Belonging

by Nancy Thayer

  Pat returned, followed by Gardner. He looked terrible, pale, with dark circles beneath his eyes, and tired, and somber. But he smiled as he approached the bed.

  “Good morning.”

  “Gardner. It hurts to talk. It hurts to swallow.”

  “You inhaled smoke, hot air, soot, and it burned your throat. You have minor tracheal swelling. But we didn’t have to intubate you. We’ll keep you on liquids; you’ll heal fast.” He came close to the bed, took her wrist in his hand, and took her pulse.

  “You’ll be fine.”

  “And Madaket?”

  His forehead creased. “She’s in Boston. Intensive care. Mass General Burn Center.”

  “Oh, Gardner!”

  “She’ll live. She’ll be all right.”

  “But was she—”

  “She sustained severe burns.”

  “How severe?”

  “What you would know as second-degree.”

  “When will she be back on the island?”

  “Not for a month or two. We’ll see. She has to be isolated for a while—burns can easily get infected.”

  “Is she in pain?”

  He paused. “She’s on pain medication.”

  “Gardner. I have to know. How bad—”

  Gardner hesitated. “Her face sustained full burns. Her hair—is gone. Her scalp was burned. Her hands were burned. About eighteen percent of the rest of her body sustained partial burns.”

  Joanna moaned with pity. “Dear God.”

  “But she was lucky,” Gardner continued. “Her jacket and all her heavy wool clothing protected most of her body.”

  “Think how much she loves you,” Pat said, her voice husky with wonder. “Joanna, she saved your life. And Christopher’s.”

  “Yes.”

  “She went right into the fire to get you out.”

  “What about Wolf? And Bitch?”

  Gardner shook his head. “I suppose there’s a chance, if they were outside … If they were inside, their bones will be buried in the rubble.”

  “What happened?” Joanna asked. “Does anyone know?”

  Pat looked at Gardner, who nodded. She took Joanna’s unbandaged hand in hers. “Doug and Todd Snow used dynamite.”

  “Dynamite!”

  “The fire chief talked to Mrs. Snow. Doug’s brother is in construction work. Doug got some dynamite from him. Doug and Todd told Helen that they’d found part of Farthingale’s treasure in a room underneath the screened porch. They thought there was more.” Pat looked questioningly at Joanna.

  So that was it. Closing her eyes, Joanna admitted, “It’s true. When they began work on the sunporch, Doug and Todd found a trapdoor leading to a cool cellar beneath the porch. Todd and Madaket went down. They found a room with brick walls, and a small old metal chest with a lock on it. We opened it together, the four of us, Todd and Doug, Madaket and me, and we found a pouch with two rubies in it.”

  “Are you sure they were rubies?” Pat asked.

  Joanna nodded. “I’ve taken them to Boston. To a jeweler’s. I sold them.”

  “So you really did find the Farthingale treasure.” Pat shook her head in wonder.

  “Yes. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, Pat. I didn’t tell anyone—I was so tired, and worried about continuing the pregnancy to term, and I wanted to avoid publicity and all that fuss. The others agreed to wait until I was ready before telling anyone else. And in all honesty, I had so much else going on I just didn’t think about it. But I did let Todd and Madaket explore the tunnel.”

  “There was a tunnel?”

  “Yes. I never saw it. Leading toward the ocean. Madaket said it was mostly caved in. Todd and Madaket spent quite a few nights digging around in the sand, sifting, opening up the tunnel. They hoped there would be more chests there. Something.” Bleakly she continued. “I didn’t realize how important the idea of more treasure was to the Snows. How tempting. It didn’t mean much to me. I told them to cover the trapdoor. I wanted the room finished. Dear God. If only I’d …” She looked up at Gardner. “How are they?”

  He shook his head. “Last night after the fire was completely extinguished, they used backhoes to pull away the heaviest debris, then a crew of men shoveled, and—they found the bodies.”

  “Both dead?”

  Gardner nodded.

  “My God. This is all so terrible. I can’t take it in. Doug and Todd … dead.” She put her hands to her face. “I feel guilty,” she whispered.

  “You’re not to blame for this, Joanna,” Gardner insisted.

