The Cottage at Glass Beach (22 page)

Ella was neatening the deck when Nora and Annie came downstairs. “I didn't realize you were so handy with a broom,” Nora said. “You wield it quite professionally.”

“I'm good at cleaning up messes.”

“Perhaps you'd like to tackle the cottage next.” They couldn't keep ahead of the incessant sand.

“Whatever you say,” Ella said calmly. Thank goodness her mood seemed to have improved.

Polly called to them from the kitchen. “It's all boxed up. Do you want help carrying the provisions to the cottage?”

“We'll take what we can manage for now,” Nora replied. “You and Alison should have the others. It's what Maire would have wanted.”

“Are you sure you don't want us to stay? We don't have to go into town, if you need us,” Alison said.

“We'll be all right.”

Polly's gaze flickered toward the point, where the smoke continued to curl from the chimney. “I forgot you have Owen.”

Alison shot her a smile with a hint of mischief. Perhaps she guessed what had been going on.

Nora didn't think to ask Ella what she'd been doing during that missing hour, an hour that could not have been taken up entirely with the tidying of the deck—or whatever else she was sweeping away.

Chapter Twenty

A
fter the girls had gone to sleep, Nora settled beside the fire and cut the strap that secured the journal. The brittle leather yielded easily to her scissors, and yet she hesitated before opening the cover. A shower of petals dropped from the vase of late-season daylilies on the table. Maire had given her the bouquet of unopened buds before she died, and they were beginning to wither. A sign? Perhaps.

The words floated up from the paper as she skimmed the entries. She heard her aunt's voice, as if she were there in the room, the language simple, yet vivid.

Thought Da would have been pleased with my marks this term. I showed him the paper. But all he talked about was Maeve. How she'll be the Queen of the Fleet this year. How she'll ride the float through town and everyone will clap and cheer. When he saw my face, he said I would be too, in another year or two. But I know I won't. I'm not that sort of girl. The sort of girl everyone admires. Everyone votes for . . .

Fought with Maeve today. With hairbrushes. I drew blood for once. M. told Mam she'd hit her head. There are some things we'll never tell on each other for. It will make a scar when it heals. Something for her to remember me by. . . .

Cried in my room today. Johnny B. heard I liked him and treated me like I had leprosy. Meanness to cover the embarrassment. Having a crush. I'd never thought about the weight of that word. How it can harm the person who has it. Maeve heard me and made me tell her what was wrong. I can never keep anything from her for long. She said she'd blacken his eye if I wanted her to. I've never seen her so angry. It's all right for her to make me cry, but whenever anyone else does, she gets protective. I told her not to punch him, but I felt a little better, knowing that she would have come to my defense.

Maeve took center stage at the dance again, the girls jealous because the boys couldn't take their eyes off her, giving her the candy and flowers intended for their dates.

No one ever looks at me that way. I wonder if anyone ever will.

Da towed a man into port today. His sailboat was battered in the storm. Mast broken and everything. Da says he's lucky to be alive. He's staying in the fishing shack for a while. Da seems to like him. I do too.

He's staying. I don't know for how long. Sometimes, I sneak down into the meadow and hide, watching him. Maeve caught me at it and made fun, threatening to tell.

I saw them. Him and Maeve. Through the window. Why does she have to get everything? Everything she wants?

Nora skipped ahead, another year or two. Maire hadn't been the most prolific writer.

Maeve went into labor. Mam gone. Had to help her on my own. She didn't want anyone else there. I thought I knew what to do. The baby came out blue. Patrick there, holding her. The cord around the baby's neck. Maeve screamed and cried until she didn't have any strength left. She lay there, not speaking, looking at me with vacant eyes. I think she blames me. I blame myself. I can't help but think things would have turned out differently if Mam had been there. . . . A little cross in the churchyard, marking the grave. I've never seen a coffin that small. Patrick made it with his own hands.

The pages went blank for a time, then a final entry:

I knew something would happen eventually. It was bound to, given her nature. Wanderlust. A perfect word. I didn't know she'd take Nora with her. A child. What business did she have, taking a child out there? But maybe she hadn't meant to go far . . . I'd never seen Patrick so distraught. He'd always been steady. That was one of the things that drew me to him.

