“More like five,” she said.
“Okay, five. I’m clearly quite persistent.”
She turned back to face him. “Oh, for God’s sake,” she said. “Will you leave me alone if I say yes?”
“Maybe,” he said. “That depends on how it goes.”
“Forget it,” Ann said, heading for the door.
“Okay, okay, just one date and I’ll leave you alone.” He crossed his heart.
“Saturday at five. Finz,” Ann said, naming a local restaurant she favored.
“Five? What are we, senior citizens?”
“Take it or leave it,” she said.
“Okay, okay, Finz at five.”
“And leave the damned monkey at home,” she said.
52
ON SATURDAY MORNING ZEE moved Finch to rehabilitative care at one of the nursing homes she had interviewed and rejected.
If Finch minded, he didn’t say so. His bruises had started to yellow, and his breathing was easier. But his injuries had left him unable to stand. He would need a lot of physical therapy before he could walk again.
Zee checked him in, then sat while they tested him. That he recognized Zee’s face was a relief to her, though he couldn’t seem to recall her name. He failed his cognitive-skills test.
“That could be the drugs,” the nurse said. “He’s still on a low dose of oxycodone.”
The nursing home told her they would quickly wean him off the drug.
“Won’t he need something for the pain when they start physical therapy?”
“Yes, but probably something milder.”
She didn’t want Finch here. But for now it was the only choice. He couldn’t be cared for at home as yet, that much was clear.
She followed the administrator to the office to fill out more paperwork.
“Does he have a health-care proxy?” the admitting nurse asked.
“I don’t think so,” Zee said.
“Does he have a wife?”
“She’s deceased.”
“Any other children?”
“Just me,” she said.
“What about a DNR?”
“A Do Not Resuscitate form?” Zee asked.
The nurse nodded.
“I don’t know.”
“If he doesn’t have a health-care proxy, he probably doesn’t have a DNR.”
She thought about Finch’s skills as organizer. He had a tendency to let things slide.
“Probably not,” she said.
“It’s a good thing to have,” the nurse said. “In cases like this. You can’t do anything until the doctor declares him mentally incompetent, though. After that you can probably sign a DNR for him.”
Zee thought about the AMTS test they had just taken. Finch had been able to pass about a third of it before. This time he hadn’t been able to answer a single question.
“I plan to bring him home when he’s better,” Zee said.
The nurse looked doubtful but didn’t comment.
ZEE DECIDED TO KEEP JESSINA on even after Finch left the house. Sometimes she asked her to go to the nursing home so that Finch would have more company, and sometimes she had her work on the house, cleaning out and sorting the years of papers Finch had collected.
Over the last months, Zee had become friends with Jessina and Danny, whom she sometimes brought to work with her if they needed help cleaning or moving things around. Jessina kept baking, taking Finch cookies or cupcakes every time she went to visit, sharing the extras with the nursing staff. These days the old house on Turner Street always smelled like a bakery, which provided a comforting feeling that Zee appreciated a lot. In a way it was too bad they weren’t selling the house, Zee thought. The aroma of baking alone would have brought bidders to the table.
One day when they were cleaning out, Danny found a pile of eight-by-ten black-and-white photos under some old school papers Finch had saved. He was showing them to Jessina when Zee came into the room.
“These are beautiful,” Jessina said. “Why did he not hang them up?”
Zee looked over their shoulders at the photos. “Finch took those,” she said. There were several pictures of Zee and of Melville and many more of the House of the Seven Gables taken from the street, all with dates and descriptions. Zee couldn’t answer Jessina’s question. For some reason Finch had never displayed any of his photos.
“Look at this one,” Jessina said, holding up a picture of Maureen. “That’s your mother, yes?”
Maureen was young in the photo, early twenties if she was that. She was dressed in a stylish suit, and around her was a halo of mist. Her smile seemed so innocent and full of promise that it startled Zee.
Jessina turned the photo over. The label on the back read simply Honeymoon. Niagara Falls.
“This should definitely be in a frame and put out for everyone to see.” Jessina held it up to a shelf to indicate a possible display location.
“No,” Zee said, taking the photo.
She stared at it. Though she had always known that Maureen’s stories were embellished, it shocked her to think that her mother had lied about her honeymoon. Maureen had looked so happy in the photograph that it seemed odd she would have bothered to create a whole fantasy around Baker’s Island. Had Finch been telling the truth when he said he’d never been there? Zee had dismissed his statement as part of his dementia, but now she was inclined to believe him.
In a flash, Zee realized the real reason she kept getting Maureen and Lilly mixed up. It wasn’t that they were both bipolar. It wasn’t even that they had both committed suicide. It was something else that they had in common, and it had nothing to do with their illnesses. Mattei’s old adage came to Zee’s mind now: Everybody lies. Maureen and Lilly had both lied to Zee. That was no big surprise. But it was more than that, she realized now. The lies or stories that Maureen and Lilly told were not lies they were telling Zee, they were the mythology they were creating for themselves. When they were no longer able to believe their own fairy tales, they lost all hope.
It was a huge revelation, and it explained a lot.
THAT NIGHT JESSINA AND DANNY stayed around until they were certain that Zee was all right. It surprised Zee to find that she was not only all right but that she was better than she’d been for a long while. She was understandably sad about everything that had happened that summer. But something had changed inside her when she saw the happy picture of Maureen. Something had lifted.
“I’m okay,” she said to Jessina. “I really am.”
MATTEI AND RHONDA WERE GETTING married on the Sunday of the long Labor Day weekend. As fate would have it, Sunday was both the last day of August and Zee’s birthday, and somehow she had let this slip to Jessina, who was busy at work making her a birthday cake when Zee had to leave to meet Melville.
“I’ll put it on the table when I go,” Jessina said. “It’s chocolate with white vanilla frosting,” she said. “Your favorite.”
“Sounds delicious,” Zee said. “Thank you.”
Zee had to leave earlier than Jessina had planned. Melville made her promise to meet him for an early birthday dinner at Finz before she caught the ferry into Boston for the wedding. Though there would be dinner at the wedding, she agreed to meet. She needed to talk to him about Finch’s advance directives.
53
STAR ISLAND WAS CROWDED with spectators. Many had come in their own boats to watch the tall ships sail in, and even more had come by ferry for the festivities on the island.
After the Friendship was anchored and her sails finally lowered, Hawk went onto the island with the rest of the crew.
He followed Josh through the crowds, past the encampment where the pirates had spent the last three days without breaking character. A wench in a low-cut top smiled at Hawk and asked if he’d like some grog. He smiled a weak smile and kept walking.
“Oh, man,” Josh said. “You’ve got it bad. That wench was a fox.”
They grabbed two beers at the concession stand.