With the butterflies now flocking busily inside her, she quickly steadied herself and turned to her grandmother. “Wait there,” she said quietly. “Something’s happened, but we’ll figure it out …” Her words tumbled out, pointless, like unfurling a sail in a blizzard.
But Grandma kept approaching.
“Please,” Maddie begged, “I don’t want to upset you.”
“What’s wrong?” Grandma was only a few feet away now. “Did someone break in and steal Orson?”
Maddie sucked in a breath.
Grandma squealed. “Gotcha!” Then she broke into a string of cackles. “Orson is fine. I wanted him fixed up before I give him to Rafe. The guys at Deke’s Auto Body in West Tis’ have the old boy. They promised to have it ready for Christmas. The original Deke—grandfather to Deke-the-third who runs it now—was a good friend of Rex’s father, Stan,but, like Stan, he died decades ago.” Like a child on Christmas morning, her eyes danced while she jibber-jabbered.
“Joe and I put our heads together,” she continued, her words clicking like reindeer hooves flitting across rooftops. “Orson will be red, because Rafe told me it’s his favorite color. And he’ll have black bumpers—Orson, not Rafe—matching running boards, and a shiny chrome grill.” She rubbed her hands together and moved next to Maddie, who stared into the empty space.
“The bench seat will be reupholstered,” Grandma continued, “and vintage controls will replace the old ones. The only visible upgrade will be shoulder seat belts so the old boy can pass state inspection.” She beamed. “Even the original AM radio will look the same, but it’s going to have a hidden Bluetooth connection, which was Joe’s idea. I don’t know what that means, but Joe promised Rafe will love it.” Finally, she stopped talking.
It was another minute before Maddie’s breath steadied again and her butterflies retreated. Pushing down tears, she gave Grandma Nancy a hug. “He is absolutely going to love it. But it must be costing a fortune.”
“What should I do, save my money for my old age? I hate to tell you, girl, but thatmishoonpaddled off into the sunset a long time ago.”
Maddie remembered one night over dinner when Grandma told Rafe thatmishoonwas the Wampanoag word that meant canoe.
Putting an arm around her grandmother’s shoulders now, Maddie said, “Come on, let’s get to work. We have decorating to do.”
Butchie and I, oh, we were great lovers, the meant-to-be kind. When folks asked how we met, we made up different times and stories for fun, like: “We met in third grade at the little red schoolhouse,” or“We met when we were twelve, fishing for stripers at Dogfish Bar,” or, my personal favorite, “We met at the Gay Head Light during the war, when we were both scouting for U-boats.” In reality, the boats would have attacked the island on the opposite shore. I guess folks believed us because who doesn’t like a good love story? Besides, the truth was pretty boring: We had no idea when we’d actually met, we were both just always there.
We were young when we married—only sixteen. But things were different then. We were tribal kids; when we approached the elders about marriage, they encouraged us. After all, they already knew us. We were too young, but nobody cared because, like I said, we were meant to be together. Besides, we wanted to have a “pod of kids,” as Butchie called it, as if kids were whales. He loved everything about the sea; like his father and grandfather, he was a fisherman since he was old enough to hold on to a pole.
We did not have a pod, we only had Hannah, who was born less than two years into our marriage, the same year Butchie and his pals built us the cottage in Menemsha on land he bought and paid for from working hard and with a little extra from his father and grandfather. We never did figure out why we didn’t have more kids (God and Moshup know we tried plenty hard), and by the time our girl was ten, Butchie was dead at age twenty-eight when the great ocean took him.
All this blabbering is because folks oughta know I blame Butchie for everything that happened after that. Right up ’til, and including, now. If he hadn’t gone out that day like I warned him, he wouldn’t’a drowned. And I wouldn’t’a made such a mess out of everything.
Chapter 8
They wedged a dozen cartons marked XMAS STUFFinto the back of Maddie’s Volvo next to the suitcases she and Grandma had been living out of for the past four months since the fire. At last, they were on the road, heading to the cottage for “the big reveal.” Traffic was light, so the trip to Menemsha did not take long.
Parking next to Joe’s truck in the small lot abutting the backyard, Maddie was glad Joe and Rafe were back—hopefully, they’d found a nice tree. As soon as Maddie stopped the car, Grandma shot out of it and started riffling around the back seat.
“Rafe can bring everything in,” Maddie said.
“Hold your horses,” came the reply. “I’ll be right there.” After more riffling, Grandma pulled a paper bag out of a suitcase and announced she was ready. But as they made their way toward the back door, with the cottage in view, her footsteps became slower.
Then Rafe came outside and Grandma picked up her pace and let him escort her in. They were greeted by the sight of a perfect fir that Joe was setting up in the living room. It was full and lush and fit nicely in the corner by the wall-to-wall front windows where the swivel rocker (for Grandma) was going togo; though Maddie ordered it weeks ago, it wouldn’t get there until January. Which did not matter now, as a soft aroma of Christmas balsam filled the room.
“Very nice,” Grandma said, nodding at the tree, the living room, and the kitchen.
So far, so good, Maddie thought.
Then Grandma turned and scurried down the hall, still clutching the bag she’d dug out of the car. Maddie and Rafe trailed behind her, while Joe secured the tree upright in its stand.
They stopped by the renovated bathroom first. Grandma made no comment, but didn’t seem to hate it. Then she checked her old bedroom, with its freshly painted powder-blue walls and new furnishings, including a queen-size bed that replaced the old double one with the squeaky-spring mattress. The woman still didn’t speak, but wasn’t complaining.
When they reached the second bedroom, Joe caught up to them. The room had been Hannah’s, where she’d slept, where she’d dreamed, where she’d grown up. A full wall now stood where the closet once was; across from that a new bed was flanked by white ash armoires. Maddie planned to keep this room for herself and let Rafe use the front room when he was on-island, or when he simply was “on,” as Maddie heard some islanders say.
Then her thoughts were interrupted: She realized Grandma was scrutinizing every inch, pressing down on the mattress, poking through the armoires—both of which had been custom-made by a craftsman on Chappaquiddick and a friend of Rex’s. She even stooped—the paper bag rattling but not escaping from her hand—and peered cautiously under the bed, as if something would lunge out at her. And still, she didn’t speak.
Which was when Maddie’s butterflies were reborn with gusto, as if they were converging, preparing to fly, en masse,from Aquinnah to South America the way the monarchs did in autumn.
Without warning, Grandma stopped inspecting. She stood up as straight as her osteoporosis would allow, her nostrils flaring. Then she growled, “Where in tarnation is your hobbit house?”
