by Angela Hunt
Edith closed her eyes and resisted a shudder. She wanted to be a supportive wife. Being supportive meant she should be understanding, that she should bite her tongue and say nothing. After all, Winslow hadn’t criticized her when she frosted her hair with a solution that turned her curls green, nor had he chastised her when she spent $49.99 on a silly exercise gizmo guaranteed to melt away her double chin.
With an effort, she opened her eyes and caught him staring at her in the mirror. He was studying her face with considerable absorption, and Edith realized that she held her husband’s heart in her hands.
“Winslow.” Gathering her courage, she stepped forward, then reached out and playfully hooked her index finger over his belt. “Honey, I don’t know why you thought you needed a toupee, but I’m here to tell you that you’re a handsome man without one. I love you just the way you are.”
Winslow’s gaze shifted to his own reflection. “But is this so terrible?” He adjusted the Hair again, pulling it back, away from his brows. “It’s human hair, you know. And you can apply these little sticky tapes to hold it in place—’’
“Honey.” Edith turned him to face her. “You don’t need fake hair. You’re a real man, Winslow, one hundred percent genuine male. Everybody thinks you’re handsome, just as you are.”
He lifted one eyebrow, suggesting in marital shorthand that he would not be snowed. “You didn’t answer my question. Is this toupee so terrible?”
Edith bit her lower lip, realizing that this time her opinion didn’t matter. She could tell him that she liked his bald head until the cows came home, but he wouldn’t believe her because she had promised to love him no matter what.
Sighing, she took a step back and evaluated her husband with a pragmatic eye. “It’s not terrible. It looks okay—but it was a shock when I first saw you. I wasn’t expecting it.”
“But you could get used to it?”
“I could get used to anything, hon, but—’’ She raked her nails through her hair in frustration. “Winslow, trust me, you don’t need a wig.”
“I want to look younger.”
“Why? Fifty-two’s not old. You’re mature. You’ve worked hard and learned a lot.”
“But Rex Hartwell is young and handsome.”
The words hung in the silence between them, invisible yet strong, and in a breathless instant of insight Edith understood. She stepped back, withholding the useless words that would only complicate the matter. Winslow would have to learn this lesson on his own. He had heard the town gossip, and he had been wounded past the point of rational thought. He would fight back however he could, and in that, at least, she could take comfort. His was a gentle spirit, and at least he had chosen to resist. On another day, he might have chosen to quit.
She forced her lips to part in a curved, still smile. “I think you look very handsome,” she said, deliberately injecting a playful note into her voice. “Come Sunday morning the folks here will wonder who on earth has invaded their pulpit.”
“I’m going to make a few changes,” Winslow said, picking up a comb from the dresser. He touched it to the toupee, then gave a practice swipe at a silken strand. “Try some new things with my sermons, maybe some visual aids. And I’m going to visit every parishioner on the island, see if there’s anything I’ve done to offend. If I’ve done something wrong, I’m going to make it right.”
“I can’t imagine you offending anyone.” Edith gentled her tone. “But I’m sure you’ll be doing the right thing, as long as you pray about it. Just be sure you have a peace from God before you go changing things, okay?”
He didn’t answer, but continued pulling the comb through his Hair, as fascinated by his reflection as a farmer poring over the latest Burpee’s seed catalog.
Chapter Six
Well, well, what have we here? An angel?”
Doctor Marcus Hayes smiled down at the golden-haired cherub on his front stoop. “And what might I do for you today, young lady?”
The eight-year-old, who was missing her two front teeth, flashed a shy grin before clearing her throat. Rolling her eyes upward, she focused on the welcome sign above the doctor’s door. “I am selling Boy Scout popcorn.” She paused as if she’d forgotten an important part, sighed, and started over.
“I am selling packages of Boy Scout popcorn.” She broke into nervous giggles, covering her mouth with her free hand, shifting to her opposite foot. “No.” Drawing a deep breath, she started over. “I’m taking ordersth for Boy Scout popcorn. Do you want to buy some?”
