Two months later, I was pregnant.
Those are some of the facts of the case.
Here are the other facts of the case.
Your father’s name is Martin Fitzgerald. He was, at the pinnacle of his career, the chief justice of the highest court in Maine. A brilliant man.
You have his eyes.
Your father met you one time, when you were very young and very small. He kissed you on the head, and he said hello, and in practically the same breath he said goodbye. And then he left us and went back to his other family. His real family.
Your father spends summers in a big gray shingled house in Owls Head, Maine, right outside of a town called Rockland. I have been to this house once. It’s beautiful there, Kristie. There is a chance, without going into too much detail, that you were conceived at this house.
I don’t know the number of the house, or if it has one. It has a name, or it did. The name is Ships View, and it is painted on a small sign above the front door. The road you take to get to the house is called Hidden Beach Road. This is all I remember of it, but it is enough for you to find it if you want to.
An older man, a younger, naive woman. There’s nothing new about this story. It happens ALL THE TIME. It happens so much it’s a cliche, it’s the plot of so many books and movies. But there’s a part of me that still thinks our story is special, and different.
Don’t feel sorry for me, Kristie—and don’t feel sorry for yourself. Martin Fitzgerald gave me the most precious part of my life, and that’s you.
I know I wasn’t able to give you everything I wanted to give you. I tried, but I just wasn’t able to.
The obvious way to tell this story is that a man made a mistake, and when he realized his mistake he returned to his true love. But that’s not the way I tell the story. The way I tell the story, who’s to say that you and I weren’t the stars instead of the bit players? Right, my darling? Who’s to say that we weren’t the real loves?
What you do with this information when I am gone is up to you. But I hope you go to Maine. And I hope there you find all the things you’ve been looking for.
Kristie would give anything—anything!—to spread out a blanket and lie down in a corner of the break room and go to sleep. Sheis hungry and nauseated at the exact same time, and she’s sad, and she’s confused.
But her break is over, and she has to go back to work.
Sorry, Mom,she thinks. She folds the letter and puts it in her backpack, and she folds up the check and puts it in there too.I know you tried. But I don’t think it’s working out the way you hoped.
29.
Matty
Billy Pelletier’s truck rumbles into the driveway at five-thirty in the morning. Matty has been awake since just past four—once he woke, he couldn’t get back to sleep. His stomach is jumbled and all of his organs feel like they’re bouncing around.
The pickup has only one seat, a bench seat in the cabin of the truck, and Hazel moves closer to Billy to make room for Matty. She’s already chewing gum. The smell of mint permeates the truck. She’s wearing shorts and a Vanderbilt sweatshirt. Matty is wearing his cross-country sweatshirt. Hazel is sleepy-eyed, tousle-haired. Matty feels like Cupid is lifting his arrow and pointing it straight at his heart.
“Hi,” says Matty as he slides into the truck. It’s cold this early in the morning. He tries not to shiver.
Billy is wearing a Red Sox cap, a flannel shirt, and jeans. His faceis gray-stubbled and intimidating, serious. The truck tires chew the gravel. Matty feels a twinge of longing for the warm, dark house, the sleeping inhabitants.
“You eat?” Billy asks.
Billy’s question puts Matty into a deep freeze. Should he have eaten? Should he not have eaten? “A little,” he says eventually (he had a banana), and that answer, met with silence, seems acceptable. The truck rises and falls over the hills on North Shore Drive. Everything looks different at this time of day. The sun has just begun to rise, and a hazy light hangs above the trees.
They turn at the post office, and the centrifugal force of the turn briefly forces Matty to slide closer to Hazel. The mint smell grows stronger. It is an exquisite form of torture, being this close to her. The truck rights itself, and he shifts back to his side.
“We brought coffee, in a thermos,” says Hazel. “And muffins that my grandma made. Blueberry.”
“Great,” says Matty. He’s never had coffee. Once last year Claire drank a whole cup when nobody was looking and stayed awake for fourteen hours after.
“You ever been lobstering before?” That’s Billy.
“No sir.”
“All this time coming up here and you’ve never been out on a boat?”
