by Lucy Kevin
“She didn’t love him?”
Ava smiled. “It turned out that she didn’t love William any more than he did her. And she didn’t care for the life that had been planned out for her by her family, either. She wanted to be a poet, wanted to be so much more than just a means of joining together two families. Just as your grandfather simply wanted to be a teacher, not a business magnate.”
“So you plotted this between you?”
“Plotted is a strong word,” Ava replied. “But yes, we discussed it. We decided we would be happy. All of us. William and I would be married, presenting his family with a fait accompli, leaving Poppy free to pursue her dreams.”
“But you let people believe she was dead,” Hanna said, her voice rising as everything she’d been feeling came out. “You let them blame you for her suicide.”
“Poppy gave me William. She left me the love of my life. The least I could do was help give her a chance at her dreams.” Putting her hand over Hanna’s, Ava explained, “You have to understand the way it was back then, the way it still often is now. If her family had known she was alive, do you think they would have let her go? The idea was that eventually, once she had made her new life, she would come back strong and able to face her family knowing they couldn’t sway her or pressure her into following their rules, rather than her own.” Ava looked back down at the postcards. “I met with her once or twice afterwards, before she left Seattle. After that, it was only postcards, and even those stopped after a couple of years.”
Hanna sat there staring at the postcards. “What should I do, Grams?”
“That’s for you to decide, darling. Well, you could go downstairs and let your sisters decide for you, but trust me, William and I were happier when we made our own choice. I’d like to think that ultimately, so was Poppy. I don’t know for sure how things turned out for her after she stopped sending the postcards. All I know is what she wanted, what she dreamed of. Just the way you’ve always known what you want and have followed your own dreams.”
With that, Ava pressed a kiss to her forehead, then left her alone with the box on her lap.
* * *
Joel guided the mussel boat back into the harbor slowly, piloting it with the skills he’d kept honed throughout his time as the Peterson Shipping Company’s head. Unfortunately, however, it said a lot about how little time he’d been able to get out on the water in recent years when the captain had looked worried as he’d first taken the wheel.
“It might be the company’s boat, sir, but I’d hate for anything to go wrong.”
But Joel had deftly piloted the mussel boat, concentrating to keep it steady. The captain seemed bothered by the way the salt spray got onto his suit, but Joel was simply glad for the chance to pull off his jacket and toss his tie on top of it.
The crew dove for the mussels rather than dredging, just one of the many ways they tried to protect the ocean around the island. They loved the sea too much for anything else.
And they weren’t the only ones who loved it. Joel did, too, from as far back as he could remember.
There was something so simple, so pure about being on the water. Finally, after everything that had happened this week, he was able to think clearly...and, of course, all he thought about was Hanna.
Could he have done something else?
Could he have made a different choice?
Because if she was going to leave the island to pursue her dreams, then what future was there for them? Especially when he cared so much for her that he would never want to be the guy holding her back, trapping her on the island when she should be doing what she loved.
Which reminded him, while he was out here playing with boats, there was plenty of paperwork waiting for him back at the office.
“Anyone can be a captain,” his father had often told him, “But there’s only one head of the company. Duty comes first, Joel.”
Duty.
Joel’s sigh came almost at the same moment the mussel boat touched the dock. Everything in his life had been about duty. Duty and seeing things through.
Yet, hadn’t he left one thing unfinished?
One very, very important thing.
The captain of the mussel boat shook Joel’s hand as he hopped down onto the dock. “I’m glad you could come out with us today, Mr. Peterson.”
“Joel, please. Just Joel, not Mr. Peterson.”
“Well, Joel, if you ever feel like coming out again, I’d be glad to have you.” The gray haired man gave him an unexpectedly empathetic look. “And I hope that whatever you were thinking about, that the sea helped you find an answer.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
After Ava left, Hanna stared at the postcards for a long time, more evidence that Poppy had left her family behind.
Hanna suddenly pushed the postcards and envelopes away. Everything she’d touched with this documentary was too close, too personal. If it wasn’t hurting Joel by digging up the past, it was upsetting her sisters or making Grams break her promises.
“Show me your heart…that’s the difference between a real documentary maker and everyone else.”
It hadn’t sounded easy—she’d known better than to assume that it would be—but at the same time, hadn’t she assumed that everything would work out for her the way it always had? She’d barged into the Peterson Shipping offices because she needed access to the archives so that she could make a good enough documentary to get into the master’s program. She’d made Joel show her his aunt’s poems and the police reports because she needed to follow Poppy’s trail no matter whom it hurt. And she’d pulled him onto a ferry to Seattle with her because she needed to show him that everyone was wrong about what had happened in 1951.
