Home to Big Stone Gap

by Adriana Trigiani

  With the beauty we live in back home, you’d think I would really appreciate the land and all it has to offer. I thought I did—but it took coming to Scotland for me to realize that we really borrow the space we inhabit on earth. Arthur and the Stonemans never use chemicals in their gardens, and they have every gizmo known to man to keep the crows out. Some they make themselves—my favorite is the “tree of small mirrors.” It looks like a funky Christmas tree at the far end of the garden. It seems to be effective.

  It’s a way of life worth pursuing. I haven’t bought a potato or a beet or a carrot since we arrived five weeks ago, and we’ve barely made a dent on the supply of vegetables in the basement. It’s amazing how well a family can live on one garden.

  I’ve left most of the planning of day trips to Jack, who has become an expert on where to go and how to get there. We try to go most places by train, because it gives us time to savor the landscape. One of the great surprises of this trip is the reminder of how much I love spending time with my husband. He’s a lot of fun, and I forget that when we’re back home living a real life without shortbread, castles, and whiskey.

  “Today we’re going to Edinburgh,” Jack announces on the train platform.

  “Great.”

  “We’ll train it, have lunch, you can stop at that pottery shop—”

  “Emma Bridgewater!”

  “Right, and then we’ll tour the castle.”

  “Jack, how many castles have we been in?”

  “Are you counting?” Jack puts his arms around me.

  “I think it’s a hundred in four weeks.”

  “You’re exaggerating. It’s ninety-nine. I can’t help it. I love them. I can’t get enough of the stonework and the moats, and hearing stories of the knights and their crusades.”

  A train pulls into the station, braking slowly, wheezing and whistling until it comes to a full stop. I move to climb aboard.

  “Not yet.” Jack pulls me back and holds my hand.

  I watch as some passengers disembark. As they chat on cell phones, I imagine a time when there weren’t phones of any sort and the only way to send a message was to get on a train and deliver it yourself, in person.

  “Mom!”

  No matter where I am in the world, whenever I hear someone yell “Mom,” I always think it’s for me. I look off into the middle distance across the rows of train tracks and think about my children, which always fills me with a sense of purpose. I feel a small place in history when I picture them.

  “Mom!”

  I look up and see Etta waving to me from a window with both arms. I think it’s a dream until Jack scoops me up by the waist and leads me to the place where Etta and Stefano step off the train. They’re really here! My heart is racing, I can’t believe it.

  I wanted to make this trip about Jack, and I’ve only recently, when we’re lying in bed, asked if we could sneak down to Italy to see our daughter when we’re done here in Scotland. Jack made it seem as though we should get home; after all, we’ve been away for six weeks. “Let’s go to Italy another time,” he said diplomatically. Now I realize he was setting me up for this wonderful surprise.

  I take Etta in my arms. No matter how old my daughter becomes, she’s still my little girl with the map of the world on the wall of her bedroom in Cracker’s Neck. I hold her closely, giving her a hundred kisses. As I embrace her, she feels different to me. “Etta?”

  Etta smiles and unbuttons her coat. There is no mistaking the change. “Ma, we’re going to have a baby.”

  Jack whoops and does a full spin, like Joel McCrea in Song of Missouri. I pull my daughter close, tears forming in my eyes. “Congratulations, honey.” Jack takes Etta in his arms as I embrace Stefano. I look at my husband. I will never forget the look on his face when his highest dream came true. He’s going to be a grandfather.

  “How far along are you?” I ask.

  “Five months. I had an inkling when we called at Christmas, but I didn’t want to say anything until I was sure. It was so hard to talk on the phone without telling you.”

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Good in the afternoon. The mornings are rough.”

  “They were for me too. Keep a box of crackers on your nightstand and eat one before you get out of bed.”

