She’d sketched the route on a napkin and explained that the street was a little tricky to find. “But once you’re there,” she’d laughed and handed Vicky two coffees and the napkin, “you can’t miss the place.”
Vicky hadn’t realized then that the clerk was a master of understatement.
She rolled down the window, taking in the vast green lawns and majestic pines. Red and white impatiens lined a brick walkway that meandered around a garden swing and across a wooden bridge over a pond, eventually ending at a set of stairs and a small covered porch—a route that probably drove delivery men crazy, but thoroughly delighted Vicky.
It was every Victorian fantasy, every dream of afternoon tea and white lace dresses she had ever known. A dollhouse come to life, the one she would think about long after she moved into her own tiny house in Milton, and she couldn’t hold back a sigh as she pulled the card for Willy from the envelope.
Reid scrunched down farther in his seat, peering at the house through her window. “You like that place?”
She swung her purse up from the back. “You don’t, I suppose”
“Too busy,” he said, already climbing out of the car.
She sniffed and slipped Willy’s card into her purse along with the one they should have opened in Seaport. “What do you know about architecture anyway?”
“Not much, but I know what I like. And that is definitely not it.”
He closed the door and Vicky glanced over at the house, giving the fish-scale siding, the wrought-iron balconies, and the three weathervanes on the roof another quick once-over.
Busy? Hardly. But Reid would see it that way.
Of course, if the house had been Federal he would have found it too plain. Georgian—too southern. And Spanish? That was just too easy. He might know what he liked, but he’d never shared it with her. As far as she knew, there had never been a house he liked, and she’d long ago given up trying to find one.
Just as she’d given up trying to find out what he was going to do about Seaport. But if he went back, he was definitely going alone.
He reached the gate and looked back at the car. “You coming?”
Vicky opened the door and flashed Albert a quick thumbs-up on her way out, positive he was on her side. “I’ll let you know how it goes with Willy,” she whispered, and left the window open for the fish as she hurried across to the gate.
Reid followed her along the brick wall, watching her slow on the bridge and touch a hand to the swing. He paused on the bridge himself, looking down into the pond below. Seeing the frogs, the lily pads, the statue of the fish with water pouring out of its mouth. Wondering how often the filter system broke down and who came out to fix it.
She waved him on and he reached the stairs in time to hear the doorbell chime, an old eight-note prayer, the words of which escaped him. The front door opened and he took the stairs two at a time. Reaching the top and Vicky as an old man stepped into view. He was tall and thin, with snapping blue eyes, and a fringe of white hair circling his head.
“Mr. Foley?” Reid asked.
“For as long as I can remember,” he said, and opened the door wider. “Come on in.”
They stepped into a foyer of dark wood and botanical prints. A double glass door was open behind George, allowing them a view of the main hall and a central staircase. Reid glanced around, figuring a skylight wouldn’t hurt. Neither would a coat of white paint on those baseboards. But judging by the look on Vicky’s face, she probably didn’t see it that way. Her eyes were everywhere at once. The stenciled hardwood, the hat tree, the runner on the stairs beyond the door—a vivid oriental in shades of red and blue that were no doubt echoed throughout the house.
“You’re a mite early,” George said. “Wilma’s still with her one o’clock. But you can have a seat in the parlor, and I’ll let her know you’re here.”
“She’s not expecting us,” Reid said.
Mr. Foley tipped his head to the side, obviously confused.
Reid extended a hand. “I’m Reid Ferguson and this is my wife, Vicky.”
“George Foley,” he said, taking first Reid’s hand, then Vicky’s. “I’m so accustomed to seeing Wilma’s patients at the door, I automatically assumed you were the Sweeneys.” He settled his hands on his hips. “What can I do for you?”
“My uncle was Albert Ferguson,” Reid said. “We’re here on his behalf. To see Willy.”
“Willy,” George murmured, his smile wavering as a woman appeared in the hallway behind him.
“Albert Ferguson?” the woman said. “Oh, my God, how is he?”
Reid watched her come toward them. She was slender and graceful in a simple cotton dress, her snow white hair cut short and spiky, framing strong features and a smile as wide and genuine as George’s had been.
While they both had to be well over sixty now, there was no mistaking that this was the couple in the picture at the park, thirty-nine years later.
“I’m Wilhelmina Foley,” she said and extended a hand. “Most people call me Wilma.” Her grip was firm, her gaze honest and direct. Reid couldn’t help thinking the more casual “Willy” suited her better.
Vicky stepped forward. “It’s wonderful to meet you,” she said.
While introductions were made, a young couple exited one of the rooms along the hall, the wife very pregnant and the husband obviously concerned.
“You’ll have to excuse me a moment,” Willy said, walking toward the couple.
“We’ll see you next week, same time?” the young man asked.
Willy patted his arm and laughed. “If not sooner.”
He gave a solemn nod and took his wife’s arm. “The bag is packed, right?”
“For weeks,” she said.
“I remember the bag,” Reid whispered to Vicky.
“I remember you forgot it,” she whispered back, stepping to one side as the couple approached.
“I’m like a tank,” the young woman said on her way through the foyer.
