by Nancy Thayer
“I see you want to change your last name to Jones, also.”
“Yes.”
“Very well. By the powers vested in me by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, I declare that you, Joanna Jones, have now adopted Madaket Brown, to be known henceforth as Madaket Jones, as your legal daughter.” He slammed his gavel down, once, hard.
Then he smiled.
Joanna couldn’t help herself; she was crying. She pulled Madaket to her in a warm embrace. The two women hugged tightly, then Joanna took Madaket’s face in her two hands and looked at her as if she’d just arrived in the world and was brand-new.
“Hi, Mom,” Madaket said.
“Hi, kid,” Joanna whispered through her tears.
Gardner raised the camera hanging around his neck and clicked pictures. Judge Cohen rose from his seat to lean over and shake hands. “Congratulations,” he said to the women.
It was the end of the day, and no other cases were waiting, so the judge and his officer didn’t mind letting the others take their time snapping photographs: Joanna and Madaket and the judge, Joanna and Madaket and Christopher, Joanna, Madaket, Christopher, Gardner, and Jake, then all the witnesses, and then the entire group, including the judge and his court official.
Then the crowd clattered out of the courtroom, down the stairs, and out into the sunny afternoon.
Of all the people invited to the adoption ceremony, only Tory declined to attend, not because she didn’t approve of it all, which in fact she didn’t, but because her life had suddenly fallen apart. That spring Tory discovered that her husband had a mistress, had been involved with her for several years now, a thirty-year-old journalist named Madeline. John was leaving Tory to marry Madeline because she was pregnant. John insisted they sell their New York apartment and the ’Sconset house; they would divide the profits equally. John would use his share to buy a new home for himself, his new bride, and their new child.
At the end of May Tory flew to Nantucket for the gloomy task of readying the house to be shown to prospective buyers. Joanna had just returned from taping an FH show in Cleveland, and Saturday evening she drove out to ’Sconset with a picnic dinner and a bottle of wine. She had Christopher with her, too, even though Madaket had offered to take care of him; she wanted to be with her baby every second she could.
The sun was shining and the grass was green and tulips were blooming, but it was cold inside Tory’s house. A brisk breeze sifted through the walls and windows from the ocean and Tory built a fire in the living room fireplace to offset the chill. She poured them each a glass of wine, and then Joanna carried Christopher and they walked through the spacious old house. As they opened doors and stood gazing in at the many rooms, it was as if they were actually revealing true and living scenes enacted there not so very long ago.
“Remember how this house sounded the year Jeremy was fourteen?” Tory asked. “He had several friends come to visit, and they were all as clumsy as colts, and so goofy.” She ran her fingers over a patched area in the wall of the upstairs hall. “They played touch football up here one rainy day. Someone—I think that big cute Bowles boy—tackled Jeremy and drove his shoulder right through the wall.” Suddenly she turned to Joanna, her blue eyes wide with alarm. “How am I going to live without all this? Without them?”
“You’ll find a way,” Joanna assured her. “I did.”
“Oh, you’re totally different,” Tory snapped, and shaking her head bitterly and wiping at her eyes with a handkerchief, she moved on to another room. She stopped at her daughter’s bedroom door. “My children are growing away from me. They never call me from boarding school. I don’t know what they’re doing. I don’t know what time they go to bed at night. They don’t want me to know.”
“That’s only natural,” Joanna reminded her.
Tory drifted into Vicki’s room. Nostalgically she ran her fingers over the ice-cream twists of her daughter’s canopy bedposts. “I’m going to sell the furniture. Everything. I’m going to tell Rafael to come take everything and sell it all.”
“Tory—”
“Really, I am! Vicki doesn’t even like her canopy bed anymore. She thinks it’s too ‘infantile.’ She wants to find some drug addict and travel through Europe with him; her goal in life is to sleep on the floor of a train station with her backpack for a pillow.”
Joanna laughed. “It’s her age. She’ll change.” Crossing the hall, she entered the guest bedroom, pulled back the crisp white curtains, and looked out the window at the blue Atlantic. “I stayed here three years ago,” she mused aloud. “When I saw my house for the first time.”
