11. Luisa
— ? —
Luisa
The bus wheezed to a stop like it was exhaling its last breath.
I’d been riding for nine hours. My back ached.
My legs were stiff. My stomach was doing that unsettling thing where it couldn’t decide if it was hungry or nauseous.
The morning sickness had migrated to all-day sickness, which the pregnancy books said was normal, but normal didn’t make it any less miserable.
Through the grimy window, I could see a town that looked like it had been painted by someone who loved gray. Gray sky. Gray water in the distance. Gray buildings clustered around a harbor where fishing boats bobbed in the choppy November sea.
Bellhaven, Maine.
Population: small enough that everyone probably knew everyone else’s business.
Perfect for a woman trying to disappear, I thought bitterly, and gathered my things.
The bus station, if you could call it that, was a concrete platform attached to a one-room building that doubled as a ticket office and what appeared to be a bait shop.
The smell of salt and fish hit me as I stepped off the bus, followed by the cold, which was sharper here than it had been in Boston. More honest, somehow.
I was standing on the platform, trying to figure out which direction led to civilization, when I heard the scream.
Not a loud scream, more of a yelp, really, followed by a man’s voice, low and threatening, and then: “Give me your purse, lady. Now.”
I turned.
By the ticket window, a man in a dark hoodie had an older woman backed against the wall.
She was maybe sixty-five, small and wiry, with gray hair escaping from a messy bun and a look on her face that was more annoyed than scared.
He had maybe six inches and fifty pounds on her, plus what looked like a knife.
Nobody else was moving. The bus driver was staring. A man with a fishing pole had frozen mid-step.
The woman in the hoodie was telling him he should put that thing away before someone got hurt, which was brave but possibly not smart, and the man was getting agitated, his voice rising, his knife hand shaking.
I moved before I could think about it.
Thirty seconds. One wrist. One very surprised mugger.
He went down hard, his knife clattering across the concrete, his arm twisted behind his back at an angle that made him yelp. I had my knee on his spine and my hand on his neck before he could figure out what had happened.
“Stay down,” I said.
He stayed down.
The older woman was staring at me, giving nothing away.
“Well,” she said. “That was unexpected.”
“Are you okay?”
“Honey, I was fine. This fool’s been trying to rob people for weeks.” She looked down at him with flat, weary pity. “Tommy, what did I tell you about this? Your mother’s going to be heartbroken.”
The man, Tommy, apparently, groaned into the concrete.
“You know him?” I asked.
“Small town.” She shrugged. “I know everyone. Including idiots.” She extended a hand to help me up. Her grip was surprisingly strong. “Birdie Calloway. I own the diner. And you just saved me about forty dollars and a whole lot of paperwork, so lunch is on me.”
“I should probably wait for the police-”
“Earl’s already calling them.” She nodded toward the man with the fishing pole, who was indeed speaking into a phone. “He’ll handle Tommy. You look like you need to sit down before you fall down.”
She wasn’t wrong. The adrenaline was wearing off, and my stomach was staging a rebellion.
“I’m Luisa,” I managed. “Luisa Erickson.”
“Nice to meet you, Luisa Erickson.” Birdie tucked her arm through mine like we’d known each other for years. “Now let’s get some food in you. You’re green.”
The diner was three blocks from the station, a cheerful yellow building with “Birdie’s” painted across the window in letters that had probably been repainted a dozen times. Inside, it smelled like coffee and bacon and a bread-adjacent warmth that made my stomach unknot slightly.
“Sit.” Birdie pointed to a booth by the window. “Don’t argue.”
I sat. I didn’t argue.
She disappeared into the kitchen and returned five minutes later with a steaming bowl of soup.
“Clam chowder,” she said, setting it in front of me. “Don’t tell me you don’t want it. You do.”
“I didn’t order-”
“I know. Eat anyway.”
I ate.
It was, objectively, the best clam chowder I’d ever had. Creamy and rich and warming, with chunks of potato and clam that tasted like the ocean.
Birdie slid into the booth across from me, a cup of coffee in her hands.
“So,” she said. “New in town.”
“Is it that obvious?”
“Honey, you got off a bus with a suitcase and beat up a man in under a minute. You’re either new in town or you’re a spy, and you don’t have the poker face for a spy.”
I almost laughed. “Not a spy.”
“Didn’t think so.” She sipped her coffee. “Running from something?”
“What makes you say that?”
“People don’t come to Bellhaven unless they’re running to something or from something. And the ‘to something’ people usually have a plan. You’ve got that ‘from something’ look.”
I stared at my soup.
“Husband?”
“Ex-husband. As of this morning.”
“Mmm.” Birdie nodded like this confirmed a suspicion. “He hit you?”
“No. Nothing like that.”
“Cheated?”
I hesitated. “Something like that.”
