by ANN HYMES
“These waters are rich in zooplankton for the whales to feed,” continued Hannah. “Part of what we study is the density of food to support various species of marine life. Coastal ecosystems are very fragile, and we’re always on the lookout for changes made by man that will affect the future. Do you kids know what ‘endangered’ means?”
She waited a moment and then explained the threat of extinction for various forms of life on land and sea—only several hundred right whales remaining in the entire North Atlantic, diminishing numbers of humpback whales, the damaged nesting areas of the roseate tern in the Cape.
Theresa felt her world expanding. She stood holding a small child with comfort and ease, laughing and sharing. She felt part of a family that was not hers. She thought back of being with Rick in the morning and held Elizabeth closer. She felt needed.
The next few hours passed easily with Jeff and the girls. They moved about the boat, watching whales breach in the distance or dive in unison, the patterned and irregular flukes leaving a clear signature on the way down to feed. Several dozen whales made an appearance for the appreciative crowd. Sometimes seagulls rode the noses of relaxing whales on the surface, like sentinels standing watch on an aircraft carrier. One calf rolled playfully around in a pack of seaweed, close to the mother who was probably still nursing it.
But everywhere Theresa went she kept her eye open for signs of her shopping bag. When she finally saw the family from Pennsylvania, she asked them about the bag. The parents said they had not seen what happened to it; the children did not look at her. She pressed them but to no avail.
The wind died down as the boat headed back into the harbor at Provincetown. Across the speaker came an eerie sound of deep muffled, elongated squeals, a rhythmic pattern with rising and falling intensity. Hannah explained that this was “the song of humpbacks,” an actual recording of their sounds. “Sung only by males, the sounds are subject to many interpretations, whether for navigation, for mating, or other possible reasons. There are still many mysteries involving whales because they are so difficult to study in their live habitat.”
Theresa listened to the mournful sounds and wanted to cry. She could not help but wonder if her father’s ashes had already joined the whales in the mystery of the deep.
“Could you watch the girls a minute while I hit the men’s room?” Jeff asked. “I can stand outside while they go together into the women’s, but I don’t like to leave them alone when I go.”
“Of course,” said Theresa, already holding their hands as they watched the town come into focus.
Minutes later a smiling Jeff emerged carrying a crumpled white bag.
“Theresa! Look what I found in the stall!”
She turned and gasped at the sight. He walked toward her cradling the squished bag like a baby.
“I … I think you might want me to hold onto this for a bit,” he said gingerly.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, um, somebody’s broken into the box.”
Theresa’s face turned white, and she gripped the girls’ hands so tightly Elizabeth cried out. Jeff made no effort to hand over his package.
“How about I see if I can get another container or bag and tidy this up? Are you okay to stay with the girls a minute?”
“Yes, of course,” she said, feeling her knees want to give out from under her. “Let’s just sit a second, okay?”
The silent trio sat down, and Jeff hurried off to the concession stand to search for a new bag. The boat was almost ready to dock when he returned carrying a cardboard box that said, “brewed fresh, tastes best.” It was all he could find.
“Listen, Theresa,” he began, “I asked Hannah if there are ways to put ashes to rest in the ocean, and she gave me a great suggestion. Interested?”
Theresa nodded, ready to be guided out of the predicament she had created. She felt foolish that she’d thought a public excursion would provide the right opportunity for a private moment.
“There’s a fisherman in town who takes people out who want to scatter their loved ones’ ashes. He does this mostly at night but sometimes in the day if the fishing’s not good. Called ‘Van Storm Charter Excursions.’ Want to check it out while we’re here?”
Theresa nodded again, partly in agreement with the answer Jeff had found and partly in recognition that the time was really at hand to say goodbye to her father.
Engines revved as the double-decker boat nudged its way back into the slip midway on the long pier. Squawking seagulls paraded up and down the weathered planks, heads bobbing, eager for treats or the arrival of a fishing boat with serious scraps. Theresa took a deep breath, still clutching little hands. The gulls scattered, making way, as the pretend family stepped onto the pier and began their search for Van Storm. Days at the Cape didn’t seem to end the way the mornings outlined them. Expectations fell off course.
