IS TOO OLD HE WOULDN’T BE WITH US LONG ENOUGH and returned her attention to her father. There was a spiderlike blood vessel on the side of his face that she didn’t remember from his last visit to Barton in March. All that time in the outdoors, years and years and years of it, of course it could do a number on your skin. A bruise bloomed around the stitches, and the skin around his neck was sagging. Her father, who had always been the strongest, most invincible man she knew, looked suddenly weak and ravaged.
“You go on back home, Eliza, I’ll be right as anything this time tomorrow.”
She chewed on that for a minute. Something didn’t feel right. “When you look me in the eyes, Dad, and tell me that you are one hundred percent fine if I go back home, I’ll go. And not until then.”
Her father’s gaze slid away from her. She took in the unadorned sink, the dish rack with the single sad little coffee cup in it, and she felt her heart cracking.
“That settles it,” said Eliza. She recalculated the rest of her week. She could ask Deirdre (read: Deirdre’s summer nanny) to help out with the girls if necessary. Rob just had the one project, and his hours were more flexible now that he wasn’t commuting into Boston for work. “I’m staying, Dad, just for a few days, until you’re all the way back on your feet. Right after dinner, I’ll call Rob.”
6
LITTLE HARBOR, MAINE
Mary
Josh was beery and cheery, two empties on the table, one in his hand, lying on the old plaid couch.