We found Nora on the beach at Little Burke. I helped take care of her as I always had. The fantasy I'd dreamed of seemed to be coming true—that it would be the three of us, our own little family, as it should have been from the beginning, because I was the one who'd seen him first. He should have been mine.

I stayed later at the cottage that night. A week ago, it was. I haven't been able to bring myself to write about it until today. Even now, I hesitate to do so, because I'm not sure I want to commit it to the page. To admit my part in it.

We'd had ale with dinner. I'd brought the jug on purpose, from Da's stores. After I tucked Nora in bed, I went into the kitchen. Patrick was waiting for me, and I for him. He was nearly trembling, with desire I thought, hungry for signs of affection, of need. He pulled me to him roughly, and his kiss wasn't like anything I'd imagined. It was hard, angry.

“Is that what you want?” he asked. “Is it?”

I didn't know what to say to him. I started to cry. He didn't have any sympathy for me. It hadn't happened this way in my dreams. I'll never forget the look on his face. The look of utter revulsion, as if he might be sick.

“You're not her. You could never be her.”

He didn't want me. He never had.

The next day, we found he'd taken Nora and gone.

What have I done?

Nora closed the book with a snap and pressed it to her chest. She needed to go through the photo album again. Perhaps there was something she'd overlooked.

She hurried along the path, the flashlight's beam swaying wildly over the ragged fields, the narrow band of dirt and sand marking the way ahead. She glanced back at the cottage. She couldn't leave the girls for long. They were safe enough there—there'd been no further trouble from Maggie Scanlon or the Connellys—but she didn't want them to wake and wonder where she was.

But as she drew closer to Cliff House, she found her feet taking another path, toward the point, toward Owen.

The night was full of shadows, the shack dark. That didn't surprise her. He might have gone to bed early; most fishermen did. The bass were running.

She knocked.

He didn't answer. The silence made her uneasy. Even the seals were quiet that night. The seals, which were never quiet. She tried again, knuckles stinging. She turned the knob. She hoped nothing was wrong. He had always been there when she needed him. “Owen?” Her voice was too loud in the room, his name echoing. She lit the kerosene lamp by the door. His bag—the one Maire had given him, the one that used to be Jamie's—was gone.

The landscape listed around her as she ran to Cliff House, as if everything had slipped its moorings. He wasn't there either. A door opened, but it was only a draft. She checked the dock, where the fishing boat had been tied. It wasn't there.

A twig snapped behind her.

Nora whirled around, shining the flashlight in Ella's face. “Jesus, El, you need to stop sneaking up on people like that.”

“He's gone.” Her daughter's eyes were hard as stones.

“How do you know that? What did you do?”

“What did I do? What did I do?” she cried. “You mean what did you do? Leaving Dad, bringing us here, going off to see
him
.”

“What did you say to Owen?”

“I told him we were leaving for Boston.”

“Why would you do such a thing?”

“Because it was the only way you'd go back.”

“Go back? I brought us here to get away from the scandal.”

“And Dad. To get away from Dad.”

“He hurt us.”

“He hurt you. That's why you started talking to Owen, wasn't it? Because you needed someone to like you?”

“He was Aunt Maire's guest. She was the one who—”

“You were too! You more than anyone—”

“And so you lied to him? He couldn't have believed you.”

“I'm not stupid. I didn't put it as a message from me. I said you told me to tell him. That it would be easier that way. I must have been convincing, because it worked. Maybe he didn't like you as much as you thought. Maybe he has someone waiting for him too.”

Nora grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her. “You had no right.”

Ella pushed her away. “I had every right—and you know it.”

“I can't let him think—”

“He already does. And what does it matter anyway? It's time for us to leave. We don't belong here.”

“Get back home. Now.”

“That's exactly where I'm going.” Ella stormed up the path.

