by Mary Simses
“I never even went to the pharmacy,” I admitted sheepishly. “Thank God Paula got that doctor over here.”
Hayden adjusted his bandaged leg on the pillows. “I guess you’ll have to go to the pharmacy now, though. What did he prescribe, anyway?”
“Let’s see.” I looked at the first prescription. “Tylenol with codeine.” Then I saw something odd. Little paw prints across the top of the prescription sheet.
Paw prints?
Underneath the paw prints I saw the name: PETER HERBERT, DVM, HERBERT ANIMAL HOSPITAL. The guy was a vet.
Chapter 15
Sugar
The next morning it poured. I took one look at the rain pelting the windows and wished I could stay in bed all day. But it was Monday, and I had an important appointment to keep.
Hayden was already awake beside me, reading The Art of Negotiation: How to Argue Like a Five-Year-Old, a book that had been on the bestseller list for twenty-six weeks.
“Are you feeling any better?” I asked.
He nodded. “A lot better. I think it’s fine.”
I looked at his ankle. It still looked puffy to me. “Well, you need to be careful. You know what the…uh…doctor said.” I would take the knowledge that Dr. Peter Herbert’s patients typically had four legs with me to my grave.
Hayden took my hand and pulled me toward him. Then he wrapped his arms around me and kissed me, his hands drifting through my hair. “I love you, Mrs. Hayden Croft.”
Mrs. Hayden Croft.
“Ah,” I murmured. “I love you, too, Mr. Hayden Croft.”
“Maybe someday,” he said, kissing my neck, his breath warm against my skin, “we’ll be Senator and Mrs. Hayden Croft.”
“Maybe we will,” I whispered. Closing my eyes, I imagined us at a fund-raiser, in black tie, at the Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. We’re navigating our way through a packed room full of dinosaur skeletons. People are grabbing us, shaking our hands. Senator, Mrs. Croft, over here. I’m wearing Oscar de la Renta and giving air kisses.
“Sounds pretty good, doesn’t it?”
I opened my eyes to find Hayden smiling at me. He kissed me again and then began to pull my T-shirt over my head. Yes, he was feeling much better.
“You are not coming with me,” I told Hayden as I pushed him back down on the bed. He had put on khakis and a button-down shirt and was now trying to get a sock over his ankle bandage. Sometimes he could be so stubborn.
“Sugar lives all the way up in Pequot,” I said. “That’s a two-hour drive at least. You’re staying here.”
Lila Falk’s daughter, Sugar, had not seemed too anxious to meet with me when I called her. In fact, it was only after I suggested I might be willing to pay her a nominal “storage fee” for taking care of my grandmother’s things that she perked up and became a little more accommodating.
“I can’t very well send you to see this woman by yourself,” Hayden said, still working on the sock.
“What are you talking about? You make it sound like she’s crazy or something. Trust me, she’s not. Besides, I’ve been all over this state by myself already.”
He pulled the sock up the rest of the way. “That may be so, but now that I’m here I’m going with you.”
“But you’re not supposed to be on that leg. Doctor’s orders.” I bit my lip.
Hayden flung an exasperated hand at me. “I’ll put the seat back and lie down. What’s the difference whether I’m lying down here or in the car?”
I thought about that. He wasn’t a litigator for nothing. “All right, but when we get there you’ll stay in the car, off the leg, right?”
He smiled and did this little squinty thing with his eyes that meant he was agreeing but he wasn’t necessarily committing.
We borrowed a couple of umbrellas from the inn, and Hayden put the passenger seat in the car all the way back as I set the GPS. We drove to the highway, heading toward Pequot, a town northwest of Beacon.
Three hours later, I slowed down in front of a small gray ranch house. A tattered American flag fluttered in the rain above the front door, and a decaying off-road vehicle, some sort of camper, sat on blocks, in puddles, by the side of the house.
“This is it?” Hayden said, scanning the yard. “Are you sure? Looks like a dump.”
“Look at the number on the mailbox,” I said, biting my nail. “It says two-seven-seven. That’s what she told me.” I pulled into the driveway.