“I always liked the wallpaper in this room,” Tory commented from the doorway.
“And the view. Such an amazing view.”
Tory came to stand next to Joanna. She stared out in silence for a few moments, then said, “Yes, I used to love the view. But do you know what? Now it terrifies me. So much emptiness. So much cold water to drown in.”
“Oh, poor Tory …” Joanna began, but Tory let the curtain fall and walked away.
Returning to the living room, they set up their picnic dinner in front of the fireplace. Joanna made her way across the rug on her hands and knees, checking for sharp objects, and satisfied that the space was safe, she took Christopher from Tory’s arms and let him crawl.
“Look at him go!” Joanna laughed, delighted by her baby’s healthy antics. “Too bad they don’t have a baby Olympics.”
“All mothers think their baby’s precocious,” Tory replied with a sniff.
“I hope I can be as good a mother to my child as you were to Jeremy and Vicki,” Joanna said.
“I was a good mother,” Tory agreed.
“Remember the great board games you all used to have on the porch?”
“I’ll never forget them.”
“What will you do with them all?”
“Donate them to the Second Shop.”
“Why not keep them? Someday you’ll have grandchildren to play with.”
Tory shuddered. “Oh, wonderful, just what I want to look forward to, life as a feeble old grandmother.”
“Tory, grandmothers don’t have to be old and feeble anymore,” Joanna began, but Tory was indignant and the two friends finished their dinner in an uneasy truce.
The fire died down as they cleaned up the remains of their picnic, and they went out of the house. Tory locked the door behind them. She couldn’t bear to stay there alone, and besides, it was cold, so she had booked a room at a local inn.
The two women stood looking up at the gracious old Victorian. “This is a wonderful house, Tory,” Joanna said. “I’m so sorry you’re losing it.”
“I’ll never come back to Nantucket again in my life,” Tory swore.
“Yes, you will,” Joanna told her. “You’ll come stay with us in our new house some summer.”
Tory only looked glumly at Joanna in reply.
Joanna kissed her friend and watched her drive off, then tucked a drowsy Christopher into his car seat and set off herself for the little rented shack in Quidnet, thinking as she drove of the sheer serendipity which had changed so many lives.
If Joanna hadn’t known Tory, and hadn’t stayed at her house three years ago, and hadn’t driven along the Squam Road from the east, rather than from the west, from town; if she hadn’t turned down the wrong driveway and seen the storybook house; if she hadn’t bought the house and needed a housekeeper and hired Madaket—would Madaket still have met Gardner? Possibly. They both would have lived here on Nantucket anyway. But perhaps they would not have had so many occasions on which to become acquainted, and to see each other over and over again, and to fall in love.
It would be a summer full of ceremonies celebrating the entanglements of love. First, Joanna adopted Madaket as her legal daughter, making it clear that no matter what else happened in their lives, their bond to each other would remain. Jake and Joanna would be married in August and Jake would adopt Christopher as his legal son. Then Christopher woul
d be christened. And Madaket and Gardner would be married in September.
Their wedding would be beautiful. Joanna had begged Madaket to let her plan and give the wedding, for after all, she was now Madaket’s mother, and Madaket had agreed. It would be fabulous, Joanna declared, with acres of white satin, white linen, gardenias, white tulips, baby’s breath, and champagne. She would give Madaket away. Madaket had decided not to take Gardner’s name when she married him. She would keep her last name: Jones.
Somehow, in the midst of all this, Joanna had to travel to twelve different states and tape twelve shows for the fall and winter; finish her book tours; choose a design and a contractor for the Nantucket home; supervise the transformation of Jake’s apartment into a home for herself and Jake and Christopher, with a guest suite for Madaket and Gardner—or for Jake’s two sons and their families. Her life had never been so complicated. She had never been so happy.
