Nantucket Nights

Theo

He didn’t manage to make it back to school until Friday, and by then it was too late. Sara Poncheau, summer cab driver and best friend of Gillian Bergey, told everyone that she had seen Theo at Antoinette Riley’s house. This was the story as Theo finally heard it: Ms. Riley had been a frequent fare for Sara, a huge tipper, and Sara wondered about her. A beautiful black woman with a ton of cash living back in the woods off Polpis; it was intriguing. Then, on Friday afternoon, she saw Theo standing in the doorway of Ms. Riley’s house; she saw Mm grab her arm like he owned her or something. Sara assumed they were sleeping together. Which she reported to Gillian Bergey ASAP-and then two days later it hit the newspaper that the woman, Ms. Riley, wasmissing and Theo’s mother was somehow involved. Covering up for Theo, maybe. Theo confessed to two counts of vandalism, which meant Theo probably killed the woman, probably hacked her to bits with an axe and buried her body parts in the woods. And his mother took the blame. Everyone knew Theo’s parents spoiled him-his own Jeep, for starters, and spending money from his father who made all kinds of sick cash building huge houses for Chinese people. Yes, Theo was guilty of murder. Why else would anybody miss the first three days of senior year? That was insane, social suicide, and so there had to be a good reason.

Theo heard this from Aaron, just after first period, calculus-where the teacher, Mr. Eviasco, had started on derivatives and Theo stared helplessly at the numbers on the blackboard, unable to concentrate. As soon as the bell rang, dismissing them, Aaron yanked Theo into an empty classroom and told him the rumors that were going around.

“Man, is this the woman we saw at the Islander? And at the game? Your mom’s friend?”

“Shut up, Aaron. I don’t want to talk about it.”

“I’m asking because I care about you, man. There’s some serious shit going around. Perpetuated by Gillian and those bitches. They’re saying you killed her, man.”

Theo looked into the empty classroom at the rows of desks. He felt so alien here, like an impostor at his own high school. He didn’t belong anymore.

Aaron ran a hand across the top of his spiky black hair. His neck started to splotch the way it sometimes did when he stood at home plate on a full count; he was nervous. “Man, is it true? Did you kill her?”

Theo grabbed the front of Aaron’s T-shirt and pressed his lips against Aaron’s ear. “Get one thing straight,” he whispered. “That woman is not dead.”

…

By lunchtime, Theo sensed the other kids moving away when he walked through the halls. Mrs. Waverly, his English teacher, giggled nervously when she called his name for attendance-and she had been his teacher since sophomore year. She liked him. But she squeaked when she said his name, as if noticing for the first time that he had three arms or something. They all thought he’d killed Antoinette. Or that his mother had killed her.

Because he was a senior, he had off-property lunch privileges, and Theo watched the other kids in his class fly out the doors when the bell rang. The guys from the baseball team-Aaron and Brett among them-stripped off their shirts. Theo heard them say they were going to Surfside Beach to eat at the snack bar. They didn’t ask Theo to join them, although Theo figured he would still be welcome- for a price. He’d have to throw them a bone, a lie or something about Antoinette, his mother, the vandalism. He wasn’t up to it.

Grief flooded Theo as he sat in the lunchroom, alone, with the egg salad sandwich that his mother had packed for him despite everything. His sister Jennifer sat at a table of ninth-grade girls, but even she wouldn’t make eye contact with him. Last year her friends had all been gaga over him; now they thought he was a psycho. Theo’s vision blurred and the tables of other kids decked out in their new clothes melted into a horrible stew. His old life decomposing.

He couldn’t eat. He shoved his sandwich back into the brown paper bag and left the cafeteria. He walked out to the parking lot, climbed into the Jeep, and drove away.

He ended up at Antoinette’s house. The police car was gone, but the yellow tape remained. Theo took down the pieces of tape over the front door and let himself in. The place was pretty much as Theo had left it-Antoinette’s books all over the floor with the wine bottles, the sofa cushions, the broken candles. Theo picked up a wine bottle and wandered through the house holding it like a club. A cocktail napkin was secured to the refrigerator with a magnet-in blue ink it said, L, Cape Air, noon Sat. Theo stared at the napkin-her daughter, he realized after a minute. Lindsey. Had Antoinette really meant to pick up Lindsey, or was this just a decoy? When Antoinette’s body didn’t turn up in the coast guard search, his suspicions were confirmed: Antoinette had been planning to disappear during Night Swimmers for a long time. But that napkin. It bothered Theo. He folded it carefully and put it into his jeans pocket.

He moved through the house touching all the things that Antoinette might have touched, the light switches, the doorknobs. He’d dumped her clothes in a pile on the bed and that’s where they remained-a mound of black T-shirts and black jeans and black sundresses. He buried his face in one of the dresses, rooting for her smell, but he couldn’t identify it. The dress smelled like fabric softener. He swept the clothes off the bed and turned back the sheets, looking for a stain from their lovemaking or one of his hairs, something to prove that he had lain with Antoinette in this bed, he had created a child here. But the sheets were clean, crisp even, Antoinette’s Egyptian cotton sheets.

In the bathroom, Theo saw pills on the countertop divided into neat, colorful piles. Theo checked himself out in the mirror-he looked awful, like a sick person, a dying person. He had dark half-moons under his eyes, and his lips were cracked. His hair stuck out all over the place. That napkin was a bad clue. That napkin said: I am planning on being around Saturday. I’ll see you at noon!

So she drowned.

