A Vineyard Christmas

by Jean Stone

  Taylor looked genuinely apologetic. She was a terrific actor. “Well, I sure am sorry.”

  “No harm done. Honest.”

  Bella, however, was not being magnanimous: her screech had turned to crying, tears and all. Her arms had sprung free from the blanket, and her fists were making tiny punches at the air. Maybe she, too, sensed that Taylor was probably trouble.

  Taking a few more steps toward them, Taylor touched one of Bella’s hands. “Quite a little fighter, aren’t you?” Bella opened her fist, grabbed Taylor’s finger, pulled it into her mouth, and chomped down on it. Taylor winced; Annie tightened her lips to ward off a wave of laughter. Then Taylor asked, “How’s your niece doing?” The question was so sudden, Annie was not prepared.

  “Um . . .” she replied. “Um . . . well . . .” Her words sounded like the stammers of her former third-grade student Jerry Ferris. One day she’d asked him to tell the class about his family’s trip to the maple sugar shack in the Berkshires, and the poor boy grew so nervous he not only stammered but he also wet his pants. Annie had hoped that sharing a fun experience might help him get over his public speaking anxiety; instead, she’d provoked humiliation. Jerry would be a grown man now, almost thirty; she wondered what had happened to him and if her well-meaning attempt had scarred him for life.

  She blinked back to the awkwardness of the present.

  “Sometimes family things take time to iron out,” Taylor went on. “I have a brother no one ever thought would straighten out, but today he owns a restaurant up in Boston. First-class place, too, not one of those chain things. Can you imagine?”

  No, Annie could not imagine, nor did she care to. But she smiled again and said, “That’s wonderful.”

  “Your cat ever come back?” Taylor asked, and, yes, she was definitely smirking then. Clearly, the woman enjoyed toying with Annie.

  “No,” Annie replied. “It was a stray, anyway. I’d only been trying to help it.” She had an uneasy suspicion that Taylor now knew the secret about Bella. Claire might have told her. Or maybe she’d coaxed information out of John while she was being flirtatious. Before the woman could make Annie feel even more uncomfortable, she asked, “By the way, have you seen Earl this morning? I think a few shingles blew off the roof last night. I decided to drive around and look for him instead of calling, because Bella likes the fresh air.” She was getting good at lying now—a trait she hoped would be short-lived.

  “He’s probably at the Jackson place. I heard their alarm go off this morning; if I know Earl, he’s checking every nook and cranny. Anyway, it’s the big yellow farmhouse on Old Indian Trail. Just past the fire station. You know the way?”

  Annie said she did, which she would have said even if only to get away from the woman and her smirks. She went back to the car and secured Bella in the car seat again.

  “You sure you’re both okay?” Taylor called out as Annie got behind the wheel.

  “We’re fine. You swerved so fast you avoided an accident.” It was a backhanded compliment, but Annie didn’t think Taylor would notice.

  “Well,” Taylor added with a sneer, as if she had an overwhelming urge to have the last word, “we do need to keep that baby in one piece in case her mother ever decides to come back.” Then she trudged toward her truck, turning up the collar of her red-and-black-checkered wool shirt as if declaring a warped kind of victory.

  * * *

  As Taylor had predicted, Earl was at the Jackson place. He was walking to his truck when Annie pulled into the driveway. She waved; he hesitated for a second, or maybe two, then he sauntered over.

  Annie put down the window. “Good morning.”

  He nodded. “Everything okay?”

  “I saw Taylor—she told me where to find you.”

  “Bit of a problem out here with the alarm. Must have been from the winds. Happens all the time. Damned if you have ’em, damned if you don’t. At least they keep the bugs down in summer. The winds, that is. I doubt if bugs give a crap about alarms.”

  Small talk was a decent icebreaker, but right then it was not what Annie wanted. “Earl,” she interrupted, “I’m so sorry if I’ve caused trouble for you in your family. With Claire. With John.”

