Good Harbor

She and Buddy decided to keep the appointment with Dr. Cooperman, who seemed as competent and reassuring as a thirty-year-old surgeon could be. But every night that week, Kathleen dreamed she could feel the cancer pushing from the inside of her breast, threatening to break out of her skin. She took to adding a jigger of brandy to her bedtime herbal tea. In the morning when Buddy asked how she had slept, Kathleen would say, “Like a baby.” What she thought but didn’t say was “Like the dead.”

JOYCE’S ROUTINE HAD turned into a secret rut. She dropped Nina off at school, cruised through the Dunkin’ Donuts drive-through for coffee, and mentally scanned her to-do list: the kitchen cabinets needed washing and fresh liners, she had to measure the windows for blinds, and all the walls needed paint. Every morning she vowed that as soon as she reached Gloucester, she would get to work.

But most days, once she’d made the hour-long drive to the house, she collapsed in an orange beanbag chair she had rescued from a neighbor’s trash heap and read magazines until it was time to pick Nina up from school. One Monday she stripped the paper off the shelves, imagining Mary Loquasto picking the green teacup pattern to match the appliances. Another day, she vacuumed the crawl space in the attic. But those were exceptions.

She promised herself, over and over, to get off her butt. She should be finishing the articles that were still due. She ought to make more of an effort to talk to Frank, who was preoccupied and consumed by the goings-on at Meekon, the most recent start-up software company on his long, high-tech résumé. Rumors of a Japanese takeover were flying again, and it was all he could talk about. Which made it hard for her to pay attention.

Every day, she got out of bed resolved to make serious headway on the house, spend a little time at her desk, fix a good dinner, keep her cool with her increasingly surly twelve-year-old daughter, and have a real heart-to-heart with Frank. But every day turned out pretty much the same as the day before. By the time Joyce crossed the bridge and saw the fisherman sign welcoming her to Gloucester, her good intentions had evaporated. She ended up in the beanbag, staring at the wallpaper until it was time to drive home in a guilty funk that lasted until bedtime.

Joyce finally got herself to Ferguson’s Decorating Center to buy scrapers, brushes, and paint. On the way to the cash register, two gallons of Linen White cutting narrow grooves into her palms, she caught sight of the color charts. “No more white,” she muttered.

This was, she knew, an extremely unoriginal urge. Everyone in Belmont already had a red dining room or a green den. She walked over to the Benjamin Moore display, which looked like an altar to the Greek goddess of the rainbow; Joyce tried to remember her name. Maybe she could tell me which one of these ten thousand shades of green would make my avocado refrigerator look retro and chic. Joyce grabbed a handful of color strips and walked out, leaving the cans of white paint like offerings to Iris (that was her name!), messenger of Olympus.

Driving back to Belmont, Joyce spread the samples on the passenger seat and nearly swerved off the road while reaching for Calvin Klein’s Forested. Maybe that would help. Or not. Joyce frowned at herself in the rearview mirror.

“I’ll call Francesca!” she crowed a moment later, smacking the steering wheel triumphantly. Francesca Albano was a soccer mom who had hosted a parents’ team meeting the previous fall. Touring Francesca’s enormous house, Joyce felt as if she’d been trapped inside the interior decorator’s infomercial. But her jaw had dropped in pure admiration of the kitchen. Who would have thought that bright blue and gold were a good combination for anything but cheerleader uniforms?

At the dinner table, her announcement of the decision to call Francesca was met with stares.

“Mom, are you okay?” said Nina.

“Yeah, Joyce,” Frank chimed in. “Maybe you ought to lie down or something.”

“Why?” asked Joyce. “I think it’s a great idea.”

“You wouldn’t even let me paint my room light yellow, remember?” Nina said, twirling a strand from her long, dark ponytail.

“Isn’t there a clause about Linen White in our prenup?” Frank teased.

Joyce was getting annoyed. “I’m simply admitting my inadequacy here.”

“I still think we ought to take your temperature,” Frank said lightly.

“Don’t tease Mom,” said Nina, suddenly rushing to her mother’s defense.

“It’s okay, honey,” said Joyce.

“No, it’s not,” Nina said, a hysterical catch in her voice and tears in her eyes. “He’s so mean to you.”

“Nina,” Frank warned, “knock it off.”

“Really, Nina, he’s just kidding around,” said Joyce.

“Now you’re ganging up on me.”

“That is not true,” Frank said, emphasizing each word. “And your behavior is not acceptable, young lady.”

“You hate me,” Nina screamed. She ran for her room.

“Let it go,” said Joyce. “There is no point in arguing when she gets like this. She can’t help it.”

“She has to learn to control herself, and you shouldn’t undermine me like that in front of her.” Frank got up and headed for the computer. Joyce cleared the table and brooded. Life with Nina was a minute-by-minute drama, and Frank’s anger only made it worse. There was no predicting her daughter’s behavior, and no consoling her confused, abandoned husband.

Nina had been such a daddy’s girl as a toddler, and all the way through grade school they had spent part of every weekend in the park, just the two of them. First swings and slides, then ball

s and bats, then soccer. They had private jokes. They quoted lines from The Simpsons at each other. Or they used to.

Not anymore. As hard as Nina was on Joyce, she was ten times pricklier around Frank. Everything he said or did seemed to drive her crazy.