Hayden glanced at the mailbox and then stared at the camper, with its rusted fenders and patches of primer and assorted paint colors. “I’m not letting you go in there by yourself.”
I took another look at the house and didn’t argue. Under sheets of rain we crossed the yard, Hayden limping beside me as we dodged the puddles. We took shelter by the front door, beneath a small overhang of partially rotted wood. I searched for a doorbell and, seeing none, gave a hard rap on the door.
A moment later it opened and a fiftyish-looking stick-thin woman with dirty hair stood in the doorway. With a cigarette dangling from her mouth like an unanswered question, she looked us up and down and then motioned for us to come inside.
“I was only expecting one of you,” she said as we stepped into a tiny living room that smelled of smoke and cabbage. A brown Naugahyde sofa, covered with spiderweb cracks, stood against a wall, accompanied by a coffee table made from a wagon wheel and a circular piece of dusty glass.
Sugar looked us up and down again, tucking her head in like a turtle. She studied my silk pants and sweater, and I began to wish I’d worn my jeans and a T-shirt instead.
“You must be Sugar,” I said. “I’m Ellen and this is my fiancé, Hayden Croft.” I offered my hand and thought she was going to shake it, but instead she reached across me and tapped her cigarette ash into the pot of a large, wilted plant. Then she blew out a thin, wavering stream of purple smoke.
She eyed Hayden. “What kind of a name is Croft, anyway?”
Hayden brightened up. “It’s British, actually. My ancestors came over on the Mayflower.”
Sugar raised her eyebrows and pursed her lips. “And I went on a Carnival cruise once, so I guess that makes us even.” She put her head back and made a coughing sound that I realized, after a few seconds, was a laugh. A look of quiet alarm came over Hayden’s face.
“You wanna sit down?” Sugar asked. With the burning end of her cigarette she motioned to the sofa.
I moved toward it cautiously, examining the sticky-looking patches and fissures from which tufts of gray stuffing erupted. Glancing down at my silk pants, I slowly lowered myself to the edge of the cushion. Hayden perched beside me, the two of us like birds ready for flight. Sugar sat across from us and hung her cigarette over the side of a sagging armchair.
“So you’ve been to see Ma.” She made a crooked half smile and pushed her chin-length hair away from her face with the heel of her hand. Her hair displayed the results of multiple experiments with dye—clumps of gray, brassy gold, and auburn amicably shared space with a patch of green, the color of penicillin growing on stale bread.
“Yes, I went to see your mother,” I said. “We had a nice chat. She’s very sweet.”
Sugar winced. “Hmm. I guess everyone’s entitled to their opinion.” She put her head back and laughed again, hacking away and waving her cigarette around like a gymnast waving a ribbon.
I could feel Hayden’s knee pressing against mine. “Yes…well,” I went on. “As I told you on the phone, your mother mentioned that you had some things of my grandmother’s. She said I should come by and get them.”
“Some things?” Sugar sat up and glared at me, her head in a nest of smoke. “Oh, yeah, I got everybody’s things.” She folded her arms across her chest. “Ma’s, Ronny’s, Doug’s. I got forty-year-old comic books, beer bottles from around the world, football jerseys from who knows where. And let me ask you, does this place look big? I mean, does it?”
“I’m not sure I…” I glanced at Hayden, who started to spe
ak, but Sugar cut in.
“No, no, Mr. Mayflower. I’ll tell you the answer. It’s not big. It’s small.” She blew a plume of smoke toward us.
I could see the muscles in Hayden’s neck tense. “Mrs. Hawley, we’re just here to collect Mrs. Ray’s possessions,” he said. “The things that your mother—”
“The name’s Sugar. And that’s my point, Mayflower.” She smiled, exhibiting a gray front tooth on the upper right side of her mouth. “I got everybody’s junk here and it’s costing me a bundle to keep it all.”
Hayden’s face went red. “Look, my name’s not Mayflower. It’s Hayden. Hayden Croft, and—”
Sugar waved him off. “Aw, come on.” She shrugged. “I was just having a little fun.”
Hayden took a breath and let it out slowly, composing himself. He glanced around the room, noting the stacks of vinyl record albums and cardboard cartons overflowing with ancient-looking leather-bound books.
