by Mary Simses
My mother stood across the room, folding a pink cashmere sweater. Her suitcase lay open on her bed. What was I doing here? I struggled to put the events of the night in order. There was the Antler and people were dancing. Hayden and…Tally? Yes, Hayden and Tally. And Mom was…I had this fleeting image of my mother holding a dart. I tried to shake it off.
Then Roy came in. Oh, God, Roy. He told me he loved me. He gave me a palace. I looked on the bedside table for the little house, but it wasn’t there. And then I remembered I’d given it back to him. And he’d given me back Gran’s letter. An image of the two of us standing in front of the tailor shop, with the lights flickering, flashed through my mind.
Then there was Jim. Jim. What had I told him? I was drinking all that Scotch. Scotch, for God’s sake. I never drank Scotch. And then…karaoke? Did I really get up and sing? Sing and…oh, no, what the hell was I ranting about? Something about taking pictures.
And then…Hayden.
Clutching a piece of the bedsheet with my hand, I squeezed my eyes shut against the memory. Had I really broken off my engagement? I opened my eyes and stared at my hand. My ring was gone. Yes, I’d given it back to Hayden last night.
“Mom?” I called, my voice raspy.
She placed a pair of silk pajamas in her suitcase and looked up. “Good morning.” She sounded a little cool, a little businesslike.
“Morning,” I said, slowly bringing myself to a sitting position. I took a long drink of water. “I guess…a lot must have happened last night.”
She began packing her cosmetics into a pink case. “Yes, you could say that.”
I pulled the covers up to my neck. “So where is everybody?” I asked timidly, glancing at the bedside table, where I’d left my watch. It was almost ten. “I know they must have canceled the interview and photo shoot, but I was—”
“They’ve all checked out,” my mother said as she put the lid on a jar of moisturizer. “Those people from the Times were leaving this morning when I went down to get coffee.”
“And Hayden?” I asked, in a half whisper.
“Hayden’s gone, too.”
Mom walked to my bed and handed me an envelope. It had the pen-and-ink drawing of the Victory Inn on the front flap and my name written on the back. The handwriting was Hayden’s.
“He left it under the door,” she said, and then she went to the bureau, removed a pale blue shawl, and packed it in her suitcase.
I opened the envelope, afraid of what I would find. Inside was a letter written in black ink on a sheet of white stationery.
Dear Ellen,
There are so many things going through my mind right now. I’m trying to sort them out and make sense of everything. At first, I sat down and wrote a long list of questions I wanted to ask you about you and Roy. I thought they were things I needed to understand and that once I had the answers, I could tell you where you were wrong and why you were wrong. And I could convince you that this whole idea of being with him is crazy and that if you proceed down that path, you’ll never be happy. But then I realized this isn’t the time for a deposition or a cross-examination. This isn’t a legal matter I’m dealing with here. It’s your heart.
I don’t know what’s in your heart, Ellen. I thought I was there. And I hope I still am, in some way. I’m going to assume that whatever you think you feel for Roy is just a crazy idea that won’t last. Maybe you’re nervous about getting married. Maybe taking that final step is harder for you than you thought it would be. That’s the only way any of this makes sense to me. I’m counting on the idea that once you return to Manhattan you’ll transform back into the Ellen I knew, the one who loved me.
The only advice I’d like to give you is to take some time to figure out what you really want. Stay up here for a while. Think about it carefully. And then, if you believe with your whole heart that Roy Cummings is the only man who can make you happy, you’ll have my blessing.
Hayden
I pulled the covers over my head. How could I have done this horrible thing to Hayden? He loved me, and…well, I still loved him. It’s not that I felt anything less for Hayden, it’s just that I felt something more for Roy. And how could that be? How could I have loved Hayden enough to want to marry him and then suddenly fallen for someone else? What did that say about me? That I was erratic? Untrustworthy? That I didn’t know my own mind?
I must be crazy, I thought. I must be out of my mind. I’ll never trust my judgment about men again. Now I think I’m in love with Roy, but what if I’m really not? What if Hayden’s right and all this is just infatuation? Then I’ll end up doing the same thing to Roy that I’ve done to Hayden. Was I going to ruin both of their lives? They didn’t deserve that.
No, I can’t do it, I thought. I’ve done enough damage already. The best thing I can do now is to walk away from both of them, steer clear of romance altogether. If my judgment is this bad, there’s only one way things can go now. It’s over with Hayden and it’s never going to get started with Roy. I’ll just be alone. That’s what I have to do.
“What did Hayden say?” my mother asked.
I slowly pushed back the covers. She was standing at the foot of the bed. “He thinks it won’t last,” I said, my throat tightening at the thought of how I’d hurt him. “He thinks it’s just an infatuation.”
My mother nodded.
“He said he hoped when I come back to Manhattan I’ll turn back into my old self. The one who loves him.”
Mom nodded again, sighed, and went back to her suitcase
“Thing is,” I said as I watched her tuck a jewelry roll into the corner, “I do love him. Just not…”
She turned and raised her eyebrows expectantly.
“Just not enough.”
