Belonging (50 page)

“Plenty of electric outlets,” Bob pointed out, moving around. “Two walls of built-in shelves and a long worktable. All you’d need would be a chair and your equipment and you’re set.”

Joanna crossed over the gleaming pine floors to look out the window.

“Great view of the harbor,” Bob said.

“Yes,” she agreed, although right now the rain obscured everything. She looked up and down the narrow one-way street. “In the summer the parking would be impossible,” she observed.

“Not really. You’d just have to park a few blocks away in the residential areas and
walk in.”

“That would be a drag with piles of papers, especially in the rain.” She jiggled Christopher in her arms. “And I’m not sure I’d like those stairs.”

Bob leaned against a spotless white worktable that ran along one wall. “Joanna, are you sure your heart’s in this?”

“Of course!” she snapped. “What a question.”

“It’s just that everything I show you is wrong. That office space out of town you didn’t like because it had no view. The rooms in that great old house near Children’s Beach were too noisy.”

“I’m sorry I’m being difficult,” Joanna said, feeling around in her pocket for a zwieback. Christopher was no longer crying, but recently he’d started teething and often fussed unless he had something to gnaw on.

“Joanna, it’s not that you’re being difficult. It’s just—at one time you worked quite happily on a screened porch.”

Joanna set Christopher on the worktable. It continually surprised her how heavy a baby could be, how her arms could ache. Perching on the edge of the table with one arm firmly around her child, she looked directly at Bob. “Pat’s been talking to you, hasn’t she?”

“Pat always talks to me,” Bob responded, shrugging, and then he dropped all pretenses. “Joanna, we’re worried about you.”

“You don’t need to be. Honestly, Bob. I’m fine.”

“We both think you’re making the wrong decision to stay here just because of Madaket.”

“Look, Bob, Pat and I have been over and over this ground. Everyone in Madaket’s life has left her. Her parents, her grandmother, and then in the fire she lost Wolf and Bitch. I asked her to give up her garden at the house she’d lived in with her grandmother. I just can’t leave her, especially not after all she’s done for me.”

“Didn’t she just turn twenty?”

“That’s not the point.”

“What is the point?”

Joanna was silent.

“Let’s be blunt. You’re afraid Madaket will be alone all her life because she’ll never be able to get a husband.”

Joanna shook her head. “I don’t think Madaket ever thinks in those terms. ‘Get a husband.’ ”

“All right, then, you think no one will ever love her because of her scarred face.”

Joanna glared at Bob. “That’s right. I do think that. I also think Madaket has never had anyone of her own and now she never will. She’s never had anyone she can trust. I want her to be able to trust me. Bob, she saved my life. She saved Christopher’s life. The least I can do is stay here with her and help her get her own life on some kind of track.” Christopher dropped his zwieback. Joanna picked it up.

“But why can’t you marry Jake
and
take care of Madaket?” Bob asked.

“Because Jake wouldn’t live here all the time, and I don’t want even to suggest to Madaket that she move to New York.”

“There’s got to be some way to work it out. If you really want to be with Jake. I think you’re being a bit of a martyr, Joanna.”

“Perhaps I am. I think I’m just being responsible.
Committed
.”

“You should be committed,” Bob punned, trying to lighten the atmosphere, “if you’re going to stay on the island with Madaket merely out of a sense of duty.”

Joanna was intense. “But that’s where you’re wrong, Bob, and I feel very strongly about this. No one cares about a sense of duty anymore, but I do. I want to. I’m obligated to Madaket, and I’m obligated to Christopher, and I’m going to stand by them both.”

“Even if it makes you unhappy?”

“But it
won’t
make me unhappy. In an odd way, it’s deeply satisfying, knowing at last I’m truly part of someone’s life. I like knowing that I’ll have responsibilities, a strong connection. An
enduring
connection.”

“What about your connection to Jake?”

Joanna fiddled with one of Christopher’s socks which had gotten twisted around his foot. “I just can’t let that matter as much.”

“Why not? Because he could make you happy?” When Joanna didn’t reply, Bob continued: “That’s not healthy thinking, Joanna. That’s superstitious.”