Or, it was a trick. An Antoinette trick.

What Theo wanted the napkin to say was: I love Theo Montero and I love our baby. What he wanted the napkin to say was: Meet me in Newport, Rhode Island, noon Sat., and we’ll run away together. What he wanted the napkin to say was: I am thinking of you, Theo. Yes, even that, only that. What had she expected him to do? How had she expected him to feel? Did she really expect him to survive the love affair and then the pregnancy? He was only eighteen. His heart had been broken and entered, ransacked, robbed.

Theo studied the piles of pills. Take them, he thought. Wash them down. It might be as easy as falling asleep.

As Theo picked up the first pill, the whelk shell caught his eye. It sat on the back of the toilet. Here was what Theo had been looking for-a piece of himself in this house. He cradled the shell in his hands as though it were a small animal. He kissed its smooth, cool surface, and then he brought the shell to his ear and listened to the ocean.

Even though it was the middle of the day, both of Theo’s parents were at home. His father had lost the Ting job, although he insisted it wasn’t Theo’s fault. It was because of the newspaper article, that prick detective. Theo’s father went out to Ting to gather his sawhorses and his tools, the Dumpster, the vans. He fired two men from his crew-Micky and Carter, saying that he wanted to pare down the operation. Mainstream. Montero Construction had projects lined up for the next thirty months with people who needed a builder so desperately that a mere accusation of murder wouldn’t deter them. Losing Ting was a blessing in disguise, Theo’s father said with false cheer. Because really that house was preposterous. That cathedral.

But Theo’s father hadn’t started on any new projects yet. He’d been at home trying to find a lawyer to defend him against the assault charges. Theo’s mother hadn’t left the house for errands or shopping because she was afraid to see anyone she knew. “They all think I’m a murderer,” she said. “My own children think it.”

Theo didn’t think his mother was a murderer. He longed to climb into his mother’s arms and say, It’s my fault. Blame me. But both his parents insisted on protecting him. He wasn’t even going to get in trouble for the vandalism. He’d gotten off scot-free- except for Sara Poncheau. But now that Theo thought about it, he was glad Sara had told everyone at school about him and Antoinette. It made his pain real. Sara had seen them together only a week before. She had seen that it was real.

When Theo opened the sliding glass door, he heard his parents yelling. He wondered if this had been going on all morning while he was at school- his parents home alone in the empty house, screaming.

“… you’re throwing me out!” his mother said.

“Call it what you like, Kayla. I need time alone. I need time to think.”

“You want to get rid of me,” his mother said. “You hate me.”

“I’m angry,” his father said. “I’m hurt. But this is for you, too. You need to get off the island for a while.”

“I won’t know what to do,” Theo’s mother said. “The kids, I’ll miss the kids.”

“The kids will be fine. I’ll take good care of them.”

“What about Theo?”

Theo tensed. He locked his knees and pressed the soles of his Nikes into the kitchen tile.

“What about Theo?” his father said.

“He’ll need a counselor. He has to have time to grieve.”

“We’ll take care of that.”

“You’ll find another woman while I’m gone,” his mother said. “Someone to replace me.”

“Are you listening to yourself, Kayla? You sound ridiculous.”

“Okay, fine, you want me to go, I’ll go.”

“It’ll be good for both of us,” Theo’s father said.

“I doubt that.”

There was silence. Theo thought to stomp his feet or otherwise make himself known, but before he could move, his mother said, “Theo?”

Theo looked around. How did she know he was there?

“I see you,” she said. “In the picture frame. What are you doing home?”

Theo walked into the living room, where his parents were pacing like a couple of caged animals.

“I left school,” he said. He collapsed on the sofa. “The kids… whatever, everyone thinks I’m a psycho.”

“Well, you’re going to have to rise above that,” his father said.

Theo shook his head. “No can do,” he said. “Not going back.”

“Oh, Theo,” his mother said.

“What? I don’t see you two running out to face the general public.” He remembered the piles of pills. “I want to kill myself,” he said. “I want to be dead.”

His parents exchanged a look.

“And what were you two yelling about?” he said. “Are you getting a divorce?”

Another look. His mother at his father, as if to say, This one’s all yours.

“Mom’s taking a vacation by herself,” his father said. “Just for a month or two.”

“I want to go with you,” Theo said. “Mom, please?”

“The idea is for your mother to have some time by herself. A change of scenery.”

“I need a change of scenery,” Theo said.

His parents were quiet. His father tousled Theo’s hair the way he hadn’t done in many years. “We’ll see about getting you some help.”

“I don’t want to see any counselor,” Theo said. What came to mind was some cinder-block room in the school. Being forced into meaningful conversation with Mr. Permanente, the guidance counselor, who had hair growing out of his ears. “Just send me away,” Theo said. “Send me to the moon.”

They didn’t make him go back to school, and so Theo spent the weekend and the early part of the following week driving around aimlessly in his Jeep with the cocktail napkin that Antoinette had written on in the pocket of his jeans and the whelk shell next to him on the passenger seat. He called the police station each morning to see if they’d found any clues. Most mornings he talked to a Sergeant Webster, who sounded young and bored.

“No news,” the sergeant said. “But hey, no news is good news.”

The guy was a bonehead, Theo thought. The third time the sergeant fed him this line, Theo responded, “No. Good news would be my girlfriend turning up alive. Got it, pal? Let me speak to Paul Henry.”