Charters were returning with their smiling, sunburned customers, and it was easy to find Van Storm on the adjacent pier. He had just come in from the day’s fishing and was washing down his small boat. Theresa was surprised to see that he was quite an elderly man, trim and suntanned, steady on his feet as the boat rocked with the harbor current. A cap pulled down tight covered his hair, but his eyes sparkled with a blue twinkle.
“Mr. Van Storm?” she inquired.
He stopped and stood up, turning with a slightly amused look.
“I guess so.” He laughed. “But mostly I’m called ‘Stormy,’ unless you’re with the IRS or something. How can I help you?”
Theresa stared at the man, looking at his easy smile and friendly eyes. The tip of a tattoo was visible just beneath his rolled-up sleeve. His arms were muscular, his hands coarse from labor on the sea. But his manner was gentle and kind.
“Did you know my grandmother, Theodosia Hampton?”
Jeff looked at her incredulously and was the first to answer. “What? What are you talking about, Theresa?”
The old man’s eyes widened and filled with tears. He looked up at Theresa standing on the pier with a fondness that seemed to still all the movement around them. Even the seagulls hushed.
“I’ve held you in my hands,” he said slowly, lifting his upturned palms toward her as if offering an invisible gift. “You’re Theresa, Emily’s beautiful baby. I’ve held you and fed you. I watched you crawl and take your first step.” He paused. “Oh yes, I knew your grandmother. She was my heart, closer to me than my breath. Warmer than the sun itself.”
He rolled up his sleeve and showed the tattoo, a perfectly shaped heart with a tower inside.
“I can still see her standin’ on that balcony, watching, waiting. She’d wave her arms so hard I feared she’d fling herself clear off. She was my Penelope, and I loved her from the day we met. Comin’ home to her was what made going to sea so sweet.”
Jeff stood in patient silence, waiting for a clue to what was going on.
“How did you find me?” Stormy asked, bringing the mood back to the present.
“The shell, Grandmother’s seashell. I found it in her safe deposit box with your note. We came looking for you for help in scattering ashes, and then you said your name was Stormy. It just hit me somehow. It just popped out.”
He closed his eyes and smiled the most loving smile of remembering Theresa had ever seen. He was alone with a memory, happy and wistful.
Suddenly he opened his eyes. “Whose ashes?”
“My father’s,” she replied, motioning to the box Jeff was holding. “He asked to be returned to Cape Cod, to be reunited with Mother, with Emily—in the ocean. This is my friend Jeff and his daughters, Katie and Elizabeth. We just met on the whale watch, and they’ve really been helping me.”
“Well, how about we all go out right now,” suggested Stormy. “The law requires we get out a ways.”
Theresa was too overwhelmed with the events of the day, and
she needed to get home to let Gypsy out. She wanted time to think things through.
“Or how about tomorrow?” he continued. “Sunset is a beautiful time. Peaceful and quiet.”
“That sounds perfect,” she said. “Jeff, will you come back?”
Jeff was listening intently and watching this odd reunion. “I’d be glad to come, but I don’t think it’s the best activity for the girls. I could get a sitter and maybe take you out for dinner first.”
Theresa looked at Stormy, and he nodded agreement. She instinctively jumped down onto his boat and hugged him. The fishy smell of the ocean filled her lungs—and it was good.
Chapter Thirteen
“TELL ME ABOUT the name ‘Theodosia,’” Jeff said as soon as they were seated at the restaurant the next day. Theresa reached for a warm roll. It had sprinkles of vegetables and tomato bits in it and was so soft her fingers left deep prints just picking it up. She held it under her nose, inhaling the yeasty aroma.
“Did you ever bake cookies or bread with your mother or grandmother, Jeff?”
