“Really, it’s nice,” she said. “It should work well for him. Thank you.”
“I’ll come back Thursday night to do the grab bars,” he said.
“Thursday’s good.”
He looked at her again.
“What?” she asked.
“I know where I saw you,” he said. “We met at the fund-raiser for the Home for Aged Women.”
“Excuse me?”
He pointed in the general direction of Derby Street.
“Oh.” She laughed, remembering the building from childhood, though they had changed the name on it over the years. “No, I wasn’t invited to that one.”
“I’m not giving up,” he said. “I never forget a face.”
ON THURSDAY NIGHT, JUST BEFORE it was time for him to arrive, she was surprised to find herself peeking in the mirror to check her hair. She realized it had been a while since she’d even bothered to look. But tonight she found herself putting on a little makeup as well, just some mascara and lip gloss, but she noted it, and it surprised her.
Hawk was an attractive guy, dark-haired and good-looking by anyone’s standards. He had a winning smile and a fading scar that ran down the right side of his face, just enough imperfection to make him interesting. But he wasn’t her type. Not that she even knew what her type was. Her mind went to Michael. This was ridiculous, she thought. It was too soon. And there was Lilly.
She put the makeup away and frowned at herself in the bathroom mirror.
INSTEAD OF WAITING AROUND TO see him, Zee took a walk. She wandered down by the Willows and played a game of skee ball, then walked over and got herself some popcorn and sat on a bench listening to music and feeding the gulls. In the cove a class of first-time kayakers practiced rolling over and righting themselves.
When she got back, Hawk was standing in the kitchen, his tools packed away. “The job is finished. You want to see it?” he asked, already leading her down the hall toward the bathroom.
She moved past him in the small space, stepping toward the tub, then turning to face him. “Good work,” she said.
“Didn’t require a lot of skill.” He looked at his work. “I hope the height is okay. This was the only place I could put them that had wall studs.”
“It’s fine,” she said. “Thank you.”
He grinned at her. “So what’s next?”
“I guess we’re done, and I should pay you.”
He laughed. “Okay.”
“Let me get my checkbook.”
It was a small bathroom, and as he moved back to let her pass, she brushed by him. He tried to step out of her way, but she miscalculated and went in the same direction, bringing them chest to chest in the tiny space.
“Sorry,” she said.
“Not a problem.” He didn’t move out of the way immediately but stood there looking into her eyes for an extra moment before he stepped back. “After you,” he said finally, acting out as much of a chivalrous bow as the small space permitted.
He smells like the ocean, she thought as she moved past him.
SHE LOOKED EVERYWHERE FOR HER checkbook, but it was nowhere to be found. “I’m sorry,” she said. “This is ridiculous. I had it this morning.” She thought about it. “I can drop off a check to you tomorrow when Jessina comes,” she said.
“That’s okay,” he said. “I’ll stop by and pick it up tomorrow night after work.”
“Are you sure?”
“No trouble,” he said.
She walked him to the door. “It gives me one more day to figure out where I’ve seen you,” he said. “Or you could just tell me.”
“What?” she said.
“I could tell that you recognized me that first day on the wharves.” It wasn’t a confrontation, more a statement of fact. “So I figure you can just tell me so we can stop this dumb game we’ve been playing and maybe move on to something more interesting.”
He smiled at her, and she felt herself flush. Damned Irish skin, she thought.
Not giving her a chance to answer, he turned quickly, and before she could say anything, he was gone.
ZEE HAD TROUBLE SLEEPING THAT night. She kept thinking about Lilly Braedon and the funeral and whether or not she should tell Hawk where he had seen her. She didn’t mind him knowing, but she didn’t want him to ask a lot of questions. As Lilly’s therapist she had confidentiality issues, to be sure. But it was more than that. Whether or not he was attracted to her, Zee knew that the minute she admitted it, she would be judged. Therapist of a suicide? He would judge her the same way she’d been judging herself.
She finally fell into a fitful sleep at about three in the morning. She didn’t wake up until almost eleven. She was alarmed as she looked at the clock. Jessina was supposed to leave at ten-thirty, but she wouldn’t leave Finch alone.
Zee pulled on her cutoffs and a clean tee. For the last several nights, she had been sleeping in Maureen’s room, where it was quieter and the one place that Finch wouldn’t wander.
Jessina and Finch were sitting in the kitchen. He was wearing a canary yellow shirt with red pants and eating a piece of cake accompanied by a big glass of milk. Zee couldn’t help but smile.
“I’m so sorry,” she said to both of them. “I really overslept.”
Finch, as if just realizing where she’d been sleeping, looked up the stairway but said nothing. He had long ago closed off Maureen’s room. Zee could tell he didn’t like the idea of its being opened again.
“You look better,” Jessina said.
Zee realized that she felt better.
“You want some cake?” Jessina offered.
“For breakfast?” Zee laughed. “No thanks. I might have a piece after lunch, though.”
Jessina looked satisfied. She removed the apron she’d been wearing and draped it onto the hook. “How do you like your father’s new look?”
“Colorful,” Zee said.
Finch groaned.
“You look younger,” Jessina said, patting him on the head as she passed. “Younger is never a bad thing for a man. You get out, you see. The ladies will fall on you.”
Finch looked at Zee in horror.
“I think she means the ladies will fall all over you.”
“Yes,” Jessina agreed. “That’s what I said.”
Finch’s expression of horror was no less pronounced.
“How’s Danny?” Zee asked, trying to change the subject.
“He’s fine. He’s going to day camp to learn to swim.” Jessina pointed up-harbor toward Children’s Island.
“That’s great,” Zee said.
“I’m just cleaning up before I go,” Jessina said. “Anything else you need me to do?”
“I think we’re all set,” Zee said. Jessina came in twice a day, once in the morning to feed and bathe Finch, then later to give him dinner and get him ready for bed.
“I’ll see you at dinner,” Jessina said to Finch. “Fish tonight.”
He smiled weakly as she left.
“I don’t think she realized the nature of your relationship with Melville,” Zee said, pouring herself a cup of Dominican coffee that Jessina had brewed.
She was trying to engage him in conversation about it, as she had promised Melville she would. But Finch wasn’t biting. Instead he turned and looked up the stairs. “Why are you sleeping up there?” he said. “You have a perfectly good room down here.”
She didn’t want to tell him the reason; she was afraid it would hurt his feelings. The real reason was that she couldn’t take his sundowning. It scared her to wake up and find Finch in her room. He was simply checking on her, the way he had when she was a child, but it kept her from sleep. Ever since the freezing episode when she’d awakened to the fearful look in his eyes, she hadn’t been able to sleep downstairs.
She knew that she wasn’t required to answer, that the question was rhetorical. Finch was simply expressing his disapproval at the door, which, having been locked for so long, now stood open and leading up the stairway to the room where they’d found her mother.