The House at Royal Oak (22 page)

Have you been hearing strange things at night? . . . Whether your historic home is inhabited by a 19th-century apparition, or your neighbor has been having ghostly visitors, the
Star Democrat
wants to hear about it.

—October 20, 2005

A long-experienced innkeeper told us he gets the question, too, and he has learned to respond with, “Do you want there to be ghosts?”

Aside from the ghosts of Zia Lillia and Mrs. Jefferson, personal ghosts invented for my own amusement, the only ghosts whose presence I sense are of geese. At first I found the
opening of goose season exciting, the sound of their melodious calls marking the change of seasons from summer to fall, winter to spring, the first crack of gunfire bringing anticipation of a warming supper.

The Eastern Shore lies squarely on the Atlantic Flyway and Canada geese pass through in enormous, sky-darkening clouds. In autumn the geese travel south with their young of the year and the family remains together through the winter. In spring the yearlings follow their parents back to the nesting territory where they were born. The fields where corn and other grains have been harvested provide plenty of sustenance for their journeys between Canada and as far away as Mexico.

A regal, white-cheeked, long-necked bird, the Canada goose,
Branta canadensis,
has adapted well to trimmed lawns and ponds; it also frequents city parks and golf courses. Where winters are mild, Canada geese may not migrate at all. When migrating they can reach extraordinary speed, up to sixty miles an hour, and may fly at high altitudes. A Royal Oak neighbor, Francine, reported seeing them from her airplane at sixteen thousand feet. At this altitude, she explained to me, the geese go into a trancelike state that allows them to survive the thin air as they cruise on wind currents with an occasional, efficient flap of wing. Because it is the most tiring job, they take turns leading their aerodynamic, V-shaped formations. On the ground one goose, or two, always serves as a sentinel for the others. Hawks and coyotes will try to pick off the younger, smaller geese.

Overhunting and habitat loss in the early twentieth century took a severe toll on their numbers. Now, as a result of protection programs, there are millions, and geese have
become pests in some areas, contaminating swimming beaches and waterways.

Hunting geese and ducks for sustenance has been important to Eastern Shore life, going back to the native tribes who hunted with bow and arrow and fashioned decoys from reeds. Later, hunting for sport led to the establishment of lodges, clubs, and guide services. The latest twist on decoys, for $150 each, is a goose decoy that turns its head right and left, powered by rechargable lithium batteries. At the gun shop a clerk reported selling these decoys to just one customer last season. The man bought a dozen and set them up in his field. Almost immediately a goose landed—and departed—the first and last goose lured with a battery-operated decoy.

Still in all, the more I saw out our window the less happy I was. I liked knowing about a goose's powers of navigation, its strength, and cleverness. I liked knowing that a large number of geese flying together is called a flock while geese on the ground are a gaggle, and a small number of geese flying together is a creche. From the window I saw that when a goose is shot down, its mate will circle in the sky for long minutes over the place where the bird fell, giving off unforgettable, plaintive cries. It's a sight that cuts deep. I'll stop what I'm doing to go out into the field and stare up at a lone circling goose. On one of these occasions Hugo came out and stood beside me. “Don't worry,” he said. “It won't happen to us.”

“You know that?”

“Yes. Just like I knew that this new life would bring us closer.”

“I didn't really think you had another woman. It was fear and insecurity talking,” I said, rushing on to get out what was really on my mind. I regretted not contributing more to the project. I gave as much time and money as I could, but never once stopped to ask if it was enough. I told him about opening a letter addressed to him, months ago, and finding out that he had borrowed on margin to finish work on the house. It upset me more than I could say.

“Did that make you sick?”

“It wasn't your fault,” he said quietly, putting an arm around me. “Let's go inside.”

I count the weeks and it's always a relief when goose season ends, although I still hear their cries long after the last flocks leave.

HUGO WAS SO MUCH STRONGER, EXCEPT FOR DIZZINESS
behind the wheel of the truck, that I managed to almost forget the shadow over us for weeks at a time. I still kept watch for signs of slipups or confusion on his part. Claiming forgetfulness, I slyly asked him the date or when the next guests were arriving. Usually he was right. As for his persistent clumsiness, this distressed him more than it did me.

When he jumped down from the back of the truck, tripped, and fell, he sprained an ankle, but mostly injured his pride. Regularly he knocked over dishes, dropped knives. I sort of liked the sounds, a comforting backdrop to his presence,
and it didn't matter to the guests because I served breakfast. Whatever happened in the kitchen no one saw or heard.

The more insistent question was whether he would stabilize at this level, improve further, or lose ground. If worrying about it would have helped, I would have worried. The doctors were noncommittal so there was nothing to do, as far as I could see, but hope and be grateful for what was. My best friend is fragile, but I still have him, I reminded myself at the slightest twinge of impatience at his new ways.

Reservations flowed in steadily. Hugo eventually took over all the paperwork, with me looking over his shoulder. I breathed easier, and easier still after his dad called up to say he thought stress wasn't good for Hugo. More, he said Zia Lillia had left money and he wanted us to pay off the start-up costs for the bed-and-breakfast.

Deciding all was quite well enough for me to visit my mother, I went. New acquaintances invited Hugo to dinner while I was gone so he wouldn't have to eat alone. When he arrived, he knew right away that something was wrong.

As our second season wound down, it seemed like a good idea to put up more lights around the place. The village café had colored lights and at night, without any streetlights, it made finding the café much easier. Even with a lighted sign and lampposts at the entrance to our driveway, some guests had trouble with the turn at a sharp curve on the dark road. So we strung up tiny white lights along the fence, three strings at first, then five, then eleven. Instantly business picked up and we congratulated ourselves on this clever, almost free advertising.

