Breakwater Bay: A Novel Read online

  Joe shook his head, sending dust from his red bandanna. “Maybe we got a another grant. That would be cool.”

  It would be a godsend. But Meri wasn’t optimistic. She just hoped it wasn’t bad news.

  Joe waited for her to pack up and climb down, and they followed the others in the exodus to the kitchen.

  They were the last to arrive and the kitchen was filled with anxious faces, a far cry from the celebration of only a few nights before. And Meri got a sinking feeling that all their lives were about to change and not for the better.

  Doug seemed to have aged since lunch, and Carlyn looked grim. What could possibly have happened in the last few hours?

  Doug cleared his throat, a rumble that rolled through the uncannily quiet room. “You’ve all been doing a dynamite job,” he began.

  “Uh-oh,” Joe said in Meri’s ear and began to bounce.

  “But I’ll just say this straight out. We lost the Lendenthal grant.”

  A general whisper of disappointment.

  “There are other grants,” Lizzy Blanchard said. She’d only been hired three weeks before; this was her first job as a journeyman glazier.

  “There are,” Carlyn said. “And we’re working on getting them. And we’re still in the running for two smaller grants.”

  “But,” Doug said, “in order to keep working at all until we raise more money, I’m afraid . . .” He paused as if the words literally stuck in his throat. “I’m going to have to cut back on staff.”

  This was met with total silence.

  Someone whispered, “We’re getting laid off?”

  “Good thing I’m a volunteer,” Joe said brightly and bounced even higher.

  Doug nodded, attempting a smile and failing.

  “What if we just cut back on our hours?” The master carpenter, a man well into his sixties, had been laid off at his last renovation for the same reason. Money was tight everywhere. “I’d rather work for less than go back to kitchens and closets.”

  That got some sympathetic nods.

  “Carlyn and I have been going over the books. It might be possible to move to a four-day week and rotate hours, if everyone is willing or can afford to do that. Those of you who can’t, I totally understand.”

  Doug heaved a sigh large enough to fill the room. “The project has just had more problems than we’d foreseen. It will be a beauty in the long run. I’m sure of that. Just not sure how long the long run is going to be at this point.”

  Carlyn exchanged looks with Meri. She looked like she might burst into tears. Meri pretty much felt the same way. It was selfish, she knew, but with her personal life in upheaval, the question of her birth looming in the unknown, she’d been clinging to work to keep herself sane.

  But she couldn’t work for free; she was barely making it as it was. Still, she was excited about her ceiling. She liked working for Doug and spending work time with Carlyn, Joe, and the others.

  Doug had put together a great crew. Students and volunteers, craftspeople on their way up or happy to be part of a small operation rather than one of many at a large firm. Artists, painters, gilders, glaziers, masons, all who came in on a need basis, because they respected Doug as a conservator.

  He had a knack for discovering ugly ducklings and bringing them back to unexpected beauty. He took on projects that others turned up their noses at. Consequently, in spite of his successes, he was always working on a shoestring budget.

  Meri had a few months’ worth of rent saved. And if it came to it, she could give up her apartment and commute from Gran’s. Would she do that? For one project?

  For this project, she thought she might.

  “So think about it for a day or two. Then I’ll talk to you all individually. Whatever you decide, I understand. Now everybody go home and try not to worry.”

  The group reluctantly filed out of the kitchen. Some headed back to their stations to finish up for the day, and maybe for the project. Some went straight to the parking lot, probably to discuss what to do or to hit the want ads.

  How had things gone so bad since lunch? Meri hung back until only she and Carlyn were left.

  “Give me the worst,” Meri said.

  “The backers are wondering whether the house is worth the restoration.”

  “Hell, yeah,” Meri said. “Underneath the crap is a gem, I feel it.”

  “So does Doug. Not everyone has his confidence.”

  “Well, we’ll just have to show them, won’t we.”

  “That’s what I told him.” Carlyn shrugged. “He feels like it’s his fault.”

  “That’s our Dougie.” Meri sighed, trying not to think what this might mean for her. “Well, I’m going to stay as long as I can. I can do double duty at the lab and help with the layer analysis. I don’t think I can speed up the cleaning. All that decorative molding has been globbed with paint layers, and it’s slow going. But I’ll get down to the original pattern. Hell, I’ll even do the tracing.”

  “At the rate we’re going, you may have to do the painting and gilding.”

  Meri held up her hand. “Not my forte, I’m afraid. But tell Doug I’m in for as long as I can afford it.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I take it you’re staying.”

