by Jean Stone
“John,” she said, slowly forming her words, not wanting their last conversation to be hostile, “I wish I didn’t feel a little bit angry. I wish I didn’t feel as if the only reason you came by last night was because you were bringing your kayak to Chappy, and I happened to be on the way.”
He put his hand on her arm. “Annie. That’s not true. I wanted to see you. . . .”
In spite of her resolve, tears welled in her eyes. “And you expected I’d be there. I mean, you didn’t call. It wasn’t like, ‘Hey, Annie, I have an idea. I really want to see you. Maybe I can bring the boat over at the same time.’” Her thoughts sounded scrambled, the same way her stomach was feeling. “I feel like I was an afterthought. Or worse, like a booty call.”
“Jesus,” he said. He pressed his hands against his eyes and held them there for a moment. When he pulled them away, she saw that he, too, was crying. “I didn’t want to tell you. I didn’t want you to feel like you had to get involved. I figured this is my problem. And, yes, it’s Jenn’s problem, too.” He let out a whoosh of pent-up air. “But, God, Annie. The last thing I want you to think is that last night was a booty call. Maybe I’m not thinking too straight right now. But I should be straight with you. This thing with Lucy isn’t about a thirteen-year-old girl with a petty behavioral problem.”
Annie wanted to say she didn’t think that a thirteen-year-old caught smoking marijuana was worthy of high histrionics today. She supposed she might feel differently if she were a parent, if Lucy were her daughter. She supposed she could try to reassure him by suggesting that the school must have a counselor who was well versed in dealing with this situation, but school was out until September, so Annie had no idea what to say. Besides, he was right. This was his problem, not hers.
Then he took her hands in his, looked down at them, then raised his head and gazed off toward the Pied Piper, the way she had done. Her eyes followed his: Like the On Time, the boat was loading passengers—continuing the comings and goings of summer.
“Annie,” John said into the air. “Lucy’s pregnant.”
She thought she must have heard wrong. “What?”
He looked back at her, tears now spilling down his tanned cheeks, his pearl-gray eyes glassy and pained. His shoulders started to quiver.
With her emotions bouncing into new territory, Annie guided him toward the Whale Tail iron sculpture; they sat on the short wall in front. She touched John’s back, the same well-muscled back she’d clung to during the night when they’d made love, when she’d wanted him badly, and he’d wanted her.
And now, he stared at the ground. “That’s the first time I’ve said it out loud.”
“Your . . . your parents don’t know?”
He shook his head. “My mother would go off the rails. Lucy’s still a baby to them.” He heaved a huge sigh, then wiped his eyes. “God. She’s still a baby to me. I’m taking her to have an abortion.” His voice cracked. “She’s only thirteen,” he said in a whisper, as if to himself. Then he exhaled a long, somber breath. “She doesn’t want Jenn there. It’s just as well. They’ve never gotten along, Not like Abigail and Jenn. Lucy’s too much like me. Pigheaded, according to Jenn.”
Looping her arm through his, Annie quietly asked, “What do your parents think is going on?”
With a halfhearted shrug, he said, “I told them the same lie I told you. That she was caught smoking a joint.”
Under other circumstances, Annie would have been upset that he’d lied. But these circumstances were more than forgivable.
“What about you? Will you be okay?”
He slipped his arm around her. “It helps knowing that you’re here. That you’ll be here when I come back.”
Resting her head on his shoulder, Annie said, “I’ll be here, John.”
“Even though you don’t want to live with me.”
“Even though I don’t want to live with you yet.”
They sat for a few more minutes, when John finally said he needed to leave. He kissed her, squeezed her hand, and visibly staving off more tears, he walked up toward Main Street, and she went toward North Water, knowing she’d been gripped by the deep kind of hurt that comes when you love someone you cannot help.
