Romeo Blue (34 page)

I wondered how it would have been to be Ella Bathburn that spring in 1866. Did she know that soon, during the summer, much of Portland would burn because of a firecracker thrown into an old warehouse on the Fourth of July? Did she see the flames of Portland on the horizon? Was she wearing then the little gold ring that I now had round my neck on a chain? Did Captain Bathburn’s family offer to shelter some of the people who had lost their homes? The Bathburn house seemed to have so many layers and still so many secrets. And yet that seemed to be the way it would always be. We were all to live with so many unanswered questions in our lives. Questions like, where does the sky end and how many stars are in our universe and most of all, what do all the stars mean? And why are we here on this beautiful, round ball called planet Earth? And here in such a lush and green world, why do people hurt and kill one another and why is there such a thing as war?

And so it was that things changed again at the Bathburn house. It was a sunny, bright day and when I went out to feed Sir William Percy, something came to me. It happened just as she landed on the porch railing,
dropping down out of the sky with such cheer. And after the idea came to me, I wrote a letter to my father.

Dear Daddy,

Thank you for your beautiful promise. I can promise you something in return. I have decided that friends may borrow and love Wink but he will always live on Bathtub Point in Bottlebay, Maine.

And in your honor I have renamed your pet seagull, who turned out to be a girl. No longer will she be called Sir William. I have finally given her a proper girl’s name. We will call her Vicky for
victory.

And about
The Secret Garden,
you are absolutely right and I’ve broken down and I’m reading it again. Yes, it is the most wonderful book in the whole world and I promise to read it until I am a hundred years old!

Love,
Your daughter, Fliss

Later that day, after I had tucked the letter to my father in the box under my bed, I was in the parlor playing tick-tack-toe with Dimples. She called that game noughts and crosses. Dimples was losing because she wouldn’t settle down and play correctly. She just kept dancing off with Wink and I must say, because she didn’t
concentrate, it cost her several games and many losses. But she said she didn’t give a pig’s ear about that game.

It was then that I saw the solicitor Mr. Buttons at the door. I could see his black hat through the etched-glass window. There was a shadow over his eyes and the dining room darkened suddenly in spite of the sunlight falling in patterns through the lace curtains. I went to the door. “Oh,” I said, “hello. Are you here to see Derek? I am afraid he is not here.”

But soon enough The Gram came out of the kitchen. “Oh no, it’s fine, Flissy McBee. Let Mr. Buttons in.”

I backed up and sat on the first step of the staircase. “Mr. Babbit has sent you today?” said The Gram. “Give him my regards. And do come in.”

Mr. Buttons had a very large briefcase. It bulged and bothered me. There were all sorts of messy, bothersome papers sticking out of the top. The Gram asked me to bring in the coffee and toast, which I did. I didn’t care for the bitter smell of the herbal coffee we now served because of coffee shortages and I set the whole thing down quickly on a small table in the parlor.

Mr. Buttons was just handing The Gram some papers. The Gram looked down at them and said, “So, we now know Derek’s actual birthday. He was born May 15, 1929, in Portland.”

“Yes,” said Mr. Buttons, “Derek and I have been working on this for quite a while. Finding his father was the hard part. The whole case broke open when we
located his aunt in northern Maine. Derek visited her for a week this spring, as you know. That’s when we found out that his father had died last year. His aunt has recently signed some papers and he can now be officially adopted. It’s all legal.”

“And so I have changed my plans,” said The Gram. “I have news too. My son Gideon is alive and did not die in the war, as we had feared. I myself do not wish to adopt Derek. Gideon has wanted to do that for a long time. Derek has expressed a great need for a father and Gideon, who already loves him dearly, will make a superb one. My son is a very special and kind man,” The Gram said and when she said those words, her face radiated with a great inner light. Her whole being became a candle of brightness. “My son will be so pleased. It will be a blessing to have this official, finally, the way it should be.”

I felt, as I listened to all this, like a small boat on the water being tossed this way and that. And I had so many boats now tossing in my head. Derek. Derek. Derek. Suddenly, the knowing that picked at the edge of my vision became clearer. This was what he meant. I knew it, of course. I already knew. Oh no, don’t say it. Don’t say it’s so. Oh, but I knew Derek would love having his own real birthday, May 15. How lovely. How perfect for him. He would love finally having a real father. And of course I wanted him to have a father and his own birthday because everyone else in the world had those two simple
things. And when you love somebody, you want only joy for that person.

And yet in my darkest dual citizenship self, I stewed, as if I were surrounded by blackout curtains. I simmered and sank and stewed in the deep corners of my dreadful, double-sided heart. Gideon was my father and if he became Derek’s father too, then I could never marry Derek. We could never then love each other in this world of reasons and rules. Because as soon as the papers were signed, Derek and I would become brother and sister.

I fought and I struggled and twisted and I turned. The two sides of me battled and pushed and cried and stamped inside me. I took a long walk along the shore. I went way down the rocky, sandy beach to where the jetty poked out into the sea and I ran out on that jetty and I sat on the very point of it, the very closest spot I could get to England. I looked off in the distance where I knew my England was still being bombed.

