Chapter 23
Brady and I eat and talk and laugh over our picnic dinner of Swiss chard and feta phyllo pie, watermelon-mint salad, and apricot-pistachio olive oil cake, all while the sun puts on a show, setting in orange, purple, and pink streaks.
Brady kisses me inside his truck before we head up to the farmhouse after dark, an unspoken agreement about public displays of affection, especially in front of Hannah.
As we near the house, we see firelight dancing in the yard and head there instead. There’s a large tent set up next to a fire and chairs.
“We’re camping,” Hannah announces as she exits the tent. She’s wearing Katrine’s sweatshirt over her pajamas to stay warm; the air grew chilly once the sun went down.
I smile at her excitement. “I see that.”
Katrine, Nora, and Johanna exit the tent and wave. “We want to sleep out here tonight. With Hannah. Would that be okay?” Katrine asks.
I look to my daughter. She seems like she’s having the time of her life, hanging out with these older girls who treat her like a little sister.
“Do you want to sleep out here, Hannah?” I ask.
“Yes, yes, yes. Can I? Please, please, please?”
“She’s never slept in a tent before,” I explain to the girls.
“I know,” Katrine says. “We were talking about camping tonight, and she said she’d never camped. It’s a beautiful night for it. And Alice had a tent.”
“Are you sure you don’t want me to stay out here too?” I ask. “You might get scared.”
She shakes her head. “I’m not scared.”
I can see how badly she wants to be alone with the girls, a burning autonomy. It’s bittersweet. She’s growing up, away from me, and yet her strong desire for agency makes me so proud. When I say yes, Hannah squeals and jumps up and down.
I notice Katrine suddenly nudges Hannah in the side and raises her eyebrows. Hannah’s eyes light, and she runs back into the tent, returning with a flat box wrapped in Christmas paper. The paper is yellowed and frayed at the edges.
“We found this in the attic,” Hannah says, handing it to me.
“Where?” I ask.
“In the floor!” she exclaims.
I turn the gift around in my hands.
“The floor was sticking up,” Hannah says. “I dubbed my toe on it.”
“Stubbed your toe?” I clarify.
Hannah nods. “The board was wiggly. So I pulled on it, and there was a secret hiding spot in the floor. And that was in there!”
“Wow, Hannah. How exciting!”
“Look at the tag,” Katrine prods.
I squint to read it. It’s faded but still legible. “To Lucy,” I read out loud. “Merry Christmas! Love, Rose.”
“Should we open it?” Hannah asks, unable to contain her childlike wonder in the midst of an unopened gift.
We contemplate the dilemma at hand.
“It feels a bit wrong,” I say.
“Like it isn’t ours to open,” Katrine adds.
Hannah nods. “Because it’s Lucy’s.”
I study the present in my hands, which must be over eighty years old. Why was it hidden under the floorboard? Why didn’t Lucy receive it? Why is it still unopened?
“There was more,” Katrine adds. “Under the board. A stack of letters, all sealed, all addressed to Rose’s son Hank overseas. Never mailed.”
“Where are they?” I ask.
“Hannah wanted to be the one to give you this,” she said, gesturing to the gift in my hands. “But we left the letters on the table in the attic. Alice went to bed already, but she said the two of you could look through them tomorrow. Together.”
I nod.
Hannah tries to head back into the tent without even saying goodbye.
“Hey,” I call after her. “Can I get a good night kiss?”
She rushes to my side, kisses my cheek, then darts back to the tent.
“Good night,” I call out again, but she’s already distracted.
Brady and I say goodbye to the girls and head inside.
It’s quiet and most of the lights are either off or dim.
I’m eager to talk to Alice about the latest letter from the bank and the farm-to-table dinner idea.
I’m also intrigued by the unopened letters Rose wrote to Hank, waiting for us in the attic.
But all of that seems like tomorrow’s problem, and Alice is asleep anyway. I turn my full attention to Brady.
“Are you tired?” he asks.
“Not really.”
