A Vineyard Christmas

by Jean Stone

  Earl stood up, held Bella to his shoulder, and swigged the rest of his tea. Then he slipped a couple of cookies into his pocket. “Don’t worry about me. As for my wife, well, I get what you mean. That girl left her baby on your doorstep, not ours. And, yup, the fewer folks who know, the better. But I’ll tell you what. Tomorrow is Christmas Eve. Why don’t you come to the house and celebrate with us? Claire doesn’t need to know what’s really going on, but she’d love to have a baby there; our holiday will be pretty quiet. When John’s girls were here, we always went to the party at the community center, but Claire says without our grandkids it’s hard to see people having fun with theirs. So we stay home. Once in a while a neighbor drops by, which is nice. In any event, don’t worry, I’ll back you up.”

  “Thanks, Earl. I’d enjoy that. But what about your son? Will he be there?”

  “I don’t know. Sometimes he covers so other guys on the force can have the night off. Unless he’s on duty, though, he’ll probably come. But I won’t breathe a word of truth to him, either. Scout’s honor.”

  “But you’d be lying to your family.”

  “Only by omission. When a baby is involved, I don’t think that counts.” He winked, then softly patted Bella’s head. “Now, wrap up this little one and put your coat back on. We’re going on a hunting trip. It’ll be dark soon; folks will be turning on their lights. We can see who’s home. If our little mother’s still on Chappy, she can’t be too far. Not if she walked through that nor’easter. Besides, I know every house that’s occupied this time of year—if our girl is squatting, chances are, she’ll have a light on. And I’ll know if she doesn’t belong there.”

  “Summer people don’t turn off their electricity?”

  “Not usually. Their caretakers might need it. Or they keep it on for their housekeepers. Lots of folks have cleaners go in every few weeks to keep up with the dust and the spiders and the mice. Squatters come in all sizes, you know.” He handed Bella to Annie and pulled on his jacket. “If the girl is here, we’ll find her. And she can join us for Christmas Eve, too.”

  * * *

  At the top of the driveway, Earl turned left onto North Neck Road.

  “Why this way?” Annie asked.

  He rubbed his chin again. “If we’re right to think she’s not far from you, maybe she’s in one of the waterfront houses here. She might have thought she’d have more room to hide. Anyway, let’s give it a shot. You ever come down this way?”

  She shook her head. “I thought it might be too bumpy for my car. Whenever I go for a walk, which isn’t often enough, I stick to the main road. Besides, everything in this direction is private property, isn’t it? Like the Flanagan place. Every time I cross the channel, I can see the beautiful houses on the water. They always look so empty, like a Rolls-Royce or a Bentley, just sitting there, idling, waiting for their masters to return.”

  Earl laughed. “You really are a writer, aren’t you?”

  Annie grimaced. “I don’t know where that came from. I’m certainly not a poet. Maybe I’ve already spent too much time on the Vineyard.”

  “Never!” He chuckled, then stopped at the beginning of what looked like a driveway that hadn’t been plowed. It was bordered on both sides by thickets of trees; no footprints were visible in the snow. “It never ceases to amaze me when someone buys a property worth millions, but won’t spend a few bucks to keep it clear in case of fire. They forget that sparks can fly from neighbor to neighbor and burn down more than one house.” He sighed, then pointed down the hill. “Your next-door neighbors are down there. The Littlefield property. They sank a ton of cash into renovations a few years ago. But both parents are dead now—the kids are squabbling about selling it. Nobody wins. In the meantime, no one keeps an eye on the place. They don’t even have an alarm system. A couple of them come and go, on and off, in summer, but don’t seem to care much about their inheritance. As I recall, they once seemed smart enough. But . . .” He shrugged, took his foot off the brake, and shifted back into first gear. “Anyway, our girl isn’t here. No footprints. No lights.”

  They drove to the next driveway, which had been plowed. “Looks like Taylor’s been around.” He turned down the wide path; Annie assumed that Taylor—whoever that was—was in charge of that particular property: apparently, the market for caretakers was strong on Chappy. They rounded a curve, then another, and Earl’s truck abruptly came grill-to-grill with another black pickup.