Most always, Paul Henry was on the other line, or out on a call, or busy organizing the Rotary Scholarship Auction, and Theo was put through to his voice mail. The one time Paul Henry called Theo back, he said they hadn’t found a body and they were starting a limited missing persons search. Subpoenaing access to Antoinette’s post office box and all that.

“So you think she might be alive, then?” Theo asked.

“Oh, Theo.” Paul Henry’s tone of voice was just like that of Theo’s parents-sad and indulgent. “I haven’t the slightest idea what happened to the woman. But we’re going to cover all the bases for you. Okay, son? The important thing is for you to go on with your life.”

Except that he had no life without Antoinette. “Yep,” Theo said. “You bet.”

And then, Thursday, thirteen days after Antoinette disappeared, Theo saw her bike leaning against the side of the Glucksterns’ house. Theo stopped at the Glucksterns’ with a paper bag of Val’s things that his mother had asked him to return-some books, a green glass vase, a bundt pan. His mother was finished with Val as a friend, and she couldn’t bear to give the things back herself. So she sent Theo to do it-in the middle of the day when no one would be home. As Theo hurried across the lawn toward the front door, anxious to drop the bag off and get out of there, he noticed a bike, which struck him as strange because the Glucksterns weren’t the bikeriding type and they didn’t have any kids. Then Theo realized it was Antoinette’s bike. There was no mistaking it. It was a green Schwinn with a tattered basket on front that was connected to the handlebars by two disintegrating leather straps. Theo felt like shouting. Her bike! He’d never thought to look for her bike!

Theo touched the handlebars and his nose tingled with impending tears. Her hands, God, her hands had touched the handlebars. He put his hand on the black vinyl seat, which was warm from the sun. He let himself remember back to the first night at the Islander when Antoinette had pulled in on her bike. And then later, when she drove by the baseball field. The bike had been an integral part of their relationship, it had meaning, and without thinking twice, Theo walked the bike over to his Jeep and hoisted it in the back.

As he drove away, he wondered what it was doing at the Glucksterns’ house. He couldn’t very well call up and ask. More pressing was what Theo would tell his parents when they saw it. He decided to tell them that he’d gone up to Antoinette’s and taken it as a reminder of her. They wouldn’t fight him. As for the Glucksterns, well, they’d probably assume the bike had been stolen. Or they might not even notice. It was just an old bike to them-but to Theo, it was much more.

A few days later, matters were decided. Theo’s mother was going to Puerto Rico for six weeks on a vacation that she didn’t want to take. And Theo’s parents decided that Theo would live with his grandmother, Sabrina Montero, in Boston. Attend Boston Hill, a private high school in Cambridge. Start a new life. Theo packed one huge duffel bag, tucking the whelk shell, the cocktail napkin, and the snapshot of Antoinette holding him as a baby among his clothes. He’d managed to convince his parents to let him take the bike to Boston. “If Antoinette shows up and wants it back, I’ll return it,” Theo said.

“Of course,” his mother said quickly, like she knew that would never happen.

When it was time to catch the ferry, Theo hugged his sisters and shook Luke’s hand. He was leaving a week earlier than his mother, and so both of his parents stood with him in the parking lot of the Steamship Authority before he got on the boat. His mother was crying, of course. His father wore sunglasses, his mouth a perfectly straight line. Even in the crowded parking lot filled mostly with tourists, Theo felt people staring at them. It was hot and his shoulder grew sore with his heavy bag. He hadn’t let anyone else touch it. Theo kissed his parents good-bye and was the first person up the ramp of the boat, walking the bike alongside him. He didn’t wait to watch them wave.

Theo found a spot on the upper deck and lay down in the sun, resting his head on his duffel. He stayed awake until the boat passed Great Point, and then he fell asleep.

Theo’s grandmother, Sabrina, did things her own way. For most of Theo’s life she had lived on ten green acres in Concord, Massachusetts. The house was called Colonial Farm, although it wasn’t a farm at all-just a sprawling house and lots of grass and a small pond stocked with fish. It was the house where his father had grown up. When Theo’s grandfather died, Sabrina sold the house and bought an apartment on Marlborough Street in Back Bay. Many of her friends were moving into retirement communities, but not Sabrina. She headed right for the big city, like a kid fresh out of college.

Theo insisted on finding the apartment himself. He took the T from South Station and wandered over to Marlborough, hauling his heavy-ass bag, walking Antoinette’s bike. The city of Boston was as foreign as Kathmandu. The noise, the rows of brownstones, the throngs of people. The smell of urine in the T station. So different from Nantucket. I could forget about her here, Theo thought. I could forget about everything.

He had to ring his grandmother before he could get into her building; he remembered that much from previous visits. A loud buzz sounded, and Theo pushed open the door. He locked his bike to the banister for the time being and lugged his suitcase up to where his grandmother stood in the door of her apartment, smiling at him sadly. She wore dangly earrings that looked like very small wooden spoons, and a red-and-purple scarf over her silver hair.

“My poor, dear child,” she said. “Come to Sabrina.”

Theo put his bag down and hugged his grandmother. She was wiry and strong, and her embrace nearly strangled him. He wanted to thank her for letting him stay, but he was afraid if he opened his mouth he would cry. He wondered how much she knew.

“My grandchild,” Sabrina said. “Son of my son. Or should I say sun of my son? Wait until people meet you. No one believes I’m old enough to have a grandchild, much less a grown man like you. Oh, Theo, come in. Come into my life. I’m glad you’re here. I can help you.”

“No one can help me, Sabrina.”