Chapter 8
“Roses and delphiniums create such a delicate garden,” Claire chirped, as Annie walked past the gate of a white picket fence that framed one of the town’s fabulous colonial sea captain’s houses. “Hydrangeas are hearty and vibrant, and God knows they should be our official flower. But this garden captures the island’s light and fragrance.”
Claire seemed to be in her element. She wore a mid-calf, powder-blue cotton dress, “sensible” orthopedic walking shoes, and a wide-brimmed straw hat that did little to control her perpetually flyaway hair. Her pearl-gray eyes—mirror images of John’s—bubbled with enchantment as she leaned down and inhaled the scent of a healthy cluster of tiny pink roses. Then she smiled, straightened up, and pushed the stroller to a grouping of tall, colorful stalks resplendent with lavender blossoms. “Canterbury bells,” she told Annie. “Beautiful, aren’t they?”
Sometimes, like then, Claire almost seemed innocent. But Annie had witnessed another side of the woman, a controlling, angry side that flared if she felt she or her family were being challenged or betrayed. Annie knew that John had been right not to tell his mother the truth about Lucy; there was no telling how Claire would react.
“We’ll want photos of all of these gardens,” Claire instructed. “Then we’ll select the most vibrant to put in the brochure and post on Facebook.”
“Let’s not forget Instagram,” Annie said. “Francine should know how to do that, too.” She mused that she sounded like Trish, who was not only Annie’s editor but also her champion of online promotion. “The more people who see it, the more people will buy it,” she frequently said. Adhering to that directive, Annie took out her phone now and started shooting pictures. “I have so much to learn about flowers,” she said. “In Boston, the only ones that stick in my mind are the magnolia blossoms on Newbury Street.”
“Those are trees, dear. Flowering trees, not plants, not like these.”
“Like I said, I have a lot to learn.”
“Not to worry. We’ll have you knowing a foxglove from a hollyhock in no time.”
Not wanting to admit the attempt might be futile, Annie didn’t say it had taken every drop of her patience to learn which roses carried the best fragrance for blending into her soaps, and that sometimes the strongest scents were not as pleasing as the softer ones. As with hydrangeas—with variations from large pom-pom blossoms to lacy, fragile ones—she’d never known there were so many varieties.
Ambling through the winding garden paths, she took closeups and wide shots that showed off a striking spectrum of color that accented the freshly painted white clapboard house and its velvet green lawn. Annie began to realize it was fun to shift her creative spirit from words into pictures.
Claire meandered nearby, making a few notes, nodding this way and that. “Next stop, number twenty-three,” she announced once she apparently felt they’d given number twelve its due.
Annie fell into step behind her as they went through the front gate and up the sidewalk that was choked with tourists, most of whom were walking toward them. Claire, however, used Bella’s stroller almost as a plow, commanding control of the ribbon of redbrick while maintaining a stiff smile on her face. When they reached number twenty-three, she halted abruptly and turned back to Annie.
“He’s lying, you know,” Claire said.
Annie stopped. Blinked. “Excuse me?”
“My son. He’s lying to all of us. He doesn’t think I can tell when he is, but I am his mother. I know these things.” She leveled her eyes on Annie, who curbed a reaction.
“I’m not sure what you mean, Claire.”
“I think you do. I saw the way you looked at him. Or, should I say, the way you didn’t look at him in the car. You know that he’s lying, too.”
&n
bsp; Bending her head, Annie pretended to study the camera, the settings, the framing options.
“You don’t know Lucy, Annie, but, I’m telling you right now, John is lying. There is no way that girl is smoking pot. She is too smart for that. And too close to her father. She’d know he’d have her hide if she ever did that.” She shook her head and started walking again. “No,” she said, “he’s lying about something. My guess is that his ex-wife is up to no good. I only hope it’s as simple as trying to get more child support. He can fight that; he already gives her more than the court ordered.”
Annie was relieved for John, grateful that, while Claire knew he was lying, she hadn’t guessed the real reason. He’d been right: The truth would crush her. Send her off the rails.
