Death and a Pot of Chowder

by Cornelia Kidd

  I ignored her tears. “So, was I Anna Jordan when I was born?” The name sounded strange. Anna Jordan was someone I didn’t know.

  “For a short time, legally. You’re thirty-two now. I hope that’s old enough to understand.”

  Mamie stood in the doorway leading to the kitchen, wiping her hands on her flowered apron. The dish towel in her hand matched her gray hair.

  “As soon as Seth and I married, we started calling you Anna Chase.” Mom put her hand on mine. “How did you find out about Peter? Who told you?”

  I pulled the creased letter out of the pocket in my jeans. “This came in the mail today.”

  Mom unfolded the paper. Her hands shook as she read the words. I’d already memorized them.

  As she read the letter a second time, her eyes filled. “Peter had another child. So you have a half sister.” Her voice was almost a whisper. “I wonder if he stayed with her—with this Izzie’s mother—or whether he left her, too.” She paused, and looked at me. “She’s included her e-mail address. What are you going to do, Anna? Are you going to meet her?”

  “I haven’t decided. Tell me about Peter Jordan. My father.”

  She handed the letter back to me. “It was a long time ago. He was from Connecticut. His family rented the Warner cottage one summer. He was tall and handsome and charming, or at least I thought he was. We fell in love. One night we drove to Portland and got married. We were young and it was crazy, but we did it. Then he left.”

  “Why didn’t you go with him?

  Mom didn’t answer immediately. “He didn’t ask me.”

  “And you were pregnant?”

  “I found out a month after he’d gone.”

  “Did you tell him?”

  “As soon as I knew, I wrote to him at his college address. At first he sent a few dollars, but he didn’t stay in touch. I signed the divorce papers when his parents’ lawyer sent them to me a few months later, but I kept writing to Peter. After a year his letters came back; he must have left that school. The Jordans never came back to Quarry Island. After that, I fell in love with Seth. He was a good husband, and a good father to you.”

  “He was,” I agreed. Stepfather, I added silently. Seth had been kind. But his love hadn’t stopped me from wondering about my real father. The man I’d never met, and now never would.

  Mom looked toward Mamie. “Peter’s dead. He’d married again and had another daughter.”

  She nodded. “I overheard.” She walked toward us. “I knew about his wife, and their daughter.”

  “What?” Mom sat up straight.

  “I kept in touch with Peter’s parents for a while.” Mamie looked determined. “They deserved to know about their first grandchild.”

  “You had no right to do that!” Mom’s face flushed, the way it always did when she was angry. “Peter was my husband, not yours. My mistake. My life was fine without him.”

  “I did what I thought was right. For his family and for you, though you didn’t know it. I knew someday Anna would want to know. She had that right. I wanted her to be able to find him, if she wanted to.”

  “It was my right to decide what to tell Anna. Not yours. I married Seth. I gave her a good father.”

  “True enough. But she wasn’t his blood.” Mamie looked straight at Mom. “And I never told Anna because of how you felt. You should have been the one to tell her.”

  The two women who’d raised me—the women I’d loved all my life—glared at each other.

  Mamie was even more stubborn than Mom.

  “Then you knew about Izzie,” I said, breaking the tension by going over to Mamie and handing her the letter.

  She glanced at it. “I haven’t heard from Peter’s family in years. I only knew he had another daughter.” She looked up at me. Mamie’s head only reached my shoulder. Mom had said Peter Jordan was tall. Maybe he was why I was taller than both Mamie and Mom.

  “So. Are you going to meet her?” Mamie asked.

  “Don’t get too involved, Anna,” Mom cautioned. “Don’t get your hopes up. She may be your sister, but your family is here on the island. Always has been and always will be. You don’t know this woman, or what she may want.”

  At that moment I decided what I had to do. “I’m not leaving my family here, Mom. But Isabel Jordan’s my sister. She’s family, too. I’m going to meet her.”