“You’re perfect,” Vicky said to her. “Good luck.” And Reid couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen her smile quite that way.
Willy followed them out to the porch. “You call me anytime, day or night. And mind the stairs.”
“You’re an obstetrician?” Vicky asked when she came back inside.
“She’s supposed to be retired,” George said. “We took the sign off the lawn five years ago. Made plans to travel the world, but couples kept coming to the door and she couldn’t say no.” He smiled at his wife. “We’ve built up quite a collection of holiday brochures since then.”
Willy laughed and shrugged a guilty shoulder. “I delivered most of them. How can I say no when they start having babies of their own?” She turned to Reid. “You look very much like Albert. Are you his son?”
“Nephew. Albert never married.”
“I should have guessed.” She looked over at George. “You remember Albert, don’t you?”
His brows rose. “Who could forget?”
“So what in the world is he doing now?” Willy asked, her eyes moving from Vicky to Reid and back again. Her smile slowly faded. “Oh God. He’s dead, isn’t he?”
“A few weeks ago, in Mexico,” Reid said, still finding it hard to believe, to accept, even as he told her about the will, the ashes, and the reason they were at her door.
“He wanted us to give you these.” Vicky set the silver key on top of the card and held them out to her. “I have to admit, I’d love to know what that key opens.”
“Me, too,” Willy said softly, almost absently, glancing at George before taking both card and key from Vicky. She laid the key in her palm, touched it as though proving to herself it was real then closed her fingers around it and smiled at Vicky. “My apologies,” she said, the wistful look in her eyes, the softness in her voice disappearing as quickly as it had come. “Here I am making you stand at the door when there’s a perfectly good parlor right around the corner. Please, come in.”
She
and George led them through the glass doors to the parlor and a pair of love seats framing a fireplace. The room was as cluttered as the foyer with claw-foot furniture, too many knickknacks, and tassels everywhere. The effect was formal and fussy, putting Reid in mind of his grandmother’s penthouse in Manhattan, where everything had a place and nothing ever moved.
But George and Willy obviously had no such rules, and Reid watched with open fascination as they tossed silk and damask pillows on the floor, making room for their company on the sofa.
Willy balanced the card against a small brass bird on the coffee table, slipped the key into the pocket of her dress and motioned them to sit. “Can I offer you some iced tea?”
“I’ll get it,” George said, already on his way to the door. “Willy’s the one who knew Albert best, and I’m the one who makes the better cup of tea. You three sit and talk.”
“His tea really is better,” Willy said, sinking into the sofa across from Reid and Vicky. “So how did you know where to find me?”
“We didn’t,” Reid said. “In fact we thought we were looking for a man because he called you Willy.”
Her eyes crinkled with a smile. “He’s the only one who ever dared. Once he discovered how much it annoyed my father, there was no stopping him.”
“He had a problem with authority figures,” Reid said.
“It runs in the family,” Vicky added
“I had a feeling it might.” Willy rose and crossed to the bookcase beside the fireplace. “I have some pictures you might like to see.”
She ran a hand along a row of leather books, photo albums Reid realized now.
“It was 1962 when he came to Seaport,” she said. “I turned sixteen in March, and he came a week later. Had nothing but a suitcase when he arrived, and left with nothing more at the end of the summer.”
She pulled a volume from the shelf and went back to the sofa. Setting Albert’s note on the seat next to her, she pushed aside the brass bird, a crystal dish even a porcelain vase his grandmother would have handled with care, making room for the album on the coffee table in front of Reid and Vicky. “He was an odd one,” she continued. “Good-looking, always laughing.” She flipped back the cover and smiled at the first page of pictures. “And so skinny.”
“And pale,” Vicky said, leaning closer. “I would never have imagined Albert without a tan.”
Reid sat forward with her, eager to see the Albert he had never known. A man younger than he was himself, with thick black hair, a face that was all angles and shadows, and a summer in Seaport ahead of him.
“He definitely had that New York pallor when he got here,” Willy said. “But he was brown as a berry when he left.” She tilted her head to the side, studying the pictures. “It’s his smile I remember most, though. And his eyes, of course, so dark and deep-set. When he smiled, it was like looking at the devil himself.” She glanced over at Vicky. “Of course, your husband has the self-same look, so you know what I’m talking about.”
“Too true,” she agreed and looked over at Reid.
But he was lost in the pictures, his expression unreadable as he scanned the page, absorbing the images of Albert laughing by the water, terrified on a horse, sweating over an ax. Reaching the one that made him stop and draw the album closer. A shot of Albert on a point of land overlooking the ocean, his arm around a girl.
The girl’s hair was white-blond, curling softly on her shoulders in the style of the time. She wore shorts and a blouse tied under her breasts, like a pinup from the war.
While Albert stared boldly into the camera there was a shyness in the way the girl smiled, the way she dipped her chin. Nothing at all like the confident woman and respected doctor who sat across from them now.
Reid pointed to the picture. “Where is this place?”
Willy turned the album slightly, smiled at a private memory. “That’s Jackson’s Point,” she said, and for an instant, Vicky glimpsed the girl Albert must have known. Sweet, demure, and obviously in love.
