Chapter 5
Even when I was a kid, Dad had this thing about the pirate treasure that was going to turn our fortunes around.
His grandparents passed down the legend, which they acquired along with the land on which they built Windward.
Before that, the original Winthrops had farmed the island for almost three hundred years—eking out a living on livestock and corn and rye until they gave up and sold the entire eastern half of the island to some developer.
The Peabodys bought the lot next to ours, and according to the family story, the Coopers wanted that parcel too. I don’t blame them. It’s nicer than ours. There is that fine sheltered beach, that breathtaking view of the sea.
But his son—my dad—well, treasure hunting was right up his alley.
He couldn’t resist this tempting intersection of history and untold pieces of eight.
It was the ideal chimera to chase his entire life.
A silver-plated excuse to avoid making an honest living in an ordinary job, like normal people.
If he just kept on researching until he found that one clue that was the key to the mystery, he would discover what had eluded everybody else.
He would prove himself worthy at last—the glory, the fortune would be his.
The crown of laurels. The Coopers could resume their rightful stature in the world.
Of course, sacrifices were made.
I was five years old when my mother threw up her hands.
I remember that period as a series of fights—one after another, like a chimpanzee swings from tree to tree.
They could no longer keep both the apartment in New York and the house here on Winthrop, and my mother wanted to sell the summer place.
Dad, of course, wanted the opposite. Sell the key to his fortune? Never!
I remember wandering into this very room, the back parlor that had become Dad’s study, to find my mother sitting in the middle of the rug, surrounded by pieces of paper. Crying her eyes out. When she saw me, she tried to gather herself.
I can’t live like this anymore, she said. I just can’t.
She had gone to the Club to sort out a bill.
Some unexpected charge, I think, that she had no money to pay and therefore meant to dispute.
(This is just the impression I have—a five-year-old doesn’t really understand these adult matters.) But when she saw the manager, he apologized and said there had been a mistake.
There was no charge at all. And it turned out that the other Club members had been covering our dues and charges, all this time; that we hadn’t been sent a bill in years, and Dad hadn’t said anything.
Had pretended, I guess, not to notice, because that was how you managed all these social awkwardnesses—discreetly. Under the surface.
“All this time,” my mother said. “Look at all these bills. All these overdrafts. He just ignores it all. He pretends it doesn’t exist. I can’t stand it. I can’t go back to that clubhouse. I can’t look any of those women in the eye. All of them feeling sorry for me.”
I didn’t know what to do in the face of her misery. I sat down next to her and hugged her.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t be telling you all this. I just—I have no one to tell. It’s too humiliating. I can’t tell a soul.”
I told it would be okay. I told her I loved her.
“I know, sweetie. And it will be okay. I’ll make it okay. I’ll find a way. So you can have everything you deserve, honey, the best of everything, the best education. I want my girl to hold her head up high, anywhere she goes. I’ll find a way out of this, I promise.”
And before the summer was out, by God, she did.
—
After I escort Topher Dumont out the front door, I walk to the study, where Punkin sits on the sofa with her brand-new library books.
I cradle the coffee mug and stare around me at the mountains of my father’s artifacts that must be gone through, that must be sorted into categories of Keep, Give Away, Throw Away. His life’s work, overflowing the shelves and bins. So much stuff, so much information—all for nothing.
There is no treasure, Dad. There never was.
You spent your whole life in pursuit of something that never existed.
Your life ends one unexpected day, and you have nothing to show for it. Nothing left behind for the people you love.
I rise from the chair and walk back into the parlor. Punkin lifts her head.
“Are you feeling sad, Mama?” she asks.
“A little bit, honey. But it’s going to be okay.”
“Did you know that a bunch of French pirates once raided Block Island and they burned and stole almost everything there?”
“What are you reading, honey?”
She holds up the book. It’s one of those middle-grade paperbacks of the Horrible Histories variety.
“Pirates of New England,” I say. “Terrific.”
“I’m only saying that it could be worse. Pirates could burn the house down.”
I start toward the study and the small brown envelope on top of Dad’s desk. “You know what, sweetie? I’ve got an idea. Why don’t we head over to Mr. Ressler’s house and see if he knows which treasure this key unlocks?”
—
When my grandparents built Windward, they had to choose between the building site closer to the water and the one with the best view of the water. They chose the view.
