The Body in the Birches (24 page)

“I love this fair,” Faith said, one hand holding her husband's, the other picking at the fries from the King and Queen's stand—formerly Thelma the Fry Queen's alone—that Tom had balanced in his free hand.

“Even though it means summer is over?” Tom teased her. “You said last week you didn't want this one to end.”

“True, but the fall is wonderful, too.” She thought of the sudden rush of all the vegetables that New England's late growing season pushed into September. She wasn't looking forward to the part of school that meant homework, but she
was
looking forward to the way it kept her children occupied, leaving her free to pursue her catering jobs.

They walked past Ben, who was with Tyler and a group of island friends, including Mandy. He had surprised his parents by saying Amy could join them. Faith waved but knew enough not to actually approach her children, who were headed for the Rescue Dog Frisbee show.

Faith thought back to the Fourth of July and the realization she'd had that her kids weren't kids anymore, with its accompanying sense of loss. Watching them go off with their friends, she felt a similar twinge, but also something new. Pride, yes, but anticipation. What were these rapidly changing—each had seemed to add inches to their heights this summer—human beings going to be like this time next year, and the next, and—

“I think I need another strawberry shortcake before we watch the toss.” Tom's voice interrupted her wistful thoughts.

Him, she knew—and no changes there.

Dusk was falling and she could see Blue Hill, the small mountain that gave the town and the fair its name, silhouetted behind the giant Ferris wheel with its flashing lights. Flashing lights. Lightning flashes.

It had been an illuminating summer.

I started this book with one of Oscar Wilde's gems: “After a good dinner one can forgive anybody, even one's own relations,” and families are what this book is all about, aside from murder and food, of course.

Families. So many possible configurations. So many complications. A dance that can be a waltz, a tango—or the twist. I find families endlessly fascinating, in fact and in fiction. Especially fact, as what goes on in a family is almost always harder to believe than any fiction. You cannot make this stuff up. Particularly when it comes to inheritance.

Since Esau, famished after a hard day's work, sold his birthright to his twin, Jacob, who was second in line from the womb, for a mess o' pottage in Genesis, and probably earlier, people have been at odds with their near and dear over who gets what. And the range in the sizes of legacy wrangling is enormous. Brooke Astor's Mount Desert Island, Maine, estate was as large a bone of contention for her family and heirs—the end result prison for her eighty-nine-year-old son—as was the quarrel between the two brothers over a small cottage on “Sanpere,” with several acres mentioned in these pages (names and much more changed). When
it comes to personal effects, an heirloom smaller than a bread box can cause not just estrangement, but also litigation. I know one family where a teapot truly caused a tempest. Years later, the two sides are still not speaking, despite regularly running into one another in the bank, at the market, and elsewhere.

With real estate, it may come down to money, but more often it isn't about the money at all. Family summer places, the ones that have been handed down over several generations most of all, become family totems. These dwellings
are
the family for the siblings or cousins who grew up there, faithfully following the traditions established by the first rusticators. In Maine this means swimming in frigid water, reveling in the slightly musty odor of places closed up most of the year, and a cuisine that celebrates the fruits of the sea, but also items like Habitant canned pea soup and now sadly unavailable Crown Pilot biscuits. Even the youngest family members wear Mr. Bean's Duck Boots, only a few pairs purchased in the twenty-first century. After all, if they need repair, just take them to Freeport 365 days a year, open twenty-four hours a day.

However grand, or minuscule, sharing the summer cottage can be murder. Drawing from a hat for dates. Figuring out who pays for what repairs. And hovering not far in the backs of the younger generation's minds is the question “What will Mom and Dad do?” With its heartbreaking corollary “Who's the favorite kid?”

There has been a spate of
New York Times
articles recently about this very thing—how an estate can divide a family. The Boomers are aging, even the ones who plan on not going. They have decisions to make, painful ones at times. Having to pick the child who can afford the upkeep over the child who loves the cabin, camp, cottage, yurt, warts and all, is wrenching. Parents in the process of these decisions were interviewed and their responses ran the gamut from “I'm not going to be here to witness the mayhem, so they can duke it out”—leaving the place to all the sibs—to a kind of King Solomon decision: “We're selling it and leaving the money instead.”

