Good Harbor Read Online Free

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