“You can say that, Bob, but I’ve tried—” Her voice broke. Taking a deep breath, she began again. “I’ve tried as hard and as long as I know how to live life the way I want it, to make my dreams come true, and all I’ve done is wreak a terrible havoc and damage to people’s lives. No, I can’t live for my own happiness anymore. I need to make amends somehow. I need to make someone else happy.”

“At the expense of your own happiness.”

“Yes! If that’s what it takes!”

“And what about Jake’s happiness?”

“Maybe he’ll be willing to wait. A year or two. A lot can happen in a year or two.”

“Yeah, like he’ll find another woman.”

“I have to take that chance.” She sighed. “Besides, we’re constantly in touch while we’re collaborating on FH. So could I please stop mooning around like an orphaned cow and concentrate on finding a decent office?”

“Back to my original point: you won’t be able to find an office you like because you’re so unhappy. Look, at least think about talking to Madaket about all this.”

“No! Are you kidding? Did Madaket talk it over with me before she ran into the fire? I’m not mentioning Jake to her, and if you’re any kind of friend, Bob, you won’t, either.”

He held up his hands, palms-out in surrender. “All right. Just as long as you know what you’re doing.”

Christopher was squirming now, uncomfortable on the hard surface. Joanna lifted him into her arms.

“Look. This place is fine,” she said. “I’ll probably take it.”

“It’s available immediately.”

“Great. Give me a day to think it over. I’ll call you.”

They went back down the stairs and Joanna went through the ritual of strapping her baby into the stroller. Just before they set back out in the downpour, she turned and gave Bob a peck on his cheek. “I’m grateful that you care about me,” she said. “I appreciate it. I’ll be fine.”

But once she and her son were tucked back into the Jeep, a familiar melancholy settled over Joanna, and she felt her face pulled into despondent lines. Driving back to the shack at Quidnet seemed to take longer with each trip. Now with rain streaming down and the windshield wipers clicking monotonously, the road stretched on forever. Christopher fussed, frustrated and bored beneath his various safety straps, then subsided into sleep, exactly what Joanna didn’t want him to do. He was cranky if he didn’t get a long afternoon nap, but Joanna needed to change into dry clothes and get some work accomplished, which she couldn’t do with the baby left out in the car, but if she took him
out of the car seat, she’d wake him, and then he’d be fussy and demanding and incapable of falling back to sleep with his schedule so interrupted. Even if Madaket played with him in the living room or bedroom, he’d be noisily fretful, and Joanna at her crowded desk in her cramped bedroom would be wrought with guilt … babies made the smallest act complicated.

Madaket had said she’d bike from the doctor’s office out to Squam to check her garden. Anyone else would be forced inside by this rain, but not Madaket. Joanna decided to drive out and pick her up.

By the time she came to the Squam Road, the rain had diminished to a spattering of fat drops and the sun was making its first appearance in days. The long ruts in the dirt road were puddled with water, which splashed up against the sides of the Jeep. She turned onto her private driveway. Bushes and shrubs, lushly swollen with rain, drooped against the sides of the Jeep. Her stomach tightened. Never again would she enter her property without thinking of Todd and Doug, especially Todd, so young and handsome and vital—so greedy for all life had to offer, and who could be enjoying all life had to offer if she’d only given him one of the rubies. So much had been lost here; she thought this particular segment of earth would always be haunted by the loss of so many possibilities. She remembered the delight she’d felt each time she saw her sturdy storybook house standing forthright against the sky. Now there was only empty space.

As she brought her Jeep to a halt, the sun flashed out from behind clouds. The outlines of the charred black rectangle of earth where the house had once stood were softened and obscured by the lacy tangle of grasses, vines, and wild berry bushes reclaiming the land.

At the far end of the property, Madaket was standing in her garden. It had been untouched by the fire, and healthy green shoots gleamed in even rows. Someone was with her. Gardner. They were absorbed in conversation. Both were wearing yellow rain slickers, which gleamed glossily in the misty light. Joanna turned off the engine and slid out of the Jeep as quietly as possible, trying not to waken Christopher. The air smelled fresh and sweet.

“Looks pretty good,” Joanna called, crossing the gravel to the grassy lawn. “Hi, Gardner.”

The physician waved. Madaket smiled. Her hair was growing back nicely, lying full and gleaming over the curves of her skull, shining like ebony beneath her rain hood.
But something else had happened … Joanna couldn’t quite figure it out … something about Madaket had changed. The wretched scar was still as shiny as always, and yet Madaket looked … well, beautiful.