  “I will, Mama.” Etta’s smile is so real, and so dear, I begin to cry. I imagined this moment far into the future, maybe ten years from now. I could not be happier. I will commence worrying later, when the news has had time to settle. I put my arm around her as we walk. I turn and look back at Jack. “Are we going to Edinburgh?”

  “Not today, honey. That was a ruse to get you here.”

  The length of Etta’s and my footsteps is the same, just as mine was with my mother’s. A parent waits to see the moment when her child is truly happy, and I’m watching the moment unfold as Etta chatters about her doctor and her plans for the birth of the baby.

  Outside the train station, Etta stops and looks around Aberdeen. There was a misty rain this morning that turned the light gray granite to black. The buildings of the city look like dominoes in the overcast light. “Ma, did you think of Jane Eyre all the way up on the train?”

  “And Cathy in Wuthering Heights.”

  “And the Bennet sisters! I could see Elizabeth Bennet walking the fields outside of London. Are you and Dad having fun? Don’t answer that. You look fantastic.”

  “Thanks, honey.”

  “No, really, you and Dad look young. Younger.”

  “We’ll take it.”

  “I love to see you happy, Ma.”

  How funny it is to hear that when, since the day Etta was born, all I have prayed for is her happiness. I realize now that a happy mother may very well make a joyful child. I remember how much I wanted my mother to smile, to live, to enjoy life. But there was always some obstacle, something that prevented her from having an ease about living. It had a lot to do with the circumstances of her life, but what I didn’t realize then was how little control she had over her own fate. I used to look at my mother and think she was so beautiful that she shouldn’t ever be sad. Now I know that her external beauty was a happy accident, and her destiny, a road of hardship and pain, had one bright spot: me. If only Etta knew how much I want her dreams to come true, but there is no way to say it that she would ever believe. I have a feeling she will find out the moment she holds her own baby in her arms. She’ll know it then.

  Jack waited until Etta and Stefano arrived to make the trip to the MacChesney family home in Pennan. As we all wait in the car, Jack comes out of the Stoneman house with a pillow and blanket.

  “Ma, you have to talk to Dad. He won’t stop fussing.”

  “Get used to it. That’s how he was when I was pregnant.”

  Jack gets into the car and turns to give Stefano the pillow and blankets. The Stonemans’ Volkswagen is not very big to begin with, and with the additional pillow and blanket, we are officially cramped.

  “Dad, are we really going to meet your relatives?”

  “Paige from the university called them, and they said they would be happy to have us for tea.”

  “It’s just so weird. I mean, nobody in all our years in Cracker’s Neck Holler ever knocked on the door to say, ‘Hey, y’all, we’re cousins!’”

  “That might be true. Evidently, over here, it’s a different story. Happens to folks all the time,” Jack promises.

  “Just remember, you’re not a MacChesney, you’re a McGuiness,” I remind Etta.

  As we weave through the cliffs and coves of the Highlands, with a sea of the palest green on one side and the emerald hills on the other, I feel at home. We’ve been here long enough now that the narrow, clean country roads seem familiar, and I can feel within the space of a few seconds when it will rain, with drops coming out of seemingly nowhere.

  Jack drives confidently amid the cliffs; these roads without guardrails remind us of our own mountains.

  “Look!” I point to an open field surrounded by d
ark green hills. An enormous sheet of gray rain moves on the horizon like a glassy curtain toward the field, while overhead, the sun blazes brightly. In the distance, the black-and-white cows, like checkered marble against the green, move away from the rain. In a few moments, the rain has disappeared entirely, and the valley is bathed in white light. This is the mysticism of Scotland, the play of light and dark against the richest blues and greens. It’s as if time itself has a color here.

  We see the sign for Pennan and make the turn. The road narrows into town. We pass the harbor where fishing boats are docked, their nets lying flat over the side, drying in the sun. The cottages that line the shore are painted bright white.

  “We’re looking for Violet Cottage,” says Jack.

  “The name sounds like a beautiful woman,” Stefano comments.

