by Luanne Rice
“Feel the house?” Dar asked.
“Yes. Fingers crossed, but this doesn’t seem to be a teardown situation. Anyway, can I count on you?”
“Sure,” Dar said, feeling remarkably unsettled.
Morgan wanted to go over more details but Dar had a meeting in Edgartown, with Raymond and Jack, at Bart Packard’s office. Locking up, she loaded Scup into the car and headed east.
Low clouds hung over the island, mist captured in the leaves and branches of the trees. It softened the contours of every building, of the road itself. This was Dulse weather; it always pulled Dar from real life into her imagined world. It had kept her safe and protected for all these years. Dar wished she could stop and draw Dulse and her sisters on State Road as it lifted from this earth and become a portal into a stormy dream.
By the time she reached Edgartown, a fog bank was rolling in over Chappaquiddick, into the harbor. She parked in the private lane behind Bart’s law office, shook off the cobwebs of Dulse, and took a moment before entering. Her emotions had been churning since Morgan had mentioned showing the house again. She let Scup make a round of the alley.
She and Scup entered the old building and headed upstairs. It was as radically different from Fitzgerald & Fitzgerald as a place could be: on the second floor of a commercial building. A café and art gallery were downstairs, and the stairs and crooked hallway smelled like French roast.
Bart’s name was stenciled on pebbled glass in the top half of his office door. Dar never came here without feeling she was about to encounter Sam Spade or a shady bookie. But Bart had done her grandmother’s and mother’s wills and trusts, and had helped Dar find a market for her original drawings, and was one of the kindest and most honest people she knew. She entered without knocking, knowing that both she and Scup were expected.
Bart, Raymond, and Jack were sitting around Bart’s desk, telling stories and laughing, when she walked in. The office windows were open; harbor noises drifted in, and papers anchored by many paperweights riffled in the breeze. All three men stood to greet her. Scup went straight to Bart for a dog biscuit.
“Good boy,” Bart said. “Hello, Dar.”
“Lovely old fella,” Raymond said. “What’s his name?”
“Scup,” Dar said.
“Like the fish! Wonderful!” Jack said.
“Won’t you all be seated,” Bart said. “Dar, take the armchair.”
She did, as the lawyers pulled their chairs into a semicircle around her. Their expressions were neutral, neither positive nor negative. Her pulse began to race, sure they were going to give her bad news.
“What is it?” she asked Raymond. “I knew something important had happened when Bart said you were flying down.”
“It’s been a complicated month,” Raymond said. “Dealing with all aspects of the instrument.”
“By that he means ‘document,’ ” Bart translated.
Dar nodded, listening.
“We’ve had it analyzed and dated; we’ve dealt with the authorities in Ireland, starting in Cork City, Cobh, St. Colman’s, and proceeding to Dublin. We then had to communicate with England.”
“With the Crown itself!” Jack said.
“They flew to London,” Bart said. “That’s on us.”
“We had no choice. Listen,” Jack said, “until you hear the outcome.”
Raymond continued. “In order to get as far as the Court of St. James, we had to have positive dispositions in each of the primary steps along the way. In other words, the instrument was certified authentic, dated 1626, by our sources at MIT and Harvard; the Irish court confirmed that Michael McCarthy procured the document by hiring a barrister and going through the proper channels to prove his lineage and right to inherit. And the Court of St. James was unable to dispute the land grant, and thereby stands by King Charles I’s gift.”
Raymond grinned at Dar. “The land will be yours, free and clear. The lien upon the title will be lifted as of today, in the courthouse just up the street.”
“Care to come?” Jack asked.
Dar smiled, nodding. She left Scup in Bart’s office, and she and the lawyers walked up the street. The white-columned courthouse was imposing, even in pea soup fog. Dar followed the counselors inside to the court clerk’s office. Liz Allen was Andy’s cousin, and she smiled past the lawyers at Dar.