Who knew how much of a head start Owen had had, how far out to sea he was by now. No ships' lights shone in the distance. The water was flat, expressionless, beneath a wan sliver of moon. How could Nora get in touch with him? Let him know it was a mistake, that she wasn't ready for him to go? She had felt more alive with him in those few weeks than she had in years. Maybe it was the newness of him, the lack of real life intruding with its problems, its conflicts. Maybe it was never meant to be more than an interlude. Still, she wished she could talk to him, hear his voice. She could tell Polly what had happened, see if she could summon him on the ship's radio. She nearly did, racing into the kitchen of Cliff House, picking up the phone receiver, dialing her number, then hanging up. Second thoughts again.

After all, he wouldn't have left if he hadn't wanted to. He'd had a choice. Perhaps the news had only made it easier for him to go.

Chapter Twenty-one

N
ora took the girls into town the next day, thinking a change of scene might do them good. They'd agreed to meet Alison and Polly for fish and chips that afternoon at Sloane's before the latest dustup, and Nora didn't want to have to get into the reasons for cancelling. Besides, she didn't relish the thought of being trapped with Ella in the cottage the entire day.

The fish came wrapped in newspaper, tails still on. It was the best Nora had ever tasted. She'd never had such a craving for seafood as she did on the island. Ella and Annie went over to play foosball in the corner after they'd finished their meal. The women lingered over cups of coffee.

“Has he gone? Owen?” Polly asked. “The harbormaster said he saw a boat go by yesterday evening.”

“It looks like it. I don't know.”

“Owen didn't say? I'm sorry. I thought he would have.”

“Maybe it was time,” Nora said. “He made it clear that his life is at sea.”

“That's not how it looked to me,” Alison said.

“Looks can be deceiving.” She'd had time to think about the consequences of asking Polly to try to locate him, how desperate she'd look.

“It could have been too painful for him, losing Maire,” Polly said. “She was like a mother to him.”

Nora nodded. To her too.

“Any news from that husband of yours?” Alison asked.

Nora shook her head.

“Ghost lines,” Polly said.

“Meaning?”

“Abandoned fishing lines,” Polly explained. “Things get caught in them. Like a snare. They can be rather treacherous.”

She was obviously talking about more than the lines themselves. So many things had turned treacherous on the island and the surrounding sea, below the surface.

“There's something I've been meaning to mention,” Nora said. “I found a journal in Maire's things, from when she was young. I have to confess I read it. I'm not sure I should have—”

“Well, it's part of your inheritance,” Alison said. “If she hadn't wanted it to be read, she would have destroyed it. My guess is either she couldn't let go of the memories, or she wanted someone to know about her life. To have her say.”

“Did you know she was in love with my father?” Nora asked Polly.

Alison raised her eyebrows. This was clearly news to her.

Polly thought for a moment. “Well, she was the first to meet him. She was down on the docks that day, waiting for her father's boat to come in. She was only a teenager, too young for anything serious as far as your father was concerned. After your grandfather offered him the fishing shack—it was in better shape back then—while his boat was being repaired, she'd drop by to see him, hanging on his every word. Used to drive me crazy. I couldn't see it. He seemed too old for her, and he wasn't my type. Too levelheaded, at least in most ways. I liked the bad boys back then, before I found my Fergus.”

“And then?” Alison asked.

“And then Maeve returned. She'd been helping your grandmother with a delivery up-island. A complicated birth, it was. The last she attended. Maeve didn't have the gift or interest in the profession. Maire did. They were competitive with each other over so many things. That's the way it can be for sisters, can't it, loving and resenting each other by turns? One look at Maeve, and it was as if he'd been put under a spell. Maire didn't have a chance. She was too young, and Maeve was too beautiful.”

“Maire must have been devastated,” Alison said.

“Yes, I suppose. You know how strong your feelings are at that age. She cried, sure, and then, after a while, she pushed it all down. She was practical that way. I knew the sadness was there, but I'm not sure others did. She could appear so steady, even then. But what else would she have done? Maeve and Patrick got married that spring. Maire was the maid of honor.”

“There was a mention in the journal of a miscarriage. Was my mother pregnant before she had me?” Nora asked.

“Yes.” Polly fell silent.

“There was something else, wasn't there?”

“I'm not sure I should say.”