“Maybe you should consider selling some of this,” he said. “If it’s valuable.”
Sugar exploded into another hacking fit of laughter. “Well, aren’t you the bright bulb in the pack? That’s exactly what I’m doing!” She shook her head. “It’s slow going, though, writing up them ads and having to take the pictures. And my camera’s not too good. Could use a better one.” She winked at me.
“A better camera?” I said. I leaned closer to Hayden and whispered, “I did tell her I might be able to pay her a little something for storage.”
“She gives me the creeps,” he whispered back. “Don’t go overboard.”
I opened my purse in search of my checkbook. “I’m sorry you’ve had to store Gran’s possessions,” I said. “We really need to get going, but if you’d bring me her things I’d be happy to pay you something for your inconvenience.”
Hayden’s arm launched out and grabbed mine. “I think we should see what Mrs.—uh, what Sugar has first, Ellen.”
Sugar stood up. “I’ll go get it. One less box.” She peered at a purple frog ashtray on the coffee table, moved it about two inches, nodded, and left the room.
I glanced at Hayden.
“Really weird,” he mouthed to me.
I nodded. “Let’s get the stuff and get out of here.”
Sugar returned, holding a cardboard box not much larger than a man’s shoe box. Well, this couldn’t have taken up much space, I thought as she handed it to me.
I opened the box and, one by one, I took out the items that were inside and placed them on my lap. There was a little sketch pad with a pink paper cover, a packet of handwritten notes in what looked like my grandmother’s writing, a silk scarf of water lilies on a blue background, a black fountain pen with an ornate silver band around it, a book of poems by American poets with a number of pages dog-eared (I made a mental note to see if “Mending Wall” was in there), a magnifying glass with a carved wooden handle, a book called Native Flowers of New England with a ragged cloth binding, another clothbound book called The Berry Farmer’s Companion, and a stack of twenty faded black-and-white photographs. A few of the photos were of my grandmother; the rest were of people I didn’t recognize. I was hoping there might be a school yearbook or a diary, but I wasn’t disappointed. I clutched the box, anxious to get back to the inn, where I could spread everything out on the bed and study the items one by one.
“So this is it,” I said, brushing my hand over the top of the box. “Thank you.”
Sugar stared at my engagement ring. “Some rock. He get that for you?” She tilted her head toward Hayden. “Mr. Mayflower?”
Hayden stood up, his jaw rigid. “Let’s go, Ellen. I think we’ve taken up enough of Mrs. Hawley’s time. There’s nothing here anyway but a lot of junk.” He glared at Sugar. “Forget eBay. You couldn’t give this stuff away.”
Sugar’s eyes smoldered. “Well, aren’t you two all high-and-mighty? Just like your grandmother.” She pointed to me. “Oh, I know all about her. Ma used to tell me stories. Ruth this and Ruth that. How they were such great friends. Personally, I think your grandmother was nothing but a big snob from the sound of it. Thought she was too good for Beacon.”
“What are you talking about?” I said, my voice rising in indignation. “You didn’t even know my grandmother. You have no right to say that.”
“I know enough to have my own opinion. Sugar’s opinion.” She pointed to herself. “I know the type. Your grandmother couldn’t wait to get out of here. She wasn’t going to end up spending her life picking blueberries, so she ran off with some big-shot doctor from Chicago.”
How dare she, I thought as I stood up and turned to Hayden. “I’m ready. Let’s get out of here.”
Sugar tugged at my sleeve. “Oh, hold on. Wait a minute there.” Her voice turned quiet, almost saccharinely sweet. “You think old Sugar’s just got junk? Well, you might be interested in seeing what else I got—you’re so fascinated by all this family stuff.” She raised one eyebrow. “Follow me.”
Hayden and I looked at one another. I could see he didn’t want to go any farther. “What if she has something else of Gran’s?” I whispered.
We followed Sugar down a narrow hallway, stepping into a dark bedroom that smelled like cough medicine. By the light of two small windows I saw boxes piled high, bookshelves crammed, and shopping bags and storage bins overflowing with Sugar’s collections. I inched my way farther inside as she switched on a lamp.
