by Jean Stone
“Oh,” one of them replied with fake disappointment. “Yeah, I suppose we could do that.” They were scheduled to graduate from Boston College in May: Danny was headed to grad school for astrophysics; Derek to med school to become a surgeon, like Stan. Murphy had raised brilliant boys. She’d once confided to Annie that she never guessed she’d have kids who “were so amazingly well wired together.” Annie never understood what that meant, but supposed it was based on something Irish.
They chattered a few more minutes, then said they were off to a party. “Merry Christmas, thanks again!” were their parting words before turning the phone over to Stan.
“The boys sound good,” Annie said. “How are they really doing?”
“Actually, not bad. For our first Christmas without her. You know how they’ve always bolstered each other, whether one failed to ace a test or one of their teams lost a game. Murphy always loved that. She would have loved to see them now.” His voice grew somber, tired.
“How about you?” Annie asked. “How are you doing?”
“I’m doing crappy, but thanks for asking. Thank God I have work. And the boys. Did I tell you the hospital gave me a promotion? Chief of Neurosurgery, can you imagine?”
“Oh, Stan, that’s wonderful.”
“At first I thought they felt sorry for me. Then I realized how much work is involved. I was probably the only sucker who’d accept.”
“Stop it. I’m sure you earned it. Murphy would know that.”
“Yeah,” he said, “yeah, she would.”
The conversation fell into silence, then Annie said, “It’s still so hard to believe she’s not here. I really miss her, Stan.”
“Me, too, Annie. She’d be happy for you that you’re on the Vineyard, though. One time toward the end, when she was sitting in the chemo chair trying to be patient—which, as you know, wasn’t easy for her—she said she was so happy you’d moved there. She said the island was your happy place and that you, of all people, deserved some happiness.”
A bounty of emotion swelled in her again. “I do love it here, Stan. And I survived my first nor’easter, though the infernal wind has whipped up again tonight.”
“Wind off the water can be most interesting.”
“Especially when you’re in an old cottage that, charming as it is, provides a constant chorus of creaks and groans.” As if in response, a strong gust shook the kitchen window. “Sometimes,” she added, “I feel her presence here. It makes me feel good. Not so alone.”
Stan gave a small laugh. “That’s strange, because I feel her here, too. Leave it to our Murphy to learn how to be in two places at once.”
Annie laughed, too. Then she wondered if she should tell him about Bella, but decided not to. Stan deserved to have this conversation be about him, the boys, and his late wife. Not about Annie and her little drama that had nothing to do with them.
He thanked her for the socks; she told him about the wonderful alpaca farm on Oak Bluffs. They talked awhile longer, then ran out of things to say. Annie promised to be at the twins’ graduation in May, and they wistfully said good night.
Fueled by having connected to people she loved, Annie picked up the messes she had made around the cottage, grateful for Stan and the twins, for Winnie and Earl and for Bella, and for her belief that there could still be many wonders yet to come in her life. She knew she’d learned that optimism from her father.
* * *
It was after midnight when Annie finally snuggled Bella into the bureau drawer, then crawled into bed and pulled up the covers. She was exhausted, yet felt wonderful. She hadn’t realized how much she’d dreaded this Christmas until now, when she no longer did.
Looking over at Bella, she knew that this baby was a gift that she’d been given, if only for a short time. A gift of experiencing unconditional love, of total dependability, of utter trust. This was what a baby brought, along with diapers, crying, and spit-up. That was what Annie had missed out on for reasons she’d never learn, but she knew it was time to accept the fact.
She closed her eyes, wondering, not for the first time, how many babies she and Brian might have had, how much laughter and love they would have shared, if that accident had never happened. But love, she now knew, came in different ways, like with sweet little Bella, fast asleep in the small nightstand drawer.
The day after Christmas would come soon enough; until then, Annie would keep searching for Bella’s mother as best she could. Winnie was right, Annie did love Bella, but Bella was not Annie’s; just as Bella had shown up on Annie’s doorstep and not on Earl and Claire’s.