“Men.” She said it like a curse. “Well, you’re in the right place. Bellhaven’s got about a hundred and fifty-three men at last count, and most of them are either married, gay, or old enough to remember the Eisenhower administration.”
“I’m not looking for a man.”
“Smart girl.” She studied me over her coffee cup. “So what are you looking for?”
I thought about it.
“Somewhere to start over,” I said finally. “Somewhere nobody knows me. Somewhere I can just… breathe.”
Birdie was quiet for a long moment.
“I’ve got a garage apartment,” she said. “Above the old carriage house behind my place. It’s not fancy, one room, a bathroom the size of a closet, a kitchen that’s basically a hot plate and a prayer. But it’s clean, it’s quiet, and I can have it ready by tonight.”
“I can’t just-”
“How much money you got?”
“Enough for a few months, if I’m careful.”
“Then be careful. First month’s rent is free, call it a thank you for dealing with Tommy. After that, we’ll figure something out.” She stood up. “Finish your soup. I’ll go make some calls.”
“Calls?”
“This is Bellhaven, honey. Someone new shows up, everyone wants to know about it.” She grinned. “Might as well control the narrative.”
She disappeared into the kitchen. I heard her voice on the phone, yes, a young woman, just got into town, seems nice, needs some help getting settled.
By the time I’d finished my soup, the diner had started to fill.
First came a woman named Agnes, who was eighty if she was a day, carrying a heavy covered dish wrapped in tinfoil. “Beef stew,” she announced, setting it on my table. “My grandmother’s recipe. Good for what ails you.”
Then came her friend Doris, with a lamp that had definitely seen better decades. “For the apartment,” she said. “Birdie’s lighting is terrible.”
Then came a man named Gus, gruff, sixtyish, with hands like weathered leather and a face that suggested smiling was an activity he’d heard about but never tried. He grunted at me.
“That’s Gus,” Birdie said, reappearing. “He runs the hardware store and the harbor. That grunt means welcome to town.”
“It means nothing of the sort,” Gus said.
“See? Warm welcome.”
He grunted again and left, but not before depositing a toolbox on the table. “For the apartment,” he said. “Place is falling apart.”
By evening my apartment had filled up with women I had met only that afternoon, a borrowed lamp glowing in one corner and the counter buried under foil-covered dishes. Every last one of them had a cure for morning sickness.
“Ginger,” said Agnes.
“Crackers,” said Doris.
“Ignore them both,” said a woman named Fern, who had appeared with a knitted blanket and strong opinions. “What you need is peppermint tea and fresh air.”
I stared at them.
“How did you-”
“Honey.” Birdie patted my hand. “You’ve been green all afternoon, you won’t touch coffee, and you keep putting your hand on your stomach. We’ve all been there. Well, most of us. Some of us chose cats instead.”
“Much smarter,” Fern agreed.
I felt tears prick at my eyes.
“You don’t even know me.”
“We know enough.” Birdie’s voice was gentle. “You needed help. You’re in Bellhaven. That’s how it works here.”
A crib arrived at seven o’clock.
A young man I didn’t recognize carried it in, explaining that it had belonged to his sister’s kids but they were all grown now and did I have a use for it? I looked at the crib, white wood, slightly scuffed, a mobile of stars and moons hanging from the canopy, and burst into tears.
Everyone politely pretended not to notice.
“I teach dance,” I said finally, when I’d gotten control of myself. “That’s what I did. Before. I could maybe… offer classes?”
Birdie’s eyes lit up.
“Classes would be good,” she said. “We’ve got lots of kids who need something to do. Lots of grandmas who want to move around more.” She winked. “Maybe dance with a punch or two.”
“Self-defense?” I smiled despite myself. “I could do that.”
“Perfect.” Birdie clapped her hands. “We’ll figure out a space. Gus has that empty room above the hardware store, been sitting vacant for years. I’m sure he’d rent it to you cheap.”
“He’d complain the whole time,” Doris added.
“He’d love every minute of it,” Agnes corrected.
That night, I lay in the garage apartment, one room, a bathroom the size of a closet, a kitchen that was basically a hot plate and a prayer, and stared at the ceiling.
The borrowed lamp threw a warm circle of light across the walls. The fridge hummed quietly, full of food I hadn’t cooked. The crib stood in the corner, waiting.
Outside, I could hear the ocean. The cry of gulls settling in for the night. The distant sound of someone’s wind chimes, playing a song I didn’t recognize.
I thought about Wade. About Boston. About the life I’d left behind.
And then I stopped thinking about it.
I pressed my hand to my stomach.
“We might have found a home, kid,” I whispered.
The baby didn’t answer. But I could’ve sworn I felt a faint flutter, like a tiny heartbeat agreeing with me.
I closed my eyes.
For the first time in months, I slept without dreaming.