Back to Madeline Island

by Jay Gilbertson

  Rocky leaps up onto the middle of the stump table, landing square in the middle of two slices of pumpkin pie. He lifts a paw, takes a lick and then meows approval and keeps on licking.

  “Well then,” Ruby says, surveying the mass of plates and platters and bowls scattered across the countertops. “We jolly well should get started then. Eve—freshen up my wine; Howard, darling, wash or dry?”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  “One thing I can’t get over,” I say, zooming my electric shears along fabric, “is how us residents and local workers like you two”—meaning Sam and Lilly, of course—“get absolutely no discount for using that overpriced ferry. It’s such a fricking rip-off!”

  Sam offers, looking up from her machine, “I never thought much about it until we started coming over every day and it’s…well, Lilly here splits it, a’ course, but it do still cost an arm and a foot.”

  “Leg, darling,” Ruby counters from the kitchen area. “I’ve spoken to those ferry people.” Johnny tsk-tsks when Ruby says the ferry part. “They simply won’t budge on providing us with a discount for you ladies—so, we’ve made a decision, as it’s hardly fair for you and not your fault to be victim to such greed—really.”

  “You go, girl!” Sam chuckles. “I sure like a woman with spirit, mmm-hmm.”

  “She certainly has that,” I add, handing Lilly terry-cloth parts for an apron order from Florida.

  “Howard has arranged,” Ruby adds, coming over to help Johnny sew buttons on, “for the purchase of some jolly expensive coupon books. Tell the man, or woman, who you are when you dock in Bayfield and they’ll give them to you. Let us know when you’ve run out. Simple as that.”

  “You all sure take good care of us,” Sam says, “and speaking of good—I don’t recall a Thanksgiving that was such a feast! Lord, I am still full.”

  “Hope you’re not serious,” Lilly says in between the rev of her machine. “I’ve brought a delicious turkey salad surprise. It’s from a recipe I clipped out of Ladies’ Home Journal.”

  “Well…” Johnny adds, pulling a thread up. “Howard and I brought turkey and stuffing sandwiches, tucked into that bread Marsha made.”

  “Oh Lord,” Ruby sighs with a chuckle. “I’ve created turkey stew from all the lovely carvings left. We seem to have a definite theme here now, don’t we?”

  “Turkey for the turkeys,” Sam says and then off she sews.

  The day passes quickly. After our turkey with turkey with more turkey lunch, we sew through the afternoon and decide to head over to the loft for yoga-belly early. We vow not to bring another turkey item for at least a month; that’s what freezers are for.

  After a good hour of shaking our chains and dancing to some great music, we wave good-bye to Sam and Lilly, then head into the cottage. Since no one on the island gets mail delivered, Sam is nice enough to stop in LaPointe at the post office and get the boys’ as well as ours. Though it’s then a day late, who cares?

  I sort through the pile she left on the stump table while Ruby heads upstairs to change into cozies. I come across a handwritten envelope and immediately recognize the tight handwriting, or printing rather—my dad’s. Pouring a huge glass of water, I slink Rocky over my arm and we trot off to the library.

  We get comfy in the window seat; I take a big breath and then slide my manicured nail along the envelope’s edge. The card inside has a huge picture of white daisies on the front; he knows they’re my favorite. I tentatively open it and unfold the many-paged letter. I read the note aloud to Rocky,

  “Evie, I thought of writing you an e-mail, but somehow that just seemed so impersonal, then I remembered how you used to like daisies. Don’t know where all the years have gone, but now with me being an old, sick man, I’m hoping to make some amends.

  I know we never seemed to see eye-to-eye on much. I realize my leaving that house after your mother died, well, some things you can’t fix and I simply had to go. My only regret is not being there more for you. I truly am sorry for that, I am. I won’t go making excuses, but seeing as you’re a grown woman, it’s time you know the truth.

