Except that he had no life without Antoinette. “Yep,” Theo said. “You bet.”
And then, Thursday, thirteen days after Antoinette disappeared, Theo saw her bike leaning against the side of the Glucksterns’ house. Theo stopped at the Glucksterns’ with a paper bag of Val’s things that his mother had asked him to return-some books, a green glass vase, a bundt pan. His mother was finished with Val as a friend, and she couldn’t bear to give the things back herself. So she sent Theo to do it-in the middle of the day when no one would be home. As Theo hurried across the lawn toward the front door, anxious to drop the bag off and get out of there, he noticed a bike, which struck him as strange because the Glucksterns weren’t the bikeriding type and they didn’t have any kids. Then Theo realized it was Antoinette’s bike. There was no mistaking it. It was a green Schwinn with a tattered basket on front that was connected to the handlebars by two disintegrating leather straps. Theo felt like shouting. Her bike! He’d never thought to look for her bike!
Theo touched the handlebars and his nose tingled with impending tears. Her hands, God, her hands had touched the handlebars. He put his hand on the black vinyl seat, which was warm from the sun. He let himself remember back to the first night at the Islander when Antoinette had pulled in on her bike. And then later, when she drove by the baseball field. The bike had been an integral part of their relationship, it had meaning, and without thinking twice, Theo walked the bike over to his Jeep and hoisted it in the back.
As he drove away, he wondered what it was doing at the Glucksterns’ house. He couldn’t very well call up and ask. More pressing was what Theo would tell his parents when they saw it. He decided to tell them that he’d gone up to Antoinette’s and taken it as a reminder of her. They wouldn’t fight him. As for the Glucksterns, well, they’d probably assume the bike had been stolen. Or they might not even notice. It was just an old bike to them-but to Theo, it was much more.
A few days later, matters were decided. Theo’s mother was going to Puerto Rico for six weeks on a vacation that she didn’t want to take. And Theo’s parents decided that Theo would live with his grandmother, Sabrina Montero, in Boston. Attend Boston Hill, a private high school in Cambridge. Start a new life. Theo packed one huge duffel bag, tucking the whelk shell, the cocktail napkin, and the snapshot of Antoinette holding him as a baby among his clothes. He’d managed to convince his parents to let him take the bike to Boston. “If Antoinette shows up and wants it back, I’ll return it,” Theo said.
“Of course,” his mother said quickly, like she knew that would never happen.
When it was time to catch the ferry, Theo hugged his sisters and shook Luke’s hand. He was leaving a week earlier than his mother, and so both of his parents stood with him in the parking lot of the Steamship Authority before he got on the boat. His mother was crying, of course. His father wore sunglasses, his mouth a perfectly straight line. Even in the crowded parking lot filled mostly with tourists, Theo felt people staring at them. It was hot and his shoulder grew sore with his heavy bag. He hadn’t let anyone else touch it. Theo kissed his parents good-bye and was the first person up the ramp of the boat, walking the bike alongside him. He didn’t wait to watch them wave.
Theo found a spot on the upper deck and lay down in the sun, resting his head on his duffel. He stayed awake until the boat passed Great Point, and then he fell asleep.
Theo’s grandmother, Sabrina, did things her own way. For most of Theo’s life she had lived on ten green acres in Concord, Massachusetts. The house was called Colonial Farm, although it wasn’t a farm at all-just a sprawling house and lots of grass and a small pond stocked with fish. It was the house where his father had grown up. When Theo’s grandfather died, Sabrina sold the house and bought an apartment on Marlborough Street in Back Bay. Many of her friends were moving into retirement communities, but not Sabrina. She headed right for the big city, like a kid fresh out of college.
Theo insisted on finding the apartment himself. He took the T from South Station and wandered over to Marlborough, hauling his heavy-ass bag, walking Antoinette’s bike. The city of Boston was as foreign as Kathmandu. The noise, the rows of brownstones, the throngs of people. The smell of urine in the T station. So different from Nantucket. I could forget about her here, Theo thought. I could forget about everything.
He had to ring his grandmother before he could get into her building; he remembered that much from previous visits. A loud buzz sounded, and Theo pushed open the door. He locked his bike to the banister for the time being and lugged his suitcase up to where his grandmother stood in the door of her apartment, smiling at him sadly. She wore dangly earrings that looked like very small wooden spoons, and a red-and-purple scarf over her silver hair.
“My poor, dear child,” she said. “Come to Sabrina.”
Theo put his bag down and hugged his grandmother. She was wiry and strong, and her embrace nearly strangled him. He wanted to thank her for letting him stay, but he was afraid if he opened his mouth he would cry. He wondered how much she knew.
“My grandchild,” Sabrina said. “Son of my son. Or should I say sun of my son? Wait until people meet you. No one believes I’m old enough to have a grandchild, much less a grown man like you. Oh, Theo, come in. Come into my life. I’m glad you’re here. I can help you.”
“No one can help me, Sabrina.”
She ushered Theo in. Her apartment smelled like curry and apples. On the walls hung Indian tapestries and a Salvador Dali print. In the living room was a low, round table surrounded by big turquoise pillows. Theo remembered the table from her other house. It was the table where Sabrina performed séances. Sabrina had psychic powers; she knew how to talk to God.
“Do you still do séances?” Theo asked.
Sabrina smiled at him. She had the same golden brown eyes as his father, only her eyes were surrounded by millions of tiny wrinkles. “But, of course,” she said. “In fact, just before you arrived, I asked the Madame what our time together was going to be like, and do you know what she said?”
The Madame-this was how Sabrina pictured God, as an old French peasant woman who collected eggs in a basket and baked her own baguettes. “What?” Theo asked.
“She said it would be transforming. Transforming!”
He had his own bedroom and his own bath. On his bed was a crocheted afghan knit by Sabrina herself, a twin to the one Theo’s family used to have, the one he had seen draped over Antoinette’s naked body when she came to baby-sit. Theo shoved the afghan into the bottom of his closet. He unpacked his clothes and placed the cocktail napkin and the snapshot of Antoinette in the drawer with his boxer shorts. The whelk shell went on the back of the toilet.
I could forget about her here. How wrong Theo was. In the city of Boston, Theo saw Antoinette everywhere-a long, lean woman with bronze skin wearing black, with dark hair caught carelessly in a bun. She rode the T with Theo on his way to his new school, she lounged under the weeping willow in Boston Commons, she drank coffee at Rebecca’s Café near Government Center. When Theo spotted her, his heart banged in his chest until he realized that it wasn’t Antoinette at all, but someone else, many someone elses.
Theo’s new school was expensive. It sat on a campus of three square blocks of grass and trees across the Charles River, in Cambridge. Boston Hill-there was no dress code, but the senior boys wore soft chino pants or gray flannels, and pressed oxford shirts. They were quiet in the hallways; they were studious. The girls ate hummus for lunch. Everyone listened to National Public Radio. There was no baseball team, only fencing and archery. Theo told the few people who approached him that he came from Nantucket, but no one was impressed. Much of the student body was foreign-they summered in places like Provence and Tuscany. Theo made no friends, but at Boston Hill solitude was popular. There wasn’t a lunchroom-students ate alone under one of the trees, reading Rick Moody or Anne Lamott. Theo’s English teacher, a man named Geoffrey, assigned a year-long journal project. “Record your thoughts,” he said. “Explore your soul. And read these ten books and compose a reaction to them.” Theo picked up seven of the ten books and a journal at Water stone’s on Newbury Street. One of the books, A Passage to India, he’d seen on Antoinette’s shelves.