“Boy Scout popcorn? Shouldn’t you be selling Girl Scout cookies or Campfire Girl cookies?”
Shaking her head with a little giggle, the girl assessed him with sunbonnet blue eyes. “I’m helping my brudder.” Her tongue absently played with the gap between her teeth.
“Oh.” Doctor Marc nodded as if he suddenly got it.
“That’s very nice of you.”
“He wants to win a prize.”
“Ah.” The doctor nodded again. “You don’t live here on the island, do you?”
She shook her head. “I rode the ferry over.”
“Does your mother know what you’re doing?”
She rolled her eyes. “I’m thselling popcorn, thsilly! She sent me!”
The doctor smiled. “Of course.”
The little girl rummaged in the box she was trying to balance on one knee and came up with a somewhat rumpled order form. She read mechanically. “This delicious popcorn is a bargain. And the money goes to help young boys all across America achieve their dreams. And become tomorrow’s leaders.”
Doctor Marc cocked an inquisitive brow. “Is that right? All that from popcorn! And how much would helping tomorrow’s leaders cost a poor old man?”
“A mere three dollars,” she said seriously. “You can buy caramel corn for fifty centsth more.”
Chuckling, the doctor filled out the information on the tattered order form. Three boxes should about take care of any patient with a sweet tooth.
While the child knelt to count out change for a twenty, he spotted his landlady inside her screened porch, watching the sale. He raised a hand in greeting and she looked the other way.
“Have you asked Mrs. de Cuvier if she’d like to buy a box?” the doctor asked as the child stuffed the rumpled bills into his hand.
The girl turned and cast a furtive glance in Olympia de Cuvier’s direction. She shook her head and took a step back, one heel slipping off the porch.
The doctor reached out to catch her fall. “Whoa there, young lady. I’m in the market for popcorn, not a new patient.”
She giggled again and picked up her box. “Thank you, thsir.” Unfazed by her near fall, she thumped down the steps and headed for Mrs. de Cuvier’s door.
Marc watched the perky blonde girl march across his small lawn to the fence of the de Cuvier backyard. She paused and shifted the box to open the gate.
Olympia’s warning rang out before the child could undo the latch. “Whatever you’re selling, I don’t want any. Now you get away before I sic my dog on you.”
The girl stepped back, momentarily shocked, then turned tail and headed toward Main Street. Only with the child in flight did Olympia venture into the backyard with Tallulah hot on her heels. The short-legged dog loped to the fence to make sure the child was gone, then gave a pretentious little warning bark for other intruders to stay away.
Marc shook his head as he walked toward her. “Olympia, I don’t know why you don’t help the Ogunquit children. There aren’t many who venture across the inlet, and the youngsters who lived on the island are scared witless of even coming near Frenchman’s Folly . . . uh, I mean, Frenchman’s Fairest.”
Olympia lifted her fan and stirred the late morning air, ignoring his observation.
“I will not promote begging,” she sniffed. “What is that little girl’s mother thinking, sending a baby to peddle popcorn? Beggars—nothing more than knee-high beggars forcing their overpriced goods on honest folks.” As her
lecture went on, the doctor sensed she was talking more to Tallulah and herself than to him.
“Candles. Cookies. Three-dollar bags of popcorn.” She fanned harder. “Any fool can buy the exact thing for fifty cents at Wal-Mart. Honestly. You’d think people would have more pride than to let children roam the neighborhoods like lisping piranhas.”
The doctor smiled, knowing his battle was already lost. Still, the fall morning was beautiful and there was no better way to start the day than with a little gentle needling of one of the island’s most cantankerous citizens.
“But, Olympia! You’re helping the leaders of tomorrow. That little girl and her brother could grow up to be doctors or lawyers or politicians. Aren’t you always saying that children these days are going nowhere?”
Still flipping her hand fan, Olympia eyed the doctor. He smiled in return, knowing that he’d pressed precisely the right buttons to get a tongue-lashing. He could nearly recite by heart the speech that was sure to follow.
