Secrets of the Lost Summer (14 page)

Nine

B
y the summer of 1938, the state had “disincorporated” the towns of Prescott, Dana, Enfield and Greenwich. Officially, they no longer existed. The valley emptied out slowly, painfully, one family and one business at a time. Work on the reservoir went on, as relentless as a summer storm. I watched graves being dug up, and I watched trees getting chopped down and houses—some of the nicer houses of the valley—being dismantled and moved on trucks to other places.

I learned about the baffle dams that would turn the water of the east branch of the Swift River north again, so that it wouldn’t enter the aqueduct that would take it to Boston too soon and would have time for the reservoir’s natural filtration process to occur. Engineers had made precise calculations about every aspect of the massive project. Winsor Dam and Goodnough Dike—two massive earthen dams—would impound the waters of Beaver Brook and the three branches of the Swift River.

The modern world had come to our quiet valley, and my father could no longer pretend it hadn’t.

He didn’t like it. Not one bit.

The letter we had received from the state was to the point:

“You are hereby notified that the Commonwealth of Massachusetts acting through its Metropolitan District Water Supply Commission requires the land and buildings now occupied by you.”

Our home, in other words.

Gran tried to put the best face on the inevitable. “At least we have a chance to move. We’re not being wiped out by a tornado or an earthquake.”

“No,” my father said, “we’re being wiped out by our fellow citizens.”

I ran out of the house. It was a bright, clear, early-spring morning, and I knew our last days in the valley were upon us, but with the sunlight dancing on the stream bubbling along the lane, I pretended that everything would stay the same. The sugar maples that my great-grandfather had planted would leaf out, just as they had for as long as even Gran could remember. I’d pick wildflowers in the woods, and Gran and I would snap beans in the shade.

My vision ended, proven to be the delusion it was, when a truck lumbered past me, filled with the belongings of a family down the road. The dad was driving. He kept his eyes pinned straight ahead and didn’t smile or wave. I don’t think he even saw me.

I veered off the lane and followed a stone wall on the edge of a hayfield that no one had tended last summer and no one would tend this summer. When I came to a giant elm tree, I climbed over the stone wall and took a path to a small pond. Carriage Hill Pond, it was called. In the distance, I could see Carriage Hill itself. On the other side was Knights Bridge; Daddy and Gran were considering buying a house there. I hated the idea. I didn’t want to move.

A one-room cabin was perched on a hillside a few yards from the water. It used to belong to a family who had spent summers on the pond. The state had bought them out last year, and the cabin would eventually be demolished. I went inside. I still remember the stillness as I stood in the doorway. I would create my own little haven in the abandoned cabin. It would be my secret. No one else need ever know.

The family had left behind a cot, a chest of drawers and a table, and I gathered up blankets and linens, added cheerful curtains, found a hooked rug for the bare wood floor. There was no kitchen or bathroom, just an outhouse, which wasn’t that unusual in those days.

It was perfect. While Gran and Daddy figured out where we would go, while workers ripped apart our valley, I would sneak off to Carriage Hill Pond and escape into the world I’d created in my tiny hideaway cabin. I’d bring food in a basket and stay there for hours.

One summer morning, I escaped to my cabin after I overheard Daddy discussing the imminent razing of our house with two workers. I was breathing hard, my chest tight with emotion. I kicked off my shoes, climbed under the blankets and quilts piled on the cot and grabbed a book from the stack I’d left on the floor. Using money I’d earned selling vegetables, I’d bought books at a sale our library held when they had to shut down for Quabbin. The building was gone now, only the foundation left.

For next to nothing, I bought
The Scarlet Pimpernel, The Three Musketeers, Scaramouche, The Count of Monte Cristo, Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights
and so many others. The librarian, one of Gran’s friends, gave me a Latin primer and a grammar book for free. I’d come to the cabin whenever I could and read and study and try not to think about the future. If I got married, I knew I would die in childbirth, like my mother. So I wouldn’t get married. I’d become a spinster teacher like Miss Johnson, my teacher. But where?

Not here, I thought. Not in the valley of my childhood. It would be under water.

We would have to move soon. We had no choice, but I didn’t want to live among strangers.

I opened my book and realized I’d grabbed
Ivanhoe
. I’d read it already but happily started it again. I’d fallen in love with spies, swashbucklers and adventurers. I knew I’d never meet one in real life, but I wished I had a romantic name, like Marguerite or Rowena. Grace was so plain in comparison.

I read the first page under my covers, but I had to go back and read it again; I kept hearing my grandmother sobbing last night, alone in her room.

“Where will we go? What will we do?”

Poor Gran, I thought. She was stoic and pragmatic during the day, but at night, her fears and her sense of loss would overwhelm her. These were hard times. The modest payout from the state wouldn’t make a fresh start elsewhere easy.

“And I’m old,” Gran would cry, alone in her room.

