Brunonia Barry - The Map of True Places

MAUREEN PLANNED HER DEATH CAREFULLY, if not well. Finch was on summer vacation from teaching and was carousing with his pirate friends, who were participating in a two-day encampment at Winter Island. And with Zee gone for several hours, Maureen had taken advantage of the opportunity.

The note she left behind was hidden in a place where only Finch would find it. At the bottom of the note, she finished with the verses that matched the book her daughter was just that moment bringing back to her.

Come away, O human child!

To the waters and the wild.

With a faery, hand in hand.

For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.

Less than fifteen minutes after Maureen took the poison, Zee came home with the book. She slammed the screen door in the kitchen before she bounded up the stairs. It was the sound of the slamming door that sent Maureen into her first seizure.

WHEN ZEE WOKE UP, she was still on the couch. The sky had cleared, and the moon was rising over the harbor. It was huge and yellow, and she hadn’t seen one like it for a long time. As she sat up and got her bearings, she realized that it wasn’t the moonlight that had woken her but the sound of someone pounding on the door.

Finch was already in bed, and Jessina was gone for the night.

At first she thought it might be Hawk. He’d said he might come by tonight to do the railings. But when she looked at the clock, she saw that it was after eleven. Confused and still sleepy, she made her way to the door.

It was Michael.

“I got your message,” he said. “I’m sorry, too.”

THOUGH THEY WERE BOTH EXHAUSTED, neither Michael nor Zee slept much that night. Zee’s childhood bed was an old-fashioned double, and it dipped in the middle like a hammock, which was fine for Zee alone but not great for two people. And Finch was sundowning again.

In the short time she’d been here, Zee had noticed that Finch seemed to become disoriented as the day slipped into evening, often leading him to get very agitated by normal activities like washing or dressing for bed. A normal occurrence in some patients with dementia, it was called “sundowning.” He often seemed fearful at such times, and he often wandered, which is what he’d been doing that first night he stood at Zee’s bed before the freezing episode began. Sundowning was something Zee knew about, but it was more common to Alzheimer’s patients than those with Parkinson’s.

When he was sundowning, Finch often didn’t want to take medication. It took her until 4:00 A.M. to convince him to take some trazodone, and by 7:00, when he was due to have his first dose of Sinemet, Finch was fast asleep.

“I’m sorry,” Michael said to her again after witnessing Finch’s deteriorating condition. “I thought you were just being dramatic.”

It was the same phrase that William had used to describe Lilly when he’d first brought her to see Mattei. It was an interesting choice of words, and one that Zee might have called Michael on if they both hadn’t been so tired. She bristled but decided it wasn’t worth an argument.

“I hate to say it, but I agree with the occupational therapist,” he said. “Finch definitely needs to be in a nursing home.”

“He would rather die than be in a nursing home.”

LATER THAT MORNING, CLEARLY FEELING guilty, Michael helped Zee clean out more papers. She was making a pile of Melville’s belongings, things she would get to him or things he could come sort through one day when Finch was out of the house.

They talked little as they worked.

At six o’clock they sent out for Chinese, and they ate it in the kitchen with Finch and Jessina, who was making jokes about the chopsticks, threatening to feed Finch with them instead of the fork she was using.

“Let him feed himself,” Zee reminded her. Everyone was quiet as they watched Finch try to manipulate the fork.

After dinner she opened a bottle of twenty-year-old port that Michael had given Finch for his sixty-fifth birthday.

“He still has this?” Michael was amazed.

“He still has most of them,” she said, showing him. “Melville opens one every so often, but Finch doesn’t drink anymore.”

“Man,” Michael said.

“I told you that a long time ago,” she said.

He looked at her as if her last statement couldn’t possibly be true. Then, trying to cover, he searched the cabinets until he found a proper glass for the port.

ZEE HAD TOLD MICHAEL MORE than once that Finch had stopped drinking, but Michael could never seem to remember it and continued giving him expensive bottles of alcohol on birthdays and holidays. There were other things he’d forgotten as well, things she was pretty sure she’d told him that he didn’t remember. She told herself his job was stressful. And the added stress of the wedding plans she hadn’t been making only made things worse.

It hadn’t always been like this. At least she didn’t think it had. In the beginning of their relationship, they’d talked about things. Or maybe it had been Michael who did most of the talking. He’d always been so clear about what he wanted. And the fact that he’d wanted her was flattering. Michael could have anyone. And though it angered her lately, Zee had originally liked his certainty. There was something attractive and almost seductive about knowing where your life was going. It was new for Zee.

But somewhere along the line, she had stopped talking to Michael. Maybe it was because he was no longer listening, or maybe she’d never really talked to him that much. She had certainly never told him her dreams. But that was largely because she didn’t know what they were. Beyond completing grad school and getting her license to practice, she hadn’t really allowed herself to dream much at all. She knew that this was a product of childhood, of living with Maureen’s illness and not ever being able to make plans. But the fact was, from the moment they met, Michael had always just assumed that he knew Zee. He had never asked her what she wanted out of life. Which was probably a good thing. Though she might have known when she was twelve, these days she had to admit that she had no idea.

TONIGHT MICHAEL WAS DRINKING TOO much. He had finished the bottle of port and had found and opened a Côtes du Rhône. As he drank, his face reddened, and she could feel the tension building.

He reached to pour another glass and caught the lazy Susan with his sleeve, setting it spinning, sending the salt and pepper shakers and Finch’s prescriptions flying.

She started to reach for them.

“I’ll get them,” he said angrily.

She waited while he retrieved the bottle of Sinemet and the salt shaker.

“This is a dangerous drug,” he said. “I don’t understand how anyone could be stupid enough to leave it on the table.”

Zee said nothing. She knew he was trying to start a fight.

“Stupid,” he said again. He got up and walked to the bathroom and put it in the medicine cabinet. “Someone should have done that a long time ago,” he said as he sat back down at the table.

Zee said nothing for a moment. Then, instead of engaging him, she asked a direct question. “When did we get so angry with each other?”

“You may be angry. I’m not,” he said.

“Please,” she said. “I’ve never seen you so angry.”

“I was angry this weekend,” he admitted. “But you explained and apologized, and I totally understand what happened.”

“You were angry the night Lilly jumped off the bridge.”

“That wasn’t anger, that was frustration.”

“Semantics,” she said.

“I had to pay the wedding planner six thousand dollars.”

“I’ll pay the wedding planner,” she said. “I told you that.”