Thanksgiving Past

by Kathi Daley

  “Are you out here?” the tall blond-haired woman who had appeared in the doorway leading into the house had asked.

  The child hadn’t answered. She’d simply waited. It was an odd sort of dream since I’d been both an observer of the child and part of the narrative. I remember watching from afar, yet I’d also been able to experience the rise of the child’s heart rate as she hid from the woman.

  “Ava,” the woman had called again. “We don’t have time for this. If you’re hiding, you need to come out.”

  The child had watched as another woman joined the first one in the doorway. While the first woman had long blond hair, the second woman had short dark hair, and she was carrying a crying baby in her arms. The child in my dreams knew the baby’s name was Avery, although neither woman had said as much.

  As I snuggled down under my heavy comforter, I remembered the dialogue that had played out in the mind of the child. She’d weighed the certainty of being punished for hiding against her need to take care of the baby birds tucked safely in her fisted hands.

  Eventually, the women went back inside, and the child returned to the fountain where she’d washed each of her tiny birds in the trickling water. She smiled as each piece of glass sparkled in the sunlight, and I could remember her feeling of conviction that no matter what the consequence of her choice not to respond to the call right away, she’d always take care of her baby birds no matter what the cost.

  I wondered about that as I slowly opened my eyes and stared at the blanket over my head. The feelings I remembered the child experiencing seemed to be mixed up with emotions that only an adult might feel. I supposed if the “I” in the experience consisted of both the memories created by the child and the experiences of the adult I’d become, then the experiences of the child in my dream might have been somewhat altered.

  I closed my eyes and willed the memory of the dream to return. I latched onto the image of an old man with white hair and a weathered face as he arrived on the patio.

  “There you are,” he’d said, smiling at the child. “Everyone has been looking for you.”

  I remembered the child looking up at the man and then smiling at him. I remember feeling her pleasure at his arrival. Her fear for her baby birds dissipated as she held up wet hands filled with colorful objects. “I need to hide my baby birds,” she’d said.

  “I know just the place,” the man had replied.

  In last night’s dream, I watched the same scene I’d witnessed dozens of times over the past few months. The old man had removed the stone at the base of the fountain and helped the child place the baby birds inside the secret compartment. He replaced the stone and assured the child that her baby birds would be safe, so she didn’t need to worry about them. He then took the child’s hand and led her into the house through the same door the tall blond-haired woman and the woman with the baby had been standing in just moments before.

  I opened my eyes as it hit me for the first time. “Ava,” I whispered. “My name is Ava.”

  I pulled the covers from over my face and looked at the ceiling of the cottage. It was still dark, but I could see that the sky outside the window had just begun to lighten. I closed my eyes again and wondered why I hadn’t remembered that before. It was true the memories had come back to me in fragments, and I suspected that once I’d awakened, I’d only remembered a tiny part of the dreams I’d had. I’d known that the name of the baby in the dreams was Avery for days now, but the older child in the dreams had remained unnamed. Until now.

  Ava.

  I rolled the name around in my mind, trying to decide if it fit the way it should. The fit wasn’t as comfortable as the name Ainsley, but it didn’t feel grating, either. “Ava and Avery,” I said aloud, causing both dogs to raise their heads and look at me. “It has a certain ring to it, don’t you think?” Kallie barked once in reply before jumping down off the bed.

  When Kai joined her on the floor, I realized that I couldn’t lie about all day, so I crawled out from under the covers and made my way to the small bathroom. Once I’d washed up, I headed toward the kitchen to make a cup of coffee. Once it had brewed, I stepped out onto the deck, where I sipped my first cup of the day. Curling into the newly refinished Adirondack chair, I watched the sky turn from gray to pink. I continued to sip my coffee as the pink darkened to purple and eventually to red as the yellow globe of the new day’s sun peeked from beyond the horizon. I loved so many things about my life in Gooseberry Bay, but two of the things I knew I’d remember the most were the quiet mornings and the colorful sunrises.

