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Mari

2016

I sat back in my chair as Mrs. Devereaux finished, sunlight filling the little kitchen. So many questions swirled in me. Was this my actual family?

I had painted all night as Mrs. D. talked and now sat, spent, at the kitchen table, listening to the sound of waves hitting the shore in the distance. I’d finished a piece at last. It wasn’t perfect, little more than a rough study, but I knew it was one of the best things I’d painted.

Mrs. Devereaux came over and sat down next to me. “She’s lovely.”

It was my mother, just head and shoulders, and I’d painted her there at the table, the fireplace as a background. It was almost as if I hadn’t painted it myself, and I loved the brushwork, bold and layered, the palette much softer than anything I’d done before, almost monochromatic, in beiges and muted pinks. She wasn’t forcing some fake smile, just wearing what I called her Happy Nancy face, in her best place, mellowed out, like she was listening to music, ready for us to have a glass of wine and talk about stupid little stuff about work or her yoga class.

“She looks exactly like you,” I said to Mrs. Devereaux. Why had it taken me so long? Mrs. D. was my grandmother. Maybe I’d known it the whole time.

I turned to her. “My mother was Tom and Bess’s baby, wasn’t she?”

She nodded. “Yes.”

“And you’re Bess. You’re my grandmother.”

She nodded, eyes bright.

I wanted to laugh and cry, overcome by it all. I was a Smith after all. But my mom had never even gotten to meet her own mother, at least not that she remembered. How close they’d come to a reunion.

“I know it’s a lot to take in,” she said. “At least you know the whole story now. I feel like I haven’t let you get a word in edgewise.”

“Tom was my grandfather—did you two ever see each other again when he came back?”

She looked at her hands. “No.”

“Why not?” My eyes stung with tears. “He loved you so much.”

“After I went home to Boston, I delivered the baby early. Mother arranged to have the infant removed from the nursery; she claimed the child had died, but she’d secretly put her up for adoption. I eventually found out what my mother had done.”

“She was a witch,” I said. My great-grandmother.

“Then Mother sent me to the Sorbonne to learn painting, which she hoped would snap me out of my depression over losing the child, and it did, I suppose.”

“That’s where you married?”

“Yes. Happily at first. But in time we ended up divorcing, since I couldn’t bring myself to try for another child.”

“So you and Tom never reunited? How is that even possible?”

“I never reached out to the Smiths again. I assumed Tom was dead and knew Mother would bring the wrath of God down on them if I contacted Cadence. And then, before Mother passed, she confessed the whole thing. I was happy to know my baby had lived, but I was overcome with grief and anger.”

“You never told Cadence?” I asked.

“No. I was too crippled by the shame of having lost my child to reconnect with the Smiths.”

I stood and walked the room. “How awful for you.”

“I hired a private detective, took out ads. Collected a whole scrapbook of clues to my baby’s whereabouts. Once I found her, I thought, I would reconnect with the Smiths. But Mother had made certain the child could not be found.”

I sat and pulled my chair closer to Mrs. Devereaux.

“Eventually, Cadence died and then Briar followed, and I received a letter in Paris. Ever the detective, Briar had hired her own private eye, and he’d finally found me after she passed. The letter said that Briar had left me this farm, as caretaker, so I moved back here and painted, turned the barn into my studio. And then one day my own detective told me he had a lead. Meanwhile, your mother had been looking for her own birth parents.”

I sat back in my chair. It was like a dream. “It makes sense Tom was my mom’s dad. She had his personality for sure. The same kind of charisma.”

Mrs. D. pulled out a photo of Tom sailing in a boat. “Here’s your grandfather. Briar took this one.”

I searched Mrs. D.’s face. “But my mom was definitely a combo of you both. His eyes and coloring but your expressions, too.”

“Do you think?” she said, her eyes bright with tears.

I took out my phone and opened my videos. “Here’s one of her baking. Flag Day shortbread. Don’t you see it? There. The way she does that thing with her nose when she smiles. And look—the way she bites her lip like you do?”

