Chapter 8
They wedged a dozen cartons marked XMAS STUFF into the back of Maddie’s Volvo next to the suitcases she and Grandma had been living out of for the past four months since the fire.
At last, they were on the road, heading to the cottage for “the big reveal.” Traffic was light, so the trip to Menemsha did not take long.
Parking next to Joe’s truck in the small lot abutting the backyard, Maddie was glad Joe and Rafe were back—hopefully, they’d found a nice tree. As soon as Maddie stopped the car, Grandma shot out of it and started riffling around the back seat.
“Rafe can bring everything in,” Maddie said.
“Hold your horses,” came the reply. “I’ll be right there.” After more riffling, Grandma pulled a paper bag out of a suitcase and announced she was ready. But as they made their way toward the back door, with the cottage in view, her footsteps became slower.
Then Rafe came outside and Grandma picked up her pace and let him escort her in.
They were greeted by the sight of a perfect fir that Joe was setting up in the living room.
It was full and lush and fit nicely in the corner by the wall-to-wall front windows where the swivel rocker (for Grandma) was going to go; though Maddie ordered it weeks ago, it wouldn’t get there until January.
Which did not matter now, as a soft aroma of Christmas balsam filled the room.
“Very nice,” Grandma said, nodding at the tree, the living room, and the kitchen.
So far, so good, Maddie thought.
Then Grandma turned and scurried down the hall, still clutching the bag she’d dug out of the car. Maddie and Rafe trailed behind her, while Joe secured the tree upright in its stand.
They stopped by the renovated bathroom first. Grandma made no comment, but didn’t seem to hate it.
Then she checked her old bedroom, with its freshly painted powder-blue walls and new furnishings, including a queen-size bed that replaced the old double one with the squeaky-spring mattress.
The woman still didn’t speak, but wasn’t complaining.
When they reached the second bedroom, Joe caught up to them.
The room had been Hannah’s, where she’d slept, where she’d dreamed, where she’d grown up.
A full wall now stood where the closet once was; across from that a new bed was flanked by white ash armoires.
Maddie planned to keep this room for herself and let Rafe use the front room when he was on-island, or when he simply was “on,” as Maddie heard some islanders say.
Then her thoughts were interrupted: She realized Grandma was scrutinizing every inch, pressing down on the mattress, poking through the armoires—both of which had been custom-made by a craftsman on Chappaquiddick and a friend of Rex’s.
She even stooped—the paper bag rattling but not escaping from her hand—and peered cautiously under the bed, as if something would lunge out at her. And still, she didn’t speak.
Which was when Maddie’s butterflies were reborn with gusto, as if they were converging, preparing to fly, en masse, from Aquinnah to South America the way the monarchs did in autumn.
Without warning, Grandma stopped inspecting. She stood up as straight as her osteoporosis would allow, her nostrils flaring. Then she growled, “Where in tarnation is your hobbit house?”
Maddie swallowed. Hard. Her special place, her secret hideout, her playroom filled with dolls and toys, a cot, and an old seamen’s chest was now gone. The only access had been through a tiny door inside her mother’s bedroom closet; the only light had leaked through a single round porthole.
Slowly, Maddie looked to Joe, hoping he would answer Grandma’s question.
After gathering his thoughts, Joe tactfully said, “Sorry, Nancy. But with the tiny door through the closet being so small, and the porthole not big enough to use as an egress, the hobbit house wasn’t up to today’s safety codes.
The town made us take it down. When we came up with the design for a safer, beautiful addition, they were thrilled.
” He smiled broadly and held out his hand. “Come with me and see for yourself.”
Poor Joe, Maddie thought. He’d had nothing to do with the changes (they’d been her decision alone), but he was willing to take Nancy’s heat over the outcome.
Another moment elapsed before Grandma decided to let her brother lead her down the new hallway, created out of what had been her mother’s closet, where passage into the hobbit house once was. Now, however, the hall led to the big, sunny new bedroom.