  Chapter Three

  “As substitutes for coffee, some use dry brown bread crusts, and roast them; others soak rye grain in rum, and roast it; others roast peas in the same way as coffee. None of these are very good. Where there is a large family of apprentices and workmen, and coffee is very dear, it may be worthwhile to use the substitutes, or to mix them half and half with coffee; but, after all, the best economy is to go without.”

  —The Frugal Housewife: Dedicated to Those Who Are Not Ashamed of Economy by Lydia Maria Child, Boston: Marsh & Capen, 1829

  Ten days later, I was on my way to Portland to meet my sister. Connecticut seemed like a world away, but it was only about five hours driving time. Izzie’s car had broken down, though, and, impatient to meet me, she’d insisted on coming today anyway. She was taking a bus that arrived a little after two.

  What would she think of me, and of Maine?

  After trying on three different outfits, I’d decided on my newest jeans and a yellow sweater, the color of daffodils. I’d left my shoulder-length brown hair down, curled it a bit, and even added my favorite earrings with yellow sea glass.

  The April air was beginning to freshen on this Saturday. Snow drops and early crocuses were appearing in dooryards and catbirds had returned, but Maine in mud season was still a good two months from looking like the pictures tourists saw on postcards or calendars.

  Normally, I didn’t notice the dirty patches of unmelted snow lying in the protected shade under trees and in corners of parking lots, or the beer cans and burger wrappers discarded since November and hidden all winter. How would Izzie react to the world I took for granted?

  Spring cleanup, preparing the state for summer visitors, would start in a few weeks.

  Mamie says we have it easy today. When she was a girl, newly arrived from Quebec so her father could work in the textile mills up to Lewiston, side roads were dirt. Today most are paved, although by April they’re temporarily pockmarked with frost heaves and posted with orange signs warning against travel by heavy vehicles.

  I steered our old truck around the deepest potholes. Year-rounders had four-wheel drive and knew how to cope. I hadn’t seen a car or truck trapped in mud for years.

  Did it matter what Izzie thought of Maine? After all, she’d go back to her world and leave me in mine. But I was proud of my state, and wished she could see it at its best.

  Would she be as tall as I was? Would she have dark brown hair like mine? Would she think her ears and nose were too big? Would she love daffodils in spring, and the smell of baking bread?

  Mom had shaken her head when I’d asked if she wanted to come with me to meet Izzie. “She’s your sister,” she’d said. “And besides, you’ve met summer people. They don’t stay. Connecticut thinking is farther than miles from Maine.”

  “She seems nice,” I’d said, already defensive about the sister I didn’t know.

  “So far you’ve … what? E-mailed each other?”

  I’d nodded. “We decided not to exchange pictures or many details about our lives until we met.”

  Mom had her doubts. I was determined to prove her wrong.

  Although, I admitted to myself as the miles to Portland went by, all I knew about Izzie Jordan was that she was my sister and she wanted to meet me.

  “You do what you need to do, Anna,” Mom had counseled. “Take the day. Don’t worry about us on the island. How’s Jake getting to Saturday baseball practice?”

  “He’s staying at the Martin’s Friday night. Lucy’s going to take both Jake and Matt to practice and bring them home.”

  “Tell him to come to my house if he wants a hot lu
nch after practice. I’ll be working at the food bank in the morning, but I’ll be home before he is, and Mamie’ll have a pot of bean soup on the simmer. There’ll be plenty for Jake and Matt, too, if they’re together.”

  When were Jake and Matt not together?

  And they’d love an excuse to eat at Mom and Mamie’s. Mamie’s passion was cooking the Quebecois dishes her mother and grandmother had taught her. I’d grown up with two women who were good cooks. Burt had always preferred hamburgers and fried fish and casseroles, so I hadn’t focused on learning to cook everything I’d eaten growing up. When his parents were alive, we’d eaten at their house at least once a week, and now we often ate with Mom and Mamie. Since I’d been out of a job I’d taken more time with meals, but my cooking wasn’t up to their standards.

  I didn’t want to admit it, but I was nervous. Maybe my sister and I would have nothing in common but genes.

  Maybe we’d become best friends.

  But no matter what happened, meeting a sister I’d never known existed was more exciting than anything that had happened to me since Jake was born.