“Hello, Liz. Let me introduce you to my co-counsel, Raymond and Jack Fitzgerald. I’m sure you know Dar McCarthy,” Bart said.
“I sure do. Good to see you, Dar,” Liz said.
“You too,” Dar said.
“We’ve come to file a document, clearing the title on Dar’s family’s property,” Raymond said. “I believe my office called you to explain the unusual details . . .”
“Yes,” Liz said.
“Excellent,” Raymond said, reaching into his briefcase. “We’ll keep the original and file these certified copies and self-proving affidavit.”
Liz spread the papers out on her desk, read and examined each one. She nodded, impressed.
“Do you by chance have the original with you?” she asked.
“Yes,” Jack said. “But it goes to Ms. McCarthy and her sisters.”
“I realize that,” Liz said. She grinned. “But do you know what it’s like, sitting here every day dealing with the here and now, when all of a sudden a document dating back to the birth of Martha’s Vineyard walks through the door?”
Raymond opened a different compartment, gingerly removed an archival folder, opened it for Liz to see. Dar could tell he appreciated her interest, and Dar herself couldn’t help leaning closer to gaze at the water-stained parchment.
“Your dad went to Ireland for this,” Liz said, glancing up at Dar. “I remember when he left. We didn’t know what happened to him . . .”
“No one did,” Dar said.
“Well, he did you all proud,” Liz said, reaching into her desk for the court seal. Raymond put the original back in its folder, and Liz signed and sealed each copy of the land grant and accompanying documents.
“Consider this deed filed!” she said.
“Thank you,” Dar said, and everyone shook hands all around.
She and the lawyers returned to Bart’s office so she could get Scup. The three men buzzed with excitement about the case, about how it had all turned out. They slapped each other on the back, beaming. Then, turning solemn, Raymond reached into his briefcase, carefully removed the deed in its opaque container.
“This is yours.”
“It’s incredible,” Dar said.
“Whatever you decide to do with it, keep it protected in that airtight folder. If you sell it, the auction house will know how to handle it. But if you keep it, go to the best framer possible, one who will use museum-quality, archival materials—UV-protected glass, acid-free mats, with an impenetrable seal.”
“I will,” she promised.
“Excellent,” Raymond said. “Let us know; we’ll be interested.”
“Thank you all,” Dar said. “For everything you have done for me and my sisters. It’s been an honor to work with you.”
“I know the best people to call,” Bart said.
“You do,” Dar said, kissing his cheek. She tried to shake Raymond’s and Jack’s hands, but they hugged her, too. She knew that none of them could tell she was levitating, feeling the nearness of her parents and grandmother. The lawyers couldn’t see that she was shaking inside, and that it took all her effort to hold her feelings back.
“Come on, Scup,” she said. Wagging his tail, he waited by the door, then preceded her down the stairs. She let him out into the back lane, let him explore once more, then opened the hatch for him to jump into the Subaru.
The fog was thicker than ever. She had to put the windshield wipers on. She placed the folder on the seat beside her. Her sisters were waiting for her to call and give them a progress report. Andy had asked her to stop at his millpond site on the way home, to let him know what happened.
Dar intended t
o do those things. But instead she drove straight back to Chilmark. She parked by the farmhouse, relieved to see that Morgan had come and gone.
There was a note on the kitchen table, but Dar ignored it. She walked straight up two flights of stairs into the attic. Scup stayed downstairs, curled up in his plaid bed. All five cats accompanied her, skulking up the narrow attic stairs, bursting into the dark space and again frightening all the bats out through the vents.
She opened the chimney cupboard where her mother had hidden her father’s letters, as if this were the place Dar could feel most close to her parents. She held the deed’s case to her heart.
“You did it, Dad,” she said out loud. “You brought this home for us, and we’re so thankful. You found what you’d set out for, and Rory, Delia, and I know it.”
Closing her eyes, she listened and heard her voice echo in the deep and narrow brick chamber. She swore she heard her father speaking back to her. It might have been the sea wind, coming across the waves, whistling in the rafters. But she believed it had been sent by her father.
