The Cottage at Glass Beach (21 page)

Nora kept her gaze toward the front of the church, the smell of incense heavy in the air. The sad-eyed saints—she supposed that could have been the name of a band or a team, and tears came to her eyes, because it was the sort of thought she might have shared with Maire—bearing witness to another passing. Father Ray saying the mass. Such a lovely voice he had, singing Maire to heaven, or wherever it was she had gone. Out there.

They took communion. They blessed themselves. Each other. Maire. Her spirit. Remembered all that was good in her.

Polly got up to speak. Polly, who knew Maire best.

“How do you talk about your dearest friend? How do you talk about someone who has been there through everything? Who has known you best in the world? Who loves you, no matter what?”

Her voice shook, then she composed herself.

“There are so many stories I could tell. Yes, Da, I see you smiling over there. You knew the trouble we could get into. But I'll keep it simple. I'll start at the very beginning, when we first saw each other. I was five years old, Maire six. So long ago. And yet in some ways, it seems like yesterday. Time is like that, isn't it? The best friendships too. Maire is one of my first memories. I use the present tense, because memory is something that never leaves us. Memories are something we can hold on to, when other things are gone.

“I first met her at dance class. I couldn't get one of the steps. The teacher gave up on me in frustration. Can't say I blamed her. I've never been known for my grace. I started to cry. Some of the girls jeered at me. But Maire told them to stop and took my hand. ‘Don't listen to them,' she said. ‘I'll show you what to do.' She stayed after class and worked with me the rest of the afternoon until I got it right.

“Family and friends were everything to her. This island, the sea, were everything to her. She brought out the best in us, didn't she? Our babies, our very selves . . .”

Nora's attention drifted. Nothing seemed real, except the weight of the girls against her, their heads resting against her shoulders.

“Can we go?” Ella asked, tugging at her sleeve, as she had as a small child. “I want to go.”

“I know.” Nora stroked her hair. “It's almost over.”

The service, yes, but not everything that would come after.

They headed up the aisle, past those who whispered about her being in it for the land, thanks to the Connellys or their source, she supposed; others who said she looked like Maire and Maeve, meeting her eyes with sympathy, pressing her hand. And Malcolm in the last row, rising to meet her in his black suit, perfectly fitted, as if he were going to trial. The sight of him brought her up short. She caught Owen's eye. His face still as he took in the scene, his eyes locking on Malcolm before he abruptly turned and left the church.

Malcolm stepped in front of her before she could catch up to Owen.

“What are you doing here?” she asked. When had he slipped in? He was always slipping in and out of her life. And now, of all times.

“I heard—”

She didn't have to ask how. Ella. “You shouldn't have come. This is a family matter.”

“Yes, he should. He should be here, with us,” Ella said. She didn't seem surprised to see him.

“I am family,” he reminded Nora.

No, she thought. The island was her place, with her people, not his.

“I still care. How can you think I wouldn't care?” he asked.

She didn't answer him. Couldn't answer him. She sensed eyes on her, curious. About her. About him. She, who seemed to have a habit of creating drama wherever she went, so like her mother.

I don't want you to care!
And yet there was a part of her that did. That part that was still tied to him, that couldn't let go.

They filed outside, where a small group of mourners gathered. The graveside ceremony passed in a blur. The shovel chinked as it struck the soil, the grit murmuring as it tumbled onto the coffin. The white birch trees showered leaves into the burial site, as if to make their own offerings. Father Ray recited the words, his eyes shining. The sea rumbled in the distance. That was where Maire should have been, on a boat set adrift on the current. Not there, among the bodiless graves of her family—her sister, her husband and son, never found. Memorials only. She wasn't there anymore anyway. None of them were, their spirits flown.

Nora crossed herself, bowed her head. There was some solace in prayer. Some small solace.

Polly took the girls by the hand and walked them toward the gathering in the parish hall. “Time for some cake.”

“Would Aunt Maire want us to have cake?” Annie asked.

“Yes, definitely, especially if it's chocolate.”

Malcolm took Nora by the elbow as they left the graveyard. “Take a few days,” he said.

“How magnanimous you are this morning,” she replied, shrugging him off.

“I only meant, there's no hurry about the papers.”

“You're bringing that up now? Leave it to you to make everything sound like a deliberation, circumstances be damned.”

