Last Rights

by Lynne Hugo

  And I did sleep, without a person or ghost beside me, even though I’d brought take-out food in with me, just as Mother and I had done so many times on that trip, and though the room was a ringer for any of a half-dozen of the drab variations we’d sampled.

  In the morning, I showered and checked out, feeling almost rested. It was just after seven when, with only a cup of coffee, I was back on the thruway, driving into the rising sun. I put on the radio after a while, and when it warmed up, after nine, rolled down the window and stuck my arm out. I do not recall ever feeling so free in my life.

  That feeling of freedom, truthfully almost joy, persisted and increased when I crossed the Sagamore Bridge onto the Cape. The landscape felt familiar, more home than I felt in Malone or New York. A brisk out-of-season breeze blew the ocean scent into the car, and I began singing with the radio. In Eastham, I stopped at The Lobster Shack, and treated myself to a lobster roll and Coke. Then, still humming with this strange and welcome lightness, I drove on to Truro.

  I KNEW TO LEAVE ROUTE 6 in North Truro and head down 6A; I remembered all the little colonies of efficiency cottages on the bay between there and Provincetown. I could be self-sufficient for a while, get my bearings. Within an hour, though, I was wondering if I’d lost my mind. How could I not have realized that early August would be high season? At each place I stopped, the man or woman at the desk nearly laughed when I asked if they had a cottage I could take for a week or so. And, of course, no one had any suggestions. I went all the way into Provincetown. There, even the old houses with widow’s walks on the roofs and “Rooms To Let” signs in front windows lining East and West Commercial Street, and every alley—with their tiny fenced gardens, window boxes spilling geraniums and ivy, and slantwise views of the harbor—had little signs up that said Sorry, or just a blunt No Vacancy.

  The buoyant mood that had carried me from New York deflated like a balloon with a slow leak until I was flat and dejected again. I bought a chocolate ice-cream cone and sat on a bench in front of the town hall, watching throngs of tourists crowding the old, narrow street. Behind the stores on the water side of the street, two huge wharves extended into the harbor, crowded with moored boats. It seemed there was no choice except to turn around, stopping along the way to check for a motel vacancy, an unsatisfying alternative for more than a night.

  I’d hoped to walk the ocean beach below the Mack house again and realized that I’d have to do it then, if I was turning back toward the upper Cape. I wondered who was renting or using the house now. Maybe I could just knock at the door and whoever was there wouldn’t mind. Better yet, maybe no one would be there, and I could park down the road a bit and use the steps without asking.

  I claimed the Rambler from the packed municipal lot and headed toward Truro’s ocean side. I wasn’t sure I remembered exactly how to get to the Mack house, but nothing had changed, and I found the narrow private road fringed with scrub pines easily.

  The house stood exactly as memory had it, solitary and majestic in its setting and size, but unpretentiously welcoming. The paint job had been kept up, I could see, and bright dahlias bloomed in front of the porch. Two big pots of geraniums flanked the front door. A car with Massachusetts plates was parked and the house looked intimidatingly inhabited. Renters, I supposed, and began the laborious process of turning the car around in the area where the paved road dead ended into the dune cliffs covered with spartina. As I tugged the steering wheel, I heard a commotion of dogs and the screen door slapped. Two black Labrador retrievers flew into the rough grass and bounded toward the car exuberantly. The screen door opened again, and a short woman wearing oversize glasses stepped out. I recognized Marilyn, Ben’s wife.

  “Shadow! Tina! Stay down!” she called, and began walking down the path toward the car. I put the brakes on and waited.

  “Are you lost?” she asked, stopping a distance from the car. She looked the same as I remembered her, tiny, with mousy-brown hair tucked behind her ears. She might have been wearing khaki shorts, T-shirt and sandals then, too, but what I remembered was the warmth that seemed to travel out in front of her like a soft breeze.

  “Are you Marilyn? Marilyn Chance?”