Later Andy brought scallop rolls for dinner, and both Rory and Delia phoned, wanting to know what had happened. Dar explained it three times. Her sisters listened carefully and, as if they’d already spoken to each other, said they’d be up over the weekend.
“To celebrate!” Dar told Andy. “None of us can quite believe what just happened.”
“Your father was a brave man,” Andy said quietly.
“And a smart one,” Dar said. “Who could have imagined he could accomplish all this? He had a dream, that’s for sure—and he made it come true. He thought he needed to prove himself, and he did.”
The day was cold, the sea churning. At the foot of the beach, waves the color of rusty iron broke on top of each other. Dar and Andy stood in the farmhouse kitchen, woodstove crackling to drive out the fog’s chill. Dar broke out a bottle of sparkling water, cut lemons and heated up the scallop rolls, spooned coleslaw onto plates. As they sat down to eat, Andy pointed at a white envelope.
“What’s that?” he asked.
“Oh, I forgot to look,” Dar said. “A note from Morgan.”
“Want to get it over with?”
She nodded, slit open Morgan’s embossed envelope, and pulled out a slip of her monogrammed stationery and an official-looking typed form and read them.
“Well?” Andy asked.
Dar smiled, wadding up the papers and tossing them into the woodstove, watching them blaze, then fizzle into ash. “An offer,” she said. “From the Rileys. Guess we won’t be needing it now.”
She lifted her glass to clink with Andy.
“Here’s to that,” she said.
“Here’s to it,” he said, and drank. But he didn’t look very happy. Dar felt like bubbling over, but gazing at Andy, she couldn’t help wondering why he looked like this was the end of the world.
When they finished eating, he helped her clean up.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Shouldn’t you tell your sisters about the offer?”
“Why? We’re not going to accept it.”
“You don’t want to, but shouldn’t they have a say?”
Drying dishes, she turned from him, started stacking plates in the cupboard. He’d spoken softly, but his words cut her. He sensed it, too. She felt his breath on her neck, his arms coming around her from behind.
“I’m on you’re side, Darrah.”
“There aren’t even supposed to be sides,” she said. “They’re my sisters. We want the same thing.”
“You probably do,” he said. “But if it were me, I’d want to make my own choice. Have all the information.”
“Fine, I’ll tell them.”
She felt him nod his head, his cheek brushing hers.
“We’d better stay here,” she said. “Instead of going to the Hideaway. I don’t want to leave with the stove still going . . .”
“Thanks,” he said, “but I’d better get home. I’m behind on getting my invoices out, and I left all the paperwork on my desk.”
“You’re mad at me.”
“Not at all,” he said. “You know I hate paperwork, and I don’t want to get behind. I need to get paid.”
“Okay,” Dar said, kissing him, confused, wishing he would want to stay. Standing at the kitchen door, she watched him disappear into the fog. His truck lights came on, illuminating swirls and gusts of mist blowing off the ocean. He backed out, and she called good night, but he didn’t call back.
Needing to celebrate with someone who’d appreciate the moment, she tried Pete’s cell phone. It had been turned off; she checked her watch and figured he was probably at a meeting. Then she called Harrison.
“Guess what?” she asked.
“Sweetie, I already know. Rory called to tell me.”
Dar smiled, thinking of how happy that must have made Harrison. “She beat me to the punch! Isn’t it amazing?”
“It truly is. Captain McCarthy, the great seafarer, has brought incredible riches to his daughters.”
“He did,” Dar said.
“Did Rory sound happy?” Dar asked.
“Mmmm,” Harrison said. She could hear him taking a long drag on a joint.
“About getting to keep the house?”
“Mmmm,” Harrison said, letting out a big lungful of smoke.
“Did you know she and Delia are coming back this weekend so we can celebrate?”
“I did know that. You know how much I love a good celebration.”