  He stopped and said, “Speak of the devil. You wait here. I’ll do the talking.”

  Annie had no intention of getting out, but watched as both men did. They met in the middle of what looked like dueling pickups and shook hands. Taylor wore a heavy knit cap and an L.L.Bean parka that looked just like Earl’s.

  “Seen a lost cat?” Annie heard Earl ask. It took a moment to realize he’d made that up as a reason why they’d gone down the driveway.

  “Haven’t seen much of anything,” came the reply. “’Cept a nasty hawk that I’m pretty sure has been going after the chickens at the Alvords’ coop.”

  Earl scanned the property. “Could be leftover tourists. They gotta eat, too.”

  Taylor shook his head. “Nah. Those two-leggers are long gone. They think Chappy shuts down after Columbus Day.” Then he nodded toward Earl’s truck. “’Cept her, of course. She staying the winter?” Taylor took off his hat, and a mass of auburn hair tumbled out. Annie blinked. She hadn’t thought Taylor had seen her. Nor had she imagined that Taylor was a woman. The basket was out of sight between her feet; Annie reached down and smoothed the blanket around sleeping Bella.

  “Looks like she’s with us for a while,” Earl said, then gave Taylor a small salute. “Later, neighbor. Got a cat to track down.” He headed back to the truck, and Taylor headed toward hers.

  “Keep an eye out for that hawk,” she called back to him. “You have my permission to shoot it.”

  Chuckling again, Earl got into the truck, threw the shift into reverse, and deftly maneuvered the curves of the driveway as if he did it—backward—every day.

  Once he reached the road, he drove what might have been the length of a football field, then steered between two redbrick pillars and down a long driveway that also had been cleared, but had a coat of fresh powder on top. Clearly, the work had been finished before the snow had stopped. “This place changed hands last year for over eight million. Never have seen anyone around, but rumor has it, it’s a movie star. As if we don’t get enough of those.”

  Then a house came into view. Like the Flanagans’, it was big and wide and had gray cedar shingles and an enormous porch that looked like it encircled the perimeter. A five-bay garage with what could be a second-story guest apartment stood off to one side. But the only signs of life were the soft footprints of rabbits and deer, not those made by a young woman who had abandoned her baby—yes, Annie thought, that was what it felt like now. And no lights were on, upstairs or down.

  “Another dead end,” Annie said. “If Bella’s mother is here, it doesn’t look like she’s been outside since the storm stopped.”

  “Yup,” Earl said, turning the truck around and heading back toward the road. “Let’s go out as far as the golf course tonight. We can scout more tomorrow. I have errands off island in the morning, but I can come by after lunch.”

  The rest of the houses on North Neck were as dark as the sky had grown, with no signs of a squatter. By the time they were finished, Bella started to cry, as if she, too, were ready to give up on having a happy ending.

  * * *

  The car was back. Francine had no idea why it had been gone all night. She’d waited and she’d worried, but it hadn’t come back until afternoon.

  Then it was gone again.

  And a truck had showed up.

  Then the car came back.

  Now the truck was gone.

  She pushed her hands against her temples, the blood coursing inside her head, hammering harder and harder, hurting more and more.

  She’d pla
nned to make her move last night, when nobody was around. But she’d fallen asleep. When she’d woken up, it was daylight. Too late. So she lay there waiting. Watching. Still frozen, though the numbness had started to feel normal.

  She must have even fallen asleep again because the sky looked as if it was growing dark. Unless they were in for another stupid storm.

  She wondered why Annie Sutton had been gone all night. Had she taken Bella somewhere else, like Boston or New York or any of those cities where rich people like her went? Like where Gramps had threatened to make them move so Francine’s father could reach his potential? It had never happened; her father had killed himself first.

  Maybe Annie Sutton had dumped Bella at one of those hospitals where people were now allowed to dump babies—the unwanted, the unloved, no questions asked.

