Now what?
To have something sturdy to do, she retrieved her car, paid the ridiculously low parking fee, and followed the attendant’s directions to I-295. It was Sunday at 3:00 p.m. If she drove straight home right now, she could make it to New York around ten, depending on traffic. She could “swing things” back her way with Michael. She could get a good night’s sleep and arrive at nine sharp at Whitman, Goldberg & Whitman. She could do all that for the rest of her life. She could just float along instead of creating the current. She couldn’t imagine going back to her job. Back to the noise and traffic and eight million people. Back to the lack of her father.
“Your dad wanted you to know you don’t have to settle for Michael, that you’re not all alone in the world.…”
At the traffic light, she could take 295 South to head to New York.
Or 295 North to Wiscasset.
The light turned green, but she didn’t move. She glanced in her rearview mirror and realized there was a car behind her, waiting—patiently—for her to go. No honk. In New York, everyone in line would be pressing on their horns. Maine was a place where you could think, take your time.
It was where her half sister was.
Rebecca turned on her left blinker, the clickety-clicking and the tiny green blinking a comfort. She went North.
eight
The delicious smell of something baking—pumpkin pie?—and the on-again-off-again whir of a power saw greeted Rebecca when she came through the front door of Finch’s Seaside Inn. After a weekend away, the old yellow Victorian felt familiar, felt like home. Rebecca knew which winding hallways, with their faded pink and orange runners, led to the reading parlor, the “media” parlor, the big country kitchen without a hint of granite or stainless steel, and the glorious backyard with its hammocks and wildflowers and birdhouses.
She followed the scent of pumpkin and, Rebecca could now hear, the strains of a Beyoncé song. The narrow hallway to the kitchen was lined—floor to ceiling—with photographs of people, landscapes, and animals, in frames of all shapes and sizes. There were framed children’s paintings and drawings as well. The stairway wall in the house Rebecca had grown up in was similarly covered with photographs and several Rebecca Strand originals.
Marianne, in jeans and a hot-pink apron with a tiny cartoon moose, her shiny gray hair in a low bun at her nape, stood at the stove, stirring a huge pot with a long wooden spoon. She was swaying her hips to the music. On the tiled counter were two trays of Marianne’s famed whoopie pies, those little round cream-filled sandwich cakes. Rebecca remembered seeing Marianne’s whoopie pies for sale on the counter at Mama’s, the cellophane wrapping with its Finch’s Famed Whoopie Pies sticker and tied with a red and white polka-dotted ribbon.
The idea of starting her own kitchen-based business in a small town in Maine suddenly seemed not only enchanting but entirely possible. Not that Rebecca knew how to bake. She once sliced refrigerated premade cookie dough and baked the cookies for exactly the time on the label, but they came out both undercooked and burned at the same time.
“Ooh, Rebecca, I didn’t even hear you come in. Be my taster, will you? I’m working on a new filling.” Marianne dipped a spoon into one of the many pots on the stove. She held it out to Rebecca. “What do you think?”
“I knew I smelled pumpkin,” Rebecca said. “Mmmm, wonderful. Just delicious.”
She felt her smile fade. Thanksgiving was coming. She’d never gotten used to celebrating the holiday without her mother. The sight of a roast turkey ready for carving on a pretty platter used to make her cry. A bite of stuffing, even when it wasn’t the bacon-and-sausage-enhanced perfection of her mother’s, would bring forth Norah Strand’s face. And a glance around the table would remind her that her mother wasn’t there, would never be there. Now her father would never be there, either.
The day that Michael’s mother had come down to visit, the day she’d given her the wedding gown, she’d told Rebecca she’d be happy to whip up Thanksgiving dinner in Rebecca and Michael’s apartment and then pack it all up and serve it in her father’s hospital room. They could bring in a large folding table, a beautiful tablecloth, and Glenda Whitman’s good china, and set up a cozy dining room around her father’s bed.
That was kindness.
Rebecca hadn’t mentioned Glenda Whitman’s offer to Michael; in the wake of her father’s confession about the affair, about the baby, she’d forgotten all about it. And then he was gone.