  After I’d finished two cups of the hot brew, I got up and dressed in warm running clothes. I called the dogs, and we set out for our daily run through the forest and up onto the bluff. When I’d first awakened, I’d been so tired I’d been sure I’d need to go back to bed, but as I journeyed through the silent forest, I began to feel stronger, both mentally and physically.

  As I ran along the narrow path, I allowed the name Ava to filter through my mind. I had to admit I wasn’t certain what to do with that particular piece of information. The name felt familiar, yet I wouldn’t go so far as to say that it felt natural. I supposed that even if Ava had been my name for the first three years of my life, the fact that Ainsley had been my name for the following twenty-five years would make it feel a bit more natural, despite how I’d started out.

  As I climbed the hill to the bluff, I allowed myself to acknowledge both intrigue and terror. When I’d first found the photo of the woman with the two little girls, I was sure that the woman was my mother, but after last night’s dream, I wasn’t as certain. I hadn’t actually been afraid of the woman with the long blond hair, I was certain of that, yet I had been afraid she might make me come inside before I was able to hide my baby birds. While she didn’t feel like a mother, she didn’t feel like an enemy, either. Maybe an aunt or a babysitter. Someone I knew and was okay with, yet not the woman who bore me.

  Still, I remember calling someone Mommy. Someone else. Someone with a gentle presence and a soft voice. Someone I know in my heart, I would have shared my baby birds with rather than feeling the need to hide them. To protect them. To ensure that the bad man didn’t get them.

  Bad man.

  The idea startled me, causing me to trip and stumble before I was able to regain my balance.

  I didn’t have an image to accompany the idea of a bad man but even thinking the words made my heart pound.

  Had the bad man been after us? Was that why Avery and I had been at the house on the bluff with someone other than our mother? Was the bad man the reason I’d ended up in a burning warehouse three thousand miles away only a few months later?

  I tried to remember, but it seemed the memories relating to that specific part of my past were still firmly locked behind whatever door I’d erected to protect myself.

  As I jogged along the hard-packed dirt path, I thought about the other woman in my dream. The woman who came to the door holding the crying baby. She was new and hadn’t appeared in my dreams before last night, and yet she felt familiar. I couldn’t put a name with the face any more than I could put a name with the face of the blond-haired woman, but I somehow knew that over time a more complete picture would form.

  By the time the dogs and I had returned to the cottage, I actually felt awake and refreshed. I decided to shower and head down to the boardwalk. The town of Gooseberry Bay was pretty quiet during the week this time of the year, but on every Saturday and Sunday, weather permitting, vendors with colorful carts sold local crafts and food products. The sun was high in the sky today, and while the air temperature was on the chilly side, locals and tourists alike bundled up and came out to buy a variety of products, including handcrafted holiday wreaths and other seasonal decors, freshly baked pies, and fresh produce.

  Personally, I was excited to find that in addition to the traditional pumpkin and apple pies, the local vendor had blackberry and pecan as well. My dad had never been much of a cook, but he’d buy a pecan p
ie every Thanksgiving for us to share after a meal that usually consisted of frozen TV dinners featuring a main course of turkey. Each Thanksgiving, when he served the pie, he would tell me the story of his grandmother and the award-winning recipe she’d spent years developing, only to have it die with her after she’d neglected to write it down.

  Deciding to buy the pie on my way back toward my car rather than carrying it, I bought a small cup of caramel apple ice cream to nibble on while I made my way along the wooden sidewalk. In my opinion, whoever came up with the idea of adding a boardwalk wide enough for mobile vendors on the bay side of the main street was a genius. It provided a festive atmosphere that felt a bit like an amusement park. In addition to crafts and food products, there were carts selling small toys and souvenirs that had the children as interested in browsing the temporary booths as the adults who flooded into town most weekends.

  Of course, the cute and eclectic mom and pop shops that lined the street on the other side were a pretty big draw as well. In fact, I’d been told that the sidewalk was so packed during the summer and on weekends during the holiday season that you could barely make your way from shop to shop without having to step into the street. Which, I realized, was why the speed limit along this stretch of road was a whopping five miles an hour when the light was flashing as it was now.