  He rubbed his chin—he was clean-shaven that day—and shifted his gaze up to the blue sky, over to the farmhouse, down to his boots, then back to her. “Claire’s okay now. She said she hated being lied to; I told her you hadn’t really lied. She said that was true, but that you hadn’t been forthcoming, which sometimes is just as bad. Anyway, I told her more about you, how you were adopted, so protecting Bella means a lot to you. I hope that was okay.”

  “If it helped mend fences for you, of course it’s okay.”

  “It did.”

  “Good. Because I . . .” She was afraid she was going to start stammering again. She thought about Jerry Ferris. Like he had been, she was among friends; well, one friend, anyway. She cleared her throat and found her confidence, the way she’d hoped Jerry could have done. “Earl, I’ve learned more information. It might be my last chance to find Bella’s family. I know that foster care sometimes has a good outcome, but once she’s in the system, who knows what it will take to get her out.” She paused, she knew, for dramatic effect, which she hated that she’d stooped to, but thought it might be essential. “Anyway, I sure could use your help. I need to go to Edgartown and find out if I’m right or wrong. I think it would be better if I didn’t go alone.”

  He leaned against the roofline of the Lexus, looked back up to the sky. “You’re asking if I’ll go with you?”

  “Yes.”

  He exhaled loudly. “I can’t, Annie.”

  She toyed with the steering wheel. “I understand.”

  “It isn’t you,” he said. “Like I said, Claire has a real thing about people holding on to secrets when they know damn well they shouldn’t. Those are her words, not mine.”

  “I do understand. If it’s any consolation, I don’t think I’ve ever not been forthcoming, as you called it, in my entire life. Until now. But so much is at stake. For the baby. For her mother.”

  That time, he didn’t respond.

  “I know it’s a lot to ask, Earl. But aside from Winnie and her daughter-in-law, you’re the only one on the island who I trust.” It wasn’t the right time to mention her encounter with Taylor, whom she did not trust for a single, solitary heartbeat.

  “Are you going to tell me what you plan to do in Edgartown?”

  “I need to see a family named Thurman. Stephen and Bonnie. And maybe Stephen’s brother, Clark. Do you know them?”

  Earl nodded. “Stephen’s a house painter, like his dad, Billy, who was my friend. Billy died a while back, six, seven years ago. Accident. Fell off a ladder.” He shuffled his feet again. “Stephen and Bonnie have twin boys.”

  “I know,” Annie replied. She was grateful that, as she’d hoped, he knew the family—and the boys.

  Earl thought a moment, then said, “Oh, no. You don’t think one of them . . .”

  “That’s what I need to find out.”

  “Damn,” he said. “Damn. They’re such good kids.”

  “It’s either one of them or it’s Stephen’s brother, Clark.”

  “I don’t know Clark very well. He’s a lot younger than Stephen, and he’s a loner. From what I’ve heard he doesn’t leave the island except to fish. I guess he’s never been interested in anything else. Cost him his marriage. Which caused Stephen and Bonnie to split up for a little while, too, on account of Bonnie sided with Laureen, and you know how that goes.”

  “Families,” Annie said, as if she knew much about any of them.

  “No,” Earl continued. “I really doubt it’s Clark. But . . .”

  “But what?”

  “But I suppose you never know, do you?”

  “No. You never do.”

  “Damn,” he repeated. “If it’s one of Stephen’s boys . . .” He sighed again, stuffed his hands into his jacket pockets.

  “W
ell, we don’t know that yet. Maybe we could start at Clark’s house? I drove by yesterday, but it looked vacant.”

  Earl paused, his eyes moving around again. “Would you be insulted if we took two vehicles across? That way . . .”

  “No problem. I don’t want to cause any more trouble for you, Earl. But I really would appreciate your help.”

  He tapped the roof of the car. “I’ll meet you at the parking lot behind the library,” he said. “In about twenty minutes. We shouldn’t take the same trip across.”

  She knew he meant that they shouldn’t board the On Time together. Gossipmongers, after all, could be lurking anywhere.

  “Besides,” he continued, “in this wind, you’ll be more comfortable in your car. The higher the vehicle, the more it rocks and rolls when you’re on the water.”

  “It’s fine, Earl. I’ll meet you at the library.” Annie smiled at his need to come up with a justifiable excuse for them to travel separately, as if they were having a sordid affair. Which really would give the island something to talk about.