Everyone said the evictions were hardest on the old people. Some of the younger people were excited about having the chance—the excuse—to make a fresh start somewhere else.

I put
Ivanhoe
in my lap and looked out the cabin window at the pond. The water glistened in the sun, and I saw a lone duck in the shade on the opposite bank. Every day, I tried to etch bits and pieces of the valley in my mind. I’d have my memories forever. No one would take them away.

Of course, that was before I wished someone could.

Ten

O
livia was out back contemplating the design and location of her aromatic herb garden and trying to put Dylan’s departure out of her mind when Jess stopped by after lunch. “How was Boston?” Olivia asked, joining her sister on the terrace.

“Great. Thanks for letting me use your apartment. I left the keys on your kitchen table. Liv…” Jess hesitated, then said, “Why aren’t you working at the studio anymore? I was right, wasn’t I? It’s because of Marilyn Bryson.”

“Why do you ask?”

“I ran into Mark in Boston. He talked to Roger Bailey this morning and Roger said he was working with Marilyn now. Is that true? Did you introduce them? Did he jump ship before you left?”

“Design’s a competitive business. Marilyn’s hot.”

“She went after Roger? Isn’t it unethical to steal clients from a friend?” Jess made a face. “I knew I didn’t like her.”

Olivia appreciated the sisterly solidarity even as her pride and natural reluctance to discuss her problems with her younger sister stopped her from saying more. “I’m happy freelancing.”

“You’re doing okay with it—making enough to pay the bills?”

Just barely, but she said, “Yeah. It’s fine. I like making my own schedule, and I like being here.”

“You’ll have the last laugh when this place opens.”

Olivia noticed a lone daffodil, not quite in bloom, by a small lilac off the end of the terrace. “I’m not here because I’m running from anything, Jess. Marilyn was in a downturn last fall—”

“And you helped her turn her career around. Now she’s stealing your clients.”

“She’s a friend, or she was. She’s in high demand. I thought I could have it all—stay on with the studio and still work on this place—but I had to choose. My only regret is that I didn’t have more money in the bank before I quit full-time work.”

“Do you think you’d still have Roger as a client if you hadn’t helped Marilyn?”

“Jess…”

Her sister gave an exaggerated shiver in a sudden breeze. “I can’t wait for spring to really get here. You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to, Liv. We all have things we contemplate while we’re weeding the oregano and trying out recipes for lemon tarts.”

Olivia smiled. “When have you ever tried out a lemon tart recipe?”

“Ah, yes, good question. Hey, I didn’t see a car in Grace’s driveway. Your good-looking neighbor’s on his way back to San Diego?”

“First thing this morning, or so he said. I didn’t see him leave.”

“Will he be back?”

“He didn’t say.”

Jess tightened her heavy sweater around her. “At least he’s a nice distraction. Not that you’re looking for distractions. I wonder if Mom is, and that’s why she’s planning this trip to California.”

“She wants to go, don’t you think?”

“I want to go to Paris,” Jess mumbled, “but it doesn’t mean I’m looking for a distraction—or that I’ll ever get there.”

Olivia tried to ignore a sick feeling in her stomach as she envisioned her mother on a plane flying west across the continent and her sister on a plane flying east across the Atlantic while she stayed in Knights Bridge.

“Olivia?”

She heard the note of concern in her sister’s voice and forced a smile. “Would Mark go with you to Paris?”

“I’m lucky I can get him to go to Boston for a Red Sox or Bruins game once in a while.” There was no edge to her words, or she hid it well. “I found some old chairs and a couple of small tables at the sawmill that might interest you. I can help paint them. We can have our own little painting party.”

Olivia loved the idea and they started making plans as they walked around to the front of the house. After Jess left, she stood in the driveway and noticed the quiet, noticed how alone she was out on her dead-end road, but she reminded herself that the location, not just the house, was part of the attraction of The Farm at Carriage Hill.

There was just no broad-shouldered ex-hockey player up the road to whisk her off for a hike or come to dinner.

A week later, Olivia hadn’t heard a word from Dylan. Not that she’d expected to hear anything. His life was in San Diego, not in little Knights Bridge. At least the house Duncan McCaffrey had mysteriously left his only son wasn’t looking as shabby with the landscape greening up in a stretch of warm weather. She headed to Boston for her first face-to-face meeting with Jacqui Ackerman since her departure almost a month ago.

“Marilyn’s starting work with us,” Jacqui said when she and Olivia sat down at a table in the small conference room.

“Marilyn Bryson? She’s moving to Boston?”

“That’s right, Olivia. We’re thrilled she’s decided to join us. Thank you for paving the way. She’s bringing Roger Bailey back, plus she’ll bring in new clients.”

“I’m sure she will,” Olivia said dully.

“She starts on Monday. We’re all excited. It’s the right move for us.”

“That’s great. What does it mean for me?”