She ushered Theo in. Her apartment smelled like curry and apples. On the walls hung Indian tapestries and a Salvador Dali print. In the living room was a low, round table surrounded by big turquoise pillows. Theo remembered the table from her other house. It was the table where Sabrina performed séances. Sabrina had psychic powers; she knew how to talk to God.

“Do you still do séances?” Theo asked.

Sabrina smiled at him. She had the same golden brown eyes as his father, only her eyes were surrounded by millions of tiny wrinkles. “But, of course,” she said. “In fact, just before you arrived, I asked the Madame what our time together was going to be like, and do you know what she said?”

The Madame-this was how Sabrina pictured God, as an old French peasant woman who collected eggs in a basket and baked her own baguettes. “What?” Theo asked.

“She said it would be transforming. Transforming!”

He had his own bedroom and his own bath. On his bed was a crocheted afghan knit by Sabrina herself, a twin to the one Theo’s family used to have, the one he had seen draped over Antoinette’s naked body when she came to baby-sit. Theo shoved the afghan into the bottom of his closet. He unpacked his clothes and placed the cocktail napkin and the snapshot of Antoinette in the drawer with his boxer shorts. The whelk shell went on the back of the toilet.

I could forget about her here. How wrong Theo was. In the city of Boston, Theo saw Antoinette everywhere-a long, lean woman with bronze skin wearing black, with dark hair caught carelessly in a bun. She rode the T with Theo on his way to his new school, she lounged under the weeping willow in Boston Commons, she drank coffee at Rebecca’s Café near Government Center. When Theo spotted her, his heart banged in his chest until he realized that it wasn’t Antoinette at all, but someone else, many someone elses.

Theo’s new school was expensive. It sat on a campus of three square blocks of grass and trees across the Charles River, in Cambridge. Boston Hill-there was no dress code, but the senior boys wore soft chino pants or gray flannels, and pressed oxford shirts. They were quiet in the hallways; they were studious. The girls ate hummus for lunch. Everyone listened to National Public Radio. There was no baseball team, only fencing and archery. Theo told the few people who approached him that he came from Nantucket, but no one was impressed. Much of the student body was foreign-they summered in places like Provence and Tuscany. Theo made no friends, but at Boston Hill solitude was popular. There wasn’t a lunchroom-students ate alone under one of the trees, reading Rick Moody or Anne Lamott. Theo’s English teacher, a man named Geoffrey, assigned a year-long journal project. “Record your thoughts,” he said. “Explore your soul. And read these ten books and compose a reaction to them.” Theo picked up seven of the ten books and a journal at Water stone’s on Newbury Street. One of the books, A Passage to India, he’d seen on Antoinette’s shelves.

Theo took classical music and art history. He sat in acoustically designed rooms listening to Mozart’s eleventh piano sonata spiral through the air. He sat in other dark rooms and stared at slides of important paintings like Seurat’s Invitation to the Sideshow. Theo thought of Antoinette at the age of twenty-three meandering through the Met in New York, studying the original painting. This made him feel less lost, that they might have gazed upon the same painting or listened to the same Mozart sonata.

In the afternoons before he headed to the T station, Theo watched ballet class. It was held in the school’s dance studio, where they had a grand piano played by a white-haired gentleman whose hands trembled when they weren’t moving over the keys. Theo watched the dancers go through their stretches at the barre, their plies, their positions. He appreciated the lines of their bodies as they twirled. Some of the girls noticed him staring, and they scowled, or they smiled. They thought that he lusted after them with normal teenage-boy hormones. They had no idea that when Theo watched them dance he was drinking of the one time he’d seen Antoinette dance, her arms flowing, her back bending. He was drinking of how his mother described Antoinette in the last moment she saw her, up at Great Point. She danced into the water, his mother said.

After ballet class, Theo bought a PayDay bar from the subway kiosk and sat on a bench on the grimy platform of the Harvard T station watching people. Sometimes ten trains would screech into the station and pull out again before Theo finally boarded one. He got lost in his thoughts; occasionally he swam around in his old life, afternoons at the Islander liquor store, a hundred years ago, a million miles away.

Am I transforming? he wondered.

Pregnant women were everywhere in Boston, and Theo saw Antoinette in each one. Antoinette growing soft and round with his baby.

Theo spoke very little to his grandmother and that seemed to be okay. She had plenty of other people to talk to. She’d created a life for herself that seemed to revolve primarily around shopping for dinner. It was very European, she claimed, to make numerous stops, and with each stop, enjoy a conversation. Sabrina chattered away with Joe the butcher, Helen at the bakery, Dominic at the fish store, Nathan with Down’s syndrome who bagged at the regular grocery, and a young man named Gianlorenzo who worked in the shop in the North End where Sabrina went to buy cannoli, fresh marinara, and ricotta pies. Sabrina was a great cook and an extravagant wine drinker-she adored the reds of France, which, she told him, were more expensive than his tuition at Boston Hill. But worth it! Sabrina poured Theo a glass with every meal-her paella, her osso buco, her Peking duck. Theo started to gain weight. Am I transforming? he wondered.

Weekends were the most painful days because he was removed from his school routine. On Saturdays, he slept as late as he could, hoping that when he rolled over, the blue numbers of his digital clock would say eleven or twelve so that at least the morning would be over with. Sabrina made him breakfast-granola, yogurt, strawberries-and always invited him on an excursion-strolling along the Charles, studying the gravestones at Old North Church, visiting die MFA. Theo always said no.