  “Yes, I am. I’m afraid I don’t know…”

  “Oh, you wouldn’t remember me. We met once, years ago. I’m Ruth Kenley. My mother and I stayed here for almost two weeks, let’s see, it would have been…six years ago. Ben was painting the house—Lorna let us use it, Mother taught your niece Hannah the flute.” I kept supplying little details, watching Marilyn’s face for any sign of recollection. “Ben brought me to your house for lunch.” I was embarrassed. How much had Ben told her after Mother stormed at him with her accusations?

  I saw the memory come. “Yes. Yes! I should have remembered—that gorgeous red hair! Of course. Goodness how you’ve grown up. Please, please come in. Ben’s here, he’d love to say hello.”

  I put the car in Park and turned off the ignition, but sat a moment longer. “I don’t want to bother you. I’d just wanted to ask permission to walk along the beach below you this afternoon.”

  “Well, of course you can. Good heavens! Is that all? Where are you staying?”

  I got out of the car and began walking toward the house with her as we spoke. “Actually I’m not staying. I mean, I couldn’t find anything, so I thought I’d head back toward Eastham, or even Hyannis and see if there’s something down there.”

  “Ben! Ben!” Marilyn was calling as I finished my sentence. She turned and said, “You could stay here, except we have sort of a houseful right now. Ben’s mother and father are here.”

  “Goodness, I wouldn’t dream of it. Really, I just wanted to go down on your part of the beach for a bit.”

  “Is your mother with you?”

  “No, she’s…not.”

  Ben walked around from the back of the house then. For a split second he looked quizzical, then his face split into a warm grin. “Well hi, Red.” He put out his hand to shake and when I gave him mine, he covered it with his other hand and held it an extra few seconds. He looked more weathered, like a good Cape cedar shake house. A few more wrinkles, gray salting his hair, but I’d have known him immediately, anywhere. A pair of glasses was tucked in his shirt pocket.

  “Do you remember Ruth…Kenley? Right?” Marilyn said to Ben. I heard her say Kenley, and realized I’d not added Mairson when I introduced myself, but didn’t bring it up now. My wedding rings were still zipped in a compartment of my purse as they’d been since I took them off on the train, while Mother was living the last hours of her life. There’d been pain on Evan’s face when he noticed my bare left hand, but he’d said nothing about it, and I hadn’t, either.

  “I don’t know if you’d remember, I stayed here with my mother.”

  “Of course I remember you! How are you? How’s your mother?”

  I hesitated. Gulls circled, riding the thermals just as I always pictured it. “Mother died last week.”

  Ben and Marilyn both looked horrified, their “Oh, no, was she sick?” exclamations of shock giving way to the expressions of pity I’d seen on so many faces in the last week and a half.

  “No, it was sudden.” I tried to put enough closure on the sentence that they’d not ask questions. Marilyn picked up quickly.

  “Honey, Ruth just wanted to walk on the beach, but she’s not been able to find a place to stay. I was wondering about Bonnie and Susan.”

  “Possibly.” Then, to me, “How long do you need a place for, Ruth?”

  “Really, I didn’t come to ask you to help me find a place, or anything like that. I just loved this house and beach so much when I was here, well, I just wanted to see it and take a walk. Please, don’t do anything on my account.”

  Marilyn said, “You wanted to stay around Truro, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, but it’s okay. I should have known everything would be taken. I guess I wasn’t thinking very clearly.”

  “That’s certainly understandable,” Marilyn said sof
tly and touched my shoulder.

  Ben cut in. “It’s just a possibility, but what Marilyn was thinking of is a cottage that some people we know—they own a cottage colony over on 6A—built. One of their mothers wasn’t well, and they built a little one for her just beyond their house, where they could keep an eye on her but she’d be in a separate place. She died in February, and as far as I know, they don’t rent it out usually. It’s smaller than the family cottages they operate, and Bonnie’s mother’s furniture is in it, that sort of thing.”

  “Do you think they’d rent it to me? I’d take really good care of everything.” I couldn’t resist, though I felt as if I were giving the lie to all I’d said about not having come to ask for help.

  “Might. Let me give a call. I know Bonnie from town council. How long do you need a place for?”

  “I’m not sure…a few days, maybe longer. I’m sort of at loose ends. I should be at school, but right now, I—”

  “Let me see if I can get one of them on the phone,” Ben cut in, checking his watch, and taking the porch steps two at a time, the way I remembered him doing.