Olympia sniffed and snapped her fan shut. “No manners, that’s the problem with kids today. Edmund and I taught Annie and Edmund Junior to respect others, to do something with themselves instead of wandering around like vagrants. Edmund Junior didn’t have to sell popcorn to become one of Boston’s finest criminal attorneys. Annie surely didn’t peddle any candles to become a professor.” She stopped for a moment and turned toward her door.
Relieved, Marc thought the lecture was over. But as he turned to go in, she continued: “Sure, they don’t come home much, but sometimes you pay a price for doing a job right.” Her face clouded and she briskly reopened her fan.
“But isn’t Annie coming this weekend?”
“Ayuh.”
“Well,” the doctor continued, “they do come home now and again. I can’t wait to meet your niece. She sounds like a fine young lady. I’m sure she does you proud.”
Marc watched Olympia’s expression fade from stubbornness into a sweet sorrow. “Good day, Doctor Marc.” Calling to Tallulah, she allowed the dog to enter the house, then banged the screen door shut behind her.
Grinning, Marc shook his head and went inside to warm his coffee.
Olympia dropped the fan on the hall table and set about inspecting the house for Annie’s arrival. Dread overtook her when she thought about the long weekend ahead. Edmund was getting worse and Annie’s return was warranted, but reunions were always such an ordeal.
She absently straightened a bouquet of fall mums in the parlor. There was enough tension in the house with Edmund’s failing health. Now she had Annie to contend with, too.
When Annie left the island ten years earlier, she vowed she’d only return to spit on Olympia’s grave.
The hateful words still cut Olympia to the bone. Through the goodness of her heart, she had taken the seven-year-old girl when Ferrell and Ruth Ann died and tried to straighten out the mess those two had made of parenting, but the damage was too deep. Annie had grown sullen and unresponsive, refusing to listen to Olympia’s advice about what a de Cuvier woman should be.
The girl had been nothing but trouble until the day she graduated high school and promptly ran off to Portland in search of whatever an eighteen-year-old girl was looking for. Edmund urged Olympia to go and bring Annie home, but Olympia refused. Why, the girl should have been down on her hands and knees thanking her aunt and uncle for the years they sacrificed to raise her. Instead, Annie acted as though she was Cruella De Vil instead of Olympia de Cuvier.
“If you want the child back, go and get her yourself. She always loved you more anyway,” Olympia told her husband the summer day they found Annie’s room empty except for a note on the bed. Edmund said nothing, and the topic was not broached again.
That was what was wrong with the world today. Children were not taught to have respect for their elders. If mothers and fathers spent more time attending to their parental duties and less time at golf courses and country clubs, the world would be far better off.
“Missy?”
Olympia glanced up to see the family butler, Caleb, standing in the doorway. The caretaker, who had been with the de Cuvier family for over fifty years, was a trusted servant and the only man Olympia could confide in now that Edmund was dying. “What is it, Caleb?”
“The ferry will arrive in a few minutes. I’ll bring the carriage around.”
“Thank you, Caleb.”
She went to the hall table to retrieve her hat and gloves. Arranging her hair in front of the mirror, she took stock of her appearance.
“Look at you,” she murmured, sure that Caleb was out of earshot. “Still thin as a sprout and the picture of health. Aristocratic genes do hold up.” She turned left and right, touching her neck and face, then adjusted the hat and went out to the porch to await the carriage.
Caleb pulled the buggy up to the front of the gate and stopped. As Olympia descended the steps, Tallulah popped up at the screen door, begging to go for a carriage ride.
“No, Tallulah, you stay here. There won’t be enough room for all of us with you bouncing all over the place.” Olympia continued to the gate without looking back and a moment later settled herself in the small coach. Buggy travel bespoke a certain class, and she refused to surrender her carriage. No de Cuvier would ever be seen pedaling a bicycle or, worse yet, putting around in one of those electric golf carts. No indeed. Not while Olympia had two perfectly good feet and a fine horse and carriage.