Something had happened.

Joanna stopped. Stood still, waiting.

“Joanna,” Madaket said, her eyes brilliant, her face more alive than it had ever been. “We have something wonderful to tell you.” She took Gardner’s hand and together they walked toward Joanna.

Twenty-eight

Joanna stood waiting in the sodden, quickening earth. Madaket smiled shyly at Joanna, then turned her gaze at Gardner, who said with a quiet pride, “Madaket and I are in love.”

“Oh, wow,” Joanna exclaimed. “Wow. My gosh, Madaket.” Searching the young woman’s face, she found sheer happiness shining there. “Oh, this is amazing. It’s lovely. Oh, Madaket, Gardner. I’m stunned. I’m knocked off my feet.”

“So are we,” Gardner admitted.

“Well, let’s go home and get inside where it’s warm. I’m soaked and frozen, and I want to hear everything, and I can’t think properly out here in all this damp.”

“We’ll meet you at the shack,” Madaket said.

“Great.”

Joanna hopped back into the Jeep. “Christopher,” she said to her sleeping son, “you’ll never guess what happened. The most amazing news. Madaket and Gardner are in love. I’m just dazzled! What do you think?”

Her little boy only snored, and she drew up in front of their shack, and stepped out, and lifted Christopher out, and his head fell heavily against her shoulder; not even the wet slick surface of her raincoat against his bare cheek woke him up. In their bedroom she settled her baby on his tummy and gently stripped off his hooded sweatshirt and sweatpants, and tucked a blanket over him, and stood for a while, watching and listening, as she always did, partly to be certain he was comfortable, but more simply for her own pleasure.

She pulled off her own rain gear then and wrapped herself in a bulky, fleecy sweater. She could hear Madaket in the kitchen, making coffee, but when she went out into the large open living room, she found Madaket and Gardner standing by the stove, entangled, kissing. She cleared her throat.

The lovers drew apart and they all carried in coffee mugs and sugar and a pitcher of milk and napkins, and Madaket poured the coffee and Gardner sank onto the sofa and watched her every move with the happy obsession of a man who cared in all the world only about putting his hands on her again. Finally Madaket sat down beside him, and they smiled at each other and held hands, looking as if they’d just discovered uranium and had
been struck idiotic by their find.

“All right,” Joanna said, sinking into a rocking chair. “Tell me.”

Gardner and Madaket smiled at each other.

“We’ve hardly told each other yet,” Madaket said shyly.

“We’re going to get married,” Gardner said.

“Married!”

“Well, not immediately,” Madaket said soothingly. “Not until the fall at least.”

“But I didn’t even know you two liked each other!” Joanna protested. “This is all so sudden.”

“I fell in love with Madaket the moment I saw her,” Gardner admitted softly, flushing bright red to the tips of his ears. “At my office. When I came out to the reception room and met her.”

“Remember how he came running out the side door and told us he would stop by to check your blood pressure?” Madaket’s face glowed with pleasure as she spoke.

“I would have come by to check your blood pressure if you’d lived at the other side of the island,” Gardner confessed. “I was still engaged to Tiffany, but we were both unhappy. We weren’t even really in love, Tiffany and I. We were infatuated with a vision of what should be. I thought it would all be worth it, and Tiffany is really a nice person, and goodhearted, and deserving of love … but when I saw Madaket it was like … like a blind man seeing for the first time. I knew then, really knew, what I was missing with Tiffany. It really was love at first sight,” he concluded happily.

“Did you feel this way, too?” Joanna asked Madaket.

“Oh, no. I mean, how could I? He was a doctor. I was a housecleaner. It never occurred to me that he even
saw
me.” She turned to gaze adoringly at Gardner. “Whenever he came to the house, I always enjoyed seeing him. I looked forward to his visits. I liked listening to him—he has such a nice voice. And I liked looking at him. His beautiful hair and, well, he has such a nice”—crimson darkened her face; her scars glowed—“body,” she whispered in conclusion.

“And we got along,” Gardner pointed out, rescuing Madaket from the embarrassment of her admission of desire. “We talked a lot, and had so much to say to each other.”