  “Thank you so much, it’s really nice of you.”

  “Happy to do it,” he called back,

  “Would you like a glass of iced tea?” Marilyn asked. “Come sit on the porch with me while we see what Ben can do.”

  “I’m being a bother…” I said, shielding my eyes from the sun with one hand.

  “Not at all,” she answered. “I wish I could have you here. This must be such a hard time for you.” As she spoke, a teenage boy in bathing trunks appeared, slamming the screen door behind him. I barely recognized him. He must have been three feet taller than when I’d last seen him. “This is Matt. Matt, this is Ruth Kenley. She stayed here before we moved from our other house.”

  “Hi,” the boy said indifferently in my direction. “Mom, where’s the tube? Gram said to bring it for Jenny when I came back down.”

  “I think she left it propped by the outdoor shower. You all okay down there? Don’t let Gram run herself ragged, please,” Marilyn said as the boy went off, down the steps and around the house muttering, “Yeah, okay.”

  “That’s right. We lived over the Provincetown line when you were here. Four years ago, Ben and I finally managed to buy my sisters out. We needed a bigger place, that’s for sure, and Ben had been doing the maintenance for a long time.”

  “I remember how much he did,” I said, thinking of the painting and his good-natured grumbling about keeping it up.

  “I’ll get us some tea,” she said. “I could use a break myself. I’m glad you showed up.”

  I sat in a wicker chair on the porch and looked out at the ocean. A few gulls rose over the beach, which I couldn’t see because of how the house was set back from the edge of the dune cliff. The old path still led through the tall grass and beach plums toward the wooden stairs down to the expanse of sand. The separate strands of the grasses were silvered in the intensity of reflected light, and the breeze arched them as though to display the shining.

  Marilyn appeared with two tall glasses of iced tea, round, translucent lemon suns perched on top and sprigs of mint poking from beneath the ice. Even tea looked cared for here. “Thank you. This is beautiful,” I said, and she smiled.

  “Ben’s got Bonnie on the phone,” she said. “I heard him telling her about you.”

  “It’s as beautiful as I remembered it,” I said, gesturing over the beach grass to the ocean.

  “Isn’t it?” she agreed. “It almost seems to transcend…anything, I mean, things that hurt us. Oh, really, Ruth, what I’m trying to say is how sorry I am about your mother and that I understand why you’d want to come here. There’s a healing about certain places for certain people, you know?”

  “Yes. That’s it.” It was a relief to have someone articulate it for me.

  I heard Ben’s footsteps approaching through the kitchen. The screen door squeaked slightly on its hinges. I remembered that sound, Mother opening the door in her blue sundress.

  “Good news. Susan said to send you on over, and you and they can take a look at each other. They’ll consider renting it to you if you’re a quiet sort. I had to vouch for you, Red, so no loud parties, unless of course you invite us.”

  “Ben!” That from Marilyn, to Ben’s laugh. She laughed then, too, seeing me smile.

  “I’ll try to control myself. I guess I should get over there, not take the time to go for a walk now?”

  “Ach. I didn’t think to tell her you’d be a while. I can call back.”

  “No. That’s fine. If it works out, maybe I could just come another time to walk down there?”

  “Of course. You come anytime, whether we’re here or not. Walk all you want,” Marilyn said, Ben nodding agreement as she spoke.

  “You can get over to 6A right?” Ben asked. I nodded. “Okay, just go under 6 and cross 6A. Dutra’s Market will be on the right, you know?” he went on. “You’ll be heading for the bay. Go up the hill and where the road splits, go left onto Hilltop Road. You’ll go over a big hill, and then it winds down toward the water. Watch for a sign for Landings. That’s the name of the cottages. You’ll see a drive with a big house set off to the left. Actually, there’s a little sign that says Office, and points to the house. Just go there. It’s Bonnie Madison and Susan James you want. Good people. You’ll like them.”

  “Susan James and Bonnie Madison,” I repeated. “Landings. I’ve got it. Cross 6A and left onto Hilltop. How can I thank you?”

  “No need to. Stay in touch, okay?”