She looked at me and made that face she was so good at—one-third concern and two-thirds frustration.
“Why are you making that face?” I asked.
“Breaking off your engagement with Hayden,” she said, placing a bottle of cologne in her suitcase. “You come up here for a week and you turn everything in your life upside down. You almost drown, so you think you’re in love with some, some…carpenter who saves you. Then you break off your engagement. I suppose now you’re going to quit your job, move up here, and bake bread or something.”
“Mom, you’re being ridiculous.”
“Darling,” she said, walking over to me. “Do you know how many women would take Hayden Croft in a heartbeat? The man is smart, handsome, and accomplished.” She sat down next to me. “And he comes from a wonderful family.”
“Then maybe you should marry him,” I said as I got out of bed and began picking up the clothes I’d left strewn around the night before. “This whole wedding has been more about you than me anyway.”
“Nonsense!” Mom said, her face turning red.
“No, it’s true. You just don’t see it. You’re the one who turned the whole thing into the social event of the season. You and Hayden.”
“I thought you wanted it that way,” she said, looking shocked. “Don’t try to tell me you didn’t.”
“You’re right, I did. But I wanted it because you wanted it,” I said. “It’s always been about what you wanted. Everything looking a certain way; everybody acting a certain way. That’s all you, and it’s what you’ve taught me.”
“I don’t know what you mean.” She stood up, went to the bureau, and began fussing with her hair in front of the mirror.
I walked over to her. I wasn’t going to let her get away with this. “I’m talking about appearances, Mom. How things look. That’s your stock-in-trade.”
Something inside me was starting to give way. I could feel it unraveling like a rope, strand by strand. I looked in the mirror at the reflection of Mom and me, two generations of Branford women, bound together by so many things. But there was still room for me to be different.
“Appearances used to be my stock-in-trade, too,” I said. “But that’s not what I want anymore.”
Mom turned
away. “Yes, I know. That was obvious last night when you announced your breakup in the middle of a drunken karaoke performance.”
“Look who’s talking! You were up there playing darts, and if memory serves me you had a few daiquiris under your belt.”
“The difference, Ellen, is that I was holding my liquor. And anyway, so I threw a couple of darts. So what?”
“Threw a couple? Mom, you walked away with a trophy, for God’s sake.”
“Well, no one will ever know, except for a few people from Beacon. At least I didn’t make a public announcement about it.”
She went back to her suitcase, packing a pair of white pants on top of the other clothes. “And anyway, I couldn’t help it. Those people at that pub were so insistent that I play. When I told them I was your mother they just…” She waved her hand. “I think they had some notion about darts and genetics.”
“About what?”
She shrugged and picked up a silk scarf. “I could hold my own in college, that’s all.”
“What do you mean? Hold your own what?”
She placed the scarf on top of the pants. “Darts, dear, darts.” She turned to me. “I was on the team at Princeton.” She zipped up her suitcase. “We made it to the nationals.”
“You what?” I took a step closer. “What in the world are you talking about?”
She took the trophy from the bureau and held it up, an impish smile on her face. “You didn’t think that was just luck, did you? I was a pretty good tournament player in my day.”
“You’re kidding me,” I said. “You’ve got to be kidding.” I sat down on the bed and stared at my mother with the trophy in her hand. And then I began to laugh. I laughed until I shook, until the bed shook, until my mother started to laugh with me. And then she sat down next to me, the trophy between us, and we both laughed until tears rolled down our faces.
I was still trying to catch my breath when the room phone began to ring. Mom looked at me. “You get it,” she said, giggling.
“No, you get it,” I said, giggling back.
The phone kept ringing.
“All right, all right.” My mother dabbed her eyes with a tissue and then picked up the phone. “Yes? Hello?”
There was a moment of silence. Then she said, “Okay, I’ll tell her. Thank you.” She turned to me. “That was Paula. There’s a package for you downstairs.”
“A package? I didn’t order anything.”
Mom handed me a tissue. “Well, she said something’s down there for you.”
I got up. “All right, I’ll go get it.”
I splashed some water on my face and quickly brushed my teeth. Then I threw on some clothes and walked downstairs.
Paula was in the lobby talking to a young couple who were checking in.
“And I’ll need to use your business office,” the wife said, a briefcase slung over her shoulder.
I looked at Paula and a smile began to form on my lips.
“I’ll see what we can arrange,” Paula said. Then she slid her pen behind her ear and glanced at me. I could swear she winked.
The couple walked toward the stairs, and Paula pointed to a cardboard box against the wall. “Delivery service just dropped that off for you.”
“Delivery service. You’re sure it’s for me?”
“Got your name on it,” she said.
The box was large, probably three feet by five feet, but only about six inches deep. An envelope taped to the front said CROWN COURIER DELIVERY SERVICE at the top. In the middle, someone had written my name.
“Hey,” Paula said. “Before you go…”
She slid something across the counter toward me. “Today’s Beacon Bugle,” she said. Then she pointed to a large full-color photo on the front page. “I could swear that lady looks just like—”
“Mom!” I shrieked.