  * * *

  “Want to tell me how you came up with this link to the Thurmans?” Earl asked after they’d met on the other side of the channel and he’d climbed into the passenger side of Annie’s car. He’d been right about the wind: despite the sunshine, the ferry crossing had been like a ride at an amusement park. Annie had been a little frightened, but the motion had eased Bella into sleep.

  Driving west along Edgartown-West Tisbury Road, she explained about the bus driver and the rest.

  “I know it would probably be better for everyone if Bella’s father turns out to be Clark,” she continued, “but I have to tell you something else: I looked in the high school yearbook and saw photos of Stephen’s twins. Caleb has a dimple in his chin that looks identical to Bella’s.”

  Earl let out a low whistle. “But you said it doesn’t sound like Bella’s mother is an island girl? That the bus driver thinks she came over the same day as the fair?”

  “He said he was sure about that because he hated driving into Edgartown because of the traffic that weekend. He also asked the girl why she hadn’t come over on the Grey Lady and gone right into Edgartown, but she said she didn’t know about that boat.Which isn’t surprising. My best bet is that the special trips were marketed to women as a shopping adventure for the holidays—like the stroll on Nantucket or Kennebunkport’s prelude. I doubt that the ads would have meant much to Bella’s mother, even if she had seen them. After all, she didn’t come to shop. Or sip cocoa with Santa at the Harbor View.”

  “I take it she’s still in bad shape?”

  “As far as I know.”

  After a few minutes, she turned onto Deep Forest Road. “His house is number seven,” she said. “But I couldn’t see any numbers.”

  “Enclave,” Earl commented. “These houses were built for year-round laborers. Housing is such a problem here; it keeps getting tougher for regular working folks to afford a decent place to live.” He pointed to one of the small ranch-style homes, where a man was getting out of an old SUV, a grocery bag in his hand. “Stop the car,” Earl said.

  Annie stopped.

  Earl got out, approached the man, and nodded at him in a friendly, neighborly way.

  Annie cracked her window so she could hear the conversation.

  “Looking for Clark Thurman. He around?”

  “Nope,” the guy replied. “Been gone a couple of weeks. Think they were headed to Georges Bank for tuna.”

  “Thanks.” Earl started to walk back to the car, then turned back. “Can you tell me which place is his?”

  The guy pointed across the street. Although it was an equally small house, it seemed better cared for than the others, with no debris strewn around the yard.

  “He has kids, doesn’t he?” Earl asked. “Or am I mixing him up with his brother, Stephen?”

  Annie wondered if Earl might be pushing his luck. In Boston, no one would have told anyone anything about a neighbor.

  “Clark’s got two. Boy and girl.”

  Annie gulped. She hadn’t considered that Clark might have a son who could be Bella’s father, too.

  “How old are his kids?”

  The guy shook his head and went up his steps. “I have no idea.” He seemed exasperated now. “Little kids. In middle school. Not as old as mine.” He opened the screen door just as a gust of wind whipped past and nearly ripped it off.

  “Thanks,” Earl said again and trotted back to the car. “Like I said, it’s hard to believe that Bella might be his,” he said as he buckled his seat belt. “I expect he never goes anywhere where he might have met her. And his son’s a little kid, so Bella darn well isn’t his. Yup, Clark’s wrapped up in himself. Always was. Always too busy to help his father. Never home to be a father, either, or at least that’s what I remember hearing.”

  She didn’t want to ask if he’d heard that from Taylor or from Claire.

  “So,” he added, “let’s go to Stephen and Bonnie’s. And get this over with.”

  * * *

  Less than ten minutes later, Annie turned down Scallop Cove Road and stopped at number twelve.

  “I suppose I should do the talking,” Earl said.

  “If you don’t mind. At least if you could start the conversation.”

  He pulled open his door. “You bringing Bella in?”

  “I don’t know. What do you think?”

  He shrugged. “Proof is in the pudding.”

  It seemed to take an hour to undo the car seat and situate Bella back in her basket. Then, because Earl said front doors were only meant for company, they walked in silence to the side porch. Annie said a quick prayer for help to Murphy, then tacked on an extra one to her dad.