Jacqui hesitated, then said, “Nothing for the moment. You’re doing a fabulous job freelancing. You and Marilyn are friends. This can be a positive for everyone.”

Olivia mumbled something agreeable. What else could she do? She needed the freelance work. Jacqui seemed relieved, and they moved on to a discussion of designs, which ultimately was what they both loved most about what they did. Afterward, Olivia skipped her plan to have dinner with friends and spend the night at her apartment. Instead, she drove back to Knights Bridge. As the city gave way to the quiet winding roads of her hometown, she decided to do what she had to do to meet her expenses but to concentrate on making The Farm at Carriage Hill a success.

When she arrived at her house, her father’s truck was in the driveway, and he was out front with Buster.

He threw a stick across the front yard. “No word from your neighbor?”

“Nope.”

“I didn’t realize he was
that
Dylan McCaffrey. Jess told me. She thought I knew.”

“There was no reason for me to say anything, Dad.”

“I saw him play against the Bruins when he was a rising star. He had some great years, then some okay years after injuries. He was a solid player, well liked. Funny he’d end up owning Grace Webster’s old place.”

Buster went after the stick but immediately flopped down in the grass and started chewing on it. Olivia laughed. “He’s not a golden retriever. So, do you like Dylan better now that you remember you saw him play?”

Her father toed loose a rock in the driveway. “I don’t know. Should I?”

She changed the subject. “Grace says she met Duncan McCaffrey. Could she be mistaken?”

“I doubt it.”

“There’s not much that goes on around town that you don’t know about. And if you don’t know, Mom does. Where is she?”

“Home. She’s working in the garden. She says she’s coming out here to help paint those chairs and tables Jess found.”

“We’re having a painting party, sort of a girls’ night out.”

Her father tossed the rock over to Buster. “I’ll contribute the wings and beer.”

Olivia laughed again, feeling less stressed after her trip to Boston. After he left she extricated the rock and stick from Buster and went inside. She started a fire to take the chill out of the air, then sat in front of the flames with Buster’s head on her lap. But she was restless, her mind spinning with worries, possibilities, questions about Duncan McCaffrey and his good-looking son, and what had happened between her and Dylan on his trip to Knights Bridge.

“Nothing,” she muttered, jumping up and heading into the kitchen. “Nothing happened.”

What was one little kiss to a man like Dylan? Ex-hockey player, multimillionaire business executive.

She watered the herbs in the window and rummaged in the fridge, but she wasn’t hungry.

She went up to bed early and read more of
The Three Musketeers,
imagining Grace immersing herself in tales of swashbucklers and adventurers as a teenager, her world changing around her.

In the morning, Olivia took herself to breakfast at Smith’s, Knights Bridge’s only restaurant, tucked on a side street off the common in the heart of the village. She sat at a booth across from Albert Molinari, the real estate agent, she’d discovered, who’d handled the sale of Grace’s house to Duncan McCaffrey. Al was in his early sixties and semiretired, having left a law practice in Worcester several years ago and moved to Knights Bridge. He spent most of his time biking and kayaking.

“McCaffrey blew in and out of town. A lot of energy. I remember that about him.”

“Did he look at a range of properties?” Olivia asked.

“Just the Webster house. It was the only one that interested him.”

“Why?”

“He didn’t say. I didn’t ask. No one else was going to buy the place. I was worried Grace would get stuck with it and sit out there until the roof caved in around her.”

“Did he give you a hint of his plans for the property?”

“I tried, Liv, but I didn’t get a thing out of him.”

After breakfast, she headed over to Rivendell and found Grace on her feet in the sunroom with her binoculars. “I was just going out for a walk,” she said.

“Would you like some company?”

“That would be lovely.”

They went through a glass door out to the yard. Grace explained that they hadn’t refilled the bird feeders now that spring was on the advance, not in full retreat as it had been when Dylan had arrived in town.

“I’ve been reading
The Three Musketeers,
” Olivia said as they walked past a bank of forsythia, their yellow blossoms waving in a light breeze. “When Dylan McCaffrey was here I borrowed the copy you left behind in your house.”

“I love that book. I’ve read it many times. The library here has a copy.”

“You’re not going to let me read the book you wrote?”

“After I’m gone.”

Olivia smiled as they circled back toward the sunroom. “Do you reveal any juicy secrets?”

“We all have our secrets,” Grace said quietly.

“Would yours have anything to do with the McCaffreys?”

Grace stopped, gazing out at the surrounding hills, the reservoir glistening in the distance. When Olivia was born, Quabbin was already well-established, already a fact of life in her part of New England. She saw its beauty and had only old photographs and stories to imagine life there before the valley was flooded. When Grace looked at Quabbin, what did she see? The houses, lanes, farms and gardens of her childhood? The friends who’d moved to other towns? Post offices, ice-cream shops, sawmills and Grange Halls that no longer existed? Even the dead, Olivia thought, had been cleared out of the valley.