Michael wouldn’t have come right out and said, “That would be depressing, no? To have Thanksgiving dinner in a hospital room? Why don’t we bring him a plate—two helpings, even—after we’ve eaten.” But she knew he’d think it. Michael would have his meal in room 8–401 of NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, smile through it, clink cider cups with her dad, and maybe even give a heartfelt toast. But what was unspoken—That antiseptic smell is overpowering … all the IVs are ruining my appetite … would shout in Rebecca’s ear.
“I did mention the price cut of the room included construction noise, right?” Marianne called over the whir of the power saw, shooting Rebecca a smile. “Putting up with the saws and hammering will be worth the back porch and deck for next spring and summer, though.” Marianne filled a thermos with coffee and added milk and sugar. “Do me a favor, Rebecca? Will you bring one of these whoopie pies and this thermos of coffee to Theo? He’s been working for hours, poor dear. If you go out the front door and around back, you’ll find him. When you come back, the pumpkin mixture should be ready. I’ll make you up a special one.”
Theo was here? Rebecca could use a bit of his wisdom.
“More than worth the noise,” Rebecca said, taking the whoopie pie and the thermos and heading out the kitchen’s back door. Once again, the evergreens and the oaks—were they oaks? Rebecca didn’t know much about trees—stopped her in her tracks. She breathed in the clean scent of nature, of trees and grass and birds and butterflies.
Theo, in a black T-shirt and faded army green cargo pants, kneeled on the foundation of the deck, hammering. The sun lit his sandy blond hair. She watched him until she realized he would catch her staring.
“Hey,” she said.
He turned and his warm, genuine smile sent little goose bumps popping up along her arms. “Noise too much?” he asked. “I’d think a woman from New York City would be used to noise worse than this, but I guess you stop hearing it there.”
“About an hour ago I was daydreaming at a red light,” Rebecca said, “and when it turned green, the person behind me didn’t honk. That would never happen in New York.”
“They don’t put ‘Vacationland’ on our license plates for nothing.”
She smiled and held up what was in her hands. “Marianne asked me to bring you coffee and a whoopie pie.”
He jumped down from the platform. “Time for a break, then.” He sat, then patted the place next to him. “Give you half.” He held up the whoopie pie.
“I’ll take you up on that.” She sat down beside him. She was so aware of him, of his nearness, of his thigh so close to hers. “I just tasted her pumpkin pie filling. Hope I don’t get too hooked.”
“Vacationland, remember?” he said, splitting the little round cake as best he could. He licked a bit of white cream from his thumb.
Rebecca took a nibble. “I don’t even know if I’m on vacation. I don’t know what to call this. A leave of absence from my life, maybe.”
“Most people should take those every now and then,” he said, those deep brown eyes on her for a moment. “So, how’s that hypothetical situation going?”
Rebecca stared up at the trees, where the pines met the sky. “Well, unhypothetically speaking, I just don’t know where to go from here. This person—who I didn’t know existed a week ago—is my half sister. My sister. That word has to mean something.”
“In and of itself?”
She glanced at him. Those had been Joy’s words, too. “Well, shouldn’t it? The word does mean something. I know my
father wasn’t a father to her, though. So that word has a very different meaning to her than to me. I suppose the word sister is no different.”
“Except you’re here. That’s a big difference between you and your father—to her, I mean. Words in and of themselves don’t have weight. It’s how they’re backed up and supported.”
“I just wish she’d let me near her,” Rebecca said. She watched the smallest bird she’d ever seen teeter at the entrance to one of the many birdhouses dotting the backyard. “She’s opened the door a teeny, tiny crack.”
“That’s all you need.”
“I wish I knew what to do, how to proceed with her.”
“You could suggest a walk around the park path at Hazy Beach. You can even sneak down through these trees,” he said, pointing straight ahead. “Bring one of Marianne’s killer whoopie pies and a thermos of coffee and two cups, and you’re set.”
“I can’t see Joy agreeing to a picnic.”