“That's a gross generalization. All I'm saying is that when this is over, I hope you'll consider coming home.”

“To what?”

His voice caught. “Boston. I didn't mean—”

Hedging as usual. “Of course you didn't. And even if you had, I wouldn't have agreed. I can't believe you're making this about you.”

“I still love you. It's possible to love more than one person at a time. Just because we're separated doesn't mean I don't care about you.”

“No, you just get to pick and choose how you do.”

They fell silent, markers of the dead all around them. Something between them dying too.

Malcolm strode off in the direction of his car, parked outside the gate. She heard the beep of the alarm, and a muttered oath as he noticed something amiss—a fresh scratch on the finish, perhaps. He was particular about such things. She didn't bother to investigate. Whatever it was, it was his problem. He slammed the door, revved the engine, and drove off, taking the corner too fast. The curl of dust in his wake soon dissipated to nothing.

The murmur of voices flowed toward her from the parish hall. Voices speaking of Maire, of memories, of grief. Mourners in their Sunday best. She took a deep breath. It was time to go in.

“How are you holding up?” Alison came up to her right away, casting a glance outside. “Is he gone?”

Nora made sure the girls were out of earshot before answering. “Yes.”

“What was he doing here?”

“Making his case.”

“For what?”

“For being in our life. My life. He wants to be supportive, at least when it suits him.”

“How big of him.”

“He's not a terrible person, but he's not necessarily the right person for me anymore.”

“It sounds like you're reaching a decision.”

She took a deep breath. “I'm getting there. Everything's so jumbled right now. I'm still in a state of shock.”

“I know. I keep thinking Maire is going to walk through that door and tell us to stop crying.”

“Yes, she'd want us to laugh, wouldn't she? Or at least do something productive.”

“And dance. Before Joe died, she was quite the dancer. Did she ever show you her trophies?”

Nora shook her head. She must have kept them in a cabinet. She suspected there was much Maire hadn't told her. They'd been making up for lost time, until time became lost itself.

“It happened so fast. I don't understand,” Alison said.

Nora motioned her to a secluded table near a window that looked out on the churchyard. Two crows perched on the adjacent stones like scruffy undertakers, and swallows spiraled upward, breaking into song, another ascension, then gone. There, across from a still life of an abandoned teacup and crumpled napkins, Nora shared what Dr. Keane had told her. That there wouldn't have been anything they could have done. The dizzy spells, Maire's memory less sharp than it once was; she who never forgot a name or a face, making countless lists, not only for organization but to help her remember. Nora hadn't realized these were symptoms of something greater, symptoms that must have spurred her to contact Nora in the first place, because there wasn't much time left, to bestow the legacy, to share what she knew of the past. Her condition, cerebral amyloidosis—a series of protein buildups in the brain that triggered memory loss, increasingly debilitating strokes, and eventual death—had no means of prevention, no treatment, only an inexorable decline.

“She would never have wanted to live like that,” Nora said.

“No one would.”

“So it was for the best.”

“A blessing.”

Though it didn't seem like a blessing, not to those who were left.

T
hey went home to the cottage and shed their funeral clothes. Nora, the pencil skirt and blouse she'd brought along in case there was an occasion to dress up, never expecting this; the blue scarf they'd found among Maire's things; the heels that pinched her toes after hours of standing. Everything zipped, buttoned, the clothes, her emotions, as she focused on others, the girls, Maire's friends, looking after everyone, as Maire would have done.

Now, she felt herself becoming undone. She had to get out of the house. Everything was pressing on her. The strap of a bathing suit dangled from the dresser drawer; she'd pawed through the contents earlier that day, searching for the right lingerie. She hadn't worn the suit yet, as she had the rest, because it had been one of Malcolm's favorites and less practical for serious swimming. But the others were still damp, hanging on the line outside, and so she put it on.

“Where are you going?” Ella asked as Nora passed through the room.

“To the beach, for a swim.”

They didn't ask if they could come along. They were absorbed in a game of concentration, the cards arranged in a neat rectangle.

Nora grabbed a fresh towel and headed toward the bluff. She hesitated—should she see if Owen was home?—but she didn't have the energy for an argument, feeling forced to explain Malcolm's presence yet again. She needed to feel the ocean surrounding her, supporting her. Never mind that the clouds were sullen, threatening thunder, the blue that graced the funeral gone, the air humid and close.