  Carlyn shrugged. “As long as I can afford it.”

  Meri climbed up the scaffolding once more to catalog her findings of the day and retrieve her tools and equipment. She returned the respirator and hard hat to the equipment room, did a quick cleanup of hands and face, and carried her notes to the workroom where she logged them in the daily ledger. Doug wasn’t around and neither was Carlyn, but Meri guessed they were somewhere in the building regrouping and brainstorming about additional means of income.

  Joe stuck his head in the door. He’d donned his leather jacket. A cardboard tube stuck out of the messenger bag slung across his chest. “I’m dropping by the lab on my way home. Got anything that needs to go?”

  “Joe, bless you. Yes. Just this one sample.” Meri found the moldy plaster sample and quickly scribbled a note to Lou, the lab intern, to bump it to the front of the queue. Joe carefully placed the sample in the messenger bag and bounced his way out to the parking lot.

  A few minutes later she heard the rumble of his Kawasaki as he turned into the street.

  Now that it was the end of the day, Meri was anxious to get home. On her way to her locker to get her coat and bags, she heard voices coming from Carlyn’s office. “Good night, all,” she called.

  Doug’s shaggy head appeared, Cheshire cat style, in the doorway. “Carlyn told me you’ll stay. Thanks.”

  “My pleasure. I’m the last one, I think. See you tomorrow.”

  She’d been absorbed in her work all day, but as soon as evening came on, Meri’s mind turned to the diary waiting to be read. Suddenly anxious to get home and to the diary, she hurried through the house to the back door and was almost jogging as she reached her car. But once in the car, she remembered she had to get to the grocery store. The cupboard was beyond bare; she didn’t even have enough dish detergent to wash a plate even if she could find something to put on it.

  She pulled down the visor and took a quick look in the mirror. She wouldn’t be going anywhere without a shower. Even the most dedicated restorer wouldn’t show up at the Stop & Shop the way she looked.

  Tomorrow for sure she’d go. Tonight, she’d have to order in.

  Therese wanted to call Meri. She wanted to know she was okay and to learn whether she had looked in the box or read the diary. She hadn’t read it herself. But Laura said it was there, and that she had written it first to keep herself sane, then to explain to Meri what had happened. And third, in case there were any legal ramifications, she wanted just what had occurred down in writing.

  Therese had asked, what legal ramifications? A baby died, a baby was born, and a baby was given a loving home. There had been no question as to what to do. Anybody would have done the same.

  She was a farmer’s wife and farme
r’s daughter; when a calf lost its mamma, you fed it, gave it a home. Therese wasn’t so naive, however, as to think it would be the same with humans. They should have taken Meri to Social Services and filled out a form to foster her—and take the chance of losing out to some couple who would starve her and mistreat her, and do horrible things to her, just because they wanted the money the state would pay them.

  Therese knew about these things. Her best friend in school had been fostered out with her two younger brothers. They were split up. She lost track of them. She never saw her friend or her brothers again. But she heard the youngest had been arrested and died in a fight in jail.

  That’s what fostering could do to the young and the helpless. Not always, but you never knew. Maybe the other two were lucky and went to families who loved them. Maybe they had even made a good life for themselves and were happy.

  But neither Laura nor she had been willing to take a chance with that precious baby who was left in their care.

  Therese took a wet cloth to the kitchen table. She’d cleaned it already after lunch, but she cleaned it again, just to have something to do. But she kept one ear out for the telephone.

  She didn’t expect Meri to call. She was busy. And Therese figured Alden had been too busy to call, too. Sometimes she hated being out here all alone, and not knowing what was going on with the rest of her family. Her side of the family were spread out over creation, but the Hollises, they stayed in touch.

  But they were all busy with school and business and babies on the way. Babies had a way of taking over your life. And it shouldn’t be any other way. If they could just stay innocent forever.

  “Old woman,” she scoffed. She was well over eighty, though vain person that she was, she always lied and made herself younger. She usually didn’t feel old, but tonight . . . Tonight she felt her age and more.

  She looked out the window. She knew Alden wouldn’t be back today. Maybe tomorrow.

  She’d bake a nice cherry pie; she still had two jars from the batch they’d put up last July. She’d have it ready when he got back, just as a thank-you for taking care of Meri.

  That’s what she’d do. Make a pie.

  She got down the yellow Fiesta mixing bowl, then went to the pantry for the flour and Crisco. She’d bake a pie and everything would turn out all right.

