Chapter 7
The little clearing went silent. Barnaby watched his brother’s mental gears turn, then turn again, then stall out. Gabby, on the other hand, lit up with sudden interest.
“Wait…you aren’t a Carmichael?” she asked. Then shook her head. “Of course you must be. You have the same eyes as all the rest.”
He was almost flattered that she’d noticed his eye color.
“Yes, I’m a Carmichael.”
“Your mother isn’t Annabeth?” Luke asked slowly.
“No. My mother was Sophie, Tamara’s daughter. She died giving birth to me.”
Gabby looked at Barnaby, then at Tamara. “I’m seeing it now. Ma’am, you look like my grandmother down in Georgia. If you don’t mind me asking, do y’all have some African-American in that family line?”
Barnaby answered that one. “A little, sure.” It didn’t seem the main point right now, but as long as no one was accusing Tamara of poisoning her patients, it was all good.
“Oh, more than a little,” Tamara said. “My mother’s family is from Martinique, African mixed with Carib and European, and a few of us married other Black folks along the way, some Wabanaki as well, also Portuguese.
My daughter Sophie wasn’t the first in our family to fall for a white man, but John Carmichael was the first to insist she go to the hospital when it was time to give birth.
We always handled childbirth here at home.
But he didn’t believe I could do my work safely.
Little did he know my Sophie would never leave that hospital. ”
Tamara never spoke of her daughter—Barnaby’s mother—without pain in her voice. Barnaby was used to the way she spoke, with that storyteller cadence, but he could see that Luke and Gabby found every word riveting. Barnaby touched her gently on the shoulder, and she patted his hand.
“I’m still confused. How long have you known you weren’t Annabeth’s son? Why didn’t you tell the rest of us?” Luke’s scowl grew deeper. Barnaby could understand how unsettling this news would be. Their family already had so many secrets and lies and deceptions.
“I had my reasons. I’ve known Tamara for a long time, but I didn’t know we were related until later.”
“A long time? How long?” Luke asked.
“I was ten. I crashed my kayak on a reef and nearly drowned. I managed to swim to the the rocks near here. Tamara helped me climb up, all bloody, and brought me here to treat my wounds.” He gestured at the tidy cedar-sided cottage behind him, with its brick chimney and purple trim.
He’d chosen that color and helped her paint it. So many of his favorite memories were from this place.
“After she fixed me up, she drove me back home.”
“First time I went near that inn since my daughter died,” Tamara said softly.
“You drive?” Gabby asked, scanning the clearing for any sign of a vehicle.
“Not no more, I don’t. But I did then.”
“Anyway,” Barnaby went on with his story. “I was grateful to her, and she was…restful. Kind. So as soon as I was better I came back with some money to pay her back for helping me.”
“Like a good little Carmichael,” said Luke, with a wry smile.
“Like a good little Carmichael,” he agreed. “Tamara refused my money, but asked me to do some chores instead. I barely knew what a chore was.”
“Yeah, chores weren’t really part of the Carmichael credo,” Luke agreed.
“I fixed that right away. Taught him how to pull weeds in my garden.” Tamara shuffled her feet, making him realize they’d all been standing out here for a while. She must be getting tired.
He caught her glance and raised an eyebrow, gesturing toward the house. He didn’t want to invite anyone in without her permission.
“Why don’t you two come inside and Barnaby will make us some tea,” she offered.
“Still doing chores?” Luke murmured as he followed Tamara down the path to the tiny house.
“Looks like.” If that was supposed to be a dig, it didn’t hit. Barnaby would do anything to take care of Tamara—or at least anything she’d let him do. She was still highly independent.
Inside, Barnaby immediately shifted into his familiar role of helper.
While Tamara settled into her armchair with a sigh, he filled the copper teakettle and set it on the vintage O’Keefe and Merritt cookstove, which Tamara had inherited from her grandmother.
She was a master of maintaining things, of reusing things, of finding new uses for items other people would discard.
She hung empty thread spools in her garden to startle away the starlings.
She’d made her own loom out of the wood from broken chairs.
A timepiece out of old spoons. Her ingenuity was endless.
There was no one on this earth he respected more than this tiny woman with the enormous heart.
He stole a glance at Gabby, happy to see that she was giving Tamara the respectful attention the older woman deserved. Some people couldn’t see past the white hair and shrunken form. But he could tell that Gabby saw a person, and a fascinating one at that.
“Back to the part where you didn’t tell any of us,” Luke prompted, as he lowered himself carefully onto one of Tamara’s spindle-back chairs.
“At first I was afraid Dad wouldn’t let me come out here,” Barnaby explained.
“You know how he felt about the western end of the island. I didn’t know about my mother until right before I left.
It blew my mind. I had to get away. I felt like I’d been lied to my whole life. I had been. I couldn’t handle it.”
“That’s why you left the island?”