At last, her thoughts guided her peacefully into sleep until—suddenly—a loud bang shot through the night.
Her eyes flew open, as they’d done before.
She knew in an instant that the sound had come from the porch door. As if it had been opened. By someone. Or something.
Her body went rigid; she sucked in her breath.
Then she heard footsteps. Again.
And another bang.
Then . . . silence.
Had she been dreaming? It was possible, but . . .
Her eyes darted over to Bella. But it was so dark, Annie could not see her. So she held her breath and listened until she heard the baby’s soft sleeping sounds.
It must have been the wind, Annie told herself. The door must have blown open, rattled, then slammed back against the windows. It was only a coincidence that it sounded like something else.
She had no idea what the odds would be for that.
But she hated to think about what she really thought.
That it was her.
That she’d come back.
Squeezing her eyes shut, Annie tried to relax, tried to breathe quietly, steadily, the way Bella was doing. It will be fine, she said as in a mantra. It will. It will.
She knew she should investigate. But in the living room, the fire would still be casting a low glow, and she’d left the tree lights on. If someone—if she—were on the porch, Annie would be spotted as soon as she stepped out of the bedroom. If she looked out into the night, however, she would not see anything—or anyone—in the darkness, not until she’d walked clear across the room and turned on the outside lights.
But before she’d be able to see outside, she would be clearly visible through the living room windows. Because they had no curtains. Because here on Martha’s Vineyard, people trusted that their neighbors respected their privacy.
Holding her breath again, Annie continued to listen. But all she heard were the symphony of creaks and groans that she’d been hearing all evening and the eerie hoot of a distant, snowy owl.
So she stayed motionless, under her covers. And hoped that she wouldn’t have to give Bella up. Not yet. Please, Murphy, Annie whispered. Not yet. And not in the middle of the night when good things usually didn’t happen.
Chapter 10
Annie had no idea how she’d fallen back to sleep. But first thing in the morning, she looked onto the porch. The outside door was closed. Whatever had gone bump in the night must have been in her dreams. Still, she must remember to ask Earl to check the latch on the porch door. She didn’t want to spend another night with her imagination working overtime.
By the time Bella awoke, Annie had showered and dressed. She breezed through her mom-chores with surprising ease, then spread her favorite quilt in front of the tree and set Bella on it. She gave her the things she’d picked up at Stop & Shop: the teething ring and some baby toys—a set of plastic keys, a rubber caterpillar, and, God help her, a ball that could transform its colors and “dance” to the songs of farm animals.
She sat next to Bella, who touched the ball and giggled, clearly more interested in that than in the other things. Annie tapped a button: the ball turned red and jumped around while a cow sang a verse about giving chocolate milk. Bella giggled again as if she understood. When Annie tapped the ball again, it turned green and bounced to a tinny voice that belonged to a mouse who sang about living in a ha
yfield behind a barn.With another tap, the ball glowed yellow and jiggled and a duck quack-quacked so loudly that Annie barely heard the knocking on the door.
“Annie!” a voice called out. “It’s Winnie!”
Pulling herself up off the floor, Annie went to the door.
Winnie was alone. She wore a red Santa hat and carried a white pillowcase decorated with green felt holly leaves and berries made of red glitter. “Merry Christmas!” she exclaimed. “Are you two having a party?”
Annie laughed and let her in. “We’re playing with . . . something. I don’t know what you call it. This stuff ’s new to me.”
Glancing down, Winnie quickly said, “It’s what my grandkids call a wiggle biggle. They all had one. They said it was magical.”
“A wiggle biggle. I should have guessed. Though it’s hardly magical.”
“It is, according to them.” Winnie handed her the pillowcase. “From my crew. A bit of everything for a Merry Christmas.”
“Thank you, Winnie. But you shouldn’t have. Really.”
“It’s not as much as it looks like. Just a few things that are part of our holiday tradition. And something special for the littlest angel.” She reached into the pillowcase, withdrew a flat object wrapped in pink tissue, and handed it to Annie. “We all had a hand in making this. But it was Lucas’s idea. He still has the one I made him when he was a baby.”