  “How about coming over for dinner one night?” Marilyn added the tag to Ben’s sentence.

  “I don’t want to put you to any more trouble,” I said, hiking my purse strap up my shoulder.

  “Will you stop with that trouble stuff? One more place is no trouble. How about tomorrow night? We’ll let you get settled.”

  “I’d love to. Thank you.”

  THE COTTAGE WAS TINY and simple, but more than I’d hoped when I’d first had the notion of coming. Sided with cedar shakes like the main house, but behind it and away from the rental cottages, it sat by itself, the nearest structure to the bay, tucked between dunes and surrounded by scrubby vegetation. An overgrown sandy path led perhaps twenty-five feet to the beach and a longer paved one back to the main house, laid for Bonnie’s elderly mother to get back and forth with easy footing. It had a front stoop facing the water, large enough for the painted wooden rocker on it.

  Bonnie, tall, bony, plain-faced with gray strands in her straight, close-cropped brown hair, showed me the cottage herself. “Ben said your mother just died. That’s why I was willing to rent to you. I know what that’s like. Did he tell you I lost my mother in February?”

  I nodded. “I’m sorry,” I whispered, my voice an unexpected failure.

  “My mother and I had a row to hoe,” she said. “She had a lot of trouble accepting it, when Susan and I bought this place together?” It was a statement, but her voice inflected it as a question, and I gathered she was asking whether I understood. I nodded, though I didn’t know to what she might be referring. “Anyway, I don’t think she ever really was okay about it, even after she got sick and I moved her here. Susan was so good to her, too.” There was a pause, while Bonnie looked out over the water, a suggestion of tears in her eyes which she blinked back. “Mine had a stroke. What did your mother die of?” A blunt, direct question.

  “She died of…suicide.”

  “God.” She took it in for a minute. “That must be really tough. I don’t know if I could have handled that. I’m really sorry. Look, you can rent the place for as long as you want. I think twenty-five dollars a day would be fair. If you go by the week, we’ll call it a hundred fifty. Is that too much? It’s a lot less than the cottages go for.”

  “That’s more than fair. I really appreciate it.”

  “Let me show you the ins and outs of the place,” she said, and busied herself pointing out the details of the two
rooms. The main room had a kitchen arranged along part of two walls, with a sink, small stove and refrigerator, and equipped cabinets above and below the small white counter space. “Those are Mother’s dishes and silver. I’ve left them here, for now, you know.”

  “I’ll be really careful with them.”

  “Well, don’t worry about the pots and pans, anyway. They’re nothing special.”

  Windows opened on three of the walls in that pine-paneled main room, big ones on both sides of the screen door out onto the porch, and one on each of the adjacent walls. An antique wooden eating table was set up with two straight chairs, not near the appliances, but across the room, by one of the windows, overlooking the water. The only other furniture was a green couch, an end table on either side of it and a small television in the opposite corner. The room was cheerfully flooded with light. Bonnie threw the screened windows open. “Let’s get you some air in here. See what great cross-ventilation it has?”

  “I love the pictures. Did someone you know paint them?” Beautifully rendered, subtle oil paintings on the wall behind the couch were of scenes that looked so familiar I was certain they had to be of Truro dunes and sea views. Another, smaller one depicted the horseshoe-shaped bay right in front of me, the Provincetown monument visible in the distance of a twilight scene of two white-sailed boats.

  “Actually, Susan did. She’s an artist. Her work is in the Blue Heron gallery in Wellfleet.”

  “They’re incredible,” I said, and Bonnie smiled.

  “She’s incredible,” she said.

  There was no door into the bedroom, just an opening in the wall where the kitchen part ran out. A four-poster double bed scarcely fit, the room was so small, with barely space for a tall bureau and one nightstand, both antiques. The closet-size bathroom with just a stand-up shower was behind a pine door. Two high, wide windows in the bedroom and another in the bathroom provided light and ventilation. A blue and green cotton print valance was above each, matching the bedspread. A doorless cubbyhole had a bar for hanging clothes. Another deceptively simple, magnificent painting—a sidelong view of the ocean and enormous dunes along the oceanside coast—hung on one of the knotty pine-paneled walls.