“I don’t blame you,” Sabrina said. “I’m an old woman. Not much fun.”

“You’re fun,” Theo said. “It’s me who’s no fun.” On Saturdays at home, his mother made him do chores in the morning and then he went to the Whalers games with his friends. Here, in Boston, he had no friends. On Saturday afternoons he rode Antoinette’s bike down to the FAO Schwarz on Newbury Street where he waited to see pregnant women, even though the pregnant women Theo found never failed to disappoint him-Diet Coke in one hand, bag of M&M’s in the other, puffy-faced, swaybacked and miserable looking.

He allowed himself one fantasy per day: autumn on Nantucket with Antoinette. Theo sitting with her on the back deck, Theo peeling her an apple, slicing a piece of cheese. Listening to the Canada geese pass overhead, Antoinette wrapped in a nubby wool sweater, Theo placing his hand on her stomach and feeling his baby kick.

He masturbated exactly once a week-Saturday night-in the shower. It made him incredibly sad.

One night, when Theo had been living with Sabrina for just over a month, she made an old-fashioned meatloaf slathered with ketchup. It seemed uncharacteristically staid-a dowdy old meatloaf made by a woman wearing a fuchsia pantsuit with a matching head scarf. Sabrina’s long, manicured nails clicked against the plates as she set them down.

“This was your father’s favorite food growing up,” she said.

Theo picked up his fork. “Really?” Sabrina had said surprisingly little about his father since he’d arrived. She hadn’t mentioned his mother or his siblings at all. Theo sometimes caught Sabrina staring at him in a way that let him know she was trying to read his mind. He stared back, sending her the message, Please don’t ask, Sabrina. I’m not ready. But now as Theo ate the delicious, oniony meatloaf, he felt ready. “Has Dad called?”

“Twice,” Sabrina said. “While you were at school. Should I have told you?”

Theo shrugged. He was so busy longing for Antoinette that he didn’t have the energy to miss the rest of his family, not as he should. “What did he say?”

“He asked how you were doing.”

“What did you tell him?”

I said you were quiet, but that you were doing as well as could be expected under the circumstances.”

“Do you know the circumstances?”

“I know that you’ve learned a difficult lesson,” Sabrina said. She put her fork down and moved her hand across the table toward him. “I know that you’ve lost someone you loved.”

“Yes,” he said. Tears rose at his grandmother’s words. Finally, an acknowledgment of what was really wrong. He’d lost someone he loved-not one person but two-because Theo loved the baby Antoinette was carrying. Loved it with a fierceness that surpassed anything he’d ever felt. “They’re lost. Lost. Antoinette and… my baby. Antoinette was pregnant.”

“Yes,” Sabrina said. Her eyes shone with tears. “I know.”

“She wanted to have an abortion, and I was trying to stop her. I didn’t want her to kill our baby.”

“That’s understandable, Theo.”

“She disappeared to get away from me,” Theo said. “I think. But lately I’ve been having doubts. I’ve been wondering, you know, what if it was an accident? What if she is dead? Because what I picture is her living in Hawaii or something, you know, hiding from me.”

“They haven’t found her body,” Sabrina said. “Your father told me that much.”

“So she’s still alive, maybe,” Theo said.

He and his grandmother ate in silence as it grew dark. Then Sabrina cleared their plates and lit some candles.

“You’re going to think I’m nutty,” she said. “And you’ll be right, of course. But would you like me to ask the Madame?”

Theo squeezed his eyes shut.

“Never mind,” she said. “I just thought I’d offer. In case you were a believer.”

He was a believer of sorts. He had no choice but to believe. “Okay,” Theo said. “Ask Her if Antoinette is alive.”

Sabrina lit more candles. The apartment glowed with soft light. Outside on the street, Theo heard car horns. On his way home from school that afternoon, he’d smelled autumn for the first time, the smokiness of falling leaves.

“I never make promises,” Sabrina said. “The Madame doesn’t always feel like communicating. She’s an old, old woman.”

“It’s okay,” he said. “I don’t expect much.”

Sabrina sat down on one of the turquoise pillows and waved him over. “Come,” she said. She readjusted her head scarf. “Come and relax.”

Theo plopped onto a pillow next to her while she rubbed her small, manicured hands together. “Okay, now close your eyes and take my hands. What I need you to do is drink about Antoinette. Really think about her. Picture her in your mind’s eye and hold her there. Hold her steady.”

Theo framed Antoinette with her arms crossed over her chest, leaning against his Jeep as she waited for him to emerge from the boys’ locker room after his baseball game. This was a good picture, a “before” picture: before the sex, before the baby, before Theo fell in love. A moment in time with Antoinette when Theo was still safe. He was just a kid giving his mother’s friend a ride home.

“Okay, got it.”

Sabrina hummed-not a spooky, mantra hum, but a show tune of some kind. Try to remember the kind of September… the one that went like that. She massaged his hands and Theo pictured the Madame wearing a red kerchief, carrying her basket of brown eggs. She’s an old, old woman. Sabrina had been trying to convince Theo and his brother and sisters that God was a woman all their lives. Think of her infinite compassion, Sabrina said. Her nurturing. Now Theo felt like laughing-his classmates were at home listening to All Things Considered-but part of him was anxious. Was the Madame saying anything?

Abruptly, Sabrina stopped humming. “Riley,” she said. “A black woman?” Her voice sounded surprised.