“They didn’t know this spot at the park,” Reid said.
“No one called it that except Albert and I.” She pointed to another shot. Herself and Albert in bathing suits on the beach. “See the dog there in the corner? That’s Jackson, my father’s prize poodle. Dumbest dog you ever met, and the only reason I met Albert.
“I’d seen him around, of course,” she continued. “The town was small and a newcomer was hard to miss. But we moved in different circles, barely nodded if we passed each other on the street. Then one day I was out with Jackson on that point, and he was sniffing too close to the edge as always. For some reason, he lost his footing and his back end went over. He hung there a moment, his front paws scrambling, too afraid even to whimper.
“I dropped onto my belly and grabbed hold of his paws. Tried to pull him up, but he was too heavy, I was losing him. Then out of nowhere, Albert appears. Lies down right beside me and without so much as a by-your-leave, puts his hands on mine and together we pull that dog right up, just as neat as you please.” She grinned at Reid. “Skinny but strong, was Albert. Very strong. And nervy. He didn’t know the meaning of prudence.”
Reid laughed and Vicky’s heart squeezed. He was another man without prudence. Brave, strong. He’d walk through fire for her and the kids and only think about the scars when it was too late.
“After that we were together most of the time,” Willy said. “He was a good friend, a great listener, mostly because he didn’t talk much about himself. But when he did, it was always about flying.”
Reid glanced up, watching Willy and thinking of Albert’s request, of wanting to fly. Trying again to recall a time when he’d heard him mention anything about becoming a pilot himself. If there had ever been a clue, something in his voice, his eyes, when Reid himself was young and spoke of nothing else. But no matter how hard he searched, all he could see was Albert smiling, encouraging him to follow his heart, and all he heard was his laughter.
“He had an atlas in his suitcase,” Willy said, “with all the cities he wanted to see circled in red. Paris, Rome, London.” She looked over at Reid. “Did he ever go?”
“He went, but for some reason he never got his pilot’s license.”
Willy shook her head. “That’s odd. Especially since he was the one who always said, ‘Go out there and get what you want.’ ”
“And damn the consequences,” Reid said.
“He made it seem like anything was possible,” she said. “In fact, it was his fault I went in to medicine.” She turned as George came through the door with a pitcher of iced tea and tall glasses on a tray. “There was hell to pay over that one, remember?”
“Her father wanted her safely married off and having babies,” George said, while she shoved the knick knacks over even farther, making room for the tray. “Needless to say, he didn’t know Wilma. And he hated Albert.”
“The feeling was mutual,” Willy said, filling the glasses and dropping in lacy slices of lemon. “My father was very much like my grandfather. Powerful, demanding. Always right, of course. My father and Albert clashed from the moment they met.” She handed glasses to Vicky and Reid. “I assume that since you’re here, he eventually sorted things out with his family.”
Reid spooned sugar into his tea. “Let’s just say that we still don’t speak of him around my grandmother.”
George looked at him curiously. “Then how did you and Vicky come to be the ones to fulfill his last request?”
“We were his favorite niece and nephew.” Reid passed the sugar bowl to Vicky. “The happiest couple he knew.”
“Of course, he lived in a very small town,” Vicky said, sending a quick, bright smile across the table. “So how long have you two been married?”
“Over forty years.” Willy motioned to the picture frames on the mantel. “Those are our daughters, Janice and Adrienne, and we have six grandchildren now as well.”
“I swear those girls think they have to keep their mother in business,” George
said. “Do you two have children?”
“A girl and a boy,” Reid said. “Five and two.”
“They must miss you,” George said. “When are you going back to Seaport to scatter the ashes?”
“There’s not much point in going back,” Vicky said. “Since they won’t let us scatter them on Jackson’s Point.”
Willy sat up straighter. “Why ever not?”
“Too close to the shoreline,” Vicky said, and sipped at her tea while Reid told them of the ranger’s threat.
“They are very keen over there,” Willy said. “And they’ve done a wonderful job restoring the area. Of course my family were all loggers so I have very little to say in these matters.”
“The issue is closed anyway,” Vicky said. “There are hundreds of places where we can scatter without a problem. In fact, maybe you can tell us somewhere else that Albert might like. A place outside of Seaport, a beach where you went together perhaps.”
“I can’t think of anything offhand.”
Vicky’s cell phone chirped the same moment the doorbell chimed.
“Excuse me,” Willy said.
“I’ll only be a minute,” Vicky added, and both women got to their feet, one heading for the door while the other fumbled with her purse.
“Zack?” Vicky carried the phone into the dining room. “Give it to me straight.”
George smiled at Reid. “More tea?”
“No thank you,” he said, and looked back at his host. “So Willy and Albert were close?”
George rose and picked up the empty lemon dish. “She would have married him if he’d asked. So I guess you could call that close.”
“But Willy said they were just friends.”
George gave him a patient smile. “What else would she say? Albert left when he said he would, on the first of September. Not a day earlier, not a day later. He was funny like that, precise about small things, but careless with the big ones.
Love, Albert Page 14
