The Vineyard Sisters: A Wayfarer Inn Novel

by Grace Palmer

  She shoved her phone in her back pocket and walked back into the living room. The first episode of Perry Mason was over, replaced by a new one. Her mom’s food sat half-eaten and cold in front of her.

  “Were you talking to someone?” Amelia asked, squinting to read the closed captions on the bottom of the screen. The volume was still on mute.

  “Grayson again,” Jill said.

  Amelia smiled. “Tell him to come in here and sit with me. I haven’t seen him all day.”

  Most days, Jill could find a way to be grateful. Her mom was still alive. She could take care of herself well enough that Jill didn’t have to figure out how to pay for an at-home assistant or a nursing home.

  But right now, gratitude was trapped on a deserted island with the imaginary father of her childhood. It was somewhere far away and out of reach. All she could feel now was bitter.

  “Mom, who was my dad?” She dropped down onto the sofa and turned towards her mother.

  Amelia looked so much older than she had only a few years earlier. Even after she’d retired from the pharmacy, she used to wake up every day and do her makeup. Carefully, she’d swipe on her maroon lipstick and blend blush from the apples of her cheeks to her temples.

  Now, she went bare-faced. There were liver spots on her forehead near her thinning hairline, and her skin had taken on a papery quality, soft and weathered and fragile.

  But as soon as the question came out of Jill’s mouth, it felt like she was looking at her mother from thirty years earlier.

  Amelia Ruthers’s mouth hardened into a straight line, her eyes narrowed, and she tilted her chin up in defiance. “You don’t have a dad; you have a father. And he isn’t worth talking about.”

  “Come on, Mom,” Jill pleaded, feeling like a teenager again. She needed the confirmation. She needed to hear someone she knew, someone she trusted say his name. “Just a name. Give me a name.”

  Her mom looked into her eyes, and for the first time in a long time, they looked clear as could be. Blue and sharp.

  “You don’t need him, Jilly,” Amelia said, twisting her lips stubbornly to one side. “You and Grayson grew into good people. Kind people. Without him.”

  Jill reached out and cupped her mom’s hands in hers. “I don’t want to meet him, Mom. I just want to know his name.”

  There was no need to tell her mother that Warren Townsend was dead. It would confuse her or upset her. Or maybe she wouldn’t care at all. It was hard to say.

  Amelia sighed and pulled her hands back, folding them in her lap. “His name was Warren. And that’s all I’ll say. Just Warren.”

  Just Warren.

  But for what Jill needed, it was enough. It was confirmation.

  Her mom asked for Grayson three more times while Jill helped her get ready for bed.

  “Stop fidgeting with my pajamas. I can do it,” she said, lightly slapping Jill’s hand away. “Get Grayson. I haven’t seen him all day.”

  She hadn’t seen him for months, but it was one of the tiny graces of the disease consuming Amelia Ruthers’s mind that she didn’t remember how little time her son made for her. Occasionally, Jill wished she could forget how long it had been, too.

  Once Mom was in bed, Jill closed the door, set out the nanny cam she’d bought for the living room so she could check on the house throughout the night, and then left.

  Her apartment was only five minutes away, but Jill changed her mind about going to the funeral a dozen times on the short drive over.

  On one hand, Grayson made sense. They’d gone their entire lives without knowing their father, and knowing him now wouldn’t make any difference. Especially since he clearly had no interest in knowing either of them.

  Then again, what should it matter what he wanted? Jill had spent her entire childhood wondering about her father, then most of her adulthood resenting his absence. If she chose not to go to the funeral and learn any more about Warren Townsend because he didn’t want to know about her, she was still letting him control her life.

  By the time Jill unlocked her front door and stepped into her dark living room, she’d made up her mind.

  It was too late to call, but she fired off a text to her friend Brenda. On the rare occasion Jill needed to leave town or work late, Brenda would check in on Amelia for her. She used to be an emergency room nurse, but had made the switch to an oncology department a few years earlier. Regardless, she had more training than Jill did, and Jill trusted her.