Barnaby checked with Tamara to see which glass jar of tea she wanted to use. When she pointed at the chamomile, he took it down from the wooden shelf next to the stove.
“Yeah. I confronted Dad. He doesn’t like to be challenged, and I went about it head-to-head, like a dumb bull. He told me if I said anything, he’d call the FDA on Tamara.”
“The FDA?”
“And the IRS and some other acronyms. Her herbal business is all under the table. If someone wanted, they could make trouble for her. And you know Dad. John Carmichael is a really bad enemy to have.”
If anyone could understand that, it was Luke. “Amen to that. But why didn’t he want you to tell anyone?”
“I don’t know. At first I thought, money, but Annabeth obviously knew she wasn’t my mother so it wouldn’t affect her divorce settlement. Reputation, maybe?”
“The man’s had four wives. It kind of fits his reputation. I don’t think anyone would be surprised.”
Barnaby shrugged, since he’d put years of thought into that very question, and still hadn’t come up with an answer.
Luke went on. “To be honest, it explains how Dad managed to have three kids in three years. Turns out you, me and Fiona all had different mothers.”
The teakettle whistled, drawing his attention that direction. Gabby and Tamara were deep in a murmured conversation that he couldn’t hear. It unsettled him, and he strained to catch a word or two, something that would give him a clue.
If it had to do with her damn podcast, he’d blow a fuse.
Luke was asking him something, and he forced himself to pay attention to that instead of to Tamara’s low storytelling murmur.
“What did Annabeth do when you found out? Did you contact her?”
Barnaby poured boiling water into the pot he’d prepared.
“She was hard to reach, like always. When I finally talked to her, she said, ‘You’re a Carmichael and that’s all I have to say, except best to leave it alone’.
” He put the kettle back on the stove, feeling itchy at having to relive that incredibly uncomfortable conversation.
“It was weird, but that’s not a surprise.
Annabeth went through a lot being married to Dad.
Now she’s very religious and sends half her alimony money to a church. It drives Dad nuts.”
“I bet you would have liked to know earlier,” Luke said softly.
“Wouldn’t anyone? I think it was cruel to keep it a secret, and not just for me.
For Tamara.” He glanced again at his grandmother.
She was toying with her knitting needles, which she couldn’t use anymore due to her arthritis.
These days, they acted as a kind of nostalgic fidget toy.
“Sophie was Tamara’s only child. It would have meant everything to her to be able to spend time with me as a baby.
That’s what I can’t forgive. Dad never cares about the collateral damage of his actions. ”
His brother gave him a comforting squeeze of his shoulder. If anyone could understand the fury and frustration of being a Carmichael, it was Luke.
“Seems like you’ve made up for lost time. I get the feeling you do a lot for her.”
“It’s the other way around. I owe her everything. If not for Tamara, I’d be another Carson.”
“The hell with that. You’re nothing like Carson.”
Barnaby appreciated the fierce disgust in Luke’s voice, but he had to be honest with himself.
“I was headed that way. I was angry at the world, at Dad, at everything. Stepmothers, Carson, being stranded on this goddamn rock, being sent away to school, you name it, I hated it. Then I’d come here, steam coming out of my ears, and Tamara would put me to work. ”
“You needed something physical.”
He set the teapot on Tamara’s favorite painted bamboo tray.
“Not just that. I’d chop wood or dig garden beds or whatever she needed, and she’d listen to me.
I could say whatever I wanted and she wouldn’t freak out.
I’d get it out of my system and by the time I left, I felt better.
She taught me how to be a human being who actually cares about other people.
Would you believe I’ve been back to this island many times without anyone knowing? I only come here, to see her.”
Luke snorted in disbelief. “Seriously? That’s some superhero shit. Everyone usually knows everything that happens here.”
“No, they don’t. This island has more secrets than you can imagine. I know because people tell Tamara things and sometimes I’m nearby working on something and I happen to catch it.”
Everything was ready on the tea tray, so Barnaby hefted it onto one hand, like a football player ready to make a pass. But before he brought it to the two women, who were still deep in conversation, he paused and gave Luke a level look.
“I’m sorry I didn’t see you, too. I couldn’t take a chance on leaving these woods. I always tied up close to shore, out of sight, and hiked up the rocks. I didn’t want word getting back to Dad.”
Luke gave a one-sided smile and shook his head. “No explanation necessary. I had my own shit going on.”
“One more thing. You’re the first person I’ve told any of this. I’m not going to tell you what to do with the information, but…”
But his girlfriend was Heather, who wasn’t only a born-and-raised islander, but now ran a podcast.
“I hear you. Just gotta point out that I’m not the only person who just found out.” Luke jerked his head toward Gabby. “So if you want to keep this close to the vest, you might want to make a deal with the podcast babes.”
Ah crap. He gave a long groan. His brother had a point.
And not just the “babe” part.