  I’ve thought and thought how best to express this. There’s simply no easy way. You see, the reason we could never completely connect is because you’re not really my daughter. I’m so sorry to burst the image you’ve held of your mother, I know how much you worshipped her, but the plain and simple truth is, she had an affair, you were the result and I could never forgive her and, well, I suppose that’s why I could never get close to you. I just couldn’t get beyond it. Now I’m not pointing fingers or making judgments, I was away from home, away from your mother, a great deal of time and I know how she hated to be alone.

  I did the best I could by you, even if you weren’t my real daughter, and I’ll admit that your mother had me cornered, seeing as I was a professor and had a certain image to protect. I hope you never heard the arguing, but trust me; your mother and I stopped having “relations” a long, long time before she became pregnant with you.

  I know you’ve never forgiven us for sending you away to have your baby, but it was something we had to do. We wanted you to have a good shot at life and not end up like your mom and me, with all that pent-up resentment. I’m very happy that you’ve found your daughter and that you can begin to heal that part of your life. I’m learning how important it is to come clean. I only wish your mother was still alive to explain her side and perhaps shed some light on just who your biological father is. If she ever did tell anyone (she sure wouldn’t tell me), it would be your Aunt Vivian, seeing as they were so close.

  Well, I’m sure I’ve spoiled your day, I’m sorry for that. Then again, maybe this will answer some questions for you and I’m sure it will cause you some, too.

  That Helen is a fine woman, you must be proud.

  I’ll always be, your dad.”

  I let the pages slip to my lap and lean back against the cool wood. I hadn’t realized that I’d been crying. The silent tears just keep coming and coming. Part of me is relieved, in a way. You know, I’ve always known there was something. Something different about him and me, yet I just thought he was such an intellect that I was the big disappointment. The failure child. The love child?

  Yet why didn’t my mom tell me? Why, in all those years of her and me being together, she never so much as dropped a hint. I feel so, so cheated. So lied to, just who was my mom anyway? All the things I’ve held near and dear, what do I do with all that? I would really like to wring her neck. She had an affair? God, of course she did, I mean, my dad—what do I call him now? He was handsome—I actually thought he was the best-looking dad there was—and he wasn’t even my dad! No wonder Helen made that weird comment; she must have felt something, or noticed something between us. Talk about having the floor ripped out beneath you.

  All these years I thought it was so cool how Ruby’s husband was a professor and so was my dad. Now it feels like a big ol’ pack of lies and here I am, the love child. Funny, I don’t feel like a love child. Love seems to equal secrets in my family and I certainly had mine—Helen. Why did my mom have to die—I’d like to kill her!

  “Here you are.” Ruby crosses into the library and comes over to me. “What is it? What’s wrong? You look like you’ve just seen a ghost. You’re all pale. What is it, darling?” Ruby takes me into her tiny arms and hugs me. “Tell me, dear.”

  “This,” I croak out, after sobbing into her shoulder. “This note…from Dad…or whoever…he’s not my…” I can’t breathe.

  Ruby gently rocks me back and forth. I slowly quiet and am able to not cry—for a minute. She takes the note and sits across from me.

  “Oh my heavens.” Ruby smacks her leg.

  Rocky leaps off the window seat and jumps up onto a nearby bookcase. I sigh and look out toward the lake. I feel like I don’t know who I am; the bastard love child, now that’s something.

  “I simply can’t—oh, for heaven’s sake,” Ruby says and I wonder who’s more surprised here.

 
I smile, in spite of everything. I think this must be what it feels like when you’re told you’re adopted. Well—half adopted. I’m half a bastard. I say this out loud and Ruby shushes me so she can finish reading. Maybe she’s memorizing the damn thing.

  “Hang on.” Ruby heads out of the room and then is back a moment later carrying a tray, a bottle and two glasses. “Good thing we stocked that bar in the living room—I don’t know about you, darling, but I need a pinch.”

  “Wouldn’t a straw be easier?” I ask and she hands me a glass of sherry. “I have no idea what to clink to.”

  She sits back down opposite me, stretching out her legs next to mine.

  Thinking this over for a moment, our glasses held out to clink, she says, “To the bloody truth, I should think.”