It wasn’t all sheer sweetness and light, however. Jake’s younger son, Gabe, was twenty-four. He and his girlfriend, Jane, were delighted that Jake was going to be married again, that he’d found someone to love and care for him after the loss of his wife and his years of mourning. Paul, the older son, at twenty-six had just become a father himself; he and his wife, Celia, only professed delight, and only briefly. Their concern was financial. If Jake married Joanna, who would inherit his estate when he died? Furthermore, would Jake’s own flesh and blood, his sons and grandchildren, be subjected to financial loss in favor of Jake’s adopted new son? Furthermore, when Madaket became Joanna’s legal daughter, did she thus become eligible to inherit some of the money that should rightfully go to Jake’s sons and grandchildren? Tempers flared. Phones rang. Faxes cascaded to the floor. Joanna and Jake met with lawyers and began the tedious work of drawing up prenuptial agreements.
Once Jake had made it clear to his family that their inheritances weren’t threatened by Joanna or Christopher or Madaket, everyone became more amiable. Jake invited his sons and their wives to Le Cirque, where he officially announced his engagement to Joanna, and in turn the sons and their wives gave dinner parties to honor their father and his fiancée. Because the parties were in the city, where Joanna was fitting them into her crowded work schedule, she left Christopher on Nantucket with Madaket. Another task looming before her was the choice of a New York nanny. And a live-in housekeeper; Joanna liked Jake’s current help well enough, but the woman came only once a week and couldn’t give them the time that Jake’s new and complicated family life would require.
Madaket had asked to have Christopher stay with her during the summer. It would be best for him, she pointed out, while Joanna flew around the country producing her shows. Madaket had moved into the house Gardner was renting on the Squam Road. The large guest bedroom there held only Gardner’s beloved Fender Telecaster, a chair, an amplifier, and a music stand. He’d played with a rock group in high school, he confessed to Joanna, and at times he found playing his guitar brought him a solitary and melancholy consolation as nothing else could. But now that Madaket was in his life, he had no need for consolation of any kind. He suggested they turn the extra bedroom into a room for Christopher. He took on the task of moving Christopher’s furniture from the rented shack to his house.
What more could any mother ask, Joanna thought, than that her child be cared for by someone who loved him as much as Madaket did and, even better, who was living with a doctor? Occasionally she was pierced through with jealousy of Madaket’s constant loving presence in Christopher’s life; Christopher might come to love, to trust, to need, Madaket more than his own mother. At other times she only marveled at the sheer good fortune that had brought into her life and her son’s this young woman, who loved them as her own. Joanna reminded herself that with summer’s end, she and Christopher would be living in New York with Jake and they would all have to cope with a new set of faces and personalities.
With Joanna’s adoption of Madaket, and Madaket’s engagement to Gardner, another group of relatives entered Joanna’s life: Gardner’s parents and sisters. When Madaket married, Joanna would become Gardner’s mother-in-law. Madaket would have sisters-in-law. And Christopher would have a grown brother-in-law. An entire constellation of relationships blossomed around Joanna. Christopher’s sisters, Constance and Eleanor, had come to visit their brother during the spring. They’d come separately, and acted as if they’d been raised in different families. Constance, a few years older than Gardner, was also a physician. She had the same mass of curly, unruly, glowing hair that Gardner had, and the same lanky, ambling build, and the same direct look and easy smile. Eleanor, nicknamed Norie, was the baby of the family; she looked it, too. Plump, roly-poly Norie tied her long brown hair back with pastel ribbons and wore waistless dresses that ended at her thighs and baby-doll shoes with straps. When Joanna first met Norie, she’d thought the young woman’s wardrobe was some kind of a joke, but fortunately she didn’t mention this to anyone; Joanna came to understand that Norie chose her clothes with deliberation and care. Norie worked in a day-care center, taking care of babies and children, which Joanna privately thought was appropriate, since Norie was so childish herself. It was Norie who resented Madaket, although Norie would have resented any woman who entered Gardner’s life; she wanted her brother all to herself. During the weekend she spent with Gardner and Madaket, Norie had been aggressively rueful, and she snubbed Madaket, and misunderstood her every sentence, and made it clear that nothing Madaket did was right. Then, to everyone’s surprise and relief, Joanna stopped by to meet Norie, and the young woman had gone into raptures over Christopher. She’d taken him from Joanna and flirted and cooed to the little boy. Christopher had responded with his most beguiling gurgles and grins, and by the end of the evening, Norie said, “Look, Madaket, when you have Christopher over the summer, I’ll come over and take care of him for you so you can have some time to yourself. Or to be with Gardner. You guys could go out to dinner.”