“Not really. I do remember going to Grandma’s at holidays and loving to be in her kitchen. My mom wasn’t much of a cook. Her job had long hours, and she didn’t have time to stir things up in the kitchen. Cooking was work, not pleasure.”
“Stormy obviously loved my grandmother a great deal. And my mother, Emily, was so loved by my father that he never considered another woman. But I have no memories of either woman. My dad did his best at the mom activities. We made cookies that you slice off as you squeeze them out of a refrigerated tube—no measuring, no experimenting, no mistakes. Rolling out dough and feeling flour between my fingers came later from my own desires as a homemaker.” Theresa took a bite of the soft roll.
“Was your grandmother from the South?”
“What a funny question. Why do you ask?”
“Theodosia is a famous name in South Carolina. Theodosia Burr Alston was the daughter of Aaron Burr, vice-president of the United States, and was married to Governor Joseph Alston in the early 1800s. They owned a large rice plantation in the Lowcountry, along the coast, but she is remembered primarily because of tragedy.”
Theresa looked up with full attention; her middle name was Alston. “Just old Southern connections,” her father had once said. “A family thing.” She kept her maiden name when she married Kevin, not because of family history but because it was the identity she was used to. She didn’t want to be repainted with an unfamiliar brush.
“What do you mean, ‘tragedy’? What happened?”
“Well, she was the daughter of a controversial political figure, raised in New York, talented, well-educated. She had excellent prospects for a young woman in society. Then this dashing and wealthy young man from South Carolina crosses her path after spending time at Princeton. Her father was a huge influence in her life, and he encouraged the match.
“I guess it took some smooth talking to woo her to the South and its slower pace, but she finally accepted, and they were married at the turn of the century.”
Theresa listened to the events of happiness that were leading to tragedy, and she felt the parallels building from her own family history.
“A baby boy was soon born to them, and they moved into the Alston family plantation, called The Oaks, when Joseph could legally accept his inheritance—at age twenty-four, I think. Although Theodosia adored her child, her health was not good, and she was depressed and frail from the demands of her new life. The long, hot summers in South Carolina were particularly unpleasant because of the fear of what was called swamp fever. Affluent planters usually left the lowlands during the hot months and retreated to other homes inland or in the mountains to escape what we would probably call malaria. Often the slaves were left in charge of the rice plantations.
“The Alstons spent summers at their property inland, except one year when Theodosia and their son accompanied Joseph for political campaigning. They briefly returned to The Oaks and the surrounding area, where their son was evidently bitten by an infectious mosquito. He died that summer at age ten.
“The parents, of course, were devastated. Their only child and heir.”
Theresa sat spellbound, totally uninterested in the crab cake dinner that cooled in front of her. “What a horrible shock. Their future snapped off like a twig.”
“There’s more,” continued Jeff. “Distressed and seeing no hope for the future, Theodosia wanted to go back to New York to see her father. Aaron Burr had been vindicated from shooting Alexander Hamilton in a duel and later found innocent of treason. He’d had his own series of problems and had gone abroad for awhile. Now his daughter hoped that a visit to her father would give them each needed strength. She wanted Joseph to go with her, but the nation was at war with England; and he was, after all, governor of the state.”
“Oh, no!” Theresa interrupted. “What happened to her?”
Jeff took a deep breath. “She drowned. Her ship was lost at sea in a terrible storm off the coast.”
“Oh, no, no … No!” Theresa put her head in her hands. She leaned forward with her elbows heavy on the table, steadying the slow shaking of her head.
“Theresa, I’m so sorry.” Jeff leaned across the table, reaching out a hand to her shoulder. “I didn’t mean to upset you. What is it?”
She took a deep breath and slowly lowered her hands to her lap. “Maybe it’s a Theodosia curse, a black cloud. It’s the battle of happiness struggling against the overwhelming odds of defeat. It’s my naïve wish for a happy ending to every story. Hollywood can wave a wand, but the rest of us have to accept the roles we’re given.” She paused. “What did Joseph Alston do?”