  Jack pulls up in front of a single-story fisherman’s cottage connected on either side to identical cottages. The front door is made of wood, with glass-brick accents. It’s quaint and charming, like a dollhouse.

  Jack helps Etta out of the back of the car, while Stefano opens my door for me. I look to the house, where I see a shock of white hair disappear behind a lace curtain. Moments later, a white-haired woman appears in the doorway. “McGuiness from America?” she barks. I take Jack’s hand and look at him. He is as white as the old woman’s hair. “She could be your mother’s twin,” I whisper.

  Fiona McGuiness is petite and slim, like Jack’s mother. But it’s the face, round with high cheekbones and bright green eyes like buttons, that makes this cousin a dead ringer for Mrs. Mac. Her manner, abrupt and direct, is just like that of Jack’s mother.

  “Well, get on with it. Come in,” she says.

  Jack can hardly speak, so I introduce the family. Thank God Fiona likes Italians; Stefano immediately begins to talk about the construction of the old house. The decoration is spare and plain. A sturdy rocker by the fireplace seems the most used; a sofa covered in a cheery yellow chintz does not. There is a stack of photo albums on the kitchen table: evidently, Paige’s call spurred Fiona to dig out some family history to share with us.

  “I never knew any Americans,” she says, her eyes narrowing. “You seem all right.”

  “Well, we try,” I joke. She stares at me as though I should try harder.

  “Tea?” She pivots and goes into the kitchen. We look at each other, not wanting to whisper but desperate to share what we’re thinking. I have a feeling this visit will be short and sweet.

  Fiona waves from the kitchen. “Well, come in, will you?”

  We enter the kitchen, and she motions for Etta, Jack, and Stefano to sit on a long bench behind the table. They file in like students on the first day of school. I take a seat on the stool at the end of the table, leaving a wooden chair with arms and a needlepoint seat for the Mistress of the House.

  “Miss Toon said your name changed between Pennan and America,” Fiona says.

  “Yes, ma’am, it did,” Jack says quietly.

  “Speak up, will you?” she barks.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he says loudly.

  “MacChesney sounds soft—now, McGuiness, that’s a name!” She smiles for the first time.

  I leap in, trying to bridge the awkwardness. “Paige tells us that we’re related through your great-grandmother on your mother’s side. She had two sons: one came to America, and my father-in-law was his only son.”

  “So I understand,” she says flatly.

  “My husband and I are a little taken aback…”

  Fiona looks at Jack, wondering why he isn’t speaking for himself.

  “You look like my mother.” Jack’s voice breaks.

  Fiona knits her brow. “Where is she?”

  “She passed away twenty years ago,” Jack explains. “Now, I know that we are related on my father’s side, so it would be impossible for you and my mother to be relatives, but the resemblance is really something.”

  “Was your mother Scottish?”

  “As far as we know, ma’am.”

  Fiona seems annoyed. “And what was her family name?”

  “Cleary,” Jack answers.

  Fiona throws her hands in the air. “I have Clearys on my mother’s side! Mind you, it’s a common name, so perhaps she and I are not related a’tall. But we could be!” She raps her hand on the table.

  “Are you alone here?” Etta asks.

  “I never married. This is my father’s house. My sisters live in Shropshire and Glasgow, far enough apart to avoid too much contact. When we do meet, it’s here, so they might count the teaspoons they didn’t get when my dear mother died.”

  Fiona gets up and pours boiling water into the bone-china teapot covered in deep purple pansies. She floats an old-fashioned tea-leaf cup in the water. A delicious-smelling mist rises from the pot. The cups and saucers are mismatched but adorable. The spoons (evidently a huge hunk of the family treasure) are silver and buffed to a high polish. She adds small, square, pressed linen napkins to the tray, then lifts it to the table and smacks my hand when I try to help. Everything in the cottage is old but beautifully cared for and full of charm. “The teacakes are in the window.” She points. I get up and find the oblong china plate filled with dainty cookies and shortbread slices. She takes a pot of jam and a bowl of butter from the counter and places it on the table.