Claire veered off the sidewalk onto a path that led to the garden at number twenty-three. It was a bounty of shades of blue, as if every blossom had been plucked from the sky or the sea. Annie began to shoot again, but her mind strayed elsewhere. Earl had once said he thought his wife was clairvoyant. “Clairvoyant,” he’d said. “So she was aptly named Claire.” Please, God, Annie prayed now, don’t let me look or act in any way or say anything that will give away John’s secret.
Clicking her way from one garden to another, she was glad there was no more talk of Lucy or John, only intermittent praising of the gardenscapes and their artful displays and Claire’s occasional comments:
“Sallie Franks has agreed to offer her tiny shortbread cookies to our guests again this year. They go so well with lemonade.”
“The Allsops have done such lovely work this year.”
“The softer shades of impatiens are more agreeable, don’t you think?”
After a couple of hours, it was time for Annie to meet the rental agent. Claire had wandered off; Annie found her in a backyard garden, showing Bella how to cup her palms to catch the fragrance of pink roses that were woven through a tunnel of white arbors.
“Claire?” she interrupted. “I have to leave to see that rental place now.”
Lifting Bella’s hand, Claire helped her wave bye-bye. Then the woman said, “I hope what I said about John didn’t alarm you. But I do know my son—”
“It’s fine,” Annie interrupted. “If he wants to hold back anything, that’s his prerogative. Lucy is his daughter, after all.” But as she watched Claire with Bella, Annie couldn’t help but wonder how happy the woman would be to have a great-granddaughter to fuss over. Unless the mother was thirteen.
“I was only trying to warn you,” Claire continued. “I suspect that this isn’t about Lucy. If Jenn wants more money, John will take care of it. I only hope that she isn’t trying to win him back. And that she’s going to use the girls as leverage.”
A knot of pain formed in Annie’s throat, then wormed its way down to her stomach, as if she’d been given an endoscopy without anesthesia. She put her hand on her chest, then tried to pretend she’d only had an itch. “You said Lucy is a smart girl,” she told Claire. “Well, don’t forget that her father is a smart man. I’m sure John will do whatever he feels is best for his family.” Then she went back down the path, out onto North Water, and wondered how long it would be before she could breathe again.
* * *
If Donna MacNeish had had the access and the opportunity to have an abortion, would she have gone through with it? She’d been seventeen when she’d become pregnant, eighteen when Annie was born. “Those were different times,” Donna had told her when they’d finally met. “Either you married the boy who was the father, or you gave the baby up for adoption. The standard threat was: ‘Your baby should be raised in a good home. Without suffering the stigma of having an unwed mother.’ ”
As savvy as Annie grew to be, she’d never understood that reasoning. But she did know that when she’d been born in 1968, Roe v. Wade—the federal law that permitted abortion—hadn’t yet been argued by the US Supreme Court. A year earlier, Colorado had become the first state to legalize abortion, but only in the event of rape, incest, or potential disability to the mother; it was not until 1970 that a state—Hawaii—legalized abortion if a woman simply wanted one, no strings attached.
Annie had known from a young age that she’d been adopted; Bob and Ellen Sutton had assured her that she was their special gift. But around the time she was told the “facts of life,” Annie began to question how her birth mother could have given her up. She was about thirteen then. Lucy’s age today. It was when she’d researched the facts about abortion.
As Annie threaded her way through the narrow streets of Edgartown now, she remembered she’d felt numb when she learned that she was alive not because her birth mother had so desperately wanted her to be born, but because she virtually had not had a choice. Even later when Annie learned there had been other options—back alley doctors and illegal procedures (by then she’d seen the film Dirty Dancing), and other countries where Donna could have gone—the lingering sorrow at knowing the truth had never completely gone away.
“Your birth father and I did want you to have a good home,” Donna had explained. “We planned to get married someday and adopt a baby whom we would love, the same way we’d hoped your adoptive parents would love you.”