In general, death is not a popular topic—many polls put the fear of death second after fear of public speaking. Speaking to one's parents about their mortality with a “By the way, what do your wills say?” may rank third in the list. Somewhere there must be families like the one in the book who get it together and form an association or create a similar solution without rancor. I put that up there with the tooth fairy and leprechauns (maybe not leprechauns). For better or worse, richer or poorer, sickness and health, large or small, our families are with us for life. And at those moments when we feel they might be too much with us, there's always that other quotation I considered using at the beginning of this book: “Friends are God's apology for families.” Needlepoint or stencil it on a pillow. Once you're done, punch it hard, and then go call your mother, father, sister, brother, son, daughter, aunt, uncle, cousin.

by Faith Sibley Fairchild with Katherine Hall Page

2 1/2 pounds small red (new) potatoes

3 tablespoons olive oil

1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar

1/2 teaspoon Dijon mustard

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper

1/2 cup sliced scallions

1/2 cup chopped fresh dill

Dill frond for garnish, if desired

Scrub the potatoes. Quarter them and steam until soft, but not mushy. (You may also boil them starting with cold water.)

While the potatoes are cooking, whisk the oil, vinegar, mustard, salt, and pepper together in a large bowl.

Add the potatoes when done and stir to coat well. Let sit, stirring occasionally, for 8 to 10 minutes.

Add the scallions and stir. Add the fresh dill and stir. Let sit,
again stirring every once in a while, for 10 minutes and serve at room temperature or refrigerate, bringing the salad to room temperature before serving.

Serves 6 amply.

Faith likes to use garlic scapes, or curls, instead of scallions when they are in season early in the summer. Any of the many varieties of Kozlik's mustard made in Canada make this dish extra special: www.mustardmaker.com. Canada produces 90 percent of the world's mustard (who knew?)!

3 slices of bacon, cut in half

1 tablespoon olive oil or unsalted butter

1 small yellow onion, diced

1 small garlic clove, minced

2 tablespoons flour

2 cups chicken broth, preferably low sodium

1 large potato (Yukon Golds are good), diced (approx. 1 cup)

4 ears of corn, kernels cut from the cob (approx. 4 cups)

2 cups half-and-half

1/2 cup heavy cream

Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Fresh parsley, chopped, for garnish

Cook the bacon until crisp in a soup pot (this is why you have cut the slices in half). Drain bacon on a plate covered with a paper towel. Crumble and set aside.

In the same pot, add the olive oil or butter, draining any excess bacon fat, and sauté the onion and garlic until soft.

Add the flour and coat the onion and garlic.

Add the chicken stock and diced potato. Bring the mixture to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer until the potatoes are soft.

Add the corn kernels, bacon (reserving some to sprinkle on
the top of each bowl), the half-and-half, and the heavy cream. Simmer for 10 to 12 minutes.

This soup improves if it sits for 5 minutes before serving. You can also add shrimp or crab to it.

In the winter, frozen corn kernels may be substituted.

Whatever the season, it is a nice thick chowder with corn as the star.

Serves 4.

Parchment paper

2 sheets frozen puff pastry (Pepperidge Farm is fine)

Roasted garlic onion jam, red pepper jelly, or a mustard

1/2 pound thinly sliced smoked turkey

1/2 pound loosely grated or sliced sharp cheddar

1 large egg, beaten

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Place a sheet of parchment paper on a baking sheet.

Roll one sheet of the pastry to about 1/8 inch and put it on the parchment-covered baking sheet.

Using a pastry brush, spread a thin coat of the jam, jelly, or mustard on the pastry, leaving about a 1/2-inch border at the edges.

Layer the turkey on top and then the cheese. Brush the edges with half of the beaten egg.