  We clink and sip; I sip again and feel a tad calmer. “This is—so much. I don’t know where to start, like rethinking my past. Do I go back there and erase things? Do I haul out all the photo albums and cut him out of the pictures? No, that’s stupid. Well, maybe I could Magic Marker his face. That might at least feel good. How about my mom?”

  “Oh, Eve, darling,” Ruby sighs, “you’ve every right to be pissed as hell! I’d be fit to be tied, I would.”

  “It’s my mom. Who was she? I honestly feel like I only knew the outside her. You know? I mean, she must have had this whole entire secret side to her. I thought I knew her. I thought I knew—her.”

  She refills our glasses. “You did know her. But you can’t ever know everything there is to know about a person, not all things. Why—imagine how dull that would be.”

  I give her a “give me a break” look. “Ruby, all I’m saying is, why didn’t my mom ever say some little thing to me about this? Like…why didn’t she at least mention that I was, that I have another dad? That my real dad…oh hell. I feel like shit.”

  Ruby ponders a second. “If we have more to drink, we could be shit-faced, I should think.”

  “Why do you think my dad, or Larry, rather—why do you think he waited so long?”

  “Perhaps it was your visit. Yours and Helen’s. Maybe that simply got him thinking. I should think that would have some bearing on his decision to tell you—and also his health.”

  I consider this. “Up until he announced he’d met Kate, I thought of my family as picture-perfect. But now that I’m seeing things, looking for things, I guess I really was fooling myself. I mean, they had separate bedrooms, for God’s sake!”

  “Oh, Eve, why do this?”

  “Do what?”

  “Go back, into your past, and reshuffle things a bit. What will it change? You’re still you—you’re still this lovely woman, and I hate to see you like this, I do. This all happened so long ago.”

  “I know,” I sigh. “I only wish…I only wish I’d never seen The Donna Reed Show.”

  “Come again?”

  “This TV show. It was popular when I was little and the family was perfect and they, the parents, had these cute little twin beds and—”

  “That sounds dreadfully boring, really.” Ruby finishes her glass. “Now—shall I tell you I know your Aunt Vivian? I know…why don’t I write it all up in a note, seal it with special wax and leave it somewhere secret, like in a bottom drawer somewhere. Hmmm?”

  “If you don’t start talking”—I slant my eyes and hold my glass out for a refill—“I may have to kill you.”

  I have John Klemmer’s LP Touch playing downstairs on the hi-fi in the living room. His soft jazz is wafting up the stairs and all the way into my bathroom. I’m underneath a steaming hot shower, with my hair all coated with creme rinse, just finishing shaving my left leg. Shaving my legs has always soothed me, even though I like to complain about it. Maybe the sherry has helped, too. Duh.

  Ruby’s fussing in the kitchen, creating supper for us, and I best get a move-on, as I’m the trusty assistant. Turns out she does indeed know my aunt and it also turns out that she’s still alive, thank God. I’ve never been close to her at all—she’s actually my great-aunt—and to be honest, I always thought of her as a nasty gossip. She also has a mustache and who wants to kiss that? Yuk.

  Anyway, so Ruby’s busy trying to track her down and see if she can get anything out of her. It’s worth a try. God, do I want to know who my real dad is? This must be how Helen half felt. No, she said her mom told her when she was a young girl. Ha! That way, she’d have all those years to hate me. Not that she did, mind you, but the opportunity was there and that kind of tells me what Helen’s made of as well as what a great job her folks did raising her.

  Me, I would have—what? Stomped my little feet had my mom told me I was adopted? Hard to say, really, and I’ve never been too keen on “what ifs.” But talk about hypocrites; I mean, here they sent me off to a convent and it was my mom—I have to stop this or I think I’m going to explode.

  Maybe rinsing my hair, I can just rinse this all away. I never thought my life would be so—dramatic. This is way better than fiction. This would make one hell of a movie. I can see the title, Bastard out of Eau Claire. No, too tame. Maybe, Eve’s Family Tree Has Roots of a Different Color? Nah.

  I change into a soft pink sweatshirt, jeans and my bunny slippers. Need warm and cozy right about now. Then I wake up the snoring cat and we head downstairs.

