Once Rafe agreed to go with her, she’d call the cultural center and donate her old Volvo. She’d call Joe and ask him to disperse anything left in the cottage that wasn’t ruined. At least for now, she’d keep the metal containers with photos and the other things Rafe had salvaged. She’d give the portrait of her great-grandfather to him. He would like that. She hoped Joe didn’t know about the painting, as Isaac Thurston had been his father as well as Nancy’s.
As for scattering the ashes, Maddie decided that her grandmother’s spirit would most likely still rest in peace without a dramatic send-off in Menemsha Bight.
* * *
Ten minutes later, she picked her phone up again, held her breath, and made the call.
Evelyn answered on the first ring. “Hello, Maddie.”
“Brandon told me to call you.” Her tone was flat, but she couldn’t help it.
“Yes. And I’m glad. Secrets are fine unless—or until—they hurt innocent people.”
“Like me.”
“Yes.”
Taking a short breath, Maddie wondered if she was going to hyperventilate. “Okay. Tell me.”
“It’s about your father,” Evelyn said. “And your grandmother.”
She sat up straight, her spine stiffened.
“Myfather? What about him?”
“And your grandmother,” Evelyn repeated. “It started when your mother was killed.”
Maddie pressed a hand to her temple. She didn’t think her confusion was from the coma. “I don’t understand. First of all, it was forty years ago. My mother was killed by a hit-and-run driver who was never found. It happened in Green Hills. My grandmother only was there once—for my mother’s funeral. My father wouldn’t let her park a camper in our driveway. She was angry. She went home. End of story.”
Evelyn paused, then said, “Not exactly.”
“Well, for God’s sake, tell me.”
“You’re right that your mother was killed in a hit-and-run accident. But it didn’t happen in Green Hills. It happened here on the Vineyard.”
Maddie frowned. “What?”
“At the end of your last summer here, a few days before you and your mother were going back to Green Hills, your grandmother took you to the Ag Fair. Do you remember?”
“No. Well, yes. Maybe.” A faint memory arose of music and sawdust and a joyful crowd, along with aromas of sizzling burgers and farm animals. And there was a building where quilts and vegetables and all kinds of crafts were on display. Grandma had entered something that won a blue ribbon.A basket, Maddie suddenly remembered.
“Your mother hadn’t been feeling well,” Evelyn continued, “so she didn’t go with you. When you got home, she wasn’t there. By then it was dark, and the full moon was up. She left a note saying she was feeling better and had gone clamming at Red Beach, and that she’d make chowder later. She always made chowder to bring home to your dad.”
Maddie froze.Feeling better. Gone clamming at Red Beach. Low tide and a full moon. Will make chowder later.The note had been in one of her grandmother’s steel boxes. She wanted to hang up. She wanted to rush out to the porch and rip through the containers, hoping that—thinking it was another piece of Grandma Nancy’s trash—she hadn’t tossed it out.
“The accident happened when your mother was on her way back,” Evelyn said next. “She canoed across the harbor—Red Beach is on the other side, technically, it’s in Aquinnah. She and I went clamming lots of times when we were growing up, but never at night—things can change too quickly by the water. Anyway, by the time Hannah reached the Menemsha side, dark clouds had rolled in and covered the moon. The coast guard verified that. When she started walking up the road, she was hit. The driver kept going—without the moonlight, it was pitch dark. The police speculated that the driver might not have even known he’d hit her because the impact wasn’t hard. Apparently, the way she landed on the street was what killed her.” She paused, then added, “The quahog shells flew all over the road.” Then she cried. “I’m sorry, dear, I shouldn’t have added that.”
The quahog shells. The one next to the pottery bowl on Grandma’s mantel. The one that was scuffed and had a big crack along one side and wasn’t very pretty. Maddie closed her eyes. Her grandmother must have gone to where the accident had happened. She must have taken one of the shells.
“Evelyn?” Maddie asked, her voice a soft whimper now. “Why wasn’t I told?”
“You were so young, dear,” the woman whispered. “And it was such a . . . nightmare.”
And then Maddie remembered. The blue flashing lights. The policeman at the door of the cottage. He had come there to tell Grandma.
“Your grandmother blamed herself. She said if she hadn’t insisted on taking you to the fair, the accident wouldn’t have happened. If Hannah had wanted to go clamming, Nancy—and you—would have gone with her. And you would have gone long before the sun went down.”
Chapter 29