She dried her eyes. “I’m so dreadfully sorry we never met.”

I took her hand in mine. “Me, too. She would have loved you and this place and that story. But at least she knew you existed. And at least I finally found you. It was kind of a miracle, don’t you think?”

She nodded and looked to the painting. “Indeed.”

“What happened to the Smith girls?” I asked. “My great-aunts, right? Did Cadence go to New York?”

“They tell me she traveled extensively with Winnie Winthrop after the war and became quite well known in literary circles as a book critic, rivaling even Mary McCarthy herself.”

“And Gil?”

“He made it back to England in one piece, though with only about a quarter of his Cape Cod Commandos.”

“Did Gil and Cadence marry?”

“They did, and he came to join her in New York City and became an advertising executive. They eventually bought Winnie Winthrop’s Sutton Place apartment, after Win moved to Zanzibar to start a publishing company for the sultan, and the two of them lived there quite happily, though childless.”

“And Briar? She was amazing.”

“She ended up living here for years, with Tom, never feeling the need to marry, I suppose. That’s her yellow jeep I still drive. She got Tommy much rehabilitated—though never quite the same, of course—and under their watch, Copper Pond Creamery reached new heights just after the war. But then years later, once Tom passed, Briar scaled back the dairy. She made some incredible ship models in her later years. You can see them at the Martha’s Vineyard Museum, which was once the old Marine Hospital.”

“And the cops never found Tyson Schmidt’s body?”

“No. His parents were Hitler devotees and, later, folks found out they’d moved to Germany, so by the time he was officially missing, people just assumed he’d joined his family.”

“It’s creepy to think Tyson Schmidt’s buried here.”

“What we did helped. If he’d been allowed to escape to Germany with all he knew, more boys could have died. As it was, we lost almost half of the ones who were stationed here.”

I looked out the window, down toward the beach in the distance. So many of them had trained right there.

On the flagpole, the little pink flag swayed in the breeze.

“You still raise the book-club burgee,” I said.

“Every morning that I’m vertical. Though it’s getting grungy. May be time for a new one.”

I stood and set my painting on the fireplace mantel, next to the tugboat model. It felt surreal to suddenly have a new grandmother. Good, but somewhat awkward.

“Who do you think I’m most like?” I asked.

That set her off crying again, so she could barely get the words out. “My Tom. I knew the minute I saw you. His beautiful eyes. His gentle way. Even your laugh. I feel like I have my Tommy back.”

I felt my face and it was wet, though I didn’t even know I was crying. I set my hand over hers. “So what do we do now?”

She dried her eyes again. “I have so many questions about your mother, and you, as well, but I suppose we should discuss the business end of things. Briar’s will specifies that I’m the caretaker in perpetuity of this place, unless a Smith child presents him or herself. So, if you want the farm, you can claim it.”

“Wait. What?” For some reason I hadn’t tracked that far on all of it. She was giving it to me.

She pulled a document from a drawer. “There are stipulations. Conditional on transfer of the property, the beneficiary must oversee the dairy operation in order to pay the taxes and maintain the property. ”

“You mean I’d run this place?” I held out one hand. “I can’t do that.”

“It contributes a great deal to the food bank and helps feed a lot of people out here, so it requires a healthy amount of oversight, but I believe you could handle it. Twelve employees. Payroll. It barely breaks even, so it’s not like you’ll make tons of money from it, but it’s an immensely satisfying life.”

It was one thing to discover my family but another to have the weight of that land on me.

“Wow. I have to tell you, I’m not the most organized person in the world. I work at a juice bar. I barely figured out how to refill the condiments station.” I scraped the chair back and stood. “I need to go.”

“Don’t be silly. The last boat isn’t until seven-thirty.”

“I just can’t.” It was all so much. Good and bad, but mostly scary. Dizzy, I tried hard to breathe but couldn’t catch my breath.

“Are you all right?” Mrs. D. asked.

“Do you have a paper bag?”

I could see it all coming. The big expectations, high hopes for the long-lost Smith girl, and then would come the fall. I shook my hands to warm them. I was catastrophizing—one thing I was actually good at, according to my therapist.