The path was imprinted with her daughters' footsteps, a record of their movements to and from Glass Beach, Nora's too, soon to include this latest, solitary journey. She wouldn't put a toe in the water first. It would be all or nothing. She stood on the diving rock, the one from which Malcolm had made a rather spectacular somersault during his initial stay, the girls his adoring audience. She raised her arms overhead, held her breath, and plunged; no time for second thoughts.

As she knifed into the water, the cold took her breath away, enveloping her. And it was there, at the point of impact, that she cried out with every ounce of her being, the fish darting away from the roaring creature in their midst, a rush of bubbles rising, until she broke the surface, dripping with seawater, with tears and rivulets. She rolled over on her back, floating in the current, gazing up at the leaden sky. A drop of rain fell, another, and then the sky broke open. The torrent drove her up the beach with its stinging fury, along the muddied path, until she reached the doorway, where she leaned against the frame, listening to the sounds of her daughters within, remembering, matching, the perfect pairs. Deep breaths now. Slow, easy. There was air. Shells on the deck. Pieces of sea glass. A bird feather. The lost and found. She would collect herself. And then she could go in.

Chapter Nineteen

N
ora and the girls checked the bees. The gaillardia and helianthus had come into bloom, exuberant yellows and reds, the other flowers in the garden fading, past their prime. The orchard fruit continued to ripen, green giving way to purple and scarlet. The plums would be ready soon. The garden flourished, even if its gardener was no longer there to tend it. They would have to do the best they could, in her stead.

“Do they know she's gone?” Annie asked, nodding toward the bees. The girls were fascinated by the insects' movements. They knew how to move among them with calm assurance. Maire had trained them well.

Ella blew smoke into a hive, the guard bees zooming outward to investigate before being lulled into a drowsy complacency. The girls had given each box a name, as if they were kingdoms: Floris, Narnia, and Petalline.

“I'm not sure,” Nora said. Maire said bees had been known to flee after their keeper had passed away. She hoped these would stay.

“Maybe they'll leave too,” Ella said. “They're hers, you know, not ours.”

“Now they belong to us,” Nora said. “It all does.” The cottage, the point, Cliff House.

“A summer place of our own,” Annie said.

Or perhaps something more. Nora could choose to stay, to build a life on the island. There was so much to sort out. She took a deep breath. She must maintain focus, like the bees, intent on their purpose. They thrummed from flower to flower, pouches brimming with yellow pollen, industrious, subdued. Nora and the girls would gather the honey if they stayed into September, or returned for a long weekend. She didn't know what the future would bring. What place the island would have in their lives.

They moved on to the next task, picking green beans and armfuls of sunflowers for bouquets, the basket—one of those Maire used to carry, the handle worn from the constant, sure guidance of her gloved hands—overflowing with a bounty Maire would never see.

From the dock below came the tapping of the hammer, the clanging of rigging. Day and night, Owen worked, unceasing. Nora hadn't seen him since after the funeral, neither of them willing to make the first move.

“I'm getting hungry,” Annie said as she lugged a basket of tomatoes to the porch.

“Why don't you two head to the cottage and make some sandwiches for lunch? I'll be there in a minute. El, you can supervise.”

“What kind?”

“Whatever you want.”

She watched them disappearing into the woods, their movements nimble as fawns, then took the path to the overlook. If he wouldn't come to her, she would go to him. There Owen was on the deck, putting on a last coat of varnish, his work nearly done. Maire had left him the boat, as she'd intended.

She called out a greeting.

He squinted against the light, and perhaps against her too. “I'm not in a mood for games.”

His tone took her aback, and she found herself bristling. “I had no intention of asking you to play.”

“That's right. You already have a fourth.”

“I'm not following you.”

He picked up a hammer and began to pound at a loose nail, speaking between blows. “I saw him at the funeral.”

“I know. You left before I could explain.”

“You don't have to explain anything.”

“I didn't invite him.”

“So you keep saying, and yet he keeps showing up, doesn't he?”

“He's gone, not that it's any of your business.”

“I never said it was.” He went into the pilot's house and closed the door. She could see his outline, moving around the interior, behind the glass.

She would not go down there. She would not pursue it, pursue him. She didn't need this right now. She was done with all that. Done.

