They sat in silence for a long time.

“I can’t do this anymore,” she finally said.

For a brief moment, he thought she meant taking care of Finch. He hoped that was what she meant, both for her sake and for his own. But he knew from the way she looked at him that he was kidding himself. It was over. She had told him just tonight that she wasn’t ready, that this wasn’t the right time for any kind of relationship between them. As much as it hurt him, he knew he was going to have to let her go.

45

WITHOUT ZEE IT WAS too hard for Hawk to be in Salem. He gave his notice to the Park Service. He had committed to one more sail with the Friendship, on Labor Day weekend, and they couldn’t find a replacement. He had paid for his boat slip for the whole season, so he told his friend Josh that he could stay there for the next few weeks. Hawk would go back to his apartment in Marblehead. He didn’t want to run into Zee.

It all happened so quickly, and though he had known it was a bad idea (rebound relationships were never a good idea, were they?) he had fallen hard. He couldn’t explain it; nothing like this had ever happened to him before. It wasn’t just the sex. It was something else. The moment he met her, it seemed as if they’d always known each other.

He’d tried several times to tell her about Lilly, but she blocked him at every turn. She couldn’t even talk about the case with Lilly’s own family, she’d said.

He didn’t know Lilly’s husband, though he had met her children when he’d done carpentry work at their house. They were great kids. Lilly had talked about them all the time, and about her fears that she was a bad mother. Pretty much the same stuff she’d talked about in therapy, if Lilly was to be believed.

If you’re having trouble reconciling your feelings about her death, and you need someone to talk to, Zee had said, I can give you some names. It just can’t be me.

Well, he was having trouble reconciling his feelings, more trouble really than he wanted to admit. He’d been depressed about it, actually. Before he met Zee, he’d been really down. Mostly he was upset that he hadn’t been able to save Lilly. He imagined that it was pretty much the same thing Zee must be feeling, so it was too bad they couldn’t talk about it together. At least that was how he felt on one level. On another he was relieved that she hadn’t allowed him to speak about Lilly. Though he was a pretty honest guy, he realized that one more broaching of the subject of Lilly might drive Zee away, and more than anything he hadn’t wanted that to happen. Ironic that he’d lost her anyway. By all signs, including how horrible he felt right now, he figured he was pretty much in love with Hepzibah T. Finch. For all the good it was going to do him.

He cursed himself for getting involved in the first place. He should have seen this coming.

Hawk grabbed the rest of his clothes and some other things he would need from his boat. Then he scribbled his Marblehead address on a piece of paper and left it for Josh, who had promised to forward his paycheck the minute it arrived.

46

MATTEI CALLED AND ASKED Zee to meet her for lunch at Kelly’s in Revere.

“I can come in to Boston,” Zee said.

“I’ll meet you halfway,” Mattei said.

THEY SAT IN THE PAVILION and looked out at the ocean.

“Want some?” Mattei asked, offering a bite of her roast-beef sandwich. Zee had ordered fried clams and was waiting for the order to be called.

“I know you love Kelly’s, but what’s the real reason you wanted to meet me here?” Zee asked.

“We had a visit from Adam the other day,” Mattei said.

Zee stared at her. “Adam was at the office?”

“He didn’t come in when I was there, but he evidently gave our new receptionist a scare, saying you’d have to answer for what you’d done to Lilly. I’ve alerted both the Marblehead and the Boston police.”

Zee stared at her.

“I don’t think he’ll bother us again,” Mattei said. “But I think it would be better if you stayed away from the office for a while.”

“And here I was afraid you were about to fire me for being away for so long.” Zee was trying to keep her tone light, but she was having a hard time of it.

“No such luck,” Mattei said. “So how’s Finch doing on the new meds?” she asked.

“Besides trying to drown himself in the harbor, you mean?” Zee replied.

“How’s he doing now that he’s been on them for two full weeks?” Mattei asked.

“Actually, he seems a little bit better,” Zee said.

“And what about you, my friend?”

“I’m fine.”

“Yeah,” Mattei said. “You look fine.”

Zee tried to smile.

“Are you going to tell me what else is bothering you, or do I have to ask you pointed questions? You know I’ll get it out of you eventually. I’m even more pushy as a friend than as a therapist.”

Mattei listened while Zee told her the story of Hawk, the whole story: from the dream to her walk to the Friendship, to the night on the island, to pulling Finch out of Salem Harbor and their breakup.

“Interesting,” Mattei said.

“Textbook,” Zee said.

“In what way?”

“Isn’t it obvious?”

“Enlighten me,” Mattei said.

“The unfulfilled dreams of the mother. I’m acting out my mother’s story,” Zee said.

“Her story, maybe. I don’t know if it was her unfulfilled dream.”

“Of course it was,” Zee said.

“It’s a pretty dark story,” Mattei said. “Not the part you’ve been acting out, but the rest of it.” Mattei thought about it for a minute. “I would have thought that your mother’s unfulfilled dream was rescue. First by a man, and later, when it was clear that it wasn’t going to work out, by you.”

Zee just stared at her.

“Any chance you just really like this guy?”

Zee sat silent.

“It’s okay if you do,” she said. “I never thought you were right for Michael.”

“You were the one who fixed me up with Michael,” Zee said.

“That was before I knew you very well.”

Zee was frustrated. “Were you ever going to tell me that?”

“Of course not. And remember, you and Michael were speeding down the track to marital bliss. I wasn’t going to derail that based on a vague hunch. But now that you’ve split up, I’d urge you to consider the opposite.”

“What are you saying?” Zee asked.

“I’m asking you to consider what you want for a change. You have a pattern of doing what is expected of you, what other people want you to do. It’s not an unusual pattern for women, but it’s more extreme in your case, first with your parents, then Michael, and even with me, with this job. You go along and go along, but then you begin to act out. Stealing boats, sabotaging your wedding plans, not telling me everything about Lilly Braedon. All little acts of rebellion that lead to big consequences you blame yourself for. But I would argue that the acting-out part might just be a natural aspect of you that needs expression. You were a pretty willful kid, from the stories you told me. You did what you wanted until events in the family changed the situation. Then you stopped choosing things for yourself and just did what you thought other people wanted you to do. Until now. This time you mutually initiated the relationship. That might not mean it’s the right relationship for you, but it does indicate a change.”

“Doesn’t it occur to you that maybe I didn’t choose, that I was just acting out my mother’s story?” Zee said, frustrated.

“I don’t think so,” Mattei said.

“It matches.”

“It seems to match by coincidence. You didn’t ask Hawk to climb up the side of the building, or to let you into a house you’d locked yourself out of.”

“I knew he could climb.”

“You didn’t go to the Friendship that first time looking for him. You went to Mickey looking for a carpenter. Again coincidence.”