Annie opened the tissue. Inside was a large ring that looked like it was made from a twig or tree branch. Pink and white feathers dangled from the perimeter. “It’s beautiful. Is it a dream catcher?”
“Yes. A special one. For a baby. The feathers are attached to a willow hoop. It goes over her crib—if the poor thing ever gets one. It should be hung high enough so she can’t touch it, but close enough so it will catch her dreams and keep them in the circle of her life. My family has always believed that the dreams we had as babies always remain with us.”
Annie felt a twinge of wonder again about those six weeks when she’d had no one—no birth mother, no adopted parents, just foster people who tended to her physical needs. Had she dreamed back then? Then she realized that though having Bella around was fun, she wasn’t crazy about the way the baby’s presence kept dredging up thoughts of her own past. She cleared her throat. “It really is beautiful,” she repeated. “I’m sure it will mean a lot to Bella, wherever she goes.”
“Well,” Winnie laughed, “if you’re going to hang out with Native people, you’re going to have to learn our lore.” She handed Annie a few more gifts: ajar of honey from the three hives her brother tended on their land; a box of tea made from their herbs; and a pale blue and green pottery mug that Winnie made.
Annie was touched. Uplifted. And grateful for the presents, but mostly for the gift of friendship.
Then Winnie got down on the floor and pushed the button on the wiggle biggle: the toy lit up pink; a pig emitted a rendition of oink-oink as it leapt in little circles. Bella’s tiny giggles bubbled up. “Babies are so precious,” Winnie added.
Knowing that if she responded, she was sure to cry, she went to the table and retrieved the book for Winnie and a package of candy cane cookies. “For you,” she said. “From me. Or I guess I should say ‘from us,’ because Bella watched me make the cookies before she took her nap.” She handed Winnie the gifts. “But I can’t believe you drove all the way out here from Aquinnah. And I can’t believe you found this place again!” Winnie had been to the cottage once when Annie had run out of soybean oil while she was making soap; she’d dropped some off while en route to Edgartown to deliver jewelry for October sales in shops.
“When you’ve lived here all your life, you know how to find most things. Well, most places, anyway. People, not always. Speaking of which . . .”
“Open your gift first.”
So Winnie did. “MacFarlane! I’ve heard of him, but never read one of his books. Thank you, my friend.”
“I’m not sure if you have any more room in your bookcase. . . but it’s autographed. I met him at a signing.”
“I shall read it. And treasure it. But enough procrastinating. Tell me where things stand with Bella’s mother.”
Annie filled her in on her useless attempts. She also told her about Earl, and how, so far, they’d struck out, too.
“If anyone can find her, Earl Lyons can,” Winnie said. “It’s good that you decided to tell him. But I wonder if the girl’s already left Chappy. Unless she lives here.”
“That seems doubtful, don’t you think? From what I understand, most people who are here after Columbus Day live here year-round. And everyone knows everyone, or so I’m told. If she needed to keep Bella a secret, there would be easier places to do it than Chappaquiddick.”
“What about the ferry captains? Of course, you wouldn’t know who’d been on duty, because you don’t know when she crossed. Actually, you don’t know much of anything, do you?”
“No. Only that she was on the Vineyard sometime between the Holiday Crafts Fair and the night of the blizzard. A grand total of three days.” Annie sat down and poked the wiggle biggle, which responded with a kitten’s mew. Bella cooed and reached out to touch the surface that now glowed silver as it jiggled.
Annie sighed. “I’ve promised myself I will notify the police the day after Christmas. If I haven’t found her by then. Or if she hasn’t come back to us.”
“You don’t have to explain to me why you’re stalling,” Winnie said quietly, “but I have a feeling there’s a lot more to this story.”
“Not to Bella’s story, but to mine. I’m stalling because I was adopted, Winnie. I want to give her mother a fair chance to change her mind. Otherwise, if down the road, she regrets what she has done, it might be too late.”