  After a few attempts at a text that summarized the whole crazy situation, Jill finally sent one off.

  A family thing came up this weekend, and I have to leave town early tomorrow morning. I’ll be gone all weekend. Could you check in on my mom for me? The spare key is hidden where it usually is, and I’ll pay you whatever you think is fair when I get back.

  Before Jill could even set her phone down and slip out of her shoes, it buzzed.

  Of course. Hope everything is okay!

  Jill didn’t answer. Truthfully, she had no idea what to even say.

  What was “okay”? Her mom wasn’t okay. Her dad certainly wasn’t okay, being dead and all.

  And as for Jill… Jill was confused. But there was one thing she knew for certain—there were answers waiting for her in Martha’s Vineyard.

  And she was finally going to go find them.

  6

  Jill

  EN ROUTE TO MARTHA’S VINEYARD—DAY OF WARREN’S FUNERAL

  Jill was in a postcard.

  That’s how it felt, at least. This scenery couldn’t possibly be real. She stood at the front of a mostly empty ferry, the first one she could catch out of Hyannis, as spray from the icy Atlantic waters bit into her skin and soaked the outer layer of her coat. Pelicans glazed over the water before dipping their beaks beneath the surface to snatch up wriggling silver fish.

  She gripped the railing with cold fingers, not sure if the twist in her stomach was from seasickness or nerves. She’d never been on a ferry before. Never seen the sun stretch over the horizon and paint the ocean yellow and gold.

  More to the point, Jill had never taken a last-minute trip to attend the funeral of the father she never knew existed.

  And even with the montage of beautiful scenery happening around her, that was all she could focus on.

  John Schmidt had followed up their phone call with an e-mail that included all the details of the funeral and the reading of the will. A necessity, since Jill had hung up on him before he’d been able to finish.

  The ferry would deposit her at Vineyard Haven Terminal at nine, and then, according to her hasty internet research the night before, she’d have twenty-two minutes to get to the church before the funeral started at nine-thirty. Not a lot of wiggle room.

  That was okay, though. Maybe it would be best if she showed up late and slipped into a seat in the back. Low-key. Unnoticed. There was still a distinct possibility that this entire journey was a mistake. That maybe she should’ve listened to Grayson and pretended this part of her life was invisible.

  Suddenly, something thudded against the railing next to her. A little boy, shaggy brown hair windblown, stepped his light-up sneakers onto the bottom rung so he could see above the railing. He grinned into the cold sea air, oblivious to anyone else, and promptly started howling like a wolf.

  “Awooo! Awooo—”

  “Jackson! Absolutely not. Get down from there.”

  Jill turned around and saw a man with the same brown hair as the boy hurrying across the deck. He had an orange-striped winter hat in his hand and an exasperated smile on his face. “I’m so sorry,” he chuckled. “He’s a little excited to see the island for the first time. Some might say overly so.”

  Jill reassured the dad with a smile and turned to the little boy. “It’s your first time, too?”

  Jackson nodded, eyes as wide and clear as the ocean around them. It had been a long time since Jill had seen that kind of unfettered enthusiasm. Adults didn’t seem as capable of it.

  “H
is grandma and grandpa just moved here,” the dad explained. “It’s his first time visiting, but I came here a lot as a kid. I know this place like the back of my hand.”

  “Any must-see sights you can recommend to a newbie?” Jill asked, gulping past the tightness in her chest. She was just making conversation, really, because as of now, she had no plans to linger past the funeral. Even that little dose of Martha’s Vineyard was looking more and more like a mistake.

  “Oh, definitely. Gay Head Lighthouse is a staple,” the man said immediately. “Right next to the Aquinnah Cliffs Overlook, which is also beautiful. And then I’m always partial to stopping in at 20BYNINE. They have one of the best American whiskey lists in all of New England. But if you aren’t into whiskey, the Ritz Café is fun, too, if you don’t mind hanging out with some fishermen. They have a lot of live music there and it’s less touristy. The people are great, though.”

