Chapter 34
Hannah sat on the couch with her feet tucked under her, staring dully at the photo album in her lap. She’d brought a few of the albums back to the house the other day, thinking she’d want to look at them in the evenings when the Barefooter house grew too cold. Pam’s house, unlike most of the houses on the island, was well-insulated and comfy, without any of the drafts cutting under windows and doors and through old walls as was typical of most of the older summer houses on the island. The house was just like her aunt, warm and accommodating, wrapping her in its embrace.
Still, Hannah found herself shivering from time to time; not from cold but from exhaustion. Yet her eyes would not shut, they popped back open when she had tried to go to sleep earlier, crawling into bed and hoping to escape into dreams. After two hours of trying to sleep, she’d gotten up and went back downstairs. Now she sat on the couch and alternated between staring off into space or at the open album in her lap, the tomato soup she’d heated up growing a maroon puckered skin on its surface, sitting cold and untouched on the glass-topped coffee table.
She looked up, feeling a bell-like alertness. Someone was outside the house. She could hear the soft thumping of someone walking up the boards nestled in the sand that led up to Pam’s house, the crackle of a leaf being crushed underfoot. Then the person mounted the stairs and crossed the porch to the front door.
There was a loud confident rapping at the door. The person didn’t ring the cowbell that Pam had put there, tongue firmly in cheek, so it wasn’t a friend.
Hannah slid the album from her lap, putting it on the couch beside her, and stood up. Should she answer it? It was around seven, not that late. But who could it be? Was it Mr. McGrath? She walked across the room to the window by the door and peered out. She could see the back of what looked like a woman’s head, her dark brown hair cut in layers so that the hair ended in a little curl at the base of her neck. She could see the back of the woman’s shoulder, clad in a creamy woolen fisherman’s sweater, as well as the lightweight khaki skirt she was wearing with her legs bare in spite of the cold temperatures. At least the woman wasn’t barefoot in this weather, wearing what appeared to be the de rigueur canvas boat shoes of the island.
She saw the woman’s hand moving and realized she was counting off her fingers, over and over, one through five. What was she doing? Timing how long she’d wait for a reply to her knock? Well, better not keep her waiting any longer. It was only a skinny little woman with no butt counting the seconds, not some hulking strange man slapping a crowbar against his palm. Maybe this was Mrs. McGrath?
Hannah went to the door and opened it, the screen door still standing between her and her visitor.
“Hello?”
“Hi, Hannah! It is Hannah, right? Hannah O’Brien?”
The woman, hands now clasped primly in front of her, smiled widely at Hannah. Her dark hair was spiked up in spots, looking windblown, but she was still very fashionable with her edgy haircut and neatly applied eye makeup. Although Hannah could see that the woman had once been beautiful, her features classic and of pleasing symmetry, her skin had an odd lumpy-shiny quality that reminded her of many older women in Greenwich who thought, with enough money, a good dermatologist, and a plastic surgeon, they could stay young forever. More alarming, though, were the pink stripes that ran down the woman’s forehead and across her cheeks. They looked like fingernail marks.
“Um, yeah! I’m Hannah. And you are?”
“Hello, I’m Mrs. McGrath. From up-island? You were talking to my husband, I believe.” She said the last with a slight narrowing of her eyes.
Hannah wanted to laugh. Was this woman jealous? As if she had any interest at all in that pissed-off bald-headed old man! She restrained herself and said, “Yes, I did meet him briefly the day I arrived. He said that this is your quiet time alone on the island, so I’ve been trying to keep to myself and not bother you.”
“Oh, no, hardly knew you were here at all,” Mrs. McGrath said, craning her neck a little to look past Hannah, her hands dropping to her sides. “So, it’s just you and your boyfriend staying here? Wait, so you’re not staying at your mother’s house – that little tiny house at the end of the island – you’re staying here. This house belongs to…”
“It’s Aunt Pam’s. She’s letting me stay here. And my mom doesn’t live at the Barefooter house anymore; she’s got her own house now with my stepdad.”
The woman winced a little, squinting her eyes and ducking as if Hannah had said something horrific. Hannah thought about what she just said. What? What did she say? This woman was a little strange.
Mrs. McGrath, recovering from her wince, suddenly brightened and smiled widely again. “Well, isn’t that nice? This is a lovely house. Are you two having a nice time?”
“Two? Uh, no. It’s just me. But yes, it’s nice to be here.”
“Huh…, I thought I saw you on the island dock with someone?”
Hannah swallowed hard, trying to push down the painful lump rising again in her throat. “Oh, he was just stopping by. Just saying hi.”