  Bella, little Bella, deserved better. Which was why Francine had found Annie in the first place.

  She pulled the covers over her head again. She knew she could not do what she needed to do. Not yet. Not until she knew. If Bella really was all right.

  It hadn’t been part of her plan. But neither had been breaking into a big house and freezing to death.

  Chapter 9

  It did not feel like Christmas, not like the Christmases of long ago when Annie had spent hours baking with her mother, watching old holiday movies with her dad (It’s a Wonderful Life and Miracle on 34th Street were his favorites), then helping to deliver almond cookies and cherry tarts (also her dad’s favorites) to the neighbors and the mailman and the newspaper boy. It didn’t even seem like the more recent Christmases she’d spent with Murphy and her husband and the boys, when she and Murphy stayed up long past midnight, sipping brandy Alexanders and wrapping gifts, while Murphy’s husband left them to their gossip and went to bed.

  Unlike all of those, this Christmas was quiet. Except for the wind that was still blowing into the evening.

  “Enough with the wind!” Annie cried cheerfully as she slid a tray of candy cane cookies into the oven. They had been her mother’s specialty, back before everyone had access to the recipe through Instagram: she’d dyed half the dough red, rolled out thin logs of white and red, and twisted them together into candy cane shapes, and then, once they were out of the oven and cooled, she squeezed green frosting out of a tiny hole in a cloth bag and decorated the “hook” with what looked like a wreath. Those cookies were the one thing that Annie made every year—when she’d been with Brian, when she’d been with Mark, since she’d been alone. They helped her feel festive and connected to the ones whom she had loved. This year, she would wrap some for Earl—she suspected he’d enjoy them.

  Despite moments of nostalgia, Annie tried to keep smiling. Having shared her dilemma with Winnie and now Earl, having each of them agree without hesitation to help her, without trying to convince her to go to the police, meant a lot. It meant she had found two friends whom she could trust. Good friends—the kind who weren’t easy to find.

  She picked out a few of her handmade soaps for Claire, wrapped them in red tissue, and tied them together with silver ribbon. She wondered if she should bring something for John. What was an appropriate gift for a police officer that someone had been trying to avoid?

  “Good question,” she said with a snicker.

  Dragging a chair to the sink, she climbed onto it, opened the overhead cabinet, and unearthed a few snowmen-themed tins. Maybe she’d make a double batch of cinnamon rolls and split them between Earl and John; she could also give Earl the extra pair of alpaca socks she’d bought, like the ones that she’d sent Murphy’s husband, Stan. After seeing Winnie’s magnificent library, she’d already decided to give her a signed edition of a young British nature writer, Lou MacFarlane’s, latest work. It wasn’t on a topic Annie typically read, but after her first novel was published, she promised herself that whenever she saw an author signing books, she’d buy a copy and have it signed. She’d logged in too many hours sitting at one of those tables in bookstores, praying someone would pick up one of hers, or simply stop to say hi. Over time, she’d wound up with an eclectic collection of volumes, from poetry to cookbooks, from thrillers to nature—like the one that she’d give Winnie.

  With Bella contentedly examining Annie’s measuring spoons, the baking underway, and the modest gift list finalized, Annie wondered if she could make something Bella might like, something that could go with her wherever she ended up, a small reminder of a woman who’d sheltered her during a blizzard.

  With a giant sigh, she knew she was being sentimental—a telltale sign of the season. Good for me, she decided. At least she was cheerful on her first Vineyard Christmas, when she could have been, would have been, otherwise.

  But what could she make Bella? When Murphy’s boys were babies, she’d given them each a small stuffed bunny: beige for Danny, yellow for Derek. They had kept them for years, until they’d fallen apart. It was too late to shop, so Annie went to the linen closet again on a quest for ideas. In just a few minutes, she knew what to do. But first, she had to finish the baking. Then she would finally decorate the tree.

  With a batch of candy cane cookies in the oven and another one cooling, Annie retrieved a long plastic container from under her bed: it was loaded with shiny ornaments, glimmering tinsel, and strings of lights from Christmases Past.