  Burt understood that. At first he’d been hesitant about my decision. “You don’t know this woman. You don’t even know how old she is, or how she was brought up. Just tell that lawyer to send whatever’s due to you from your father’s will. No matter how much it is, it won’t make up for his abandoning you and your mom to manage on your own.”

  “Izzie has to be younger than me, and she knew our father. She can tell me about him,” I’d answered. “I don’t even know what he looked like.”

  Burt shook his head. “What does it matter? He left. When he did that, he gave up all claims to being your father. You’re your own person, Anna. What matters is your family here on the island, and that Jake and I love you.”

  “You grew up with your parents, and a brother. You’ve always known everything about them. Your father lobstered, and now you and Carl do. You all even look alike!”

  “We’re not the same. Sure, Carl’s my little brother, but he’s irresponsible and a pain sometimes. You and Jake are the most important part of my life. I’d rather have you and Jake any day than any of the women Carl comes up with. He squanders money and time, and then complains he can’t afford to repair the engine on his Fair Winds. I’ve been helping him set his traps, but he should have put aside money for emergencies.”

  “Carl’s not organized, like you are,” I’d reminded him. “And he’s been seeing Rose Snowe for a year now.”

  “And her sister, Cynthia, before that.” Burt shook his head. “I’ve been watching out for Carl since we were kids. He tagged along after me and got us both in trouble. Sure, we share history and heritage. But he’s twenty-nine now. He needs to grow up and take responsibility for himself.”

  “Carl’s lucky to have you,” I’d agreed. “But Izzie and I share a father, too.”

  “That may be all you share. You don’t even know where she grew up. All you know is her address in Connecticut now. Folks from away move around a lot. She could have been raised in California. Or Texas.” He paused. “I know you’re excited, Anna, but I don’t want you to be disappointed.”

  “I understand,” I’d assured him. And I did. Where you were born and raised was important.

  “Are you going to bring her here?”

  “I don’t know.” I didn’t tell him I’d already made up the bed in the small guest room I used for my quilting supplies. “When I see her, I’ll know. Maybe she’ll have to go right back to Connecticut. Maybe she won’t want to come here.” Maybe she’d look at me and decide I was boring and frumpy and too unsophisticated to be worth bothering about.

  Some summer visitors looked right through Mainers who were waitresses, clerks, and fishermen, seeing them only as providers of services or photo ops. Not all vacationers dismissed the locals who made their vacations possible, but it happened.

  “She’d be welcome here, of course,” Burt said, putting his arm around me. “She’s your sister, so she has to be special. You do what you feel is right. Are you sure you don’t want me to go with you? Carl and I were going to work together today, but he could take my Anna out by himself.” He hesitated. “You’ve never driven to Portland alone.”

  Burt always drove when we went any distance. And yes, I was nervous. But I was an adult. I didn’t want to admit to my sister that I needed my husband to drive me somewhere.

  “I’ll be fine,” I assured him. “Izzie and I should get to know each other a little, just the two of us at first.”

  “She’s going to love you, Honey,” he said. “How could she not?”

  I reached up and kissed the end of his nose. Thank goodness Jake had inherited Burt’s nose, not my pointed one.

  “And she’ll love Maine. Why do you think it says ‘Vacationland’ on our license plates? Everyone loves Maine.”

  “Not in April they don’t,” I pointed out.

  “So, invite her to come back in July,” he said. “Who wants to be in Connecticut in July?”

  I shook my head and laughed. No matter how nervous I was, Burt had my back. Did Izzie have a man like him in her life? I hoped so. I couldn’t imagine life without Burt.

  “See if you can find out how much money that father of yours left you,” he’d said as he headed for the door. “We could take a little vacation, if there’s enough. You’ve been wanting to see Boston. We might even take in a Sox game.”

  “After we pay off our bills,” I amended. Our emergency fund was low, as it always was after a winter without lobstering. I dreamed out loud. “And buy a new couch to replace the one that sags. And a new chair for you. And put money aside so Jake can go to college.” That last dream was mine alone, seldom-voiced. We had enough to get by, but money was never easy when you depended on tides and traps.