Nora's mood worsened when she returned to the cottage and saw that Ella had left the dirty cups and plates on the table. It was her turn to do the dishes. “Do you expect the dishes to wash themselves?” she asked.

“What's wrong with you?”

“Nothing. I'm tired of the mess.”

“Some vacation. Otherwise known as prison camp.”

“I'll have to arrange a comprehensive work detail for you, to make it more authentic.”

“Ha-ha,” Ella said. “Can we go into town today? I want to see Dad.”

Nora looked up at the ceiling.
Give me strength
.

“You said something at the funeral to make him leave again, didn't you, after he'd come all that way to be with us?”

“In case you hadn't noticed, he does what he wants,” Nora said. “And don't you dare call him again. I'm tired of you calling him without permission.”

“Why do I need permission to talk to my own father?” Ella took the cell phone off the counter and stared at Nora, defiant.

“Put that down.”

She bolted from the cottage, toward the bluffs, Nora in pursuit. “I'm calling him. I'm calling him right now,” Ella shouted. “And there's nothing you can do about it.” She veered toward the promontory, poised on the precipice, as if she might hurl herself off it to spite Nora.

“Get back from there,” Nora said.

“No.” Ella was stabbing the keys. “I'm telling him—”

“What? What are you going to tell him?”

There was nothing Ella could say that would force Malcolm to do what she wanted; didn't she understand that by now? Nora grabbed her by the elbow with one hand and disarmed her of the cell with the other. She threw the phone down onto the rocks. There was a jarring crunch as its casing shattered.

“What the hell, Mom?”

“It's my phone,” Nora snapped back. “I decided we don't need it anymore. It's more trouble than it's worth.”

“You're more trouble than you're worth. I hate you!” She turned and ran back to the cottage.

Nora didn't have the energy to go after her. She slumped against a rock as the door slammed in the distance. “I don't blame you, honey,” she said softly. “I don't blame you at all.”

T
hey met Polly and Alison at Cliff House later that afternoon. Everything was as Maire left it, the possessions, the mementos of a life, without the one person to whom they meant the most. Nora fingered a picture on the mantel. She hadn't taken any photos with Maire. A deep ache lodged in the same place that contained the other losses, an ache that wouldn't completely subside. There was no balm for it, not even time. It didn't heal all wounds. It just made them more bearable.

“One thing at a time,” Polly said as she brewed tea, perhaps sensing Nora's mood.

“It seems odd to sit here without her,” Nora said.

“It seems odd to do everything without her. Molly Creehan will be having her baby on the mainland now. She's due in a month.”

“She was in the shop the other day,” Alison said. “She was beside herself.”

“She touched so many lives, did our Maire.”

“She's not really gone,” Annie said as she drank cranberry juice from a teacup.

“What do you mean?” Polly asked.

“I see her sometimes. She's there, watching. It's like she wants to say something, but she can't.”

“I do too,” Polly said quietly. “Funny, isn't it? Perhaps the line between the living and the dead isn't as clear as we think.”

“Stop talking about it,” Ella said to Annie. “I told you not to talk about it.”

“El.” Nora frowned. “Please.”

Alison put on a pair of rubber gloves and picked up a sponge. “So, where did you want to start?”

“I suppose with the fridge.” Nora saw Maire's lists in a different light now. The details of names and birth dates, addresses, things to do, written in Maire's even, flowing script, her voice reflected in the phrasing. There would be no more notes. No more appointments to be kept. Had the stories she'd told Nora about Maeve been part of her confusion too? It was difficult to know what to believe. “I'm afraid some of the food might be going bad.”

“Not the honey. It won't start sugaring for at least a year,” Polly said.

It was hard to imagine life a year from then. So much had changed in the past few weeks.

“Will you be staying on?” Alison asked.

“No,” Ella said, adamant.

Nora shook her head gently. They could talk about it later.

“There are always the summers,” Polly said.

Yes, the summers, past and present. A wind chime sounded on the deck, a fragment of melody, a half-completed thought, ringing in the air, dissipating.

Nora looked around the room. “Let's deal with the cleaning to start out with. Otherwise, we'll leave it as it is for now. There's no hurry.”

“No, of course there isn't,” Polly agreed.

Because no one lived there anymore.