  “Should I have given them the rubies?” she wondered aloud. Raising sorrowful eyes to her friends, she confided, “I called Morris and asked him a theoretical question about finding treasure; he said anything found in my house belonged to me. But if I had given them the rubies …”

  “If you had given them the rubies, they would still have looked for more treasure,” Pat replied. “It would only have whetted their appetites.”

  Gardner said, “The fire chief told us what Helen knew: Doug and Todd planned to blast open the brick wall between the main basement and the little dirt cellar so they could go on looking for more treasure even when the sunroom floor was covered over. They didn’t mean to injure you; they said you never go down in the basement. They planned to create only a small opening, and to use the dynamite when you and Christopher and Madaket had left the house in the Jeep.”

  “They just misjudged the amount of dynamite to use,” Pat concluded.

  “And now they’re both dead,” Joanna said. “Todd and Doug—” She began to weep. “I can’t bear it.”

  “You need to rest now,” Gardner said.

  “We’ll be back later,” Pat assured Joanna, and approaching the bed, she wrapped her in a long and disconsolate embrace.

  From the portable crib a soft wail rose.

  “I think you’ve got a hungry baby here,” Gardner observed. “Want him?”

  Pat released Joanna, who wiped her eyes and replied, “Yes, please.”

  Pat lifted the tiny bundle from the crib and put Christopher into his mother’s arms. “I’ve got to make some phone calls. I’ll leave you alone with your little boy. Okay?”

  Joanna looked at Christopher, awestruck. The baby gave her a huge toothless smile and began to make bubbles of joy.

  “Oh, yes. Sweet darling,” Joanna cooed. Her baby cooed back.

  Gardner watched them fondly for a moment. “I’ll be back, Joanna. And I’ll keep you informed about Madaket’s condition.”

  “Wait, Gardner,” Joanna entreated. “Tell me: how long do I have to stay in here?”

  “I’d like to keep you at least another night.”

  “But—”

  “You’ve had a bad shock, Joanna. You’ll be able to rest better here.”

  “Can I get up and move around?”

  “Of course. Just be careful with that hand.”

  “Can I talk to Madaket on the phone?”

  “Not yet. The pain medication is keeping her pretty foggy.”

  “Listen, hon.” Pat patted Joanna’s arm. “Everyone’s going to be all right. You and Christopher and Madaket are alive, and now you have to regain your strength. As soon as you can get out of here, I’m taking you and your baby back to my house. Everyone wants to see you, everyone’s offering to loan you baby cribs and everything you’ll need. It’s going to be all right. It’s going to be just fine.”

  Pat kissed Joanna’s cheek, then she and Gardner left the room.

  Joanna put Christopher on the bed and, unfolding his blankets around him as if peeling back the petals of a flower, she stripped him and studied the perfect pink rose of a body. Christopher waved his arms and legs slowly, and blew bubbles, and his eyes were shining and his tiny dear face glowing with love for his mother.

  “Oh, my baby,” Joanna exclaimed, and buried her head in her son’s fine powdery scent and kissed his little wriggling body all over. Christopher latched onto Joanna’s hair with his fists. That this
perfect plump soft baby flesh could have been … scorched … burned … or worse … The moment of explosion flashed over Joanna again and she closed her eyes and rocked in the memory. Horrible, horrible. But Christopher squealed and began to make little fussing noises, pointing out that he was hungry, and Joanna opened her eyes and brought herself back to the moment, this moment, safe and intact with her lovely baby alive and needing breakfast. And here she was, safe and intact, able to feed her child. It seemed miraculous. Her milk pressed at her nipples.

  Quickly dressing Christopher, she sat back up against the pillows and brought the baby to her breast. Christopher gave a happy groan of pleasure when Joanna’s milk rushed out, and as he nursed, he stroked Joanna’s breast in little circling motions. It gave Joanna immense comfort to comfort her child. Afterward Joanna moved down into the bed. She was very tired. She lay her baby near her, snuggled in a cove between her outstretched arm and her breast. Christopher lay placidly looking around him. Joanna dozed.

  But only for a few moments. Then, behind her closed eyes, it happened again: the house shuddered and exploded and she and her baby were trapped inside the house. She came awake, gasping.