Mrs. D. brought me a bag and I breathed into it and held up one finger. She rubbed my back sweetly, and soon I started to feel better.

“I need a minute,” I said, setting the bag down and inhaling deeply.

“Take as long as you like.”

I sat up straighter. “I’m sorry. Go ahead. How do the developers factor in?”

“Well, the will stipulates that if no Smith descendant claims the property, it cannot be sold, since I am just a caretaker. I wanted to donate it to the land bank upon my death, but that’s what the developers are challenging. They claim that once I’m gone, the property should go into public domain for them to purchase. For a song, of course.”

“They only care about money.”

“I’ve seen the plans. They want to build a luxury community with a golf course.”

The thought of it made me sick. The mega-mansions, the tennis courts.

“You could challenge them,” she said. “It won’t be easy. They’ll fight you even with genetic proof you’re a Smith, but my money’s on you. Does your job require notice?”

I imagined that conversation with Jamba assistant manager Kevin, who barely knew I worked there and called me Mandy. “No.”

“A boyfriend?”

Would Nate even know I’d gone? “Kind of. So, I’ll have to do a DNA test? Like spit in a tube? I’ve never done one.”

“Yes. They’ll require genetic proof. But to me, this is proof positive you’re a Smith.” She ran her finger along the heart bracelet at my wrist. “Cadence gave me that the day I left the farm for good. Her sixteenth-birthday gift from Tom.”

“How did my mother get it?”

“When she was born, I doubled it and slipped it onto her wrist. Silly, I know, but it was my gift to our baby from him.”

“So you knew your baby was a girl.”

Bess lost herself in the painting. “Yes. I remember holding her right after the birth. But they’d given me some sort of drugs, and I didn’t know it was the last time I’d see her. Mother barely looked at the baby before she had her sent off—the doctor in charge handled it all, paid handsomely. Didn’t even get a chance to name her.” She shifted her gaze to me. “And now here we are. With you, the last of the Smith girls.”

“This is a lot.” I ran my fingers through my hair. “It’s amazing and a great story, but my mother just died. I’m still cleaning out our apartment.”

“I completely understand,” she said. “And this life and this island aren’t for everyone. If you prefer to stay in California, the land bank will fight for this place and hopefully win. They’re set to begin opening arguments next week.”

Being handed a farm on Martha’s Vineyard, while incredible, was something I was totally unprepared for. Court? Even if we won, I’d have to run a business. Payroll? I’d have to move all of my stuff here and then learn to actually farm. Drive a tractor? I hadn’t even driven a car in five years. And Nate was not about to give up his tech thing to come out east and run a farm.

“I don’t want to seem ungrateful. I’m incredibly glad I found my birth family, and you, after all these years. It’s just that I’m terrible at public speaking—I’m not sure I could stand up in a courtroom and make any sense. And I’m absolutely hopeless with machinery of any kind. And calendars and organizational stuff, too. Can I tell you once I sleep on it?”

“Of course. But you might want to make a quick decision.” She leaned in. “I don’t buy green bananas, as they say. And I booked a new flight for you, by the way. But for now let’s spend some time on the beach, and then we’ll get you packed up and to the boat.”

—

The ride to the ferry in Vineyard Haven was a blur as I sorted through a tangle of thoughts. Was I turning down the opportunity of a lifetime? But there was no way I could handle running a farm on Martha’s Vineyard, never mind fighting for it in court. I already felt such a deep connection to this place after that story, and I was flattered that my newfound grandmother thought I could do it, but she didn’t know the real Mari Starwood, mess-up extraordinaire.

She dropped me at the ferry and drove away. I’d heard of the Irish goodbye, where people leave without a farewell, but this must’ve been the Martha’s Vineyard goodbye.

“Hey!” I called after her. “Are we gonna write or text or stay in touch somehow?”

She just waved, and I went ahead and boarded the ferry, right back where I’d started only two days ago . I made my way past the cars parked in the belly of the ship and climbed the stairs to the top deck.