“Yes,” Theo said. “Yes, yes, she’s black.” Calm down, he thought. His grandmother probably already knew that. She was teasing him. But maybe not; Sabrina wasn’t cruel. “Do you see her? What does the Madame say?” Theo held the picture of Antoinette in his mind and added other pictures of her: Antoinette standing nude in the bathroom after the first time they made love, Antoinette lounging on her back deck with a glass of wine balanced on the flat spot between her breasts, Antoinette slapping him across the face. She had feelings for him, yes, she did.

Sabrina was quiet for a long while. Theo heard her slow, rhythmic breathing and he feared she’d fallen asleep. He was close to sleep himself, so when her words came, she startled him.

“The Madame says the woman is alive. And the baby, too. The baby is alive.”

Theo opened his eyes. Sabrina was looking at him with the kindest possible expression.

“She’s alive, Theo,” Sabrina whispered.

Was she telling him the truth or simply saying this to make him feel better? Sun of my son. Come into my life. I can help you. She was his grandmother, and if Theo wanted Antoinette to be alive, she would make it so. This was her way.

That night, Theo wrote in his journal. Because his journal was supposed to have something to do with his reading, he wrote about Antoinette living in India, disappearing into one of the Marabar Caves. So many dark openings, one indistinguishable from the next. Which one was she in? Where was she hiding?

He wrote, Am I transforming?

The week before Thanksgiving, Theo saw Antoinette on Clarendon Street, getting out of a cab. It was Sunday and Theo had taken to sitting at the bar of T.G.I. Friday’s where he drank Coke, ate chicken fingers, and watched the Patriots game. Sabrina didn’t have a TV and Theo liked to sit at the bar with his food and his drink and his anonymity. He liked listening to John Madden and Pat Summer all, he liked the roar of the crowd. His whole family were Patriots fans, and because his father didn’t work on Sundays, he used to sit with the rest of them in the living room watching the game, eating potato chips. “These are the good times,” his father used to say. “Don’t you ever forget it.”

At dusk, Theo was riding Antoinette’s bike home when a cab stopped a few yards ahead of him, and Antoinette stepped out.

Theo squeezed the brakes. Antoinette in black pants and a black leather jacket. He saw her profile as she rummaged through a backpack for money.

“Antoinette!” Theo called. He ran toward her with the bike before she could hop back in the cab and escape from him. He grabbed her arm. “Antoinette!”

Antoinette yanked her arm free. “Hey!” she said.

“Antoinette,” Theo said. He started to cry. A line of cars formed behind the stopped cab. Antoinette leaned in to pay the driver and Theo took in a huge gulp of autumn air. A sense of peace settled over him. He’d found her.

The cars honked. He moved the bike to the sidewalk and she came to him.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

Theo wiped his eyes. He couldn’t answer. Sabrina had been right, and the Madame-Antoinette was alive. But then confusion rattled his brain. This wasn’t Antoinette. Or rather, it was Antoinette, but younger, prettier even. It was Lindsey. Her daughter Lindsey.

“Oh, shit,” Theo said. His whole body was shaking. “Shit, I thought you were Antoinette.”

“You thought wrong,” she said. “I’m Lindsey. You’re Theo.”

“Yes.”

“Yes, well, I’d think you’d have better things to do with your time than wander the streets of Boston looking for a dead woman.”

“Antoinette’s not dead,” Theo said.

“Oh, really? She’s turned up?” Lindsey said. “News to me.”

“She didn’t turn up yet,” Theo said. “But that doesn’t mean she’s dead.”

Lindsey snickered. “You should see the look on your face. You are such a sorry sight.” She hitched her backpack over her shoulder. “You were in way over your head, baby. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to meet someone.”

“Wait,” Theo said. He followed her. “Wait, I want to talk to you.”

“I don’t want to talk to you,” Lindsey said. “You and your mother are responsible for what happened, and I can’t tell you how it bums me up. Your mother should be thrown in jail. She should be on death row. I’d like to see a white person get it just once for killing a black person.”

“No,” Theo said. “Because. Well, you don’t know the whole story.”

“I don’t care anymore,” she said. “I’ve been in therapy for almost three months over this, and I don’t need you appearing like some ghost bringing all the bad shit back. Now quit following me, or I’ll call a policeman.”

“I loved your mother,” Theo said. “She was pregnant with my baby.”

“I know,” Lindsey said. “And the thought of it makes me want to vomit. Now please!” She crossed the street against the light, running in front of two cars. Theo had to wait for a stream of traffic to pass; he watched Lindsey hurry down the next block. He should just let her go-she hated him, she probably would get a policeman after him, and he didn’t need that kind of trouble. But, God, what were the chances? She wasn’t Antoinette, but she was close, a whole hell of a lot closer than he’d gotten in months. So he mounted the bike and chased after her, weaving among other pedestrians, and an old man with a dog. When Theo was within feet of her, she whipped around and screamed at him.

“What do you want from me?”

“I want to talk.”

Her brow creased and her eyebrows met sharply in the middle, two angry diagonal lines. An element of her face that did not belong to Antoinette. Weird.

“Antoinette used to talk about you. I could tell you what she said.”

“Why should I care what she said?” Lindsey asked. Although Theo knew from the sound of her voice that she did care. Three months of therapy aside, she did care.

“Because she was your mother,” Theo said. “Because she loved you.”

