Good Harbor

“Yeah, me, too,” Krista said shyly.

“Let me know how it goes, will you? I’ll even help you with your homework.”

Krista laughed. “You were always so nice to me.”

“That’s only what you deserve, dear. Good luck. Come see us, okay?”

Krista picked up her megaphone and answered, “Bye, Mrs. Levine.”

“Beautiful girl,” said Joyce.

“Lucky she’s alive.”

“Was she sick?”

“Her stepfather used to beat her up. She was the most defeated little thing as a kid. Totally convinced she was stupid. And then in high school, she got involved with an abusive boy. I was really afraid for her.”

“She stayed in touch with you?”

“She used to come back every few months to see Helen Holden, her third-grade teacher. I tutored her a few times, but it was Helen who really stayed in touch.”

“I envy the way people know you around here.”

“Mostly it’s a good thing,” Kathleen said. “Though I do wish I could just walk into a store without someone asking me how my treatment is going.”

Instead of going directly back to the bridge, Joyce and Kathleen walked toward the receding sea through shallow water, already lukewarm from the sun. “It’s going to be a perfect day,” Kathleen said. “I wish I didn’t have to sleep through most of it. I didn’t fall asleep until three last night, and then I had to wake up before seven.” Joyce took her arm as they walked back to the bridge.

“So what’s happening with the Holy Mother at your house?”

Joyce hadn’t even looked at Mary when she’d arrived, but she promised, again, to call Father Sherry about “getting rid of Her Holiness.”

Kathleen laughed at the phrase. “Do you have time to walk tomorrow?”

“I have nothing but time this week. I’m staying up here until Nina comes back from Hyannis.”

When Kathleen got home, she found a breathless message on the answering machine. “Oh my God, Kathleen, someone painted Mary! She’s all white and shiny. High gloss! Jesus, I mean, oh, shit. And there are more flowers. Kathleen, I think I’ve got Lourdes going on in my front yard.”

KATHLEEN SAT UP in bed, her thin cotton nightgown soaked, the pillow damp, her heart pounding. The digital clock glowed in the dark: 3:10. Buddy let out a soft groan and turned over as she slipped out of the room.

Gripping the edge of the kitchen sink, she stared out into the dark yard, trying to calm down. It had been a long time since she’d had a nightmare about Pat, and this was a new one. In the old dream, her sister was lying in a metal casket, weeping softly. But tonight, it was Kathleen in the coffin, pounding a slatted wooden lid above her. Danny was with her. He was dead, but not a baby anymore, a boy with long legs and arms tight around her neck. She heard Pat’s soothing voice repeating the phrase “It’s all been taken care of.” Kathleen had woken up on the verge of a scream.

Pat had been so certain of life after death. She used to talk about Danny in heaven as if he were just in a room upstairs. Even when she was dying, she had that kind of faith. Rabbi Flacks had sat with Kathleen and Buddy and cried with them. But he had never said anything about seeing her son again.

She splashed cold water on her face and walked out to the deck. The wood felt cool and alive under her bare feet. If Buddy knew, he’d be after her about splinters. He had become such a mother hen since the boys left. Sometimes she liked being fussed over so tenderly, but sometimes it got on her nerves.

A clotted river of stars filled the moonless sky. “My goodness,” Kathleen whispered, lowering the back of the chaise. After a moment, she realized she had assumed the position she took every day under the machine — only it was the left arm bent above her head and there was no headrest or armrest to keep her from moving. She stretched her arm and twisted her torso, just because she could.

The techs were nice. That Rachel was pregnant didn’t seem to concern anyone but Kathleen. “I’m not even in the room when it’s on, Mrs. Levine,” she explained sweetly, but Kathleen worried about the baby.

Funny how quickly I’ve gotten caught up in their lives. They probably have to check my chart to remember my name, but I’ll always remember them. Terry’s hands are cool. Rachel’s are warm, probably due to the pregnancy, or maybe she just has that kind of metabolism. Terry’s boyfriend is a nurse. Rachel’s husband works for Wildlife and Fisheries. Terry loves chocolate. Rachel drinks Diet Coke, which can’t be good for the baby.

Kathleen let her hand seek out the scar, feeling the seam in her flesh through the nightgown. Terry said she was better off being small-breasted. Bigger women flopped around, which made it harder to line up the machine accurately.

Better and worse, lucky and unlucky. New definitions.

After the first day, the radiation machine itself didn’t bother her. Some patient’s child once said it looked like a dragon, and ever since, the techs had taken to calling it Puff. They joked about painting a face on the movable head, putting arms on the trunk, and a tail at the base. Kathleen whistled the tune to “Puff the Magic Dragon” while she got on the table and waited. Terry and Rachel sang along and kept it up from the control room. They talked to her over the intercom, filling every moment she was alone in the treatment room, stopping only when Puff turned his head to zap her from another angle. Rachel asked, “You all set, Mrs. Levine?” before they let the next dose fly.

“Mrs. Levine is all set,” she answered meekly or brightly, depending on how little sleep she’d had the night before or on the amount of roadkill she’d seen on the way in. Kathleen didn’t understand where her moods came from anymore.