  “Booker,” I said to Tegan’s boyfriend and the occupant of cottage number two, as he walked across the street and joined me. “I figured you’d be working today.”

  “I am. I’m on my lunch break and decided to walk over to the boardwalk for a couple corn dogs.” He looked toward the cart that sold corn dogs, fries, and regular hot dogs. “Are you hungry?”

  I held up my almost empty ice cream cup. “Not really, but if you want some company while you eat, I’ll grab a diet cola.”

  He smiled. “Great. I hate to eat alone. Normally, Jackson works the same weekends I do, and we just eat at the marina, but he’s off today, and I felt like stretching my legs.”

  Once Booker had received the food he’d ordered, and I’d bought my cola, we headed toward the grassy area between the boardwalk and the water at this end of town and found a table.

  “Tegan told me that you’re working with Parker on the mysterious disappearance of the Hamish family,” he said after taking a bite of his corndog, which he’d dipped in ketchup.

  “I am. Josie and Jemma are too. Were you around back then?”

  “No. I came to Gooseberry Bay about three years ago. There’s a guy I work with, Noah. He would have been around back then. Noah has been around forever.”

  “I wonder if he’d be willing to chat with me. I know it’s a longshot, but it occurred to me that the fastest way for the Hamish family to have fled, assuming they fled and weren’t murdered or kidnapped, would have been by boat. Or helicopter, of course,” I added, thinking of Coop’s bird.

  “Coop wasn’t around back then. I can’t think of any chopper charters that were, but I suppose you can ask Coop. He’d know. As for Noah, I’m sure he’d be happy to chat with you. In fact, if you want to walk back to the harbor with me, I’ll introduce you.”

  “That’d be great.” I smiled.

  As it turned out, Noah was a chatty man in his late sixties who really had lived in the area forever. He seemed happy to have someone to listen to his tales, so once I got him started, it was difficult to rein him in and even more difficult to keep him on topic.

  “So about boat rentals on the Thanksgiving Day the family disappeared,” I brought him back on topic when he went off on a rant about kites of all things. “Would you still have records from back then?”

  “We would, but we don’t do boat rentals after November first. In fact, all the rental boats are dry-docked, so any needed maintenance or repairs can be done during the winter.”

  I looked out toward the harbor. “It sure seems like there are a lot of boats out there.”

  “A lot of folks who own boats, especially fishing boats, leave them in the water year-round. Then there are the weekend sailors who rent a buoy or slip for a night or two.”

  “So would the marina have been staffed on Thanksgiving Day?”

  “Yeah. It would have been staffed. We actually get a lot of folks in town for the holidays. Most drive, but some come by water.” He thought back. “I would have been working with Hook Wilder that weekend five years ago. Hook passed a couple years ago, but he worked this marina since he was a youngin, same as me.” A look of sadness came over his face. “Hook and I would set up a grill near the office and BBQ us a turkey every year. Um, um. There’s nothing quite like a turkey cooked over coals.”

  “Are you working alone this year?” I asked.

  “No. A guy named Saul is working with me. Saul is an okay guy, but he doesn’t really get the turkey tradition Hook and I had. When I mentioned cooking a turkey on the grill, he made a comment about just waiting to eat until after he got off. Guess he has a girlfriend in the area, and he plans to go to her place for dinner.”

  I wasn’t sure what I was doing for Thanksgiving this year, although I did seem to remember Josie mentioning a get together at her place. I supposed I should confirm that with her. If the gang was planning a dinner, perhaps I’d suggest they invite Noah to participate as well.

  “So, back to the Hamish family. It occurred to me that if the family fled of their own free will, they might have fled by boat. I’m not sure how we would ever be able to backtrack and figure out whose boat they might have left on, but I figured I’d ask if you happened to recall a boat leaving the harbor on Thanksgiving Day.”