  In the afternoon she was allowed to sit in a chair and to receive visitors.

  Pat returned. Bob was with her, and they brought a vase of spring flowers and a suitcase of new clothes for herself and Christopher. Pat hugged Joanna. “Bob’s been busy. Everything’s going along fine.”

  “I’ve already talked to Walt Rinehart. Your insurance covers it completely. When you get some energy back, you can start thinking about building yourself the perfect house,” Bob assured her.

  June and Morris arrived with an enormous bouquet of flowers. “You can come live with us awhile,” they said. “We’re interviewing girls to help you take care of Christopher when you feel up to buying clothes or—or anything.”

  The fire chief arrived. “I’m sorry,” he said. “There really wasn’t a thing we could do but stop the fire from spreading, and we were lucky to do that with everything so dry. We had three tankers out there, and fourteen men, and we floated a pump in the ocean and pumped about nine thousand gallons of water. But your house was old, and the wood was seasoned. The fire started in the basement, and fire burns in an upward V. Fire loves old wood. It just gobbled your house up. Even if we could have gotten out to Squam sooner, it wouldn’t have mattered. Your house was pretty much gone in ten, twelve minutes.”

  Joanna thanked him through numbed lips.

  The fire chief was her last visitor. When he left, a nurse appeared. “You’re looking a little fatigued. I tell you what. I’d just love to play with this darling baby. Let me take him awhile and show him off to the other nurses, and you take a little nap,” she cajoled.

  Wearily Joanna smiled and let her child be lifted from her arms. She closed her eyes and let her head sink back into the pillows. At once her vision was flooded with a pageant of all the possessions she had lost: her airy, bright study with its shining wood file cabinets, her computer with so much of her mind stored in it, her boxes of letters and cards from readers, her pretty pastel wire baskets holding correspondence and memos, the framed photos of Christopher at birth, of her mother and father on their wedding day. All gone. Her wide bed, smooth sheets, deep rugs, candles and chairs and crystal and costly vases and mirrors and armoires and new clothes, gone, all gone. Her treasures from the dump, so lovingly restored. Madaket’s beautiful lamp and oil painting. Madaket’s potted herbs. Christopher’s rocking horse.

  And all she had not possessed: Wolf. Bitch. Todd. Doug. All consumed by the fire.

  Twenty-four

  The next day Joanna and Christopher were checked out of the hospital, driven to the Hoovers’, and settled in the bedroom which had belonged to a daughter, now grown and gone, with the understanding that in a few days, whenever Joanna felt like it, she and her baby would move to the guest suite above the Hoovers’ garage. For now, she wanted the comfort of people nearby. She was on a mild sedative, which didn’t prevent the nightmares at night, but did postpone a squall of emotions which flickered at the edge of her thoughts. Christopher flourished, not minding where he slept or when he was fed or who held him, and Joanna held him almost all the time, except when sleeping, because it calmed her to have the baby safe in her arms.

  Joanna called Gardner her first day out of the hospital to find out how Madaket was. “I want to see her,” Joanna told him.

  “I think you should wait a few days,” Gardner advised her.

  “Why? Is she lucid?”

  “Sometimes. She’s on morphine for pain. And … she looks … different now. You have to understand.”

  Joanna’s voice trembled. “You’re afraid, when I see her, I’ll be frightened or upset and scare her.”

  After a pause, Gardner replied, “Yes. But I’m thinking of you as well, Joanna. You need to regain your strength.”

  “Gardner, if she cared enough for me to save my life, I think I can care enough to go see her. She needs to know”—why hadn’t she said this before?—“I love her.”

  Again, a pause. Then, “Yes, of course. You’re right. I’ll go with you. We’ll fly up on Friday.”