“Oh,” Mrs. McGrath said and made a tsking sound. “All by yourself out here. You must be lonely. Is there anything I can do? Would you like some company?” She glanced past Hannah to the living room again.
“Uh,” Hannah said, realizing the woman wanted an invitation inside. Any other day she would’ve welcomed her, especially during those long empty days during the last few weeks when she’d craved a little company. But the place was a mess with her things spread everywhere from her search for her ring, and she hadn’t unpacked Daniel’s box; it still sat on the floor where she’d left it, the word “fun” written in bold letters on every side. Worse, she, herself, was in shambles. The thought of making light conversation made her brain hurt.
Mrs. McGrath seemed to pick up on her hesitation. “I’m sorry, I wouldn’t want to intrude. I’m sure you’re just relaxing for the evening, but, well, I’ve known your family forever. It would be nice to catch up.” She looked away for a minute and then back, her eyes wide. “I know! Why don’t you come over tomorrow for lemonade and cookies at our house? We can sit out on the back deck and visit? I can tell you all about what your mother was like when she was young. I was older than she and her friends, but I remember her well.”
Hannah looked at her visitor with renewed interest. This woman knew her mother? She’d wondered about that. How come she’d never met the McGraths before? Mrs. McGrath seemed friendly enough. Maybe it was that whole up-island down-island thing. Though that had never stopped Zo, and Aunt Zo was very up-island, still owning her parent’s huge Victorian wedding cake of a house up there.
“Yeah, I’d love that, thank you,” Hannah said. “When?”
“Oh, good. What about tomorrow, let’s say around 2ish?”
“Sure. What number house?”
“Oh,” Mrs. McGrath said and paused, looking down. Hannah could see her eyes darting back and forth. Didn’t she know her own address? Mrs. McGrath’s head jerked back up. “Number 38! It’s the tall narrow gray house, shingled?”
“38? Isn’t that more mid-island?” Hannah remembered the house. It was right next to Amy’s family’s house in the middle of the island, right where it unofficially became “down-island”. And today, when she and Daniel spotted the McGrath’s boat and it turned back, it headed past that house, heading north. That slim dark-haired woman in the boat, the one that had been shrieking about something, was definitely the woman in front of her.
The woman see-sawed her head back and forth, “Well, yes, I guess. I grew up up-island. I guess that’s why I always say that.”
“Oh, I see. Your husband must have grown up there too.”
“No…, why?”
“He said the same thing, about up-island. It must be one of those married things. Thinking alike.”
Mrs. McGrath’s brows knitted together, her face growing tight. “Um, certainly, yes,” she said and puffed out a big sigh, and she started a rhythmic patting of her hands on her sides. “I’d better be going now. I’ll see you tomorrow?”
“Yes, see you then! Thank you! I really look forward to hearing about my mom, I mean, from someone who knew her when.”
“Oh, yes,” Mrs. McGrath said, something flitting behind her eyes that Hannah couldn’t read. “I know her well. Very well. Okay, see you.” She gave a little wave, and turned and walked away down the path to the boardwalk. Hannah admired the woman’s straight back and long elegant neck as she walked away. Mrs. McGrath reminded her of one of those old-school actresses with perfect regal posture, the way she moved smoothly as if she was wearing a ball gown and a tiara, even clad in casual island-wear.
“Bye!” Hannah called and then slowly closed the door. She stood for a moment, staring off and wondering. Piecing over the conversation, she found holes and ragged patches in it: the mid-island house, her rude husband, the weird nervousness of the woman, and it tempered her burgeoning excitement like small splashes of water on a growing fire, slowing but not stopping its spread.
At two o’clock on the dot the next day, Hannah stood at the McGrath’s front door. The house looked locked up, the front door shut firmly and the windows all closed, not even one cracked open to let in the breeze. She had paused at the dock when she noticed that the McGrath’s boat was nowhere to be seen, the sand of the beach cluttered with tidal droppings of seaweed and shells and a few pieces of garbage. That surprised her. The McGraths seemed like fastidious types, the kind who swept their beach every morning and never allowed garbage or even natural things like seaweed to sully it. She guessed she’d pegged them wrong.
There was only one explanation for the missing boat: Mr. McGrath had taken it to go somewhere and it was going to be just her and Mrs. McGrath. That was fine by Hannah, particularly after that dagger-like look the woman shot her when she’d mentioned her husband. The last thing she needed right now was for some polite remark she might make to him to be misunderstood by his wife as flirting.
When she woke that morning, the free-floating anxieties she’d felt about the woman had formed into a definite heavy wariness, but she still wanted to – was dying to – hear about her mother in her youth. Perhaps have a few mysteries answered. What was her mother like as a little girl? What were her grandparents like when they were on the island? Had they, like their daughter, been at the center of it all? Had Mrs. McGrath known Michael, her father?