There she was, glassy-eyed, a rubber smile on her face, hair askew, holding her two-foot-tall trophy at a forty-five-degree angle. Oh, my God, and they’d printed her name in the caption. “Cynthia Branford from Connecticut wins first place at the Antler’s annual summer darts tournament.”
I started laughing. I couldn’t help it. The whole thing was just so perfect. Paula drew her head back a little and stared at me. For once, she was at a loss for words. I slid the newspaper back toward her and pointed to the photo of my mother. “You know,” I said. “I think if you ask her, she might autograph it for you.” I was still giggling when I got to the third floor.
“What’s that?” Mom asked, eyeing me as I walked into the room. I leaned the box against one of the beds.
“I don’t know,” I said. “But there’s a packing slip or an invoice or something here.” I opened the envelope and pulled out a handwritten note on a small sheet of white paper. Yesterday’s date was at the top.
E,
I’ve arranged to have your grandmother’s paintings sent to your mother’s home in Connecticut—all except for this one, which I wanted to surprise you with. I can’t wait to see your reaction.
Love, H
He’d written this before the debacle at the Antler. That was just like Hayden—quietly and capably resolving the whole issue of the paintings and arranging for this to be delivered. I bit my lip so I wouldn’t cry.
My mother walked toward me. “What is it? What’s going on now?”
I handed her the note without a word, praying she wouldn’t say I told you so.
“Oh, dear,” she said, putting her arm around me after she read it.
I pulled the packing tape off one end of the carton. Then I removed something wrapped in thick padded paper. I placed it on the bed and studied the scene. In the middle of the canvas was a white farmhouse and, next to it, a red barn. Near the barn stood a single oak tree, a cluster of smaller oaks behind it, and, in the far background, acres of blueberry bushes. In the foreground, a grassy lawn ran down to a small dirt road, and on the edge of the lawn was a roadside stand with a hand-painted sign: BLUEBERRIES.
“That’s Kenlyn Farm,” I said, my breath caught in my throat. “That’s where Chet Cummings grew up.”
Mom stood beside me in quiet amazement as she studied the work. “My mother really was an excellent painter, wasn’t she?” I could hear the pride in her voice. “I had absolutely no idea.”
She stepped closer. “This is beautiful. Look at the detail in the grass.” She pointed to brushstrokes of greens and yellows and tans. “You can see every blade. And the blueberries. See the reflection of the sun right there? And look at the roof of the barn. The way she’s blended those colors.” She had a dreamy look on her face, as if she had just run into an old friend whose name was on the tip of her tongue and she was still trying to remember it.
“There’s something written on the bottom…right there.” She pointed to a little spot in the grass. “I can’t read it, Ellen. What does it say?”
I looked where she was pointing. The words were in my grandmother’s handwriting. “It says OUR FARM.”
“Our farm,” my mother repeated, turning to me.
“It was supposed to be theirs.” I said. “Chet’s and Gran’s. I guess when they got married.” I leaned the painting against a wall and stepped back. “They were going to own it, run it together. That was their big dream. But then Gran went to college and met Poppy—”
“Well, I know what happened after that,” Mom said.
“You don’t know all of it,” I told her as I stared at a patch of dappled sunlight on the oak tree and wondered how Gran had painted it. “After Chet heard they were engaged, he left Beacon. He didn’t want to be around all the…well, you know, the things that reminded him of Gran. He was still in love with her.”
“Where did he go?” my mother asked.
“He went to Vermont and I don’t know where else, but he was away for a long time. Because he left Beacon, his parents ended up selling the farm.”
“This farm? The one in this painting?”
“Yes,” I said. “Kenlyn Farm.” I t
ouched the thick red paint my grandmother had applied to the barn. “And I think that’s what bothered Gran the most. She knew how much the farm meant to Chet. She thought it was her fault that it fell out of the family’s hands.”
Mom cocked her head and looked at me. “And how do you know all this?”
I gazed at the white farmhouse and the little hut, where baskets of blueberries were piled high. “Because Chet wrote to Gran after she broke off their relationship. He wrote to her for months, but she sent all the letters back unopened.” I sat down on the bed. “Roy found them and we read them yesterday.”
Mom sat down next to me, and she didn’t say anything for a little while. She just looked at the painting. “Well,” she said finally, “the fact that she was still thinking about this after all those years…it’s kind of incredible.” She looked at me, her eyes soft. “And sad.” She let out a little sigh. “She was looking back on her life and she was thinking about…” Her voice trailed off.
I gazed at the floor, the wide boards with their cracks and crevices. “Yes,” I said. “I guess that’s the lesson in all of this—not to be eighty years old, looking back on your life, wondering if you made the right choice or how your life might have been different if you’d done one thing and not another.”
Sunlight flickered through the windows and landed in mottled patches on the bed. I thought about Gran just before she died, asking me to deliver the letter. And I thought about her as a young girl, standing under the oak tree at the farm with Chet. I wondered what her life would have been like had she stayed in Beacon. But now, when I considered that possibility, the prospect of her life here didn’t seem as grim and lacking in luster as I’d pictured it a week ago. The prospect seemed happy and beautiful and full of potential.