  “Sox game would be fun. Jake doesn’t need college to learn lobstering.” Burt came back, bent over, and kissed me lightly, smiling at my fantasies. “My wife, the heiress.”

  He picked up the box of ham sandwiches and thermos of hot coffee I’d prepared for him, as I did every day, and was gone, down to the town dock. It was first light. Lobstermen spent long, cold hours on the water. This time of year the bugs (as fishermen called them) were migrating, coming closer to land. Burt and Carl and the other lobstermen were setting traps to follow them.

  The storm door banged on his way out.

  I spent the next few hours filling time by cleaning the house. About eleven-thirty I finally left home. I waved to Willis, who was checking his mailbox, and drove over the bridge and off-island.

  Traffic on Route 1 was heavier than I remembered. I focused on the road and passed two New Brunswick trucks carrying lumber south.

  Izzie’s note said our dad hadn’t left much money. But it was fun to imagine. Like buying a lottery ticket, it was an excuse to dream.

  Dad. Peter Jordan. If I’d grown up as Anna Jordan would I have been a different person? Had Izzie always lived with our father? Had his parents told him where I lived, and that I’d married? Had he known he had a grandson? So many questions.

  I reached onto the passenger seat, into the sea bag I used as a handbag, and felt for one of the chocolate bars I’d tucked in there this morning.

  The chocolate melted in my mouth as I drove off Route 295 into Portland, turned off exit 5, and into the Portland Transportation Center parking lot for trains and Concord buses. Typical Maine economy: Why build two terminals when one would do? I parked in the short-term parking lot.

  Izzie’d been on the road for hours. She must be exhausted. Was she as nervous and excited as I was?

  I picked up the sheet of poster board Jake had given me. “I’ve seen it in movies, Mom. If you don’t know the person you’re meeting you print their name on a card and hold it up, so they can find you.” He’d printed “IZZIE JORDAN” with a large red marker on the sign.

  I was self-conscious holding it, but Jake was right. One other person waiting for arriving trains and buses was a
lso holding a sign. He was probably a taxi driver meeting a fare, not someone meeting a relative for the first time.

  But at least I wasn’t alone.

  I sat at the end of the row of uncomfortable plastic chairs near the door where bus passengers would arrive. Every time a bus pulled in I stood up. Buses from Boston. Buses from Bangor. Buses from Logan Airport.

  I bought two more chocolate bars at the vending machines near the restrooms and ate them both, hardly tasting them. Had Izzie’s bus been in an accident? How late could it be?

  “That bus is doing fine; it’s just delayed in traffic. It should arrive in about fifteen minutes,” a friendly woman behind the ticket counter assured me.

  Those fifteen minutes were the longest I’d lived through since Matt and Jake had been playing in the quarry, and Jake had fallen and broken his leg. Cell phones only worked intermittently on the island, but thank goodness Matt’s had worked that day. He’d called our house, and I’d called 911 before driving to the quarry myself. It had only been fifteen minutes, I was told later, before the ambulance arrived. It had seemed like hours.

  At least no one was in pain today. But I couldn’t keep still. I paced the small waiting room, grasping my sign.

  Finally, “Two fifteen, arriving now,” blared over the public-address system. I joined the dozen others who moved toward the glass wall separating the waiting room from where the bus was pulling in, forty minutes late.

  Every time a woman started down the stairs from the bus I wondered, was that Izzie? How old was she? Would I recognize her?

  I held my sign, and dismissed the young teenager in a ski jacket and shorts and the elderly woman who needed assistance.

  One brown-haired woman wearing a red jacket smiled at me, and I went toward her. She shook her head when she saw my sign.

  Not Izzie.

  I kept scanning the area, looking for my sister. Where was she? Had she missed the bus? Unexpectedly, an elegantly dressed young Asian woman with sleek, cropped black hair stopped in front of me. “Anna?” She wore skinny black pants, a pale blue draped top, a black cape, and three silver earrings in one ear, two in the other. I nodded. Cautiously. My best yellow sweater and newest jeans suddenly felt inadequate.