  “We need to be sure that Santa will find us,” she told Bella.

  Then she strung and hung and adjusted; she stood on a chair and positioned the angel on the top, while the baby quietly watched, mesmerized, the whole time. When Annie plugged in the lights, Bella’s mouth opened; she cooed and rattled the spoons.

  Then Annie resurrected her third-grade teaching skills and began to make Bella’s gift. Plucking a section of the Times from the kindling box and scissors and a marker from the junk drawer in the kitchen, she smoothed the newsprint on the floor and drew a template of a baby lamb—like the ones that romped and grazed up island. Then, using a white fleece jacket she’d planned to donate to the thrift shop, and shredding leftover fabric for stuffing, Annie made a sweet little companion for Bella. From old felt pieces she’d found in the box of ornaments, she cut out a red mouth, black eyes, and little black hooves, which she didn’t know if sheep had. As a finishing touch, she cut a small bit of ribbon from the red bow on Bella’s basket and shaped it into a heart for the lamb’s chest—like the heart on her childhood Raggedy Ann doll.

  When she started stitching, she kept her back to Bella so the baby wouldn’t see what she was making. It was foolish, of course, but thankfully, Murphy didn’t comment. A few times, when Annie looked over her shoulder, she realized that Bella was too interested in looking at the tree to bother with what she was doing.

  Annie smiled; she couldn’t remember when she’d had such heartwarming fun. So it made no sense that when she was finished, without a hint of a warning, Winnie’s words sprang to her mind:

  You would have made a fine mother, Annie Sutton. You already love a baby you don’t even know.

  She drew in a sharp breath as another memory flooded back. Dropping the needle and thread, Annie closed her eyes, her old demon rising from the ashes of her past.

  It was still hard to believe that she’d had an abortion. She. Annie Sutton. Of all people.

  She and Mark had been married less than a year: she’d known he’d be angry that she was pregnant; he’d told her several times it was too soon. But one night over wine and a misplaced diaphragm, an accident happened. Annie pondered on it, prayed on it, talked to Murphy about it. And then Annie made the decision not to tell Mark. The next time he left the country for a business meeting, she scheduled the procedure. Murphy went with her to the hospital.

  “It’s too soon,” Annie repeated Mark’s words as they sat in the waiting room. “It’s not just about him, either. I honestly think he’s worried that it’s too soon for me. Too soon after Brian’s accident, you know?”

  They were excuses, which Murphy must have suspected. But after a few more “Are you sure?
” remarks, her friend nodded, took her hand, and said nothing more.

  Several years later, when Annie’s bio-clock (as Murphy called it) began to tick loudly, she stopped taking the pill. She didn’t tell Mark. And yet, she never got pregnant again. In the dark corner of her mind that she reserved for truths too painful to consider, Annie added the big one: God was punishing her for having had the abortion.

  But now, with her wonderful mood threatening to slide, to feel those sad, long-buried feelings once again, her cell phone, blessedly, rang.

  * * *

  “Auntie Annie! Auntie Annie!” came the stereo voices of Murphy’s twins.

  Of course it’s them, Annie thought. Murphy is working her magic. She looked up to the ceiling and blew her friend a kiss.

  “We’ve got you on speaker,” one of the boys said, “so don’t say anything you don’t want Dad to hear. He’s standing right behind us.”

  “Hello, Annie,” Stan, called from the background.

  “Hi, you guys.” Annie quickly moved to the kitchen, grabbed a bottle of wine, and poured a glass. She took a quick sip, smiling again, silently praising that instant gratification sometimes had its place.

  “Thanks for the loot!” It had always been hard to tell the twins apart, whether on the phone or in person. They had Murphy’s red hair and Stan’s tall, solid build, and both had their parents’ giant personalities. “We’re going to save it for our birthday so we can go to O’Malley’s and get viciously drunk.”

  “I heard that,” Stan said.

  Annie laughed. “I was hoping you’d do something more sensible, like put it toward grad school.”