Hannah pulled open the front screen door and it squealed loudly on rusty springs. She reached for the clamshell-shaped iron door knocker affixed to the front door when she heard a voice to her left.
“Hello, Hannah!” Mrs. McGrath said, standing in the sandy lot on the side of the house. She was dressed very smartly, overdressed for the island, in a pair of black dress slacks and a red cashmere sweater set, a string of pearls around her neck. Hannah glanced at her shoes. At least they were flats. Shiny and black and far too dressy, but flats.
Mrs. McGrath lifted and scooped her arm at Hannah. “So glad you could come. I’m in the back. Come round this way.”
Hannah climbed off of the elevated wooden walkway that led up to the house onto the packed sandy dirt, followed her around the house, and climbed the short flight of steps to the deck. Here, it looked more lived-in. An American flag waved gently from a flagpole mounted on the railing and a dark blue tablecloth had been placed on the table. A platter of chocolate chip cookies that looked suspiciously like Chips Ahoy and an ornate crystal pitcher filled with lemonade sat on the table along with two pretty gold-edged china plates, folded linen napkins lined up alongside, and two stemmed crystal water glasses half-filled with ice. The elegance ended with the cheap white plastic Kmart-special bucket chairs that were pulled up to the table.
“You didn’t have to do all this, Mrs. McGrath! And I didn’t even dress up. I didn’t know this was-“
Mrs. McGrath waved her hand at Hannah. “Oh, poo. Don’t worry about that. I just felt like dressing up; I was feeling festive. We’ve got so much to talk about! Please, sit.”
Hannah pulled out a plastic chair and sat down, glad she’d worn a windbreaker over her thin sweater and jeans. It was cold today, even in the sun. Mrs. McGrath lifted the pitcher and filled Hannah’s glass with lemonade, and then, using silver tongs, picked up two cookies and put them on Hannah’s plate. Hannah nearly laughed. Silver tongs and Chips Ahoy? For that was definitely what these were. She’d seen and eaten them many times. Even set on a gold-rimmed china plate, they still looked like the factory-made cookies they were: uniformly round, tan, and pitted with chocolate chips.
Restraining herself from remarking about them, she focused her attention on her lemonade. She took a sip. Now this was good. Homemade, definitely. “Delicious,” she said and smiled at Mrs. McGrath.
Mrs. McGrath had sat down and was spreading her napkin carefully on her lap. She looked up. “Oh, I’m so glad you like it. It’s my mother’s recipe. You crush the sliced lemons with a potato masher - it gets all the flavor out of the zest.” She raised her glass to Hannah and Hannah picked hers back up. “To finally getting a chance to talk. It’s really long overdue.”
Hannah touched her glass to Mrs. McGrath’s and took another sip, smacking her lips to take in more of the delicate sweet flavor. “Ah, it really is great lemonade. But, you say it’s overdue, us talking. I’m sorry, but I don’t remember you at any of the Barefooters’ parties? I should, shouldn’t I?”
Mrs. McGrath winced, shoulders jerking up briefly. “Oh, I’m sure you’ll remember. My family has lived on this island forever.”
“And you knew my mom? When she was little?”
“Oh, yes. She was always hard to miss, your mom.”
“Really? How?”
Mrs. McGrath’s mouth twisted, her red lipstick half-gone, transferred to the edge of her glass. “You really want to know?” She eyed Hannah, flicking her eyes over her before focusing on her cookies. She picked one up off of her plate and bit into it as if it was a delicacy. “Mmmm! Oh, does this taste bring me back. Michael always-“
On hearing his name, Hannah couldn’t resist interrupting. “You knew Michael?”
Mrs. McGrath chewed, smiling, and rolled her eyes. She swallowed and said, “Of course I knew Michael. Michael Ferguson and I were an item, back in the day.”
“You? You dated him?” Hannah was thrown. This was new. She thought only her mother had dated him, that the two of them had been the “item”, together through their teenage years.
“Yes, why? Have you heard something else?”
“I, well, my mother and Michael-“
Mrs. McGrath slapped her fingers down on the table hard, her rings making a muffled rapping noise as they hit the tablecloth-covered plastic table. “Now, Hannah. It’s time. Time to tell truths. No more lies. Your mother isn’t very honest with you about herself.”
Hannah’s hands fell off of the table and into her lap and a zinging feeling swept through her. Suddenly, she didn’t know if she wanted to be here. Part of her wanted to leave, leave immediately, before she heard what this woman had to say. What kept her rooted in her seat was the dark vine of jealousy that had been growing in her heart for years, its spreading tendrils everywhere now, rampant.