A muscular guy in tan camo fatigues at the back of the porch half-stood when introductions were made, then sat down with his drink and watched Hugo.

Deciding the food table was the safest place to be, Hugo pulled up a chair and finished off most of the ribs, greens, and cornbread. The man's girlfriend sat down next to Hugo and asked him a friendly stream of questions about the bed-and-breakfast, what we serve for breakfast, where we came from, and so on. Flattering, but he had already decided to leave as soon as he decently could, edgy about her companion at the other end of the room watching him. When conversation fell quiet, he heard ice cubes being sucked up and dropped one at a time back into a glass.

Finally, she got to the point. Her boyfriend can't stand seeing anything wasted, she said, but what annoys him most is when people waste natural resources. When a neighbor kept on a lot of lights all night, he said he wanted to kill the guy. She was afraid he meant it and begged him not to go over there in the middle of the night to confront the electricity wasters.

Hugo left the party right after that and in the morning he took down some of the fence lights.

This is not to suggest that the local impulse to conserve is any less than exemplary. Conservation is practiced in many ways. The thrift shops, for instance, did thriving business among people from all stations in life long before a deep recession made it nationally popular. In a place where goods were often in short supply over the centuries and anything that wasn't produced from the land had to arrive by boat, people learned to save and reuse.

To a jaded outsider, the trait can seem eccentric. A woman's pink plastic-handled mirror dangling from bicycle handlebars by a string, for example. At the sound of an approaching car or truck, the bicyclist lifts the mirror so he can see the oncoming vehicle. If only more of the country practiced conserving to a fraction of this degree!

The incident set me to thinking about our place in the village. Most of the time we felt comfortable, almost like insiders. People greeted us, waved when they drove by the house, the mail truck driver honked whenever he saw us outside. Without asking my name, Miss Ebbie at the post office brought out our mail.

People shared gossip about who wasn't speaking to whom, and why. One man didn't like the way another was developing his land. Another didn't like the way someone else used his own property for storage, and so on. The details weren't important—it was being included that mattered.

Over drinks with Susie and Scott one night as disputes among the neighbors were being reviewed, I decided to ask the question that had been on my mind almost since we arrived in town. How long, if ever, until we're not come-heres?

Scott threw back his head and laughed, relishing the opening I unwittingly provided. “There was a lady who came here from Baltimore as a newborn, not more than a week old,” he said slowly. “When she died—” He paused and still I didn't guess what was coming.

“A newborn when she came here,” he repeated. “When she died, the newspaper obituary read, ‘Baltimore Woman, 90, Dies in Royal Oak.'”

• • •

I began to sense a rhythm to the acceptance dance, or maybe I imagined one. As a curtain was raised, the next one stayed lowered for a good long while. Let's see how you do with this much access, seemed to be the idea.

Down at the farmers market it was much the same. After many shopping trips, a layer of formality fell away unexpectedly late one Saturday morning when most of the crowd was gone. I ventured to ask Linda Wilson, the organic vegetable vendor, if she ever had green tomatoes. Sure, she said. She was just waiting for them to ripen before setting them out. I bought them all.

Feeling more confident, I asked at the next stand about the tiny milk-white eggs in small plastic boxes lined with paper toweling. Quail, Charlene said.

How do you cook them? Boil or poach, she said, adding, “Some people on a special occasion will devil them.” I looked again at the miniature eggs. Even a demitasse spoon would be too big for these yolks. There was something in her voice that made me try the joke about how life is too short to stuff a mushroom. Charlene looked startled, then broke into a wide smile. That day I went home with a box of the eggs and an invitation to visit her farm to see the quail.

Her most spectacular fall offering was huge, ugly, mottled brown-green pears, the most juicy essence of pearness I ever tasted. She said the tree was old in her grandfather's time and no one knew the variety. I always ate a pear on the spot, dripping juice across my shirt and up to my elbows, before heading off to the Pot Pie Farm stand for a dozen chicken eggs with their hazy brown, green, and blue shells, creations of the farm's Araucanas and Buff Orpingtons.

For guests I experimented with poaching the pears in water with a dash of honey to highlight their delicacy. Hugo, looking on, asked if I would mind if he added this and that to the pears the next time. “They're a little plain for guests.”

“As a matter of fact I do mind.” He seemed so well by now that I allowed myself the luxury of what had never seemed like a luxury before, giving him a hard time. I craved it, the squabbling that comes with being completely comfortable in your private world with your mate, a world where you understand and are understood and everyone will live forever. The difference now was that I only went partway. Another part of me stood back, enjoying this new sport, only half meaning it.

“Just how fancy does everything have to be? I'm not good enough to poach pears?” He backed off but I kept at him, saying he could do all the cooking by himself from now on. After more discussion we agreed that the kitchen was not all his, like before, but mostly his. We agreed that he was a Kitchen Nazi. Friends thought I was crazy: He cooked and I didn't have to be in the kitchen—what a joy! The problem was I liked cooking and disliked being second-guessed when I tried my hand at something more creative than making juice and coffee.

The next time he poached the pears in grape juice.

“You've ruined them,” I announced just before he opened the door to the dining room and the waiting guests. “They're actually cloying.”

The time after that, I poached the pears in water, added star anise and vanilla, and he added dashes of color and flavor with orange and lime zest to finish the plates. It became the favorite of all the first courses we offer, aside from the croissants.