“Me either.” He grins. “So it’s Friday night, you’ve got three babysitters, and you’re not tired. What do you want to do?”
I shrug coquettishly.
“I mean, I know what I want to do,” he says.
I hold my breath, unsure of what he’s going to say, unsure of my response, especially since Hannah will be sleeping outside. And I’m not sure I’m ready to push our relationship any further. I don’t want to spoil it.
“I saw a Scrabble game in the parlor.” Brady’s voice is a deep whisper.
Relieved at his benign suggestion, I match his tone. “Oh yeah?”
“I’m thinking culinary edition,” he says. “Bonus points for any cooking or baking words.”
“Oh, you are so going down,” I say with a flirtatious smirk.
The following morning, I finally sit Alice down at the kitchen table and tell her about the letter from the bank and the unfortunate new timeline to pay the money back.
Her face collapses. “The end of July? That’s only two months from now. What am I going to do?” she asks, looking off to the corner, seemingly for some kind of answer.
In her worry, I see the effect of this financial stress on Alice. She’s usually so positive, a glass-half-full kind of person.
“What about the Historic Register?” she asks, suddenly hopeful again.
“That takes at least ninety days,” I tell her. “And I haven’t even finished the application yet. I was going to add Peggy’s narrative before I submit it.”
Before she becomes too disheartened, I fill her in on the farm-to-table dinner idea. Brady told me he’s ready to move—and call an emergency meeting of the powers that be—but of course, Alice has to sign off on it first.
I describe the dinner to her as a culminating event for the Midsommar Festival and a fundraiser to save the farm.
“But that’s in three weeks,” Alice argues.
“Brady says it’s doable,” I explain.
She holds her coffee mug like a steel pole on the L train. Her face turns ashen. “It’s not that I don’t think it’s a wonderful idea, a thoughtful idea, it’s just . . .” She emits a weighted breath. “Well, it’s just a lot of attention. And I’m not comfortable with that kind of thing.”
I place a hand on her shoulder. “But people in this town love you, Alice. You’ve given them so much.
Let them give back. I know that’s not your style.
You want to lift others and not the other way around.
But wonderful things can happen when you let people help you, when you let them love you.
Give them a chance to show how much they care about you and this farm. ”
As the words come out, I realize it’s the same speech I need to give myself.
“And you’ll promise to come back?” Alice asks, a wrinkle of worry forming at her brow. “For the event?”
“Actually, I’m not leaving this weekend after all,” I add. “My boss cleared me to work remotely for the month. There’s no way I would leave you with all this. We’re a team.”
Alice smiles. “Well, I guess it’s a good thing I got that internet. Wi-Fi, you call it, right?”
I give her an affirming smile.
I head outside to find Brady. He’s leaving for Camp Stockholm soon. I don’t see him out there, but I do see Hannah and Katrine at the campsite. They sit around a morning fire; Johanna and Nora are presumably still asleep inside the tent.
“Good morning, campers,” I call as I near them. “How was it, sleeping in a tent?”
“Fun,” Hannah shouts. “I heard crickets.”
“I bet you did.” I give her a quick peck on the cheek.
“Katrine is going to teach me how to whistle today,” my daughter announces.
“Whittle,” Katrine corrects.
“Whittle?” I repeat, trying not to let concern cross my face. “As in, carving a piece of wood with a knife?”
“Don’t worry, Maggie,” Katrine asserts. “We’ll be very careful. I started whittling when I was Hannah’s age, and I’ve never cut myself. We’ll start with a vegetable peeler and work up to a knife.”
This is the kind of parental moment where you know you have to say yes or risk your child’s developing autonomy in the process.
Worst-case scenario she nicks her hand and it heals.
I remind myself that I have to let her get hurt sometimes.
It’s the only way she’ll learn. It dawns on me how much I’ve changed this past week—a far cry from the panic attack I suffered the day Hannah and April went to the beach.
I see Brady exit the farmhouse. “Well, I can’t wait to see what you create,” I say, working a smile onto my face as I walk away.
