* * *
In the early days of her marriage, physical exertion became Maddie’s go-to way to put off doing boring, housewifely stuff she simply did not want to do. Owen’s shirts needed ironing? She looked for volunteer positions around town instead. Clean clothes should be folded? Browsing through the Clark Art Institute in nearby Williamstown seemed far more important. Kitchen floor needed scrubbing? Maybe after she’d run a mile or two—no sense staying inside and wasting a beautiful afternoon. Soon, running became her favorite way to put off inevitable domestic tasks. Not marathon running or anything as honorable, just a mile or two whenever she felt a need to procrastinate.
She’d stepped up her running a year after she and Owen were divorced, after he’d found a younger (of course), perkier, more doting young woman who, with her blonde locks and professionally-applied makeup, looked more suitable on his pompous arm than Maddie had. Had he been pompous when she’d married him? Had she thought the pros of the marriage would outweigh the cons?
A therapist encouraged Maddie to put her thoughts down on paper, which seemed like a good idea until she reread what she’d written. It was depressing, self-indulgent, and whining, not at all like the woman who had returned to college with aspirations to teach . . . something. She’d finally landed on journalism, hoping to show young people how important it was to write captivating, concise, factual news stories, with the emphasis on factual. Eyeing that goal seemed a more productive way to work through her husbandless situation—and more pleasant than keeping a diary.
But now, with the afternoon sun making it too hot for a run, she was sitting in her idling car with the air conditioner cranked up, drumming her fingers on the steering wheel, as if the digital exercise could make the long line of vehicles ahead of her move faster. Or rather, could make them move at all.
Lisa had been right; according to GPS, the quickest route to West Tisbury and up-island Cronig’s Market was clogged with an unending queue of traffic. She doubted that State Road instead of North Road would have made a difference, though GPS did show a Chilmark General Store at a nearby place called Beetlebung Corner. She had no idea what a beetlebung was or what the store near it might offer. But she’d need enough groceries to last a few days, and Lisa had mentioned Cronig’s, so she should probably tough it out and go there. Maddie had never liked food shopping, but if she hadn’t spent so much time digging through one of her grandmother’s outbuildings—which, though not much bigger than a shed, had been crammed with rakes and hoes and shovels and gardening tools, gloves, boots, and empty egg crates and sacks of mulch and several unidentifiable objects—she wouldn’t be sitting where she was now, stuck behind an oversized pickup truck, her car creeping forward about half a foot every few minutes. While she waited, the light of day started to dwindle, and shade from the trees that edged the road became dense. She deduced that slow-moving beachgoers were heading back to their summer homes. Or their rentals.
She wanted to scream.
Instead, she decided to think about what kind of rubble she’d find the next day in the other outbuilding-slash-shed. Maybe she shouldn’t bother with it. Maybe she could sell the entire property and structures “as is,” including the furnishings—the threadbare, faded curtains, the stacks of useless periodicals and who knew what else, as well as the critter that hadn’t showed its four-legged self again.
If Rafe were there, he’d be annoyed that his mother didn’t want to find and make friends with whatever it was. Unlike Maddie, her son found nature fascinating.
She laughed, crept two or three more feet toward her destination, and thought about how lucky she was to have him. From the day he’d been born, Rafe’s existence proved that she’d done at least one thing right in her life. Of course, he wasn’t perfect, but he came darn close. With a crop of thick black hair and the coppery-burnished skin of Maddie’s Iberian heritage (thanks to her mother’s Portuguese fisherman ancestor who, Maddie had been told, had made his way to the Vineyard in the nineteenth century), and the blue eyes of Owen’s Irish roots combined with her father’s Scottish/ British ones, Rafe was handsome. He was also tall: by age twelve, he’d sprouted past Maddie’s five feet six inches; now, at nearly twenty-two, he was well over six feet tall with a rugged physique, thanks to the past few years he’d spent on the rowing team at Amherst College, where he also was on the dean’s list. In itself, that was a miracle, because his major was business, a topic he was only moderately interested in. But his father had insisted, because he fully expected that after grad school Rafe would join him in his investment firm. Maddie at least encouraged Rafe to minor in environmental studies; it was, after all, what he really wanted.
Yes, she thought now, her son was close to perfect, if she did say so herself. He was even a caring half brother to the nine-year-old twin daughters whom Owen and what’s-her-name had proudly produced; the girls seemed sweet enough, but neither one could hold the smallest tea candle to Rafe when it came to brains.
Maddie wondered how—and if—the inheritance from Grandma Nancy’s bequest, no matter the number of dollar signs that went with it, might give Rafe a more secure future so he wouldn’t need to kowtow to his father’s wishes. How she wished her son had known he had a great-grandmother who’d been alive and well and living on Martha’s Vineyard all these years and who would have adored him.