She agreed to have coffee with him-his suggestion, because having coffee was an adult thing to do and Theo didn’t want to call attention to the fact that he was too young to drink alcohol. Plus, he only had ten dollars left in his wallet, which wouldn’t go far with anything except coffee. They went to Rebecca’s Café and stood in line for coffee, which Theo loaded down with cream and sugar. Lindsey got jasmine tea, and Theo said, “Do you want a scone or anything? I can pay for it. What about a cwasant oh jam-bone ay fro-maj?” He used his corniest French accent, a relic from his days with Brett and Aaron and his other school buddies a hundred years ago. It worked: Lindsey smiled the tiniest smile, and Theo rushed ahead of her to pay for “One large coffee and one jasmine tea, please.” They sat at a very small round table in two uncomfortable wrought-iron chairs. Theo sipped his coffee and burnt his tongue.

Lindsey stirred her tea bag with a thin plastic straw. “Why don’t you just tell me what you have to tell me?” she said. She looked at her watch.

“Do you really have someone to meet?” Theo asked. “Your boyfriend?”

“You may have been screwing my mother,” she said. “But you’re a far cry from being my father. Got that?”

“No, I didn’t mean…”

“How old are you anyway? Nineteen?”

Theo was pleased that she thought he looked nineteen. “Almost.”

Lindsey huffed. “Disgusting. My mother and you, I mean.”

“It wasn’t disgusting,” Theo said. “Don’t think that.”

“Whatever,” Lindsey said.

“Your mother is a beautiful woman,” Theo said. “And you look just like her.”

Again, the tiniest smile. “Please.”

“It’s true,” he said. “She told me the whole story about how she was pregnant with you and what happened… with her husband… your father. She said she loved you. She loved you, but she gave you away because she was in so much pain.”

“My father cheated on her,” Lindsey said. “Antoinette told me that already, when I spoke to her on the phone. He cheated on her because that’s what men do. They cheat.”

“Hey,” Theo said. “That’s not fair.”

“Life isn’t fair,” Lindsey said. “Like, I finally get the courage up to contact my mother and the day before I get to her, she vanishes into thin air.”

“Why did you contact her in the first place?” Theo said. “If you don’t mind my asking.”

Lindsey leaned forward and parted her lips so that Theo could see a tiny chip on her front tooth. “Because I wanted her to love me.”

“I wanted her to love me, too,” Theo said. He tried his coffee again, but now he had a sore, dry spot on his tongue. “She never forgave herself for giving you up. So I can’t understand why… why she wanted to abort our baby. You’d think she’d want to try again, you know? Do things the right way?”

“I have no idea,” Lindsey said. “I never met the woman. Never even seen a picture of her face.”

“I have a picture of her at my house,” Theo said. “A picture of her when she’s twenty-seven years old. You should come see it. You’d see how much she looks like you.”

“I thought you lived on Nantucket,” Lindsey said.

“I do. I did. I’m spending this year with my grandmother. I go to Boston Hill.”

“Boston Hill? You’re still in high school”

“I got held back,” Theo said. “I should be a freshman in college.”

Lindsey looked out the plate glass window at the dark street. Theo tried to predict his grandmother’s reaction if he brought Lindsey home. It was almost five-thirty. She liked him home by six to eat dinner.

“So what do you say? Do you want to come see the picture? Oh, and I have something else you might want.”

“What?”

“Just something. Come with me. It’s not far. Marlborough Street. You can meet my grandmother.”

“I don’t drink so,” Lindsey said. “But thanks, anyway.”

“Please?” Theo said. “Don’t you want to see the picture? I’ll give it to you if you want it. It’s, like, the only picture of Antoinette in existence. Come on.” He took her empty cup and his full coffee cup and threw them both away. “Follow me.”

It was very cold outside. Theo wore a flannel shirt with a fleece vest. He shoved his hands into the front pockets of his jeans.

“I have to meet someone,” Lindsey said.

“This won’t take long,” Theo said. He unlocked Antoinette’s bike, and even considered telling Lindsey that it was Antoinette’s bike, but he didn’t want her to claim it as her own or anything. “I’ll give you the picture and you can go. I promise.” He walked the bike with confidence, checking twice out of the comer of his eye to make sure she was following him.

“I’m not staying long,” she said.

“It’s okay,” he said. “We eat at six, anyway.”

“And don’t introduce me to your grandmother as Antoinette’s birth daughter or anything. Just tell her I’m a friend from school.”

“You bet.” He slowed down a little so she could walk alongside him. “Was it you who turned my mother in to the police?”

“I didn’t turn her in,” Lindsey said. “I just told them what I knew about you and Antoinette. About Antoinette being pregnant. Those seemed like relevant facts, and your mother certainly wasn’t going to come forth with them. That guy, John? He told most of it, anyway. He had it in for his wife and your mom.”

“My mom didn’t do anything to Antoinette.”

“Prove it.”

“I can’t prove it,” he said. “But they haven’t found a body, have they? I’m telling you, Antoinette is alive somewhere.”

“You can hold on to that fantasy if you want,” she said. “But I’m not going to.”

“My mother didn’t do anything wrong,” Theo said. “If you need someone to blame, blame me.”

“I do blame you,” Lindsey said. “High school. God, I can’t believe it.”

They approached his grandmother’s apartment. He had his own keys now. Lindsey regarded the building. “Nice place,” she said. “I’d hate to imagine the rent.”

“Two thou,” Theo said, though he had no idea if this was true or not. He locked Antoinette’s bike up at the bottom of the stairs. “Where do you live?”

“None of your business,” Lindsey said. He turned to look at her as they climbed the stairs, and she glared at him. “I don’t want you stalking me.”