I stood at the railing, next to other passengers waving to people on shore. I checked my phone and finally had a few bars and a full battery. No missed call from Nate. I rang his number, and the call went to voicemail, so I hung up and took in the view of the harbor and the sweet town, so old-fashioned and unspoiled. How did big developers live with themselves, ruining places like this purely for money? Did they even live here?

Suddenly I spotted Mrs. D. below, standing next to the jeep in the parking lot, as the orange-vested workers guided the last of the cars onto the ferry.

It was cooler up here with night falling. The lights started coming on along what I figured must be West Chop, and a couple strolled along the harbor beach, past a ritzy-looking club, probably where my grandmother and great-aunt had worked as waitresses. Over at his bike shop across from the ferry, Ronan White wheeled a bike in from the front porch. It was that moment between light and dark when anything seems possible.

Maybe I was just freaked out by the enormity of it all. And the prospect of failing. It seemed like someone else’s life. A movie where they tell Anne Hathaway she’s been royalty all along. But it wasn’t as if living here would be all farmers markets and yoga in the barn. And relocating wouldn’t be easy. And I’d only seen snow at Big Bear. I’d need sweaters. And a winter coat.

Down in the parking lot, my grandmother was trying to get my attention. Where had I seen that before? How she stood on her toes and waved her arm like a metronome, trying a little too hard to be happy about me leaving? My mother had waved like that when she saw me off on the bus to Camp Hollywoodland the summer when I was eight. How did they have the same wave?

Chances were, my own mother would have preferred it here on the island, the place where she should have been raised by Bess and the Smiths. What a different life she would have had, fishing and foraging, loved and fed big dreams, safely tethered to the invisible thread of her family. Maybe it was the best place for me, too.

What would it be like to fight the developers? Like badass Mariska Hargitay on Law & Order . She always won. The more I thought about it, the idea of taking on a bunch of greedy contractors made me feel lighter somehow. I could at least try. L.A. was great, but the only things left for me there were a reluctant boyfriend and a rented apartment. My landlady could send me the few things I’d left. Or just donate them.

Ronan White would at least be one friend. And I could always restart that book club.

And I’d have my grandmother beside me.

I watched the final car drive onto the boat, and the man in the orange vest gave the cutoff signal to someone below. I hurried to the stairs and took them two at a time down to the belly of the ferry, now packed with cars, and ran between them to the man putting the chain across the mouth of the ship.

“You gotta take the passenger ramp,” he said, as I stepped over the chain.

“Sorry,” I called over my shoulder, and ran for the parking lot.

I made it to the yellow jeep and found it empty. Catching my breath, I scanned the lot, and then the fudge store, and the T-shirt shop. Where had she gone? The ferry whistle blew, and I turned and watched the ship sail away, happy I wasn’t on it. But where was Mrs. D.? I’d expected to return to her, triumphant, hoping to bring a smile to her face.

I hurried up the hill and walked Main Street, checking stores and even the public-bathroom stalls. I finally found her sitting under a tree, on a bench next to the old movie theater.

“You’re back,” she said.

“There you are.” I sighed, relieved. “Where did you go?”

She raised the cardboard coffee cup in her hand. “Matcha may be good for you, but it tastes like fish-tank water, don’t you agree?”

I sat next to her on the bench. “I was thinking. Maybe I wouldn’t be such a bad farmer, actually.”

“Oh, really?” She stood and headed toward the parking lot, sipping her matcha as we walked. “Why the change of heart?”

I slipped my hand through the crook of her arm and held her closer. “I don’t know. It isn’t every day you find your long-lost family.”

We came to the jeep, and she slid behind the wheel and waved for me to get in. “It won’t be easy. You’re open to taking them on?”

“If we can’t move heaven, then we’ll just raise hell, right?”

She looked at me and nodded. “I think you’ll do just fine.”

“I’m a Smith girl, after all,” I said with a smile.

“Isn’t that just extraordinary,” my grandmother said, as she started the jeep.

And we drove off together. Home to Copper Pond Farm.