“Thanks, Norie. I appreciate that. I know I’ll be glad for some help.”
“Lucky boy. He has a girlfriend so soon,” Gardner said to Christopher, and Norie glowed at the compliment in her brother’s words.
It’s possible that she and Madaket will be friends, Joanna had thought, watching the young women. Especially when Madaket has children; then Norie will come help.
And so here they all were, a party of fortunate people bound by acquaintance and circumstance and good luck, ready to celebrate the first in an absolute festival of celebratory occasions. Much discussion had gone on about just where to hold the reception after the adoption ceremony. Joanna’s shack was far too small, Gardner’s house didn’t have enough furniture, and Joanna didn’t feel she should impose on the Hoovers any more than she already had.
At last, with brilliant inspiration, she decided to hire a cruise ship. Now the group walked over the smooth pavement and bumpy cobblestones through the town, past the A&P parking lot where tulips bloomed and the great birch tree towered, beneath the lush green overhang of trees to Straight Wharf and the waiting boat.
It was a fifty-seven-foot power yacht, trimmed out in brass and teak. They assembled on the upper deck on chairs and benches cushioned in navy-blue and white stripes, around tables where the caterers had set out flowers and champagne and food. The boat shuddered around them as the engines rumbled into life, and slowly they moved out into the harbor.
For the first hour or so everyone mingled, exclaiming over the view or the gorgeous clouds streaked by the sinking sun, but before long the group broke into small clusters: they all had so much to be discussed, thought out, and planned. Bob told Madaket and Gardner about various houses he thought they’d be interested in buying, and Joanna bounced Christopher on her lap as she considered with Jake how they’d schedule the shooting of the next few shows of Fabulous Homes. Jake and Joanna would be married quickly and quietly in New York in August and take a honeymoon in Paris, leaving Christopher with Madaket and Gardner. They’d approved the plans of a new, en
vironmentally conscious, ambitious young architect, and by the end of the fall their new home would be built on the Squam property, a vacation home complete with solar panels and a swimming pool and cabanas, and a separate guest cottage connected to the main house by a glass-roofed greenhouse for Madaket, so that Madaket would always have a reason to come home. Christopher would be christened in October.
Now Pat came to Joanna, arms outstretched.
“Let me take him for a while,” she said, reaching for the baby. “I used to see him every day and now I never get to. I don’t want him to forget me.”
“I think he needs changing, and he’s fussing for a bottle,” Joanna said, relinquishing her baby into Pat’s arms.
“I’ll take him below into the cabin. We’ll fix him all up, won’t we, snookums?” Pat’s voice slid into the sweet goo of baby talk as she nuzzled Christopher’s downy head.
“Can I help?” Norie appeared in front of them, looking hopeful.
“That would be great,” Pat replied easily. “Here, you play with him and I’ll find his bottle and a fresh diaper.” The two women disappeared into the cabin.
Free of the weight and care of her son, Joanna rose and found Madaket, who now was standing at the bow of the boat. Joanna had asked the captain to take them out into the Sound and east, around Great Point, then down along the eastern shore of the island, so that they could see Joanna’s land from the water. Joanna slipped her arm around Madaket’s shoulders, and Madaket slid her arm around Joanna’s waist, and in companionable silence they looked out at the coastline. A gentle breeze made the long blue ribbon on Madaket’s hat flutter and sent the hems of Madaket’s and Joanna’s light dresses dancing.
They passed around the tip of Great Point, and then as the boat motored steadily south, they saw the scrubby green of tenacious beach plants and the angular gray geometrics of houses rise above the long stretch of gleaming sand.
It was difficult figuring out just what land belonged to Joanna and what to other people, for from this view there were few markers. She recognized the houses on either side of her property, but there were no fences, and the wild moorland spread in an unruly tangle of roses and brambles and low bushes. The beach shone golden as far as she could see.