Aside from the small patch of lawn surrounding the house, and the few neglected perennial borders, the land is mostly meadow.
Dad claimed he was pro biodiversity, but I’m pretty sure this landscaping strategy had more to do with keeping maintenance to a minimum, so it’s strange to see that somebody has recently mowed it.
A few of the trees that separate this meadow from the Summerly property are starting to turn color.
“Look at the leaves, Mama,” says Punkin, as we tramp over the shorn yellow-green stubs, hand in hand, skirting the muddy hollow between the two slopes. “They’re so beautiful!”
“You know, I don’t think I’ve ever seen this place except in summer,” I tell her. “It’ll seem really strange when the leaves have fallen. Like a whole different island.”
The caretaker lodge sits right at the edge of the Summerly property, just behind the line of trees and the crumbling stone wall.
I don’t think I can remember anyone living there.
The Peabodys have always kept it up, though.
It’s said to be one of the original Winthrop houses on the island, and old Mrs. Peabody is the president emeritus of the Winthrop Island Historical Society.
Still, it’s small. Nothing fancy. There might be a pair of rooms down below, plus a kitchen added on in later years.
A couple of bedrooms and a bathroom in the Cape-style second story.
Your classic center-chimney clapboard colonial.
Now inhabited by Ben Ressler.
The sun burns through the last of the clouds and flutters on the surface of the water. I lift my hand to shade my eyes as I strain to make out the shape of the house behind the leaves. For some reason, my stomach shimmers.
Don’t be stupid, Lucy. It’s been years. He’s forgotten all about it. Moved on, like you.
“Mama?” Punkin jiggles my hand. I realize she’s asked me a question.
“What is it, honey?”
“I said, isn’t that Ben right over there?”
I startle and swivel my gaze to the right of the house, where a man stands next to an elderly John Deere, checking the mower that’s attached to the back. A dog stands at his heels.
Punkin pulls her hand from mine and holds it to her mouth. “BEN!”
“Oh honey, no!”
She gathers her lungs. “MR. RESSLER!” she yells.
This time Ben looks up. Spots us. Lifts a gloved hand to wave.
“Come on, Mama,” says Punkin. She takes off at a gallop, so I have no choice but to trail after her in my canvas sneakers that slosh through the wet ground at the edge of the hollow.
Chief spots her first and races to meet her. She sits down in the grass to smother him with her boundless love.
“Bonjour,” says Ben, when I reach them. “Been practicing my mad French skills.”
“Not bad,” says Punkin. “I baked some treats for Chief but I left them behind. Mama rushed me out the door.”
“Had to get her away from her pirate books,” I tell him.
Ben winks at Punkin. “The family business, huh? Have you figured out where the treasure lies, me hearty?”
“Not yet. Is that the beach where Grandad died?” She points toward the shore.
Chief sits on the ground at Ben’s feet and rests against his leg, tongue lolling a good six inches.
Ben leans down to fondle his ears. “Nope. That’s the Summerly beach.
I found his stuff down a ways, the stretch past that clump of beach rose.
Poseidon Beach.” He gestures at the water.
His hand’s covered by a thick dirt-stained canvas work glove in dull yellow.
“Can you show me?” asks Punkin.
“Honey, Ben has to work.”
“Of course I’ll show you.” Ben pulls off his gloves and chucks them on the seat of the Deere. “He’s your grandfather.”
We start toward the shore. Chief trots at Ben’s side; he reverses course once to inspect a clump of grass, then lopes to catch up.
The sun finds a cloud and the air turns cool.
Without a pause, without looking right or left, without a shade of emotion, Ben finds the gap in the beach rose and leads us through to the sand—Chief followed by Punkin.
I bring up the rear, staring straight ahead.
Ben stops at the line of high tide and points down the shore. “Down there a bit. That’s where I found his clothes.”
“All in a pile or did he fold them nicely?”
Ben brushes his upper lip with his knuckle. His eyes are dull with grief. “He folded them,” he says.
Punkin tramps down the beach. Ben glances at me; I shrug.
Together we follow her along the jagged stripe of seaweed and driftwood.
To the right spreads the sea grass, rising into a bluff and then down again.
Neither of us says a word. When Punkin finds a piece of yellow caution tape fluttering from the wooden post that marks the path from the road, she turns her head to Ben. “Was it right here?”