  Since the kitchen is open to the living room, I can spy Ruby in there. She’s changed into yet another one of her fancy walking outfits; this one has blue swirls embroidered into the fabric. Humming with the song on the hi-fi, she’s busy putting things into an old knapsack. That woman is always up to something.

  “Are you running away?” I ask, plopping Rocky down on a stool and peeking into the knapsack. “A picnic? In the winter?”

  “You look lovely, darling—here, find a corner in there for this,” Ruby says, handing me a corkscrew, wine bottle and two small canning jars. “I thought you’d fallen in up there.”

  “I…what the hell?”

  “All right, then, you have the task of carrying that one and I’ll be totting along with this.” She slings one of my huge totes over her shoulder; it makes all sorts of sounds, like pots and containers banging together.

  “Follow me,” Ruby orders and heads to the basement door. She opens it, snaps on the light and starts down. Rocky zooms on ahead, dashing in between her legs. She hardly notices, a woman on a mission. I fling the knapsack onto my shoulder; the weight of it throws me off balance at first.

  “What the hell’s in here?” I ask and get no reply.

  “Are you coming?” Ruby yells up the stairs and I trot down.

  She’s already busy opening the wine closet door. Heading to the back, she unlatches the false wall, snaps on more lights and off she goes down the steps into the passage that leads to the boathouse. We can hear Rocky make one of his horrible “I’m gunna get you” noises and Ruby slows down for me to catch up with her.

  “No sense in rushing.” Ruby sidles up with me. “Wonder what in the world Rocky could possibly find way down here.”

  “I certainly don’t want to know—are you going to tell me what you’re up to?”

  A smile breaks along Ruby’s lipsticked lips. “You’ll see soon enough.”

  We struggle with the huge wooden door that opens to the back of the boathouse, but it finally squeaks open along its rusted track. Single file, we continue traipsing along the ledge that leads over to the spiral staircase. Up we clamber, I push up the trap door, give the secret closet back a nudge and voilà—we’re in the office down at the boathouse.

  “It sure stays nice and cozy up here,” I mention, walking into the kitchen area and unloading my tote onto the countertop.

  “Does seem to. How about putting on some music and I’ll put things in order here.” Ruby starts pulling all sorts of goodies from the knapsack. A red-and-white-checked tablecloth is unfurled onto the round table in the corner. She pulls several candles out, lights them and then begins setting things out.

  I root around in the growing collection of
CDs we have and put on Etta James; “The Very Thought of You” oozes around the room. Then I walk over to my cutting table and run my hands over all the colorful fabric stacked neatly on the shelves that Howard made from old shutters. The deer head has a loose end of the phone cord hanging out of its mouth. Reaching up, I pull the jaw down and the cord snaps inside.

  Walking over to check on what Ruby’s up to, I notice she’s set the table for four, and before I can ask, the boys come lumbering up the stairs and burst through the door, bringing cold, winter air along.

  “Hey, ladies!” Howard gives us each a cold kiss. “What a beautiful night. You can see some truly amazing star formations.”

  Johnny shakes out of his fur-lined parka and comes over to my side. “What’s shaking—hey, Eve, you okay?” He plops an arm over my shoulders and I sniffle.

  “She’s had a bit of shocking news,” Ruby says, pouring wine into four canning jars. “I thought having supper with”—she hands everyone a glass—“our dear friends might cheer her a bit, hmm?”

  I grin. “To my dear friends.” We lift and clink our jars. “Here’s the deal. I just found out, from Larry, who used to be my dad—that my mother had an affair and I’m a bastard.”

  Johnny chokes on his wine; Howard gulps his down in one fell swoop. They look from me to Ruby for a clue.

  “You really must stop using that word,” Ruby admonishes me with a shrug. “It seems her father, Larry, that is, has taken it upon himself to unburden years of deceit and shed a family secret. Namely that Eve’s mother, out of sheer loneliness, chose a mysterious lover and became—”

  “Knocked up with me!” I finish. “My perfect mom. My perfect Catholic mom, Donna Reed’s evil twin sister.”