* * *
During the hour that followed, Annie told Winnie about her parents, and her wonderful childhood, but how she’d sometimes felt something was missing. Then she told about her marriages, about the empty days and nights she’d had since then, and about how, after Mark’s demise, writing books had saved her sanity and rescued her from financial ruin.
Winnie listened with kindness. “I guess most of us don’t make it to adulthood without a knotted-up story behind us. But now, I see how good you are with Bella. Yet you didn’t have children? Ignore the question if it’s too personal.”
“It’s not. And no. I did not have children. My first husband died too young; my second didn’t want them.”
“So it was not because you were adopted?”
“I don’t think so. I’ve always loved kids; I used to be a third-grade teacher.” She toyed with the edge of the quilt, which was one of her favorite possessions—something she’d never get rid of no matter how much she downsized. Her mother had made it as a wedding gift for Annie and Brian. She’d used squares of fabric left over from dresses and skirts that she’d made for Annie when Annie was a little girl: polished cotton Sunday dresses, pleated wool skirts for school, even the buttercup-colored satin gown she’d worn to the eighth-grade semi-formal dance and afterward, at Brigham’s, had spilled a chocolate frappe on.
“When I was married to my second husband, I had an abortion,” she blurted out suddenly. It was the first time since Murphy that Annie had shared her humiliating secret. “So maybe you’re right. In my mind, I blamed him. He kept saying we should wait to have kids. Maybe I was too willing to let the time go by because, deep down, I was afraid that if I had a baby, I’d abandon her, the way my birth mother had abandoned me.” She knew that last thought had come from the special corner, the safe harbor, in her mind.
“Is that how it happened? Your mother abandoned you?”
“It’s what I’d chosen to believe. I wrote about it in my first novel, though I pretended it had happened to my character, not me.”
“But that wasn’t the real story?”
“No.” Then Bella began to cry. Annie picked her up and held her, as if she were her own.
“When I turned thirty,” she continued, “my bi
rth mother wrote to me. I didn’t respond.” She lowered her eyes. “The timing was all wrong. My adoptive parents had recently died—first my dad, then, six months later, my mom. If I’d reached out to Donna—that’s her name—it would have felt as if I were trying to replace the Suttons, as if they hadn’t mattered to me. I couldn’t do that. I loved and respected them too much.”
Winnie slowly nodded. “Maybe you were trying to protect their memory, the way they’d protected you. There’s nothing wrong with that.” She reached over and took Annie’s hand. “We are all people, Annie, and people are complex. Our stories make us who we are. Yours explains a lot—you have a kind, sensitive soul. And Bella is lucky that her mother brought her here. Because you know the importance of protecting those who need it.”
Annie shrugged. “Maybe it was just a coincidence that Bella landed here. Or a lucky guess on her mother’s part. But I’m sure anyone would have done what worked best for them; what they thought would be best for the baby.”
“I have a feeling you don’t tell many people about your past,” Winnie said.
“No. I’m a fairly happy person; I’ve never considered the past as baggage. Maybe that’s because I’ve never wanted to deal with the discussion. Or with judgment.”
Winnie stood up. “Well, you don’t have to worry about any of that here. You’re among people who care about you, Annie. The longer you live here, the more you’ll come to know that. Most island people don’t judge one another.” Then she smirked. “Of course, there’s always a rogue or two.”
Annie smiled, stood up, and gave her a hug. “Thanks, Win–nie. For everything. Mostly for understanding.”
“And thank you for trusting me. But for now, I must get back to my sleigh. I have other deliveries to make.”
She was halfway out the door when Annie had a sudden thought. “Wait!” she called out. “How did you know Bella would still be with me? How did you know I hadn’t brought her to the police?”
Winnie glanced back, her mouth turned up in a smile. “Guess it must be magic. Like the wiggle biggle.” She put her hand on the porch door, then looked back at Annie. “By the way, do you know the latch on your screen door is broken?”