Thinking back on her childhood, Hanna couldn’t remember a time when she hadn’t gotten what she wanted. With four big sisters, not to mention the famous Walker name to fall back on, she’d always had things easy. When she’d fallen as a child, Grams had always been there to pick her up. Emily had helped her with her homework, even making it seem like fun. Rachel had taken her to parties, never complaining about the presence of her little sister. Paige had helped her put together her college application so that she got the place in film school she wanted. Even Morgan, so busy with her own dreams, had helped her pick out prom clothes and given her advice about boys. Truthfully, Hanna could barely think of a moment of her life when her sisters hadn’t been there to make things easier for her.
Even her mother’s death in the island’s horrible flu epidemic two decades ago wasn’t as hard for her as it had been for the others because Hanna had been so young that her sisters had gone out of their way to keep her from the worst of it. Emily, Rachel, Paige and Morgan had put aside their own grief just so that they could make things that little bit better for Hanna.
But when had Hanna last done something that was genuinely difficult? And what was worth stepping out from behind their shield of affection for? Was it all worth the pain she was feeling now?
But she already knew the answer, didn’t she?
Joel was worth risking everything for.
Hanna got out her camera, positioning it so that it would film her sitting on her bed. She knew she looked terrible, with puffy eyes and tangled hair, but she didn’t care. Telling him the truth was all that mattered right now, not looking pretty or attractive.
She didn’t have anything planned, didn’t have a script to read from, as she hit the record button. All she could do was speak from her heart.
“Joel, I know you probably won’t want to play this video for too long. But I hope you’ll watch long enough for me to tell you the truth. The truth about what happened...and also the truth about how I feel.”
Hanna swallowed. This was harder than she had thought it would be, yet she knew she needed to keep going.
“Let’s start with the truth about Poppy. It turns out that she left the island with help from my grandmother, as well as from William II. Not only did your great aunt and my grandfather not wan
t to marry one another, but Poppy wanted to follow her dreams and write poetry, and she thought she needed to leave the island and her family to do it. But according to my grandmother, Poppy always planned to come back once she had succeeded. Obviously, she never did. I know learning what Poppy did hurt you, and I’m so sorry about that...but I also know it would have crushed her spirit to give up her dreams.”
The truth about Poppy was the easy part, though.
“Now for the truth about me.” It should have been the more straightforward part—just a few simple words—yet it was anything but easy. “I love you, Joel.” Her voice was shaking now, but she knew she had to get through this, knew she needed to tell him everything that was in her heart. “And I think you love me too. At least, I hope you do.”
She paused again, trying to think how to phrase the next part, yet there wasn’t a choice, not really. She had to keep telling the truth, even if it might cost her Joel.
“And you were right, I am planning to go back to school in Seattle...but that doesn’t mean I ever planned on leaving you, too. Times are different now from the way they were when Poppy was my age and trying to follow her dreams. She believed she had to leave her family and friends so that she could become the person she wanted to be, but I know better. I know that my dreams are so much richer when the people I love are a part of them. And,” she added with a small smile, “I can’t help but think that if there’s anyone in a position to visit me in Seattle and to pick me up to bring me back to the island, it’s a man with his own fleet of ships, who also happens to love sailing them.”
Hanna turned the camera off, then sent it in an email to Joel without editing out a word.
The easiest thing at this point would be to sit back and wait for a response from Joel, maybe let herself recover a little before she pressed on. But since she’d been the one to dig up his great aunt’s history, Hanna knew she’d never be able to live with herself if she left the mystery unsolved and unfinished.
Picking the envelopes and postcards back up and going through them again, she saw that while they’d come from all over the country for two years, four of the postcards showed the same view and the postmark on those envelopes were from Oregon. The view looked out over a town along the coast to a very distinctive ridge.
She scanned the photograph onto her computer and set about an image search. Slowly, she started to go through the results, and when she stumbled onto a web site dedicated to old photographs from the region, she finally found what she was looking for.
All four views were from the same coastal town: Woodburn, Oregon.
Had Poppy spent time there? Had she lived there? Or had she simply been passing through? Certainly, it looked like she couldn’t have been there long, since the postcards had stopped so suddenly. Or maybe the opposite was true. Maybe she’d finally settled down so much that she didn’t need reminders of Walker Island.
Pushing away the thought that she’d hit another dead end, Hanna began to do some research on the town, searching for any clues that might lead her to Poppy. Her eyes were starting to blur when something finally caught Hanna’s eye.
It seemed that this small town in Oregon was known for its annual poetry festival.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Hanna woke up the next morning to the sound of Emily’s raised voice, “No, she can’t come down. And why would you possibly think she’d want to see you again after what you did to her yesterday?”
Joel? Was he here to see her? But by the time Hanna threw on her robe, Emily was already shutting the door.
“Emily, wait!” Hanna called, rushing down to stop her. Sure enough, Joel was standing there outside. “Joel, I’m so glad you got the video I emailed to you!”
“You sent me a video?”
Emily looked just as surprised, and more than a little upset, as well. Hanna put her hand on her sister’s arm. “Thank you for protecting me, but I need to speak with Joel. Alone.”