  Jill repeated the list in her head, impressed. “Wow. That’s tour-guide level info. You really have been here before.”

  The man opened his mouth to respond, but he was interrupted by his son’s squeal. “There it is, Papa! There it is!”

  Jill followed the boy’s flailing finger and saw the coastline growing larger on the horizon. Long wooden docks stretched out into the water. Boats moored to wooden posts bobbed in the tide. Not far from the shoreline, large houses shingled in cedar glimmered silver in the morning light.

  The boy grabbed his dad’s hand and dragged him towards the far corner of the deck. The man chuckled and tossed Jill a wave. “Sorry. I hope you enjoy your visit. It’s a beautiful place.”

  “Thanks.” Jill lifted her hand in a wave as the man hurried to keep up with his son. She watched them disembark—a father and his child, hands clasped together, stepping off the ferry onto a beautiful island with lighthouses and cliffs and grizzly fishermen who liked good music and fine whiskey as if they belonged here. As if they’d always belonged here.

  It made Jill’s heart hurt to see.

  She’d never had a father to hold her hand and make her mind her step. And she’d certainly never belonged anywhere.

  “Strange day to go to church,” the cab driver remarked. “I usually go on Sundays.”

  He was a middle-aged man with a bald spot and a miniature Boston Red Sox baseball bat dangling from his rearview. He was also driving incredibly slowly.

  The drive should have taken twenty-two minutes, but she’d been in the car for eleven, and the little dot representing her on her phone’s GPS was not yet halfway to St. Elizabeth’s.

  “It’s a funeral.”

  “Yikes. Who died?”

  It was a good thing the man was a cab driver and not a doctor. He was somewhat lacking in the bedside manner department.

  “His name was Warren Townsend,” Jill said, wondering if the man would recognize him.

  The man shook his head. “Dunno him. Friend of yours?”

  Jill opened her mouth to answer and then froze. She didn’t know Warren Townsend. Not really. Just because she’d found out he was her dad didn’t mean she knew him. Like her mom had always said, “You don’t have a dad, you have a biological father.”

  The distinction used to feel petty and wrong. Not so much anymore.

  “A distant relative,” she said, deciding on a version of the truth. “I didn’t know him that well.”

  Jill turned to the window. There were more trees on the island than she’d imagined. The road was closed in on both sides by trunks stripped bare from winter. A few white oaks held onto brown leaves that shook and rattled in the wind.

  “So why’d you even bother?” he asked, pulling Jill’s attention back into the car.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Why’d you bother making the trip here for someone you didn’t really know?” he asked. “Seems like a lot of trouble to go to for an extra.”

  “An extra?”

  He nodded and let his hand flop in the air like a dying fish. “Y’know, like in a movie. Like how some people are main characters and some people are extras? This fella sounds like an extra.”

  Jill winced. An extra. Like it was that easy to sum up a person’s whole life and dismiss it as inconsequential with a wave of the hand.

  Maybe it stung particularly hard because, who was to say that it didn’t go the other way around? If Jill had known her father’s phone number and address the way he’d known hers, she would have called him immediately. He, on the other hand, had basically left her an IOU in a hand-scratched will.

  Maybe Warren Townsend was a main character and Jill herself was the extra.

  “Family obligation,” Jill mumbled.

  “Bah! Family. Can’t live with ‘em, can’t live without ‘em.”

  All in all, the drive took twenty-eight minutes. When the car stopped on a narrow road wedged between two large, white, church-like buildings, Jill paid the driver and headed towards the larger of the two.

  Suddenly, a horn blared behind her. Jill winced and spun around to find the cabbie with his head and shoulders hanging out the window.

  “Not that one!” he yelled. He hitched his thumb over his shoulder to the smaller building. “It’s this one. That’s the Old Whaling Church. St. Elizabeth’s is over here.”

  If she’d hoped to sneak into the church unnoticed, the man had all but ruined any chances of that. Between the honking and the yelling, she was certain everyone inside had heard the commotion. Talk about a grand arrival.

