Until, back in the living room, her phone rang.
She stopped.
It rang again.
A million things sped through her mind: it was Rafe; it was Rex; it was …
To maintain her sanity, Maddie ignored it. “If it’s important, they’ll call back,” her father always said when the phone rang during dinner.
With that reasoning, she continued on her wake-up mission. But when she arrived in the doorway of the bedroom, Grandma wasn’t sleeping. Instead, still clad in her coat, she was sitting on the edge of the old bed, clutching a pen and a small book. Her eyebrows were pinched, the lines of her brow more crinkled than usual. She looked like she was thinking about something unpleasant. Or painful.
The longer you live, the more you have to put up with.
Some stuff, you have no choice. Like I didn’t choose for Butchie to drown at sea, though if he’d had his druthers, he’d of preferred that to being stuck in a hospital bed, hooked up to tubes, or tied to a wheelchair, drooling from one corner of his mouth when he got to be old. I know for sure that he woulda begged not to have been forced to learn those nasty things like computers and the internet and the damnmobile phones. No, Butchie was a fisherman through and through. A full-blooded Wampanoag who lived by the land and the sea our Creator provided. He was a man who hadn’t minded that his hometown of Aquinnah was the last town in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to get electricity, which didn’t happen until 1951, not long before Hannah was born.
The only thing he really missed out on was that he would have loved to watch her grow up.
I often wondered what he would have done the night Hannah was killed. But all the wondering in the world wouldn’t change what happened, or so I’ve been telling myself these past forty years.
One thing I do know is that he wouldn’t have let anyone bully him into living in a house he didn’t like, especially if it was fancy, the way the cottage is now. No. Butchie would rather have lived under the sky and the sun and slept under the stars, his boat rocking gently beneath him.
Oh, how I loved that about him.
I wish I had the courage to write all this down in a notebook so my granddaughter, Madelyn, would know these things after I am gone. Sadly, I learned too late that our stories should be told. Or maybe I was too afraid of being judged.
After all, I had good reason for that.
Chapter 14
“Grandma? Are you okay?”
After a short pause, Grandma winced. “Did your phone ring?”
Maddie handed her one of the mugs. “I didn’t get it. My hands were full.” She gave her a mug. “Your lavender blend. One of my favorites.”
The woman set down the small book and stared, stupefied, at the tea, as if she wasn’t sure why she’d accepted it. “Who was on the phone?”
“I don’t know.” Had Grandma been napping while sitting up, gazing blankly into space? “It probably was Brandon, confirming our meeting at the town hall tomorrow.” Maddie sat in the chair by the bed and sipped from her mug. “Do you think we’ll be able to stock your teas in the bookshop?” she asked, hoping the thought of being included in the venture would bring Grandma’s senses back.
The narrow shoulders slowly raised and lowered in a shrug. Then she promptly stood up. “I need to use the bathroom.” She brushed past Maddie, handing her the mug as she went.
After sitting for several minutes, Maddie juggled the mugs,got up, went back to the living room, and sat on the couch. She’d had odd conversations with her grandmother on occasion, so she wasn’t shocked.
“I had a who-zie,” Grandma said when she finally emerged.
“A what?”
“A who-zie-what-zie. When you came into the bedroom I’d just had one of those. It’s what you get when somebody walks over your grave. A premonition thing. Intuition. Whatever you call it.”
The chill Maddie felt earlier found her spine again.
“Your mother used to get them, too,” Grandma added.
So do I, Maddie refrained from sharing.
With a tired sigh, Grandma flopped down next to Maddie. “That corner looks strange with nothing in it.” She nodded in the direction of where the Christmas tree had stood.
“I’ve ordered a nice chair for there. But, Grandma? What do you think your who-zie-what-zie meant?”