“I'm tired of secrets, aren't you?”

Polly sighed. “The marriage was somewhat rushed, because Maeve was pregnant. There were some doubts as to whom the father was. But when it came to Maeve, there were always doubts. I'm not sure if your father was aware or not. He didn't mix much with the islanders, perhaps because he was reserved. A couple of weeks before the wedding, Maeve had a miscarriage. Maire was there. Your grandmother was off-island. Not many people knew what was going on—Maeve wasn't showing enough to give anything away—and those who did thought they might not get married after all, since it happened before the ceremony.”

“Including Maire?” Alison asked.

“Yes. Her and Maeve's relationship became more strained after that, each sister blaming the other. There was nothing that could have been done. But the incident called up other things that had come between them—that they'd allowed to come between them. The suspicions, the accusations of entrapment, among the worst of it.”

“Did my mother truly take my father away from Maire?” Nora asked.

“He was never hers to have. Maeve and Patrick belonged together. Or at least he thought so.”

A couple of flannel-clad fishermen entered Sloane's and sat down at the counter. “Surprised to hear you put out to sea again so quickly, after the boat went down,” said one with a gaff-hook scar on his cheek.

“Couldn't stay away—and there's child support to pay,” said the other, his skin ruddy and freckled, curly red hair springing out from beneath a grease-stained hat. He must have worked in the engine room.

“Odd how it happened,” his friend mused. “I never thought anything could sink the
Owen Kavanagh
.”

Nora and the women exchanged surprised glances. “Excuse me,” Nora said. “I'm sorry to interrupt, but the
Owen Kavanagh
is a boat?”

“Yes. Or was.”

“Was it named after the owner?” Polly asked.

“The owner's grandfather.”

“Was anyone missing?” Nora asked.

“All hands were accounted for, thank God. Went down in that gale a few weeks back. We were doing fine until we hauled up a seal in the net. Don't know how he got in there. Sneaky bastard, one of the biggest I've ever seen. After the fish, I suppose. Fought so hard he pulled the boat to starboard. We tried to cut the net, but it kept swinging wide. Then all it took was a wave to send us over. Why do you ask?”

“Just glad to hear you're okay,” Nora said.

“Us too!” He raised a glass. “Here's to clear sailing.”

Nora turned to Polly and Alison. “A strange coincidence, isn't it?”

“Strange indeed,” they agreed.

Now that Owen was gone, Nora supposed she would never have the opportunity to ask him why he'd taken the name of a downed boat, or if it were truly his own.

M
aggie Scanlon stood across the street, staring at Nora, as the group exited Sloane's. She waited for a car to pass, then headed toward them.

“Mom, it's that lady again,” Annie said with alarm.

Polly seemed to make a quick assessment of the scene and directed the girls into the bakery next door. “How about a treat for the road?” she asked.

“Mom, are you coming?” Ella asked.

“In a minute.”

“Let me handle this,” Alison said, stepping between Nora and her grandmother.

“No,” Nora said. “It's all right.”

“If you're sure—” Alison moved to the side, but remained poised to intervene, if necessary.

“Why are you still here?” Maggie asked Nora. She wore the same clothes as the day Nora had first seen her. Her pants were held up with a safety pin, the fabric covered in stains.

“I live here,” Nora reminded her.

“It's all your fault.” Maggie rocked on her heels, chin to her chest. Her hair hung in greasy strands.

“What is?”

“He was only a boy.”

“Who?”

Maggie's words came out in a rush. “One among many to you, maybe. Nial. He was my date to the dance. You already had Rory Gleason but one wasn't enough for you, was it? You had to have every boy in the room. Me standing there, like a fool. No one to dance with. No one to talk to. You had all the flowers. You had all the men, even the chaperones couldn't take their eyes off you. No one could. You went out to the rocks, to drink and carry on. You promising kisses to anyone who could catch you. Into the water you waded, in your dress, them after you. ‘The water's fine,' you said. But it wasn't. It wasn't. Nial went out too far. It was too cold. You knew he wasn't a strong swimmer—no one could swim like you. There were so many boys in the water—you were the only girl—that no one noticed he was gone, not until the next morning, after the sun had risen and they'd sobered up. He washed up later on the beach, his skin blue as the sea.” She began to sob. “You didn't come to the service. You didn't even care.”