  Chapter 24

  A woman who looked to be in her forties opened the door. She wore a muslin apron that was too tight for her plump body; her hands were covered in white flour; her cheeks were pink, perhaps from the heat in the kitchen. “Earl Lyons!” she greeted him happily. “What brings you way out here on such a fine and blustery day?”

  “Hey, Bonnie,” he said. “Long time, no see. This is my friend Annie Sutton. She’s living over on Chappy.”

  Bonnie attempted to straighten her chestnut-colored hair and then said hello to Annie. “Yes, I recognize you. I think I saw you at the fair. Please excuse the mess. Today is baking-bread day. I’m finally catching up after making enough Christmas breads to choke an elf.”

  Annie supposed that most of the town ladies had been to the fair. She would have liked to ask if Bonnie had seen her soaps and if she’d noticed a young woman hanging around her table. But that wasn’t why they were there, so she simply said, “It’s nice to meet you, Bonnie.”

  Bonnie let them out of the cold and into the kitchen. The aroma of fresh, warm bread perfumed the room.

  “Stephen home?” Earl asked.

  She leaned against a large center island with clean, white-painted cabinets on the bottom and a slab of ebony granite with silver flecks on top—the same cabinets and counters that lined the room. “He’s working. Doing the interior at the new post office.”

  “Yeah,” Earl replied. “Who’d have thought they’d ever get around to building one? With twice as many clerks behind the counter. Or so I hear.”

  She carried a large earthenware bowl to the sink. “You going to tell me why you’re here? Somebody die?” She turned on the faucet, twisted her hands together under the stream, then dried them on her apron. She was a no-nonsense woman, direct but not rude, the kind of woman Annie respected and, under other circumstances, might want as a friend.

  “Nobody died,” Earl said.

  Bonnie nodded, walked back to the island, leaned on it again.

  Bella started to fuss.

  “You’ve got a baby there,” Bonnie said.

  Annie smiled, tried to look compassionate.

  Earl fidgeted with the zipper on his jacket. “That, we do.”

  Annie could tell he was having trou
ble finding the right words, so she blurted out, “Her name is Bella. And she’s the reason we’re here. I was told someone named Thurman might know something about her.”

  Bonnie frowned. “Something like what?”

  Sucking in her breath, Annie said, “Like who her father might be.”

  Bonnie watched her for a moment, then turned her gaze back to Earl, who had closed his eyes as if this were too painful for him to deal with. Annie felt guilty for having dragged him there, for having used him to help her gain entrance to the house.

  “Well,” Bonnie said, “let’s have a look, then.” She crossed the room to where Annie stood just inside the doorway. Looking into the basket, she peeled back a corner of the fleece to get a good look at the little face. “Oh,” Bonnie said. “Oh.”

  Annie let the woman process whatever she was thinking. Then she quietly asked, “Oh, what?”

  “Oh, God,” Bonnie replied, not pulling her eyes from Bella. “She looks just like my Caleb, doesn’t she?”

  * * *

  Caleb was home, Bonnie said. He was downstairs with his brother, playing video games. Earl moved a bowl of fresh fruit from the kitchen table; Annie set down Bella’s basket. They sat across from each other while Bonnie went to the basement door.

  “Caleb!” she shouted. “Come up, please. Now.” She walked back to Annie and Earl. “They’re both on their winter breaks. Michael goes to UMass Amherst; he’s majoring in sports medicine. Caleb’s at Northeastern for business.”

  “Smart boys,” Earl said.

  Like Murphy’s, Annie thought.

  Bonnie looked into the basket again. “I used to think so.” Her complexion had turned pale and powdery, like the remnants of bread-baking that dusted her apron. She sat next to Annie, wearing a look of disbelief that Annie supposed parents wore when they saw their children’s dreams—and their dreams for their children—take an unexpected turn—a crash-and-burn, Murphy used to call it.

  Bonnie glanced toward the basement door. “Caleb! Now!” She looked back at Annie. “How old?”

  “We’re not exactly sure. Three or four months.”