Chapter 7 #2
Grandma survived the night in Rex’s cabin. Before Maddie had called to say she was stranded on the Cape, she’d contacted Joe, who said he’d be happy to stay with his sister, whether “the ornery old girl liked it or not.”
After falling asleep at dawn, Rex and Maddie finally arrived back on the island early the next afternoon. She couldn’t believe how happy she felt—not crazy, giggly, hyper-happy, but a mellow, happy-all-over contentment that radiated from her head to her toes.
And, this time, it hadn’t been too soon.
As an added dose of happiness, she was looking forward to spending the holidays with her family.
The next day, Joe picked Rafe up in Vineyard Haven and brought him to the cabin; Maddie’s father would arrive on the weekend.
She wasn’t sure when to tell them about the bookshop, and if she should try to enlist their participation before she knew if the former bait shop could be hers for sure.
For now, she only wanted to enjoy having all of them together.
After lunch, her heart filled with only good things, Maddie cleaned up the kitchen while Rafe and Joe set out in search of a tree.
Then she helped Grandma into the car; they headed first for the airport storage place in Oak Bluffs to locate the tinsel and tree ornaments among Grandma’s stockpile; after that, and more important, they would move back into the cottage.
Grandma would finally get to see the inside of her newly restored home. Hopefully, she would love it.
Of course she would! The place was too gorgeous not to. Still, Maddie placed her hand over her stomach to try and ward off what felt like a few thousand unwanted butterflies suddenly infringing on her peaceful mood. If Grandma hated the way the cottage looked, Maddie had no idea what she should do.
“When we get home we’ll decorate the whole house,” Grandma said, as if they hadn’t already discussed it.
She admitted she’d “given up on the holidays” years earlier, which was why she’d boxed up her holiday spirit along with the decorations, and stowed all of it away.
After all, she’d thought she’d lost everyone in her family except Joe, and her interest in celebrating anything had vanished.
Maddie understood that. When she’d been a little girl, Christmas seasons with her mother were magical.
She remembered making pretty cookies with her, saving two for Santa, then filling snowmen-shaped covered tins for neighbors.
She helped her mother wrap presents in shiny red foil paper, and she wore a green velvet dress with a white crocheted collar to the faculty family party at the college.
After her mother died, the magic did, too.
But now, it was back—until they reached the storage unit.
Walking several paces ahead of Grandma, Maddie opened the door.
She stopped. And stared.
Orson was gone.
The classic 1950 F-1 Ford pickup had disappeared.
With it had gone Rafe’s surprise Christmas/graduation gift.
Maddie closed her eyes and felt her joy being snuffed out like a holiday candle.
With the butterflies now flocking busily inside her, she quickly steadied herself and turned to her grandmother. “Wait there,” she said quietly. “Something’s happened, but we’ll figure it out …” Her words tumbled out, pointless, like unfurling a sail in a blizzard.
But Grandma kept approaching.
“Please,” Maddie begged, “I don’t want to upset you.”
“What’s wrong?” Grandma was only a few feet away now. “Did someone break in and steal Orson?”
Maddie sucked in a breath.
Grandma squealed. “Gotcha!” Then she broke into a string of cackles.
“Orson is fine. I wanted him fixed up before I give him to Rafe. The guys at Deke’s Auto Body in West Tis’ have the old boy.
They promised to have it ready for Christmas.
The original Deke—grandfather to Deke-the-third who runs it now—was a good friend of Rex’s father, Stan, but, like Stan, he died decades ago.
” Like a child on Christmas morning, her eyes danced while she jibber-jabbered.
“Joe and I put our heads together,” she continued, her words clicking like reindeer hooves flitting across rooftops.
“Orson will be red, because Rafe told me it’s his favorite color.
And he’ll have black bumpers—Orson, not Rafe—matching running boards, and a shiny chrome grill.
” She rubbed her hands together and moved next to Maddie, who stared into the empty space.
“The bench seat will be reupholstered,” Grandma continued, “and vintage controls will replace the old ones. The only visible upgrade will be shoulder seat belts so the old boy can pass state inspection.” She beamed.
“Even the original AM radio will look the same, but it’s going to have a hidden Bluetooth connection, which was Joe’s idea.
I don’t know what that means, but Joe promised Rafe will love it. ” Finally, she stopped talking.
It was another minute before Maddie’s breath steadied again and her butterflies retreated. Pushing down tears, she gave Grandma Nancy a hug. “He is absolutely going to love it. But it must be costing a fortune.”
“What should I do, save my money for my old age? I hate to tell you, girl, but that mishoon paddled off into the sunset a long time ago.”
Maddie remembered one night over dinner when Grandma told Rafe that mishoon was the Wampanoag word that meant canoe.
Putting an arm around her grandmother’s shoulders now, Maddie said, “Come on, let’s get to work. We have decorating to do.”
Butchie and I, oh, we were great lovers, the meant-to-be kind.
When folks asked how we met, we made up different times and stories for fun, like: “We met in third grade at the little red schoolhouse,” or “We met when we were twelve, fishing for stripers at Dogfish Bar,” or, my personal favorite, “We met at the Gay Head Light during the war, when we were both scouting for U-boats.” In reality, the boats would have attacked the island on the opposite shore.
I guess folks believed us because who doesn’t like a good love story?
Besides, the truth was pretty boring: We had no idea when we’d actually met, we were both just always there.
We were young when we married—only sixteen.
But things were different then. We were tribal kids; when we approached the elders about marriage, they encouraged us.
After all, they already knew us. We were too young, but nobody cared because, like I said, we were meant to be together.
Besides, we wanted to have a “pod of kids,” as Butchie called it, as if kids were whales.
He loved everything about the sea; like his father and grandfather, he was a fisherman since he was old enough to hold on to a pole.
We did not have a pod, we only had Hannah, who was born less than two years into our marriage, the same year Butchie and his pals built us the cottage in Menemsha on land he bought and paid for from working hard and with a little extra from his father and grandfather.
We never did figure out why we didn’t have more kids (God and Moshup know we tried plenty hard), and by the time our girl was ten, Butchie was dead at age twenty-eight when the great ocean took him.
All this blabbering is because folks oughta know I blame Butchie for everything that happened after that. Right up ’til, and including, now. If he hadn’t gone out that day like I warned him, he wouldn’t’a drowned. And I wouldn’t’a made such a mess out of everything.