As if reading her mind, Caleb broke the silence. “You know you can’t keep Blaze much longer.” He clucked the horse into a trot. “Why don’t we just retire the old boy and get one of those nice electric carts?”
Olympia shrugged the suggestion aside. “I will not give up my horse. I can stretch a dime and come up with six cents change if I have to.”
“Now, Missy.”
“Can’t we just enjoy our ride in peace, Caleb? It’s hard enough that Annie’s coming home. Do I have to be reminded of our finances, too?”
The old butler fell silent as Olympia mentally struggled to find a way to keep the carriage. Edmund had always made sure they were well provided for, but since he fell ill they had needed to dip into their retirement and her inheritance to keep the house running and pay medical bills. She shifted, uncomfortable with the reminder that her husband’s earthly days were coming to a close. Forty years she had spent with Edmund—a kind, genteel gentleman. Those days were closing fast.
Olympia had always feared that Edmund might precede her in death, but she had always managed to dismiss the thought until the doctors diagnosed Edmund’s cancer two years before. Since then she had kept hope that chemo and radiation would work their medical magic, but more and more often she found herself dreading the thought of life alone in Frenchman’s Fairest. Or even worse, life alone in one of those old folks’ institutions should they lose her ancestral home to bill collectors.
“Caleb,” Olympia said. “We won’t lose the house, will we?”
“Not if I can help it, ma’am.” The butler turned slightly on the seat and patted her knee. Olympia relaxed a bit, thanking God for Caleb. The old servant had been working for only room and board to help with finances. He helped with Edmund’s care and comforted Olympia with hot cocoa in the kitchen at night.
“Thank you, friend. I would be lost without you.” Tears welled in Olympia’s eyes and Caleb quietly hushed her.
“Now, Missy, pull yourself together,” he said as the ferry approached. “Miss Annie will need to see you smiling and welcoming her home.”
Chapter Seven
Shielding the box of tender seedlings she was carrying, Annie Cuvier listened for the gentle thrumpp that meant the ferry had docked. She spotted the waiting carriage, then caught sight of an unsmiling Olympia perched on the worn upholstery, her hands clasped tightly in her lap. Her aunt appeared as well-kept as ever. From what she could see, nothing had changed in the years since she had hopped the ferry to begin a new life. Olympia was still clinging to her old manners, her old pretentiousness,
and her old name . . . de Cuvier. Annie had dropped the “de” years before.
Ten years dropped away and Annie felt the familiar bitterness taking hold. Resentment began to build, accompanied by an overwhelming urge to throttle something. She expected it, but she’d hoped she could have at least gotten off the ferry before old memories rose up to haunt her. If it wasn’t for Uncle Edmund, wild horses couldn’t have dragged her back to Heavenly Daze.
“Deep breath, Annie,” she whispered. “In and out. You’re only here until Monday.”
Three excruciating days.
Summoning her perkiest smile, she stepped onto the walkway, babying the box of tender young plants on her hip. Caleb was waiting for her, his angelic face breaking into an affectionate smile.
Hurling herself into his arms, she pressed her face into his warm neck, drawing in the achingly familiar scent of Old Spice. She was suddenly a frightened seven-year-old, listening to strangers who introduced themselves as her aunt and uncle and said that her parents’ plane had gone down off the coast. Caleb had been waiting at the ferry when she first came to the island, and in his arms she’d felt an instant peace, a feeling she was happy to return to now.
“It’s good to have you home,” Caleb whispered, holding her tightly. He reached for the box of plants, balancing them on his right arm.
“It’s good to see you, old friend.”
Caleb had aged. How old was he now? Early seventies? New lines around his eyes and patches of silver in his once-dark hair reminded Annie of how quickly time passed.
Hugging him tightly, she thought seeing him was the only thing that would make this visit bearable. “Ooh, I’ve missed you!”
“I’ve missed you, little one. Welcome home.”
He released her and held her out for inspection. A mischievous grin hovered at the corners of his mouth and spread from his eyes to his pleasant features. “What a lovely creature you’ve become.”