  “Lot of boats coming in and out on a holiday weekend, but there is one boat that comes to mind. I doubt it was involved with whatever happened to that family, but I remember that Hook and I were sitting out on the dock waiting for the bird to cook when this huge schooner anchored about a quarter of a mile out from the marina entrance. The boat caught our eye not only because of its triple mast, but because it was an old gal that looked to have been restored.

  “Did you see who was aboard?”

  “No. No one ever came ashore. The boat showed up early Thursday, was anchored all day, and when I came into work Friday, it was gone. Not sure exactly when it left or where it was going.”

  “And you’re sure the boat showed up five Thanksgivings ago?”

  He paused and then nodded. “Yep. Hook was gone the past two Thanksgivings. This will be my third without him. And I remember the last Thanksgiving we spent together, which would have been four years ago, we kept a vigil waiting to see if the old ship would return. That means it had to have been here in the bay five years ago.” Noah spat into the water. “If you’re thinking that family fled on that ship, I sorta doubt it. I mean, it’s possible, but they would need to have been shuttled out to it. It was a bigun. Wouldn’t have been able to get much closer to shore than where she anchored.”

  “Thanks, Noah. I agree that it is unlikely that if the family fled by boat, they would flee in a huge ship such as that, but it might be worth looking into. I don’t suppose you happen to know the name of the vessel?”

  “Black Falcon. Dark boat with black sails with a red stripe.”

  I supposed that should be easy enough to look up.

  I thanked Noah for the conversation and then headed back to my SUV. It seemed doubtful that I’d learned anything of importance from Noah. My conversation with him had left me feeling sort of sad. The poor guy had no one to have Thanksgiving dinner with, and it occurred to me that if not for the peninsula gang, I’d be alone this Thanksgiving as well.

  Sliding into the driver’s seat of my vehicle, I called my best friend, Keni. I doubted she’d pick up, but at that moment, I felt a strong need to speak to the one person who felt the most like family.

  “Ainsley. How are you, girl?” Keni answered after only one ring.

  “I’m fine. Missing you, but fine. How are things in New York?”

  “Crazy busy, but that’s nothing new. Did you figure out your or
igin story yet?”

  I smiled. Leave it to Keni to refer to the story of my unknown past as my origin story. “Not yet. At least not entirely. I have made progress, however.”

  “Well, don’t dawdle. Tell me all about it.”

  I spent the next twenty minutes filling her in on my visit to Piney Point on Monday, my conversation with Gil yesterday, and my realization that as a child of three, I must have known my name even though I’d lived my entire life never once questioning the fact that my dad had had no way of knowing who I’d been before he found me. I also shared the dream I’d had last night and the fact that I was pretty sure my name had actually been Ava.

  “Wow, that is freaky,” she agreed. “I’m not sure why I didn’t realize the fact that at the very least, you would have known your name when your dad found you. My niece is three, and she not only knows her own name, but she knows the name of everyone she comes into daily contact with. She knows the name of the street she lives on and the name of her hometown. She knows the names of half the cartoon characters on TV and even some of her colors.”

  “The story my dad told me is one of those things I just felt like I’d always known. I’ve always known that my birth name wasn’t Ainsley and that he changed it. He told me he named me after his mother, who had recently passed away. I assume that I didn’t initially respond to the name, but as time went by, the name he gave me became my name, and I forgot about any other name I might have had, which I now suspect had been Ava.”

  “Why do you think he changed it?” Keni asked.

  “I assume to protect me. Something bad happened to me. Something that ended with him finding me in a burning warehouse.” I paused. “Or at least I guess that’s what happened. I’m really not certain now. When I spoke to Gil, he did verify that there had been a fire and that the fire had led to the arrest of the man they’d been after, but I don’t have any of the specifics.” I took a breath. “I’m still not sure how my dad got ahold of the photo. Maybe I had it on me when he found me. Maybe the bad man the little girl from my dreams seems to be afraid of brought me to Georgia, or maybe the women I was with at the house on Piney Point brought me there, but the bad man found us once we arrived. I still have so many unanswered questions.”