Emily looked at her for a long moment before finally nodding. Still, she said, “Just holler if you need one of us to throw him out for you.”
“No. I won’t want that.” Finally, Emily headed back into the kitchen, leaving Hanna and Joel standing together on the doorstep.
“You really didn’t get the video?” Hanna asked.
Joel shook his head. And now that she looked at him more carefully, she realized he didn’t really look like someone who had come back to declare their undying love. In fact, he still looked fairly upset, almost the way he had back in Seattle.
Just the thought of their conversation on the B&B porch was enough to bring a fresh pang of pain to Hanna, but she forced herself to hide it away as she asked, “Then why are you here?”
“We started this documentary of yours together and I think we need to finish it together.”
It wasn’t a declaration of love—not anywhere close to it, actually—but the fact that he was here standing on her doorstep wanting to continue working with her to unravel the mystery of what really happened to his great aunt felt important.
“Actually, that’s part of what I needed to tell you in the video I emailed to you. Come inside, Joel. Please.”
For a moment, she thought Joel might not do it, but when he walked in then said, “I believe this will mark the first time a Peterson has been inside a Walker home for more than six decades,” she wanted to leap for joy.
Everything couldn’t be completely lost if he was teasing her with their special joke, could it?
“I found out more about Poppy,” Hanna said once she’d closed the front door behind them. “My grandmother told me what happened.”
Joel stared at her, barely blinking. “Tell me.”
“Grams says that Poppy told her straight to her face that she never loved William II. What she wanted more than anything was to be a poet, but she feared she’d never get the chance if she remained here following her family’s plans for her life. Grams also said that Poppy always intended to come back home after she’d made a name for herself as a poet.” A muscle jumped in Joel’s jaw as if he couldn’t let himself believe that part, and Hanna wanted so badly to convince him that it was true. Hopefully, they’d learn something soon that would prove it to Joel in a way he wouldn’t be able to deny. “I get the feeling that Grams and Poppy became pretty good friends in the time they knew each other. At least, Poppy kept sending her postcards for two years.”
“Why wouldn’t your grandmother have said anything to let my family know Poppy was okay?”
“She made Poppy a promise, Joel, and swore she wouldn’t break it. When Grams makes a promise, she really keeps it.”
“Then why would she have finally broken it now?”
Hanna refused to look away from his beautiful eyes. “For us.”
And for love.
But she could see that he wasn’t yet ready to talk about their relationship—or how everything beautiful could have gone wrong so fast—so she turned the focus back to his great aunt. “Based on the box of postcards that Grams kept, I now know where Poppy went after Seattle. It was a small town, down near Portland, called Woodburn.”
“Are you sure?”
“I am. Especially since I found out that the town is renowned for its poetry festival.”
“Then what are we waiting for?”
She stared at him in surprise. “You want to go there? Now? With me?”
“Like I said, we began this together, and I think we should end it together, too.”
She hated the way he spoke of endings, but at least she would get one more day with him as they travelled to Oregon. And maybe, she hoped, that would be enough time for him to realize he cared about her as much as she cared about him and that together they could find a way to make things work out between them.
Even if he was a Peterson who lived on the island...and she was a Walker studying at the University in Seattle.
* * *
Fifteen minutes later, as they were boarding the ferry, Hanna took out her cell phon
e and placed a call to the president of Woodburn’s local poetry society, whose name and number she had found on their web site during her online research the previous evening.
“Hello, Ms. Stevens? My name’s Hanna Walker. I understand you’re the president of the poetry society?”
“If this is about getting your poetry into our newsletter, the deadline has already passed.”
“No, that’s not why I’m calling,” Hanna assured her quickly. “I’m actually looking for information on a poet who might have visited your festival a while ago, probably in the early 1950s.”
“The 1950s?” Ms. Stevens was clearly stunned by Hanna’s request. “Why on Earth are you searching for a poet who might have passed through here more than six decades ago?”
Hanna tried to explain about her documentary as simply as she could, though even leaving out most of the finer details of what had happened on Walker Island so long ago, she was speaking for quite a while. Finally, she closed with, “Poppy’s great nephew and I both need to find out what happened to her. I know it’s a long shot, but we at least have to try.”
“My family means a great deal to me, too,” Ms. Stevens said after a long enough pause that Hanna nearly wondered if she’d hung up during her long explanation, “and if someone had disappeared along the way, I’d want to find them, too. I’ll give you my address and you can come on over anytime you’re ready.”
“How about today? In say, three hours?”
“Three hours? Wouldn’t that mean you’re already on your way?”
“We are.”
Hanna knew it probably seemed a little crazy, going all the way to Portland and beyond, just on the off chance of finding another small clue about Poppy’s whereabouts. Yet, they needed to do this. Not just because of the documentary, but because she and Joel both needed to see this through, regardless of where it took them.