“I just want to help you,” Mrs. McGrath continued, nodding with her head tilted slightly, looking thoughtfully at Hannah. “The truth shall set you free, the Bible says. I truly believe that. It’s clear your mother and your mother’s friends are only going to tell you what serves them. But does that serve you? Like this nonsense about Michael and your mother. The truth is that Michael was doing your mother a favor. He was being kind to her when no one else would be, forgiving her wicked ways. He was a saint, that’s what he was.”
“A saint…” Hannah murmured. It was the same word the Barefooters used to describe him. A saint, a sweetheart: that was Michael. Of course, that was the end of the revelation every time; they clammed up if queried further, glancing at each other, at Keeley, and changing the subject. For the first time, right now, she could finally get some answers. She cleared her throat. “What do you mean, he was doing her a favor?”
“Oh,” Mrs. McGrath said, smiling and shaking her head. “Michael felt sorry for Keeley. She was like a…, like an orphan. She never went home. Her parents were barely around. She looked like a mess most of the time. She just ran around the island like a wild animal with those friends of hers. She never learned how to behave properly, like a civilized person. Michael took pity on her. Tried to be kind to her. And that was his biggest mistake.”
“Mistake?” Hannah repeated. She tried to imagine this strange wild-animal version of her mom. It was so different from what the Barefooters said and what she knew: that Keeley was popular, that she was athletic, that she was always the good-hearted Pollyanna of the bunch, smoothing things over between the friends and making everyone laugh with jokes and pranks and silliness.
“Yes, because she killed him, you know,” Mrs. McGrath said, her voice wavering and tears popping into her eyes in spite of her plastered-on saccharin smile. “Her whorish ways are what killed him. I’m sorry, Hannah, but it’s the truth. Your mother is a whore. Michael was just trying to help her, but she broke his heart. I’m one hundred percent sure that she told him that night, the night he died, that she was pregnant from rutting with some boy. When he heard that, his heart just tore apart. He couldn’t stand it: how low she was.”
“He was running from her words, her despicable hateful words, when he lost control of the car. Those words, Keeley’s announcement of the existence of her bastard child, were the last thing he heard. He found out about you, it was you she was carrying, and he realized that all his care and kindness couldn’t make the world right. The reality of this sick sad world was too much for him. In a way…”Mrs. McGrath said, trailing off. She had turned away from Hannah, face going soft and slack as she stared off in the distance.
Hannah sat perched on the edge of her chair, her muscles clenched. This was the truth? But it couldn’t be! No, she couldn’t be a product of some one-night stand. Her mother wasn’t like that, was she? Of course, Keeley loved attention, but she wasn’t promiscuous. Or had she been back then?
“She didn’t want you,” Mrs. McGrath said in a faint voice, still staring off into the distance. “She was going to have an abortion. One of her friends must have talked her out of it. The whole thing is so sad. It’s all a tragedy, a terrible terrible tragedy. Oh, Michael-” Mrs. McGrath moaned, covered her face with her hands and started crying, her sobs raw-sounding, agonized.
Hannah stared at Mrs. McGrath feeling a numb weight drop within her. Her mother hadn’t wanted her: the product of some fling. That was it. It explained everything. The wall of silence about the past, her mother’s distance at times, the way she caught Keeley staring at her as if she was thinking about something, considering. Keeley might have loved Michael, but their “relationship” was made up, a way of legitimizing what Keeley had done, making her baby a product of love rather than one of lust and poor impulse control.
Mrs. McGrath’s crying became louder, like the crying at a funeral, beseeching God, needing to be heard. Her hands dropped from her face and she turned it up to the sky and wailed, black mascara coloring the tears that coated her wound-striped cheeks.
Hannah couldn’t stand it. She stood, the chair tipping back from the suddenness of her movement and falling back on its side with a clattering crash.
Jerking at the sound, Mrs. McGrath looked at her as if seeing her for the first time, her wail gulped back. She stared at Hannah. “Who are you?” she asked, her voice squeaking. She glanced around the deck. “Where’s Michael? He was just…Mrs. Ferguson?” she called toward the back screen door as if she knew someone was just inside, nearby. She looked up quizzically at Hannah, “I’m sorry, did he invite you, too? But this is our time.”
Hannah looked at the woman, who was talking in a high-pitched girlish voice, with dawning dread. “I’ve got to go.” She backed up a few steps.
“Yes. Go. I’ll tell him you had to leave. This is my time with Michael. My time,” Mrs. McGrath said the last with a pout, her breath still hitching.
Hannah turned and left, walking at first and then running down the boardwalk toward Pam’s, the woman’s words repeating over and over in her head.