I sat there and cried and I cried and I cried. Even though it had been my meddling idea in the first place, I suddenly hated Buttons, Buttons and Babbit. They had reached in their briefcases and torn my hopes apart. They had blown everything away with their dark suits and their clever searching. Didn’t they know that I loved and needed Derek? Didn’t they understand what all this would mean to me? Now I understood why Derek had called our kiss on the porch the last kiss.

But then another part of me popped forward as it always seemed to do. How could I, who had two fathers, begrudge Derek one? Why was everything so complicated? If I loved him, did I not want his happiness? Wasn’t that the reason I had gone to Buttons, Buttons and Babbit in the first place? I remembered seeing Derek sit on the top of the ridge as the Gray Moth was arrested. I remembered seeing his face, red and windblown and desolate as his father disappeared into thin air. Soon my tears changed direction as the wind turned and I cried, remembering Derek’s face that day. And in the end I felt lighter as I walked back home.

From the shore as I approached it, I looked up at the Bathburn house. How durable and strong it seemed, with its gables and chimneys and its long windows and its ornate porches and its tower room. It had weathered so many storms for so many years and I felt so very glad that I was walking towards it now, glad that I was a Bathburn and even though nothing was simple, most of me was settled with the idea that Derek would now be a real Bathburn too.

Dear Derek,

Dimples now has a baby spotted turtle living in a bowl of water and sand in our room. All night we hear him scratching about. The Gram has insisted that she release him into the wild again. But so far Dimples has refused.

And have you heard from The Gram about the recent developments concerning your adoption? The Gram will not be adopting you. It will be Gideon! Perhaps it is just as you had planned. The Gram says he wants to adopt you and told her that before he left! Oh, Derek, I know you will be so pleased. I understand now what you meant by a good-bye kiss.

With happy-sad tears,
Your sis, Fliss (It rhymes!)

P.S. Dimples just let the turtle out in the hall and now she can’t find him.

As soon as The Gram discovered Derek’s true birthday, she began to plan a party. Derek would be home soon and on May 15 we intended to celebrate. Dimples and I were to make the guest list. And, oh yes, I was happy and sad. I was happy because Gideon and Danny were safe. And happy that my Winnie was here. But I was sad because in the strangest of ways I was losing Derek just as I had gained him.

By chance that week, Mr. Fitzwilliam rang us up. “Oh, him,” The Gram said, putting her hands on her hips and frowning. “I’m surprised J. Edgar Hoover himself hasn’t shown up at our door, snooping around.”

“I should like to invite Mr. Fitzwilliam to the birthday,” said Winnie. “Because of his atrium of butterflies and because we have been doing some negotiating.”

“Negotiating?” said The Gram, her gray eyebrows almost curving into question marks.

Winnie just rolled her eyes and smiled and didn’t answer.

“I imagine while we are at it, we should invite Big and Little Bill,” said The Gram.

Dimples, who was standing quietly nearby, stared down at her shoes. She seemed rather glum in her messy, tragic way.

“And while we are on the subject of parties, little nipper, shouldn’t you and I take a trip into town to Harrison’s Shoe Shop? If you promise to behave and don’t throw yourself on the floor and kick the way you did last time,” said The Gram. Dimples looked up sheepishly. Then she tilted her head and a happy look passed across her face. “Well, what do you say? Would you like a new pair of shoes, little nipper?”

“Oh, not half!” said Dimples, breaking into a skip.

And so we planned our happy, sad birthday party. The Gram and Dimples went off in the old Packard to Bottlebay. As they drove away, we could see Dimples bouncing about in the backseat.

Winnie and I sat on the porch together after they left and we finished gluing all the photographs of all the children into Winnie’s scrapbook. After the last one was set in place, I turned the pages again and looked at the little faces in black-and-white, each child staring out at the camera in a shy way. Danny had made the passports for each of them and taken the photos. Danny got most of the children to smile. He was always good at that.

“It wasn’t that I didn’t love you,” said Winnie. “I always longed for you. These children are safe now and I am proud of that, but many, many others never made it out. And there will be many more.” She brushed my hair away from my forehead. “Poppet, darling, could you do me a favor? Do you think you could start calling me Mum, even so late as it is? I so miss being called Mum. Don’t call me Winnie anymore. Call me Mummy, will you?”

“Oh, Mummy,” I said, “I would have waited forever for you to come home.”

“You know, Flissy,” she said, looking straight at me. I was rather startled. She hadn’t called me Flissy before. “Danny and you and I always lived in flats, didn’t we? We never had a proper home, did we? It’s a bit late and you’re almost all grown up but perhaps we should have a real home after all.”

“Yes,” I said. “Oh yes. We should. I always wanted a real house.”

“I’ve been thinking about something,” she said.

“You have?”

“Yes, I promised to make it all up to you, didn’t I, darling? Well, I meant that. I have found a house nearby. It’s a bit of a wreck. It needs lots of bright colors and fresh paint and new owners. But I think perhaps Danny and I would like to buy Mr. Fitzwilliam’s house. After the war is over, and it will be over soon, Danny and you and I can all live there. And then you can be my child and Danny’s
child and Gideon’s child and The Gram’s child. And you can be our all-grown-up girl too. You can belong to all of us.”

“Oh, Mummy,” I said and I cried a little but it was a happy cry. “It would be so lovely to have a real house.” And I hugged my mother and it wasn’t an awkward, uncomfortable hug. It felt just right.