  She half wanted to get right back in the cab and do this whole trip in reverse. But she wasn’t sure she could handle another twenty-eight minutes of clueless emotional browbeating from the not-quite Dr. Phil in the taxi.

  So instead, Jill nodded a quick thanks and hurried away.

  Her watch read nine-forty. She was ten minutes late. How long did funerals usually last? The only one she’d been to had been for her grandma when she was fifteen, and the entire day had been a blur of crying people and hugs. Jill and Grayson had mostly stood in the back, trying to go unnoticed. She planned to repeat that exact performance today.

  White wreaths hung on the double doors and a poster leaning against a pedestal on the blue-painted steps listed Warren’s name and the time of the service. There was no photograph.

  Jill hurried past it and quietly, slowly pulled open the wooden door. Immediately, a voice filtered out to her through the staticky speakers.

  “…I know Warren would hate me standing up here, dragging on about what a good guy he was. But what else can I say? He was a good guy! The best guy,” the man said to a quiet smattering of agreement from the audience. “I’ve known him—I knew him, rather—for forty years, and I can’t tell you how much money he saved me in tires. The man could plug a hole in a tire with a blindfold on and one hand tied behind his back.”

  The room laughed. Jill cautiously stepped inside.

  She’d imagined a proper lobby area to greet her, but there was no such room in this church. Just the double doors, a rectangular entryway space no more than five steps wide, and then the sanctuary itself.

  Jill hugged the right side of the entryway space so she wouldn’t be standing directly in front of the man on stage. A white casket, closed, sat behind the speaker on a raised platform.

  The pews were mostly full. Part of Jill—the resentful part—had hoped she’d arrive and be the only mourner in attendance. How fitting would that be? For the daughter he didn’t care to know to be the only one who bothered to show up to his funeral?

  “Before Warren’s ghost pushes me off the stage,” the man said with a chuckle and a glance back at the casket, “I’ll wrap up by saying he was a good man and a good friend, and I’ll miss him.”

  The man stepped aside and handed the microphone to a middle-aged woman. She told a funny story about Warren being angry she’d raised her price for a men’s haircut, so he’d taken it upon himself to cut his own hair.

  “…When he walked through the front door, he was practically bald on the right side of hi
s head and the left side was sticking straight up like he’d been electrocuted.” The woman bent forward and clutched at her side as she laughed. “And before I could even ask him what had happened, he just held up a finger and shook his head.” Her brows lowered and her voice deepened as she tried to mimic what must have been Jill’s father’s voice. “‘Just fix it. I’ll pay you whatever you want.’”

  The whole church was laughing now, but Jill couldn’t seem to muster so much as a giggle. Not even for show.

  Her father was a good man. A generous friend who patched tires.

  Her father was a stubborn man. A do-it-himself guy who would rather cut his own hair than shell out for a haircut.

  He was other things, too, apparently. Friend after neighbor and neighbor after friend climbed up onto the stage, stood in front of her father’s casket, and told Jill more things about him. More facets of the personality she’d never get to experience firsthand. More memories she hadn’t been present for. More peeks into the life she had no idea had been running concurrently with hers for the last forty-seven years.

  She half-wanted to march up there and give her own angle on the man. Did you all know he was also an absentee father? she imagined booming into the microphone. Did you know he’d let a little girl fall asleep every night, wondering where her dad was, why he wasn’t around—and all the while, he knew exactly where she was and didn’t do anything about it?

  Jill felt upside down. This was too much, truthfully. Much more than she’d imagined.

  Grayson was right. She shouldn’t have come.

  But just as she was about to turn and leave, an elderly woman in the back row turned around and made eye contact with her. She slid over in the pew and then patted the now-open seat next to her.

  The invitation was clear. And, even though Jill would never be on Martha’s Vineyard again, would never speak to anyone in the church for the rest of her days, and therefore didn’t care at all about being perhaps just a little bit rude… she couldn’t bring herself to reject the offer.