“Now, your grandmother’s stuff is over there.” She pointed across the room.
“My grandmother’s stuff?” I glanced at Hayden. “So there is something else.”
Sugar led us around the bed to a corner where five piles of rectangular boards, some as large as three feet by five feet, leaned against a wall.
“What is this?” Hayden said, moving closer.
As I stepped forward, I could see that some of the boards had wooden strips running around the edges and wires strung from one end to the other.
“These are paintings,” I said, moving in quickly. “We’re looking at the backs.”
I grabbed one and turned it around. The piece measured about two feet by three feet and depicted, in lively brushstrokes and smears of dancing color, a sailboat regatta. Three small sailboats, bursting with wind, took up the foreground. A smattering of smaller boats skimmed the water in the distance behind them. The waves swirled in bits of blue, and white froth leaped above the hulls. It was Maine. I could smell the salt. I looked at the bottom right corner and saw the name in the loopy up-and-down handwriting I knew so well. Ruth Goddard.
Hayden took the painting and set it down. We stepped back to view it, and my mouth went dry. “Wow,” I said.
“Wow is right,” Hayden said. “Your grandmother did this?”
I nodded. “I guess so.” I took a step closer and touched the paint she had swirled together to create the water. I felt the surface of the sails. I could almost hear the boats cutting through the waves. And I could picture my grandmother creating this. I didn’t know when or where she did it, but I had an image of her, before an easel, dabbing paint on top of paint.
I grabbed the next painting, a slightly smaller one, and turned it around. There was a young man in a field of blueberries with a red barn in the distance. He stood between two rows of bushes, picking the berries with one hand and holding a red pail in the other. Sun glinted off the pail and the plants and the young man’s sandy brown hair. His nose was freckled. It looked like a younger version of the Chet Cummings in Susan Porter’s attic.
“Look at this,” I whispered, tracing my finger over the painting, feeling the edges of paint, the grooves of the brush. “I think this is Chet Cummings.” I ran my hand down to the right corner and brushed my finger over the name. Ruth Goddard.
“Beautiful,” Hayden said, setting that one next to the first. “Let’s try this group,” he said as he pulled a painting from one of the other stacks. A gray-haired woman wearing a white apron stood proudly in front of a little hut in which baskets of fruit were displ
ayed for sale. In another painting, two boys played with yellow wooden boats in a tide pool. The name on both paintings was Ruth Goddard.
I turned to Sugar. “They’re all my grandmother’s, aren’t they?”
She puffed a trail of smoke at me. “Sure are.”
I sat down on a small empty space on the edge of the bed and stared at the sailboat regatta. Something about the reflection of the boat in the water, the red hull shimmering in a million colors in the blue-black sea—triggered a memory.
I was on a dock with my grandmother, at a harbor. We were looking at the reflections in the water, at the hulls of the boats, and she asked, “What colors do you see there, Ellen?”
I pointed to a boat with a yellow hull. “Yellow,” I told her.
“Ah, and what else?” she asked. “What other colors do you see? There are lots of colors in that reflection.” And then I looked more closely and I saw the other colors—orange and green, purple and a little gray, gold and even pink. I named the colors and she said, “That’s right, and if you keep looking you’ll keep seeing more and more. That’s what it means to be an observer, Ellen. There’s always more there than you think.”
Hayden was inspecting the sailboat regatta in small sections, staring at the brushstrokes. I got up from the bed and stood next to him.
He leaned closer. “This is good-quality work,” he whispered. “Very nicely done.” He turned to the canvas of the boys in the tidal pool and leaned in again. “Quite stunning,” he said. “These remind me of the American impressionist Childe Hassam.”
“I’ve heard of him,” I whispered back, “but I don’t recall his work.”
“Some say he was the greatest American impressionist ever,” Hayden said. “His use of sunlight was superb. He painted scenes of everyday life, like these.”
I nodded and then gazed at the stacks of paintings, amazed that Gran had done all this work. “My God, there must be twenty paintings here,” I said.
“Twenty-five,” Sugar corrected me.