  For a few days Joanna did nothing more than take care of Christopher and sleep. She was aware of commotion in the house as, all through the following days and evenings, people arrived with gifts, secondhand donations, the necessities of daily life. The women from her mothers’ club brought baby clothes and baby equipment; someone loaned a crib. They left cards of sympathy and support, messages offering to take care of Christopher whenever Joanna needed, and she was stunned by their generosity, and deeply grateful in a way she could not find the words or energy to express. June, who was tall like Joanna, donated two suitcases of clothing for Joanna to wear until she could buy a new wardrobe, and Claude Clifford presented her with a totally impractical, sinfully gorgeous silk and cashmere nightgown and robe in gleaming emerald green. The accompanying note read, “Darling Joanna, please wear this. It’s so important to look good when you’re depressed!” This brought a brief smile to her face.

  Marge and Harry Coffin, who owned the bakery where once Madaket had worked, phoned one morning and asked if they could impose on Joanna for just a few moments. She agreed, and they arrived at the Hoovers’ house that afternoon. Both verging on retirement, the couple were a look-alike salt-and-pepper set, both round, rosy-cheeked, white-haired. They wore similar beige down coats which they did not remove as they seated themselves in Pat’s living room.

  “We’ve come about Madaket,” Marge Coffin said. “You know she used to be our employee at the bakery.”

  “Yes. She told me how much she enjoyed working for you.”

  “How is she?”

  “I haven’t spoken with her yet. Gardner Adams told me she is stable, recovering—” Joanna’s throat closed. “She’s alive. She will live.”

  Marge Coffin’s eyes were as blue as robin’s eggs. “We’re tiring you. We won’t keep you. We wanted to give you this. For Madaket.”

  Harry reached into his jacket pocket and brought out a piece of paper. He handed it to Joanna. It was a check for a thousand dollars, made out to Madaket. Joanna looked up, confused.

  “We took up a collection,” he said, his voice gruff with emotion. “It’s from the community. Everyone. Teachers and kids at the high school, and people she worked for, and merchants. Everyone gave a little bit.”

  “I know it’s not much,” Marge told Joanna. “But we thought every little bit would help. We thought you might have insurance for the hospital bills—”

  Joanna nodded confirmation.

  “Thank God for that. Still, she’ll need so many things.” Marge cleared her throat. “Tell her that they’ve started a collection box at the high school for clothes. Everyone knows the kind of thing Madaket wears, and people are bringing in what they think might work. There’ll be an announcement about it in the paper.”

  Harry Coffin continued. “They’re star
ting a fund at Young’s bike shop. So when she’s out of the hospital, there’ll be money for a new bike for her.”

  “This is all so generous,” Joanna said, brought to the point of tears. “But I thought … that Madaket was … considered …” She stumbled over her words, unable to find the right phrase.

  Harry Coffin finished for her. “She’s odd, but she’s one of us.”

  Marge smiled gently. “Comes a time when you believe we’re all a bit odd, those of us who make our homes here.”

  “We sent her flowers, too, and one of the high school girls is going around with a great big get-well card for everyone to sign.”

  “It will mean so much to her,” Joanna told them. Her voice was choked with emotion.

  “We don’t mean to be intrusive,” Marge began, “but we wondered—”

  “Yes?”

  “Will you be staying here?”

  “I’ll be at the Hoovers’, yes.”

  Harry cleared his throat. “Are you planning to remain on Nantucket is what we meant. We would understand, if after losing your house, you went back to New York.”

  “What we mean,” Marge rushed on, “is that if you do, well, please tell Madaket she can live with us.”

  “I’ll tell her,” Joanna said quietly. “But I plan to remain here. When I find the strength, I’ll rent a house until I can rebuild. Please don’t worry. I’ll take care of Madaket.”

  “That’s good to know,” Harry said.

  “And let us help you,” Marge urged. “We care for Madaket, too.”

  “Yes. Of course. I’ll tell her. I know she’ll be grateful. It will mean so much to her, I know. I think she’ll be suprised.”

  Four days after the fire Joanna and Gardner climbed into a small commercial airplane and flew to Boston. The predicted storm front had come through the night of the fire, and now had passed on, leaving the ocean dark and choppy and the sky full of turbulence and peevish leftover winds that swatted and slammed the spunky plane as it bounced over a roller coaster of gray air all the way up the Massachusetts coast. It was rocky enough to make some of the passengers use the paper bags supplied for the purpose. One woman wept quietly with terror. Joanna only closed her eyes and sagged into her seat. She wasn’t afraid they would crash.