It was the stuff young dreams were made of.
But Donna hadn’t wound up with Annie’s birth father—and he’d died by the time Annie finally met her. Annie hadn’t pried for more information because it seemed too painful for Donna, and it no longer seemed to matter.
And now, so many decades after Annie was born, a young girl in this new world was going to end what could have been a life, what could have been a child raised by loving adoptive parents, the way Annie had been. And though life had certainly changed, and Lucy might even be “allowed” to keep her baby, Annie knew that society did not always jibe with the laws, and that Lucy and her baby would not be totally safe from judgment.
With a small sigh for the sorrow that the creation of life could still cause so many people such pain, Annie tucked a few strands of hair behind her ears and tried not to worry how Lucy would feel not only now but also later. After all, Annie knew from experience that choices of the head—the sensible, practical choices—were not always those of the heart. And that the ones of the heart were those that tended to linger.
Before she could wallow in sadness any longer, Annie reached the real estate agent’s office, where her new life might—or might not—await.
* * *
Too small. Too pricy. No washer/dryer. No parking. And that was only the first listing.
Annie flipped through two more equally unacceptable “winter rental” listings in Hannah Smith’s three-ring binder.
“Are you reconsidering a house share?” Hannah asked. “Some clients find that can be an affordable compromise.”
Annie had been staring at a page that showed two house-share listings, wondering what it would be like to live with someone—anyone—again after having been alone more than a decade. “Oh, no. Sorry,” she said. She turned the page to a large house: four bedrooms, three baths. She didn’t bother looking for the price.
“A house share can be good while you’re waiting for something else to come up,” Hannah continued. “Something more conducive to a permanent home.”
Annie nodded, turned another page, which brought her to the “For Sale” section. “That’s it?”
“Afraid so. Except for the year-round one we’re going to look at. Which is really charming.” She grabbed her keys and directed Annie to the door.
They walked three blocks closer to the water. Annie knew that the location played a significant role in the four-thousand-a-month price tag. She tried to look on the bright side: It would be easier to get around if she lived in town and not on Chappy; and it wasn’t far from John’s duplex, the “affordable” property he’d won in the island lottery, which didn’t mean he was given the place for free, only that he paid a much lower cost than the pricy island market value.
She wondered if Lucy might come back with
him for the rest of the summer.
“Here we are,” Hannah said.
Annie sighed and forced her thoughts back to her current mission. They stood in front of a large white house with black shutters and with window boxes filled with red geraniums and some kind of white flower she should know the name of by now but did not. The driveway was redbrick and had, as promised, a two-car garage. Two sets of arched wood doors featured polished wrought-iron fixtures; window boxes on either side matched those on the house. They went to the right, where Hannah unlocked an exterior door.
“This is your private entrance,” she said.
Annie never liked it when real estate agents referred to anything on a property as “your”—your kitchen, your bedroom, your bath—as if a training facilitator had told them it was a subliminal way to make clients feel they were already home, and that they were too naïve to know it was part of the sales pitch. She followed Hannah up the full flight of gleaming wood stairs and through another door at the top.
The apartment was charming, as Hannah had said. It was decorated nicely in the latest pewter and ivory with “pops” of cerulean and chartreuse here and there. The kitchen area had white cabinets, marble countertops, and stainless steel appliances—but there was no room for a table. The living area had a full-sized sofa and chair, a chest, an end table, and a small buffet. But there was no kitchen table and no place to put one. Unless the bedroom was enormous, Annie did not believe it was six hundred square feet.
“And over here is your bedroom,” Hannah said, leading Annie to a room that, no, was not enormous. It had a double bed (Annie’s queen bed would be a tight fit) and a single nightstand. There was a generous closet, however, though half of it was taken by the stackable washer and dryer. Right next to the bedroom was a bathroom that was nice and newly done, but had a narrow shower stall and no tub.
“I think the owners might have the square footage wrong,” Annie said.