  I take a bite of shortbread; it almost dissolves in my mouth. “Did you make the shortbread, Fiona?”

  “Yes.”

  “May I have the recipe?”

  “No,” she says definitively. “I don’t share recipes. It’s a bore.”

  Etta and I look at each other and try not to laugh.

  “What was the McGuiness family trade?” Jack asks politely.

  “The men worked in the granite quarry. My father was in charge of the explosives. Very dangerous work—many nights my mother cried, afraid he wouldn’t come home.”

  “Just like my mother when my pa worked hoot owl.”

  “The night shift,” I explain.

  “There was a time when men worked in the quarries around the clock. There was so much building going on that the quarries could not keep up with the demand. Every home in the northeast of Scotland was either built with granite or had elements of granite used in the design, and most of the schools and public buildings were built with it. The miners couldn’t work fast enough.” Fiona shakes her head. “And that kind of production comes at a cost.”

  “Coal mining is dangerous too,” I tell her.

  “Of course it is. It’s treacherous work. My father was injured several times, though never enough to count him out entirely. Since we were all girls, we never worked in the quarry, but we would visit him there and swim in the loch made from the pitting. As frightening as the actual work seemed to us, when described by my father, there was also something brave and daring about it. We rather liked the stories of daring.”

  “Did you ever want to go to America?” Stefano asks.

  “I would have liked to. But I am too old now. I’m seventy-eight, and it’s time to act like it.”

  “So you’ve done some traveling?” Etta asks.

  “Greece and Spain. I loved both trips very much. Whenever a Scot decides to leave these hills, he ventures toward the sun.”

  “Makes sense, with all the rain you get.”

  Fiona smiles. “Isn’t it dreadful sometimes?” She finally seems to be warming up to us.

  “But it makes everything so lush,” Etta says.

  “Yes, indeed.” Fiona looks at Etta. “You’re having a baby?”

  “Yes, how did you know?”

  “I would never ask a woman that question if I wasn’t sure.”

  “How can you tell? I thought I was showing only if you knew me.”

  “It’s an old technique. It’s a look in the eyes.”

  “Wow.” Etta is impressed.

  “You’re having a son.”

  “I am?”

  “A boy.”

  “How do you know that?”


  “From the way he”—she points to Stefano—“looks at you.”

  I find myself speaking without really knowing why. “We had a son, and he died when he was just a boy.” Somehow, I guess I am in the presence of a mystic, and whenever I feel that someone has insight into the next world and the mysteries of this one, I am compelled to talk about our son.

  “Children who die always come back.”

  “How do you know?”

  Fiona smiles. “Look at your daughter.”

  “But that’s…that’s …her baby.”

  “If you say so.” Fiona pours cream into her cup and stirs.

  Jack and I lie in bed, unable to sleep. Our visit with Fiona McGuiness was not what we had been expecting. I guess we thought she’d be a sweet old lady with a thick accent and some lovely old tales of the North Sea. Instead, we found a prickly pear of a woman with a streak of impatience that put the fear of God in us.

  The ride home from Pennan to Aberdeen was a quiet one. I think we were all stunned by the things she said, but more than that, by her direct manner. Fiona seemed to be of another time, with spiritual skills that I have never come across before in anyone else. The Ancient Art of Chinese Face-Reading, which has been one of my most steadfast belief systems, pales in comparison to the definitive nature of the way Fiona reads people. She can be abrasive, but as they say around here, she’s spot-on.

  “Have you got my reading glasses?” Jack asks, picking up another Ian Rankin novel from the nightstand.

  “They’re in my purse.” I get up from the bed and go to the dresser. I pull Jack’s glasses out of a side pocket. When I do, a piece of paper slips out and falls to the floor. I pick it up and smile.

  “What’s that?”

  “Fiona’s shortbread recipe.”