E
lla ducked outside, the others seemingly unaware. She marched past the fountains of switchgrass and the arthritic pine, past the lark's nest and the snarl of dinghy nets and floats, those hollow plastic globes that were supposed to keep things afloat, cracked at the seams, worthless. She glanced behind her. Annie hadn't followed, for once. Annie, who always followed, a little sister, a little conscience. Ella didn't need her now. She would only complicate things. She couldn't be relied upon to play her part, do what had to be done.

The fishing shack was as ramshackle as ever, not meant for full-time living, only for storing tackle and lines. Who could live in such a place? Who would want to? A curl of smoke rose from the chimney in a question mark, as if asking what she was doing there. She told herself she didn't believe in fairy tales, in magic, and yet there was an eerie atmosphere that made her shiver. She squared her shoulders. This was no time for doubts.

She rapped on the door. No answer. Maybe he'd stepped out. He hadn't been at the dock. She nearly lost her nerve, ran back the way she'd come, when the door opened, as if of its own accord, and he appeared, this man who had paid too much attention to her mother, and she knew what she must do.

“We're going home,” she said.

“Your mother—” His eyes swept over the field behind her, as if for some sign of Nora.

“She sent me to tell you. She said it's easier this way. That you'd understand.” Her delivery was flawless. Her father would be proud. Perhaps she'd take acting lessons in Boston that fall. “You understand, don't you?” She made her eyes sad, so that he would know that, in the end, she sympathized with him.

“Yes.”

She knew he wouldn't inquire further. That he didn't dare. She felt a thrill of triumph when she saw the regret in his eyes. Triumph, and a flicker of doubt too, though she didn't let it show. The pleasure of hurting him wasn't as satisfying as she thought it would be. Though hurting him was beside the point. The point was to get home, to her father.

They would return to Boston.

And Owen would go back to wherever he was from.

N
ora went through boxes in the attic. Annie was studying the charts. “The marks have moved,” she said. “More seals are on Little Burke.”

“I think those marks were already there, honey,” Nora said. “The map is mildewed. We might have to get rid of it.”

“No!” Annie said. “We have to keep it. No matter how old it gets. . . . Aunt Maire said the magic is everywhere, within us too. All we have to do is find it.”

“She did, did she?” Her confused mind, braiding together their past with myths, true or invented. Would they ever know which was which?

So many family heirlooms, carefully preserved. Maire, the conservator. What else had she kept? Hidden? Things of Maeve's too? There were porcelain dolls from the sisters' childhood. Pull toys. A top. “Look, it spins,” Annie said. “Like the compass. Is the compass broken? It spins at weird times.”

“I don't know,” Nora said. Its erratic movements had unnerved her to the point that she'd stuck it in the nightstand drawer. “I'm not sure how it works.”

“But you said Grandpa showed you.”

“His compass wasn't like that one. Maybe something got into the works.” It didn't seem to play by the same rules.

At the bottom of a steamer trunk, filled with dresses from the 1950s and '60s—the fabrics were gorgeous, if slightly yellowed from storage; they looked as if they hadn't been touched for years—she found a leather-bound journal. A journal, locked, without a key. “Private” embossed on the front cover. Could something more be written there, something Maire hadn't said, from a time her mind was clear? Nora slid it into the bag of cleaning supplies, vinegar and orange oil among them, substances to remove tarnish, to dust, to restore, to bring things to light.

Nora had her own journals, kept in a box in the far corner of the storage room in the house on Oak Street, behind the girls' outgrown rocking horse and crib. The toys and baby furniture she and Malcolm had held onto, because the girls may have outgrown them but they didn't want to let them go; a tie to the past, to the heart of their childhood. Nora stopped to consider: Did she want her daughters to read her journals someday, for that sort of evidence to remain? Her mistakes, joys, sorrows, complaints, observations, over things that seemed insignificant now? (She'd stopped when the girls were born. There wasn't time for her own thoughts, much less to write them down.)

Private.
Maire was gone now. Nora couldn't speak to her, request permission. There would be no more conversations, searching or mundane. She could only gather what she could from what was left behind—including this journal, part of her inheritance, after all. Maire had left her everything except the boat.

“Did you find something?” Annie asked.

“Aunt Maire kept everything, didn't she?” Nora evaded the question.

“The attic is like a big treasure chest.”

The journal most of all.

Nora would decide whether to read it later, when eyes weren't upon her.