“I don't know what she's talking about,” Alison told Nora quietly as Maggie stared into the distance, continuing to rock back and forth. “It's the dementia at work again.”

Nora nodded. They'd never know the truth, not for certain. Her mother wasn't there to ask.

“Come on then, Gran.” Alison put a hand on Nora's shoulder, before she took Maggie's arm. “It's time to go home.”

T
hat evening, Nora met Polly at Cliff House to go through the closets. “I wouldn't be surprised if they contained a skeleton or two, after this afternoon.”

Polly shook her head. “Maggie mixed it up. Nial tried swimming to the outer rocks on a dare. He didn't make it. Maeve wasn't there. She didn't have anything to do with his death.”

“But Maggie thinks she did. That my mother took him from her. Was she really that manipulative?”

“She didn't mean to be. She had that effect on people, is all.”

They sorted through Maire's things—the practical wardrobe of jeans and shirts, only a skirt or two for church; the shoes on the rack flat-soled, one pair of heels, dating to the 1980s.

Polly went through the drawers of the wooden jewelry box on the vanity. “I gave this to her for her tenth birthday.” She pulled out a charm bracelet. “I can't believe she kept it.”

“You should have it,” Nora said. “And anything else you want.”

“Things won't bring her back, but I might wear it, to remember her.” She fastened it on her wrist with Nora's help, wiping away a tear.

Polly removed another box from a vanity drawer.

“This must have been Maeve's,” Polly said.

There was a slip of paper inside. “For Nora,” written in Maire's hand. She'd labeled everything throughout the house.
For Polly. For Ella. For Annie
.

“She knew something was wrong, didn't she?” Nora asked.

“She must have.” Polly handed Nora the box.

A necklace with a single pearl. “Your father gave that to Maeve for their first anniversary, I think,” Polly said. “They came into town for dinner to celebrate. I was bussing tables at the time.”

A malachite ring. “From your grandfather's family,” Polly said.

A dried corsage.

“From the dance?” Nora asked.

“A dance.”

And Nora had an idea.

A
fter Polly left, Nora sat there in the living room, cradling the corsage in her lap, the rose brown, no hint of pink in the petals, the corsage Maggie thought she should have had. Dust motes drifted in the air. A lace curtain overlooking the water stirred listlessly, perhaps an invisible guest admiring the view. It was as if the house were stuck in time. The clock had stopped. No need to wind it now. She was inclined to leave everything as it was, a museum to what had been. She couldn't bring herself to consider the logistics of selling or rearranging, dividing up possessions and property. And yet she knew the time was coming when such decisions would have to be made. To stay, to leave. To prolong the separation or set the divorce proceedings in motion. Search for Owen or let him go. Perhaps it was too late for that. She suspected it was.

The answering machine clicked on. A male voice—Jamie's, probably; Maire had apparently never changed it—announced, “
We're not here right now. Please leave a message after the tone
,
and we'll get back to you as soon as we can
.”

The cassette hissed, mimicking the insistent noise of the wind pushing leaves and sand across the deck. Nora didn't pick up the receiver. No one would be calling her, not there. The tape continued to spool. Why didn't someone speak? Were they imagining Maire's musical greeting, “Halloo”? Missing the sound of her voice, as Nora did?

She got up. Maybe she should answer. Maybe someone hadn't heard the news—

As she drew closer, she saw the cord dangling loose. It wasn't plugged into the wall. It hung in the air, disconnected. The tape advanced until there was nothing left. Then it clicked, rewound, and started again. There must have been a battery inside, a backup that was malfunctioning—

Her heart pounded. It was the only sound she heard, that and the tape, making that noise. “What are you trying to tell me?” she asked, her voice ringing in the room, the living room, in which she was the only living thing, little ironies everywhere.

The shadows lengthened as the sun flared, low in the sky. Night would be coming soon. A chill crept down her spine. She didn't want to be at Cliff House when darkness fell.