“We saw lots of them, but I didn’t look in all the boxes,” Maddie said. “I was eager to unlock the cabinet.”
“And . . . the other things?”
Maddie frowned. “Well, there’s the truck. Orson, I believe it’s named?”
Grandma laughed. “There are more than baskets in the back of him. Your mother’s things are there, too.”
It would be easier for Maddie to ask what she meant if her tongue hadn’t gone partially numb. “Such as?”
“The tribal clothes she wore at our ceremonies. Photos of her with her friends. Her high school yearbook. Memories, I suppose. ”
The things her mother had kept in the closet in her bedroom in the cottage. The things that Maddie had presumed Grandma threw out.
“Thank you for saving them, Grandma,” she said, as a tear trickled down one cheek.
“Actually, she’s the one who saved them for you. The last time I spoke with her, we decided I’d bring them when Joe and I went to Green Hills for Christmas. Did you know we’d planned to go? We were going to tell you then that you are Wampanoag. All four of us, including your father.”
Maddie had no idea—none—about what to say. It answered so much. And left her feeling . . . full. She couldn’t wait to look through her mother’s things; somehow she’d have to find the patience to wait until the current commotion simmered down.
After they had their fill of food, Maddie asked Rafe to get the painting of the Menemsha sunset, the pottery bowl, and the quahog shell from the dresser. He brought them into the living room.
“When did you sneak these out of the cottage?” Maddie asked her grandmother.
Eking out a Cheshire grin, Nancy said, “After Evelyn called to say you were in a coma, I had Rex get them out in case someone decided to steal them.”
“Steal them?” She didn’t say the notion was preposterous because the items were worth more to Nancy and Maddie than to anyone else. And because they’d clearly been there for years and no one had grabbed them yet.
“All right,” Nancy groused. “I was afraid you’d figure out what they were and you’d take them back to Green Hills.” Her voice dropped. “I didn’t want to lose them. I’ve looked at them every day for forty years. The quahog shell . . .”
Maddie smiled. “I know where it came from, Grandma. I’m glad you saved it.” She didn’t really know if she was glad, but her comment seemed to please her grandmother.
Then Maddie struggled to get up from the chair; she tottered to the corner of the sofa where Grandma Nancy sat, and, careful not to touch the damaged elbow, she leaned down and gave her a hug.
Then, with cool composure, Nancy said, “By the way, in case anyone asks, I’m the one who started the fire.”
* * *
Maddie grabbed the back of the sofa to stop herself from falling over. She wished she’d misheard Grandma, but her intuition told her that she hadn’t.
Joe and Stephen left their cleaning-up duties in the kitchen, came into the living room, and stood next to Rafe, who was standing like a statue, still holding the painting and the shell and the pottery bowl with the daisy on the front.
Maddie plopped back down on the chair.
“Seriously?” Rafe asked. “You tried to burn down your house?”
Nancy eyed everyone in the room. “It wasn’t intentional. When Evelyn first told me that Maddie was coming and that she was going to meet with Brandon, I had to get out of the cabin and over to Rex’s fast. We’d already planned that. I threw some clothes in a bag—which, by the way, is still under the bed in the front bedroom here, where I’ve been sleeping—but I forgot my eyeglasses, so I couldn’t see to read. Since my cataract surgery, I only need them for close-up, but I figured I wouldn’t have much else to do except read, what with being holed up here at the cabin. Anyway, with Maddie on the verge of showing up, and me not remembering where my glasses were, I didn’t want to bother Lisa to go in and get them. So I made do without them, which wasn’t easy.”
Then she redirected her explanation to Maddie.
“When Evelyn said you were back in the hospital, I asked Rex to get these treasures off the mantel, but I forgot to have him look for my glasses. Yesterday, I snuck over just after dawn, when anyone who might have heard I was dead would still be sleeping, except for a couple of fishermen, but they’re real good at minding their own beeswax. Anyway, I used Joe’s old canoe to cross the creek.
“I forgot it would still be dark inside the cottage. Instead of turning on the light, I took the matches from a kitchen drawer and lit the candle that I keep on the stove. That’s when I saw that my eyeglasses were right next to the candle. I slipped them into my pocket—my distance vision’s great now—and then I looked around and was happy to see you’d been hoeing out; Lord knows my place has needed it. Anyway, I set the candle up on the windowsill so I could see better. That’s when I saw your mother’s portrait of my father, Isaac, up on the mantel. I guess Rex didn’t figure that I’d want that, too; I don’t think he knew who it was, and I hadn’t asked him to take it. So I rescued it and wrapped it in my grandmother’s lap blanket, which had fallen off the chair by the window and was on the floor. I probably only saw it because by then I’d put on my glasses and bent down for a good look.”
Maddie remembered when Owen had plopped onto the chair and knocked the blanket off it.
Her grandmother paused and closed her eyes again, as if she’d grown dizzy and was trying to regain her balance. When she reopened them again, she sounded tired.
“And then I heard something crackling,” she continued. “I yanked off my eyeglasses, looked back to the kitchen, and saw that the candle flame had caught the corner of the old gingham curtain and had set it to burning. I remember thinking I should have burned those ugly curtains years ago. But the fire was spreading faster than I could think. I dropped the painting; it fell between the chair and the wall, I think, and I ran back to the kitchen. I grabbed a dish towel so I could pick up the candle and dump it in the sink, but it was too late. The curtains were blazing. So I used the dish towel to try and put out the fire, but then the dish towel was on fire, too. I dropped the towel on the floor; on the way down, it set fire to the other towel I always hang over the handle on the oven door, and . . .” She lowered her head. “I tried to put the damn fire out. But I hadn’t noticed that the windows were open. And that there was a breeze. Of course there was. There’s always a breeze so close to the harbor. I don’t know how much time passed, but I heard someone yell ‘Fire!’ and I knew whoever it was must have meant at my place. So I ran to the safest place I could think of, where no one would look for me . . .”