Even worse, he’d never had the chance to feel one of Grandma’s hugs.
Sitting, waiting, the engine still idling, Maddie’s sorrow surfaced again. But she knew that though Rafe was sensitive, he was emotionally stronger than she was. And he was sensible—a gene that must have come from her father. Or possibly her mother. So Maddie set her jaw firmly, fished out her phone, and told the software to text Rafe and say: “I’ll be back by the end of the week.” She’d tell him everything then. Hopefully, he wouldn’t be angry for not having known his great-grandma. Or for thinking that Maddie’s father had kept it from them for whatever reason.
Her mood now subdued, she considered parking the car and walking to Cronig’s, wherever it was. Then her phone pinged.
Gramps said you’re in Boston, the text read.I didn’t know you have friends there.
Maddie waited a few seconds while her mind scrambled, searching for a cohesive reply. She typed it herself so Siri wouldn’t screw it up.
Ha ha! I’ve finally been able to keep a secret from you.
And it was true. For now, like her hobbit house, this would remain a secret. One that, so far, only she and Brandon J. Morgan, Esq. knew. And apparently Evelyn, his mother. And Lisa Jenkins. There might be others, but Maddie hadn’t yet met them, so they didn’t count. Until then, it was a secret she felt compelled to get to the bottom of without the input or influence of her son, her father, or, God forbid, her ex-husband.
So she turned off the GPS and dropped her phone back into her purse. Then she made a sloppy U-turn and headed back to the harbor. Hopefully the food truck she’d spotted there earlier was still open; she’d worry about everything else tomorrow. After she went for a run. And after she met with the attorney.
* * *
The burrito threatened to keep her awake even though she was exhausted. She had, after all, left Green Hills at six o’clock that morning, spent four hours driving, another hour waiting to board the ferry, followed by almost another hour on the boat between the crossing and the waiting to disembark, and then over half an hour on State Road. The getting to Grandma’s had not been half the fun. Nor had plowing through the cache of gardening things or sitting in the blistering sun in her aborted attempt to buy groceries.
Welcome to Martha’s Vineyard in summer, she thought now as the burrito bebopped in her esophagus. Though it had tasted delicious, Maddie often forgot (or wanted to forget) that along with middle age she sometimes developed indigestion after consuming spicy food. And she never seemed to have an antacid when she needed one. The only alternative now was to gnaw on her neighbor’s homemade bread, which actually helped. Maybe as a thank-you she should give Lisa first dibs on anything in the house or on the property. After all, Maddie lived in a house that was not even hers, and that one was well furnished, mostly with books. She needed nothing.
But after making sure both the front and back doors were locked (she wondered if Vineyarders would have been insulted by that), she went into the front bedroom (her grandmother’s, she remembered), pulled back the curtains (sheers that were equally as ancient as the gingham ones), opened the windows, and stretched out on the lumpy mattress of the double bed. She shifted her focus from her heartburn to wondering what treasures might be in the cottage, buried in closets or bureaus or under the beds. Were there photos? Scrapbooks? Family memories that Maddie had not known existed? Would she be able to learn some things about her mother’s and grandmother’s lives? And how much would that matter at this point in hers?
She decided she was too tired to think about all that now. What she wanted was to sleep. But, though the aftermath of the burrito finally was in check, it soon became apparent that under the lumpy mattress, squeaky metal springs threatened to keep her awake. So she pulled herself up and relocated across the hall, to what had been her mother’s room. She pulled back the old sheers and opened the window in there, too, hoping that light breeze would reach that side of the house. Thankfully, the twin bed was lump-and squeak-free. The room also held a small rolltop desk and a vintage maple bureau that Maddie was too tired to investigate, but added to her mental list of things to attempt tomorrow, after her run and her meeting and maybe her shopping.
She closed her eyes and slept without trying.
In the morning, she gathered her senses and ruled out the run; there was too much else she needed to do. So she showered (the inside shower, not the out), dressed in the navy-blue sundress she’d brought, and brushed back her hair, which overnight had become uncontrollable, thanks to damp air that, this close to the sea, had permeated the night. Securing her unruly tresses with a headband, she dabbed a quick layer of mascara on her lashes and slipped into her sandals—the only shoes she’d brought besides her trainers.
Car keys and purse in hand, she opened the front door before nine o’clock and inhaled the clear, sunny morning that wasn’t yet hot. With a sliver of uncertainty, she stepped onto the first granite slab. But as she moved down to the next, she felt unsteady. Not because she feared tripping or falling or smacking her head . . . but because of a sudden feeling that she was being watched.
She paused. She took a deep, eyes-closed kind of breath, and tried to shake off the feeling.
Then, stoically, she continued down the hill.