Grandma stood in the doorway and didn’t move, her body as rigid as the statue of the swordfish harpooner that stood high on the dunes down by the beach.
She stared at the wrought iron, queen-size bed Maddie had bought and the white down comforter that was certain to keep Grandma warm in winter, no matter how hard the coastal winds blew.
But as Joe edged Grandma into the room, her face crinkled into what looked like balled-up waxed paper, her eyes pitching from one side to the other.
In addition to a long, double dresser—also of white ash, also custom-crafted on Chappy—matching nightstands stood on either side of the bed.
Extra storage space came with a walk-in closet.
And a peaceful rocking chair upholstered in a print of blue hydrangea blossoms sat in the corner by the picture window that looked out to the backyard toward Menemsha Beach and the tranquil water of Vineyard Sound.
Next to the chair Maddie had set one of Nancy’s original, handwoven baskets, complete with recent editions of print magazines her grandmother favored.
“It’s for you, Grandma,” she said tenderly.
“And look, you have your own bathroom with a walk-in shower.” Maddie walked to the bathroom and motioned toward the space for which she’d spent days and then weeks choosing perfect combinations of white and burnished silver, accented by sea-glass-green painted walls and thick, pale blue towels.
A small pot of almond-scented, cream-colored blossoms of meadow-sweet sat on the vanity because she’d read that the herb thrived in moist areas.
In small doses, it also made a wonderful tea for settling stomachs—which Maddie could have used right then.
“Very pretty,” Grandma said at last. “It looks like a picture in one of my magazines.” She said it as if she were the owner of several magazine publishing firms, much the way Maddie’s father referred to “his game shows” as if he were the producer.
In any event, hope sparked that Grandma loved her new space.
But as Maddie moved to hug her, Nancy shook her head.
“But I want my old room back,” she said matter-of-factly.
“And I hope my bed with the squeaky-springs mattress met with the town’s approval, because there’s no way I’ll sleep on one of these fancy things.
” With that, she did an about-face and called to Rafe, who’d been standing by the door.
“Be a good boy and tell Joe you need to borrow his truck to take me back to Rex’s cabin. I don’t belong here anymore.”
She stalked off.
Rafe looked at Maddie, then at Joe.
“Take the truck,” Joe said to Rafe. “Your mother can bring me home.”
Rafe left to catch up to Grandma.
And Maddie pressed both hands to her stomach, closed her eyes, and tried to breathe. “She hates it,” she told Joe.
“Yup,” was all he said.
She could have begun a back-and-forth conversation about how-can-she-possibly-hate-it and what-on-earth-are-we-going-to-do. Instead, Maddie wandered around the room, straightened the pillows, the comforter, and other things that did not need straightening, while Joe sat in the rocker.
It wasn’t until she heard the back door close that Maddie made a decision.
“Okay,” she said. “No matter what Grandma chooses to do, I’m moving back here.
If she hates this room, I’ll use it. As for her old room, if she hates the new bed, too, she can sleep on the sofa.
Or, if she wants to stay at the cabin by herself, I can’t stop her.
In the meantime, how about if we decorate the tree?
” She was proud of herself for not crumbling.
But as they made their way back to the living room, her gaze was drawn not to the tree standing idle in the corner, but to the fireplace mantel.
Carved decades earlier from a thick piece of aged oak which, according to Joe, his and Grandma’s father—Isaac Thurston—had found in Menemsha Hills, and had sawed and chiseled, sanded and coated with something called intumescent paint that was fire resistant.
After the fire, it had needed some reconditioning, but, thanks to Kevin, it was back in its proper place, and now served to showcase three items that hadn’t been there when they’d arrived that afternoon: Hannah’s painting of a Menemsha sunset, the small clay pot with the daisy that Maddie painted when she was a child, and the slightly bruised, somewhat battered quahog shell.
On the floor in front of the fireplace was the paper bag Grandma Nancy had been toting. It was empty now; the mementoes—unlike Grandma—were rightfully home.