“He basically became undone. He felt alone, severely ill, uninterested in politics and life. His world had fallen apart, accompanied by floundering rice markets and increasing debts. He and Aaron Burr continued to hope for a miracle, that Theodosia would be found, but he died a broken man several years after his wife.
“Strange tales have passed through the years of a disoriented woman who looked like her wandering to shore and people who swear they saw her or her ghost, but Theodosia’s fame is mostly preserved through the facts of her tragic story. I had never heard of anyone else having that name until you mentioned your grandmother. You’re not going to tell me that she, too, drowned?”
“No, but she did come from South Carolina. She was raised there, married there, and then seems to have run off to Cape Cod to escape an unhappy marriage. She was drowning in life, not death. Her only child was my mother. When I was not quite two, my mother died in her small sailboat in a sudden storm off Chatham. Mother lost her life, and Grandmother gradually lost her mind. I guess my father didn’t have the option of crumbling; he had me to look after. My full name is Theresa Alston Crandall.”
Jeff took in the far-reaching effect of his story. “I’m sorry. I should never have told you all that stuff; I had no idea.”
“No, it’s all right. I’m really glad to know the history. It’s fascinating.” She sat thoughtfully for a moment and then asked, “How do you know all that, anyhow?”
“I guess I’m kind of a history buff. I’ve visited all the Civil War sites in our state and studied a lot of the local history. We are often accused of not catching up to modern times, of living in the past with Confederate flags and rebel yells, but we’re not all barefoot and bitter, lamenting the outcome of ‘the years of unpleasantness.’”
“‘The years of unpleasantness’?”
“Yeah.” He smiled. “That’s what some folks call the Civil War or ‘the War of Northern Aggression.’”
“I guess our viewpoint does color history.” Theresa laughed, tasting a bite of delicious chunk crab. She liked this man, with his Southern drawl that stretched vowels out into separate syllables. He was attentive and caring. He’d had to assume a similar role to her father’s, but his wife was physically prese
nt while he took over responsibility for the children. A woman with children who could not be a mother, and Theresa was a woman without children who wanted to be a mother. The irony of life twisted her heart.
“Think we better get going soon?” Jeff asked, finishing the last prawn from his seafood platter. The discarded tails were lined up in a perfect row. Kevin would do that, thought Theresa, and then realized she hadn’t thought of Kevin or called him that day.
“Mind if I make a quick call?” she asked, rising from her seat.
She found a pay phone and tried a collect call. There was no answer.
“I’m ready if you are,” she said to Jeff as she returned and reached down to pick up a box from under the table. “I’m ready for another parting at sea, and I think I’m doing okay with it.”
Stormy was waiting for them on his boat. The teak trim looked particularly shiny, and chrome strips caught the fading sunlight. There were cushions on the wooden storage benches, and all fishing gear had been cleared off. Small colorful flags on the lines flapped in the harbor breeze, and what looked like red bandanas were tied at intervals along the metal guidelines. There was something clean and festive about the old boat. It looked higher in the water than the day before, as if lifted above the current, reaching upward.
Stormy was dressed in corduroy trousers with nap so new it looked as though he’d not yet sat in them. He wore a warm navy turtleneck sweater that matched his navy knit cap. His weathered hands were scrubbed and steady as he helped Theresa and Jeff onboard. She smelled a hint of spice as she passed him and sat down on one of the cushions. She wanted to ask whether her grandmother had ever been on this boat, but she tried to focus her thoughts back to her father and the business at hand. Theodosia could wait another day.
“Thank you for doing this with us, Stormy,” she said. “You’ve really saved the day, and with such a meaningful connection. You, of course, knew my father.”
“Yes, I was around him for several years, and I liked him a lot. He was a very devoted man, Theresa. Thoughtful. Fun. Crazy about your mother and you. We had wonderful times together at the house. You were the center of attention after you were born, and we all felt we’d gone through that pregnancy together!” He laughed, and the wrinkled lines in his face deepened with the joy of remembering.