“We’ll have a party,” Dar said. “Friday night, dinner, here at the farmhouse, as soon as they arrive. We’ll get Pete, Andy . . .”
“Yes, the family.”
Dar smiled, loving that he put himself in that category.
“Perfect,” she said. “I’ll plan something great for dinner.”
“Maybe I’ll bring Les Paul with me,” Harrison said. “I have to deliver a sweet Gibson, signed by the master, to New York on Saturday. If I pick the guitar up in time, I’ll have it join us for the soiree. I’ll try to play ‘Moon River.’”
“You can’t play the guitar, Harrison.”
“I’ll fake it,” he said, and they laughed.
She hung up, feeling warm inside. It was great to have such wonderful friends—another reason she could never leave the Vineyard. Her family—whether blood-related or not—belonged here. Staring at the phone, she wanted to call Andy, just to make sure they were okay, and to tell him about Friday. But she decided to leave him alone, let him have his peace.
Instead she opened her laptop and logged on. It was too late to call Ireland, so she sent an e-mail instead to Tim McCarthy, telling him all about what had happened since she’d last seen him, since leaving Cobh.
And then she found herself writing another e-mail, addressing it to each of her sisters.
Dear R & D,
I know it’s beside the point, but we now have an of fer from the Rileys. I took the liberty of burning it, considering there’s no longer a reason to sell. I’m sitting in the house right now, feeling love pour off the walls, knowing it’s all from our family. I love you, and can’t wait to spend every single summer for the rest of our lives together, right here.
XXOO Dar
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Friday dawned clear and fine, and the sky grew more blue and the breeze dropped as the day went on. Harrison came early to help Dar get ready. She sent him on errands—to Poole’s in Menemsha for swordfish, the West Tisbury market for fingerling potatoes, mesclun greens, tiny yellow tomatoes, and small purple beets. She made a plum tart. When Harrison came back, she sent him into the wine cellar to choose whatever bottles he thought would go best with dinner.
Wines chosen, Harrison helped Dar pull the weathered teak table off the porch and onto the lawn. She covered it with one of her grandmother’s French country tablecloths, bought on a trip to Avignon, set it with the best china, silver, and crystal. She and Harrison carried the Hitchcock dining room chair
s outside, giving them a good dusting; they hadn’t been used since her mother’s epic parties.
Overhead, the low, wind-twisted pines and oaks were still. There was barely a breath of breeze, making the morning hot, but assuring Dar that the evening would be warm and beautiful. She went into the basement, brought up strings of colorful paper lanterns.
Dar had made them with rice paper, painted them with pen and ink, in homage to the Camp Meeting’s Illumination Night. She and Harrison strung them from the porch roof to two poles set in the ground by the table. When the time was right, she would light the tea lights set inside each one, making them all glow like beach jewels.
Harrison wasn’t one for moving too far too fast, but Dar convinced him to walk down to the beach and collect shells with her.
“What do we need them for?” he asked.
“Table decorations,” she said. “Party favors.”
“Party favors?” he asked skeptically. “As in ‘Oh goody, I got a clamshell’?”
“Well, or a pretty rock, or a fish jaw, or whatever interesting thing you might find. What’s the matter? You used to love to walk on the beach.”
“I’ve got to get back to it. Into shape and all.”
Was he thinking of Rory? Dar took his hand as they walked along the hard sand. Harrison was tall and stolid, his hand powerful. She had the feeling he could have crushed her bones, but he’d always been a gentle soul.
“Rent’s going up on the storage unit,” he said.
“Can you afford to keep it?”
“As long as there are vintage instruments to be delivered.”
“I think you’re amazingly creative and resourceful. Finding a way to stay on the Vineyard. Luckily, there are lots of musicians here.”
“I was saving the unit beside me for you,” Harrison said. “Although Andy always had a fallback plan for you.”
“What does that mean?”
“Ask him.”
Andy. Dar hadn’t seen him since the night she’d burned Morgan’s letter and the Rileys’ offer.