“Ah, Joy Jayhawk. I don’t know her very well, but I’ve worked jobs with her husband. He’s an architect. He designed this addition, in fact.”
“What’s he like?”
“Good guy. Strong-and-silent type. Seems to love his kid like crazy.”
“Do you have kids?”
He laughed. “Me, no. I don’t even have a wife.”
“Girlfriend?” she asked, then turned red and slapped her hand over her mouth.
He laughed again. “I will say there are a couple of women I see now and again, but no one’s set my heart on fire.”
“The last time someone set my heart on fire I was seventeen,” she said.
“So no boyfriend? I’m surprised.”
She couldn’t help the smile at the compliment. “I actually do have a boyfriend. A live-in one named Michael back in New York. But he might be dating someone else.” She let out a deep breath. Why in the world had she said that? “This will be a nice place to sit outside. I can see sitting here with tea and a book, nothing but trees and birdhouses and nature.”
Theo was about to say something, but Rebecca’s cell phone rang, the silly chimes more shrill to her ears than the power saw had been.
What timing. Michael. The universe worked like that. She wondered if it were telling her something, making a point.
“I’ll let you take that,” Theo said. “I’d better get back to work.”
Don’t go, she thought. He was so easy to talk to.
But he was already back where he was when she’d first come out, his attention on the smooth, unfinished wood. The sudden absence of him was like the sun moving behind a cloud.
“Thanks for sharing your whoopie pie,” she said.
He flashed a smile. “Anytime.”
Her phone rang its chimes over and over. Once she was around the side of the house, she answered, heading through the front door to her room.
“I’ll assume you’re on I-95 somewhere in Connecticut, due back in about two hours,” came Michael’s voice.
“I’m in Wiscasset.”
Silence. Then a sigh. Then: “So you won’t be at the office tomorrow.”
“Michael, I told you, I need a little more time with Joy. Can’t you understand that?”
“Actually, no. I honestly don’t get what you’re staying up there for. You’ve spent some time with Joy. You can make plans to visit again. You can email and call. But you have a life here. You have a job and a boyfriend and an apartment.”
“A boyfriend who likes someone else,” she reminded him.
“She’s just a friend, Rebecca. I haven’t crossed any lines.”
She sat down in the rocking chair by the window and glanced out at the trees. “I’m just not ready to come home, not until I … establish something with Joy, I guess. That’s all I know. I want to get to know Joy up here, on her turf.”
“Or maybe you’re just running away,” he said. “Things got tough at work, things aren’t so hot between us, so off you go. I’d think if you’d learned anything with your work in mediation it’s that running isn’t the answer.”
She hated when he pulled that. The condescension. The I know better. And she didn’t like the lingering threat: Come home or it’ll be your fault that I sleep with another woman.
“Becs, I know you’re grieving. I know you miss your dad. But his illegitimate daughter isn’t a connection to him. They never knew each other.”
“They will through me,” she said.
“Please, Rebecca. That’s not why you’re staying.”
No, it wasn’t. She was staying because everything inside her—heart, mind, and soul—was telling her to.
In the morning, after a bracing walk around the village, Rebecca called Joy.
“You’re still here?”
“Oh. You’re not going home yet?”
“Sorry, I’m really busy this week.”
“No, I really can’t slip away for even a cup of coffee. No, Rex is in preschool, so he couldn’t join us, anyway.”
And then: “Rebecca, look, you sprang yourself on me two days ago. I just spent the weekend with you. Give me some space. Maybe in time I’ll want to talk. I don’t know.”
Click.
A moment later: “I’m sorry I hung up on you. Okay?”
Click.
Okay. And yes, time. Time, time, time. Time was the answer. The word, so vague, so indefinite yet so sturdy, gave her something to hang on to. There was a lot she could do to fill the time between, too. She could crack open one of the many guidebooks to exploring Maine that filled the bookcases of the common room. Or a novel. She could take up knitting. Italian cooking. Italian.
Rebecca flopped down on her bed and stared at the pretty pattern of wallpaper, the most delicate, faded of cabbage roses.