I meet Brady by his truck. “You weren’t leaving without saying goodbye?” I ask.
“Of course not,” he says.
Because I am his sous-chef, Brady had asked me to go with him to the camp.
He’s debriefing the rest of his students on next week’s plan, which includes French delicacies like madeleines, crème br?lée, and macarons.
His hope is that outlining the coursework will facilitate more efficient use of the commercial kitchen.
I wanted to go, just be with him, but I said I better take the weekend to organize for work, read those letters with Alice, plus spend some quality time with Hannah.
She seems happy and content, but I can’t shake the feeling that I’m not doing my job there.
I tell him that Alice has agreed to the farm-to-table dinner.
“That’s great news,” he says. “I’ll get moving on it today.”
I search his eyes for something more. “You’re not still sore with me, are you?” I pause. “For kicking your butt at Scrabble last night?”
He places a hand to his heart. “Not going to lie. Still stings a little. But you won fair and square with hazelnut. Triple-word score, with the z tile, a culinary word, and you used every letter you had for the fifty-point Scrabble. I didn’t have a chance.”
It wasn’t the Scrabble loss I was worried about.
It was what happened afterward. Brady and I had walked up to the landing outside our bedrooms, and we’d stopped in front of his room to kiss and say good night.
Then he opened his door, took my hand, and gently guided me to follow him. But I’d stopped at the threshold.
“I don’t think we should. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry.”
“I’m just not . . .” The word was ready.
I wasn’t ready. I was ready for the physical part.
After six years of celibacy after Sean’s death, I craved being in a man’s arms again.
Not just any man, but a man like Brady. But I wasn’t ready for what might come afterward.
The intimacy. The attachment. The vulnerability.
“Maggie, I’m here. I’m with you.” His voice had been a soft whisper. “And I’m not going anywhere. So tonight, tomorrow, next week. Three months from now. A year.” He’d squinted and cocked his head, as if maybe he’d gone too far. “Whenever you’re ready. Okay?”
I’d nodded. “Okay.”
Now, standing by his truck, I survey his face, looking for any hint of lingering rejection.
But all I see is Brady.
I use the rest of Saturday morning to check items off my to-do list. First, I set up a makeshift office in my bedroom so I can actually go back to work Monday, albeit remotely. Alice offered the desk from her room, which will serve my posture much better than the bed.
Then—because I forgot to do it yesterday—I text my neighbor Mrs. Lee to ask her to continue collecting our mail for the next few weeks. She replies with an envelope emoji and a smiley face, and I take that as a yes.
I also check my work email, which I’ve severely neglected. There are only a few important emails, but it takes me longer to think through how to reply. Getting back into work mode is going to be a struggle come Monday.
Finally, I complete the application for the National Register of Historic Places.
While it won’t be approved soon enough to make a difference with the bank, I feel certain we will save this farmhouse, and I want to do everything I can to keep it standing for many years to come.
I attach digital photos of the Queen Anne–style farmhouse, copies of the ledger, and Lenny’s photo.
After completing the narrative portion of the application—describing the house’s historical significance and many details Peggy shared—I upload everything and say a prayer.
After lunch, while Hannah and the Scandi Trio go fishing at the pond, Alice and I head to the attic to inspect the letters the girls found last night.
We deliberate about opening them, Lucy’s present as well.
After much back-and-forth, we decide to open the letters but leave Lucy’s gift as is for now.
As we open and sort the letters, we note that they start in 1943, in the months after Hank went missing.
It seems Rose continued to write to her son, perhaps to keep him close or as therapy, a way to sort out her feelings.
It’s also clear the affection Rose feels for the WLA workers, particularly Esther.
Alice and I sit side by side and read a few of the letters. In the third one, Rose mentions the farmerettes gifting her a wooden sign, erecting it in front of the boardinghouse, and then . . . Esther’s pregnancy.
Alice and I hold each other’s gaze.
“Lucy,” we say in unison.