“You are like your mother,” Theo said. He took a deep breath outside his grandmother’s door; then he unlocked it. “Sabrina?” He smelled roasting chicken, and Sabrina emerged from the kitchen wearing a flowing orange dress and a gold lame head scarf. She shimmered like a flame. Sabrina on fire. Theo watched Lindsey’s eyes widen; she was expecting another kind of grandmother, maybe.

“Well, helllooo,” Sabrina said. “Hello, hello. I’m Sabrina Montero.” She smiled and offered Lindsey her hand.

“Lindsey Allerton.” Lindsey transformed immediately into the kind of woman that one would want to introduce to one’s grandmother. Charm lifted off her like perfume. “It’s lovely to meet you. I’m a friend of Theo’s from school.”

Sabrina blinked. She looked between Lindsey and Theo. “Really?” she said. “How divine. Theo hasn’t brought any of his school friends up to meet me yet. Ashamed of me, probably. Will you stay for dinner? We’re having Cornish game hens-and you won’t believe this, but I put three of those little yummies in the oven. I had a feeling company was coming.”

Lindsey hugged her backpack close to her body. “Thank you for asking, but I’m meeting someone in a short while, so I’ll have to pass. Too bad-it smells delicious.”

“I’m devastated,” Sabrina said. “But another time.”

“Another time,” Lindsey repeated.

Theo cleared his throat. “I have some assignments and stuff to give Lindsey. Okay if we go into my room?”

“Of course,” Sabrina said. She winked at him, and his face grew warm.

Sabrina went back into the kitchen humming, “Try to remember the kind of September…”

So she knew, Theo thought. Knew something was up.

He led Lindsey to his room and shut the door. She sat on his bed, dropped her backpack at her feet. “I love how you ask your grandma if you can bring me in here,” she said. “Like we’re going to make out or something.”

“Shut up,” Theo said.

“Just show me the picture,” Lindsey said. “Because really, I have to get a move on.”

“Okay,” Theo said. He stood at his dresser. He couldn’t believe he was about to share two of his prized possessions with a virtual stranger. His artifacts of Antoinette. But what choice did he have now? He removed the snapshot and the wrinkled cocktail napkin from his underwear drawer. He handed the snapshot to Lindsey. “Here she is.”

Lindsey took the picture. “Turn on a light,” she said.

Theo hit the overhead light. Even through the closed door, he heard his grandmother humming that song. Lindsey stared at the picture. She stared and stared.

“The baby in the picture is me,” Theo said.

Lindsey stared.

“She looks like you, doesn’t she?”

Lindsey didn’t answer. Theo felt awkward standing in the harsh light. He wished Lindsey would finish looking at the picture and leave so that he could have dinner with his grandmother. He was going to tell Sabrina the whole story as soon as Lindsey left.

“Well?” he said impatiently. “What do you drink?”

Lindsey raised her head. She was crying. Or not crying so much as leaking tears. “I can’t believe it,” she said. “We’re twins.”

“Yeah.”

She wiped her face. “Sorry,” she said. “It’s just that my whole life I’ve never had anything biological. You know? My parents are wonderful people, but they’re not related to me. The whole reason I started searching for Antoinette in the first place was that I wanted that void filled. I wanted a biological connection.” She held up the picture. “This woman is related to me.”

“She’s your mother.”

More tears fell as Lindsey studied the picture. Theo hurried to the bathroom and brought back a three-foot strip of toilet paper. Lindsey blotted her eyes.

“So I can keep this?” she asked, waving the picture.

His heart flagged. His only picture of Antoinette. The only picture of Antoinette in existence, that he knew of.

“Sure.”

“Thanks,” she said. “And you said there was something else?”

“Oh.” Theo paused. He removed the napkin from his vest pocket. “Here. This is a note I found on her refrigerator.”

” “L. Cape Air, noon Saturday,’ ” Lindsey read. “L? That’s me.”

“Yeah.”

Lindsey put the picture and the napkin in her backpack. She was taking them. Theo touched the sore spot on his tongue to his teeth.

“You realize,” Lindsey said, “that if she were planning on picking me up at the airport, then she didn’t disappear intentionally. She drowned, Theo.”

Drowned.

He shrugged. “Whatever. I can think otherwise.”

“I guess you can. But why would you torture yourself? You’re so young. You need to accept that Antoinette is dead and move on. Maybe you should see a therapist.”

“Maybe.” His throat clogged with impending tears. She was right: He was young, his life did have possibilities beyond this. He could marry someone else, father other children. Move on. Heal. But Theo’s future would be colored forever by his love for Antoinette. This was what he couldn’t explain to Lindsey, or to Sabrina, or to his parents-the way his love for Antoinette and for his unborn child haunted him. He heard it in the top note of Pachelbel’s Canon, he tasted it in Sabrina’s paella, he saw it in the slender, graceful arms of the ballet dancers at school. His love and his pain would follow him wherever he went next in life. They were all he had left.

Lindsey stood up. “I have to go.”

“Okay,” Theo said. The polite tiring was to walk her out, which he would do, he would hold himself together until Lindsey left, and then he would shout and scream and cry. Sabrina would feed him; she would listen without asking questions.

Before she put her hand on the doorknob, Lindsey leaned over and kissed Theo on the lips. The lightest kiss, like a kiss from a ghost, Theo thought. A kiss from Antoinette.

“Thank you,” she said.

Theo smiled. For a second, he felt transformed. For a second, he was just a boy of eighteen, kissed by a pretty girl. “You’re welcome,” he said.