Why was she staying? Because Joy was her sister. Because that word did mean something in and of itself. Because it did and didn’t, didn’t and did. Because Joy was this walking, talking, living and breathing tangible connection to her. A fuzzy connection, maybe, like when an ice storm messes with the cable wires.
She was giving herself a headache. She needed to get out of this room, away from these four walls, however soothing the pale apricot cabbage roses, and somehow internalize this strange new something, this strange new nothing.
I Am Here and Here Is Where? was a game she used to play on long road trips with her parents. “I am here and here is where?” she’d ask while peering out the window of their blue car, her parents turning around to smile at seven-, eight-, nine-year-old Rebecca taking an interest in geography by reading the huge, green highway signs. Mystic, Connecticut. Woodstock, New York. Entering here. Exiting there.
Here, at the moment, was her room at the inn. Go ask Marianne if she needs help with dusting or whipping up a batch of some exotic new flavor for whoopie pie filling, she told herself.
“Hello?” came a muted voice as Rebecca put a dark green sweater over her tank top and slipped into her Danskos. “Hello?”
She opened her door and peeked down the hall. Ellie, in red Crocs and a tan trench coat, stood in the foyer, her face crumpling. Were those mascara tracks down her cheeks?
Rebecca rushed toward her. “Ellie, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing, I just thought I’d come say hi. I remembered you mentioning you were staying here,” she said, then burst into tears.
Rebecca led Ellie inside her room and sat her down on the rocking chair. She grabbed the box of tissues from the bathroom and handed them to Ellie, then sat down across from her on the edge of her bed.
“Tim?” Rebecca asked.
Ellie dabbed under her red-rimmed eyes with a tissue. “Why aren’t I enough? That’s what I want to know?” She dissolved in tears and slumped down in the chair.
Rebecca’s heart squeezed. Oh, Ellie.
“I don’t understand what I’m supposed to do to be what he wants,” she said, sniffling, her eyes pooling with tears.
“You can only be you, honey,” Rebecca said. “And you’re great.”
>
“Tim doesn’t think so.”
“He married you,” Rebecca pointed out.
“So why aren’t I enough?”
Rebecca wished she had the magic answer for that. And she hated giving Ellie the standard but true answer.
“It’s not about you, Ellie. You know that, right?”
“Of course it’s about me. If I were more something, somethinger, we wouldn’t have all these stupid problems. He wouldn’t cheat.”
“Ellie, you know that’s not true, really, right?”
“Then what am I supposed to do to save my marriage? If it’s not me, I can’t fix it, can’t change it. If it is me, I can. I can stop nagging so much. I can get my boobs done. I can go blond. I can stop getting into stupid arguments with his moronic mother. Whatever. But if it’s not me, I can’t do anything about it. It’s out of my hands. I need it to be about me so I can change things.”
“But you can’t change him. Only he can do that.”
She let out a deep breath and stared at the ceiling. “He came over last night. At around midnight. Pathetic, I know. I called him and told him I didn’t want to talk, I just wanted us to be together. So he said okay and came over. And so I changed into something sexy and turned off the lights and lit the candles and put on Kid Rock, who he loves, and we had the most amazing night. It was like when we first started dating. So romantic. And then in the morning—”
She burst into tears again.
“And then in the morning what?” Rebecca asked gently.
“Well, I made us breakfast—a real breakfast, eggs, bacon, the works. I even slipped out to the store for orange juice because I know he loves it. And he wakes up to the smell of bacon frying, his favorite smell, and he says he can’t stay, he’s going fishing with his friends. So I say fine, eat fast, and then come over after, and he says he doesn’t know with this big pause. So I tell him I want us to work on this marriage, that we have to work on it. And he said it shouldn’t be such hard work. And when I told him that marriage is hard work, he said it shouldn’t be, that his parents have been married for thirty-two years and get along just fine. Which is a total fucking joke, by the way. His parents hate each other’s guts. Anyone with a brain can see that.”
The Secret of Joy Page 11