Roll the second pastry sheet to the same thickness and place on top, sealing the edges well, pressing with your fingers. Brush the top with the remaining beaten egg.

Place another sheet of parchment paper on top and a second baking sheet on top of that. This keeps the dish from puffing up too much as it first bakes. Bake for 20 minutes.

Remove both the second baking sheet and parchment paper.
Continue baking for 10 to 15 minutes until the top is golden brown. (Keep an eye on it.)

Cool for 10 minutes and cut into bite-size squares, if using as an appetizer, or large portions as a first course or main dish (great for a luncheon with a salad).

Serves 8 to 10 as an appetizer, fewer as a first or main course.

This is a versatile recipe. You can use other meats or just cheeses as the filling. It can be made ahead, even the day before. Follow the recipe and stop before brushing the top with the beaten egg. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate.

8 ounces bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped

1 1/4 cups flour

1/2 cup unsweetened Dutch process cocoa powder

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature

1 1/2 cups packed light brown sugar

2 large eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/3 cup whole milk

1 cup granulated sugar

1 cup confectioners' sugar

Parchment paper

Melt the chocolate in a double boiler. Set aside to cool. Sift together the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, and salt in a bowl.

Beat the butter and brown sugar with an electric mixer on medium speed until pale and fluffy. Mix in the eggs and vanilla and then the melted chocolate. Reduce speed to low. Mix in the flour mixture in two batches, alternating with the milk. Divide
the dough into four equal pieces. Wrap each in plastic and refrigerate until firm, about two hours.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Divide each piece into sixteen 1-inch balls. Roll in granulated sugar to coat. Then roll in confectioners' sugar to coat. Space the balls 2 inches apart on baking sheets lined with parchment paper.

Bake until the surfaces crack, about 14 minutes, rotating the sheets halfway through the time. Remove the cookies from the baking sheets and cool on wire racks. When cool, they can be stored for four days in airtight tins or a cookie jar.

1 cup sugar

7 cups water

Zest of 1 lemon

6 lemons

Mint and/or lemon slices, for garnish (optional)

Vodka or gin (optional)

Stir the sugar and 1 cup of the water together in a small saucepan and bring it to a boil. Add the zest and simmer for 5 minutes. Cool in the fridge until room temperature. Strain the zest out and reserve.

While the sugar/water/zest mixture is cooling, squeeze the lemons (one of the six will be the one you used for the zest). Strain the seeds out if you use an old-fashioned glass squeezer, as Faith does.

Put the remaining 6 cups of water in a large pitcher and add the lemon juice and 1 cup of the reserved syrup. Stir well and taste. Add more water or all the leftover syrup, if needed, but this 6-to-1 ratio seems to taste perfect to the Fairchilds. You may use mint or lemon slices as a garnish.

For the grown-up version, add a jigger of vodka or gin to a tall glass with some ice, fill with lemonade, and stir with a swizzle stick.

Squeezing lemons is easier if you roll the whole lemon on a hard counter to release the juice before cutting it in half and squeezing.

Makes about 2 quarts or 6 to 8 servings.

KATHERINE HALL PAGE
is the author of twenty-one previous Faith Fairchild mysteries and a collection of short fiction,
Small Plates
. She has won multiple Agatha Awards and has been nominated for the Edgar, the Mary Higgins Clark, the Maine Literary, and the Macavity Awards. She lives in Massachusetts and Maine with her husband.

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Small Plates

The Body in the Piazza

The Body in the Boudoir

The Body in the Gazebo

The Body in the Sleigh

The Body in the Gallery

The Body in the Ivy

The Body in the Snowdrift

The Body in the Attic

The Body in the Lighthouse

The Body in the Bonfire

The Body in the Moonlight

The Body in the Big Apple

The Body in the Bookcase

The Body in the Fjord

The Body in the Bog

The Body in the Basement

The Body in the Cast

The Body in the Vestibule

The Body in the Bouillon

The Body in the Kelp

The Body in the Belfry