  Meri and the delivery boy arrived at her door simultaneously. He waited for her to rummage in her purse for his payment, handed her the bag of food, and left before she’d even found her door keys.

  She would have been better off saving her money and having a can of soup. Only she was fresh out of soup and the pad thai aroma coming from the bag as she carried it upstairs was enough to make her salivate.

  But not enough to make her forget the diary.

  Meri stopped in the kitchen long enough to get a bottle of water, then placed the bag and the water on the coffee table and went to get the diary out of her closet.

  She says her name is Jane, though neither Mother nor K believe her. She says she went to see K, but she wasn’t home. A girl there, her apprentice I imagine, told her K had come to Calder Farm and might not be back for a while. So she hitched a ride. Hitched a ride in her condition! They brought her as far as the crossroads. But she got confused, didn’t know which house, and decided to end it all.

  End it all. How could she even contemplate doing something like that and taking another helpless life with her? We were all horrified when she said that, and I confess, at that I felt a red hot anger. I think I wanted to kill her for even contemplating doing such a thing, much less carrying it out, when I would give anything to have my baby here safe and sound.

  She went out to the breakers, but couldn’t go through with it. She saw our lights on and decided to try to come here, but the rain started and the rocks were slippery and she couldn’t get back to shore. Then she saw the dinghy and called for help.

  She looked toward the boy when she said that. “You saved me,” she said. And I think how the ocean could have taken all three of them. Two innocents and this girl. Maybe she too is innocent. It’s hard for me not to feel bitter, I admit. I put it into words on paper and hope that I can get past my feelings and try to help her.

  She’s sleeping now. As we were tiptoeing out of the room, she roused, told the boy to come back, which he did. She held his wrist and looked at us huddled by the door like the three witches from Macbeth. She was waiting for us to leave. What could she possibly have to say to a boy that young beyond thank you? She didn’t need us to leave to say that. She had already thanked each of us. Mother and K exchanged looks, then we all left the room.

  She’s polite and well bred; you can tell that even in the state she’s in. But she’s frightened of something or someone and she won’t tell us where she came from or who she really is. Hopefully she will learn to trust us.

  We didn’t go downstairs but stood just on the other side of the door, our ears pressed to the wood. At first we heard only murmurs. Mother put her fingers to her lips and we leaned against the door, all three of us. But all we heard was Jane say, “Promise me,” and the boy reply, “I promise.”

  It isn’t right, Mother said. That a strange girl with an unknown past and an unexplained baby would be demanding promises from a boy not yet thirteen. But what could we do? A didn’t say a thing when he came out still wrapped in that quilt, clutching it so tightly that his knuckles were white. He was deathly pale himself, except for the flush of his cheeks, which I hope isn’t the onset of a fever.

  I wanted to touch his hair, push the curls from his forehead where his hair has begun to dry.

  Whatever the girl made him promise, it has frightened him. What on earth could it be?

  Meri’s hand went to her throat. Alden had been there. It was his dinghy that the girl saw. She’d hailed him and he’d gone to her. Somehow he had gotten close enough to the breakers without capsizing the boat and got her to shore. But he hadn’t been able to get her to the house, so he had run for help.

  Meri wiped at her face and realized that her cheeks were wet from tears she hadn’t felt fall. Just the tightness in her throat. They’d all known and conspired to keep her past from her. She knew it was because they loved her and wanted to protect her. But she wished, really wished, that her mother had told her sooner, because right now she could use her mother’s love, her reassurance, her touch, a kiss on Meri’s cheek, a comforting hug.

  Instead she got pad thai.

  Mother took the boy downstairs. She called his father and W is bringing him dry clothes. I don’t know what he must think. Mother will tell him what she thinks best, though I’m afraid he will go hard on the boy. He’s old school about sparing the rod. Not that he’s abusive. He’s just firm.

  Meri mechanically lifted a mouthful of noodles to her mouth. It was like reading a novel, not like a real diary. But it must be real. Her mother had a fanciful streak, but not this fanciful.

  Wilton came and while A went to change, Mother explained what had happened as best she could. Wilton and the boy left together.

  Meri turned the page. The next entry was the following morning.

  “Jane” is gone! When I came to wake her for breakfast, her bed was empty, her clothes gone. She left a scrap of paper that said keep my baby forever, please.

  She didn’t have extra clothes, or a heavy jacket, and the weather has turned unseasonably cold. And she left her baby. Merielle. How could she do such a thing?

  Mother wanted to call the police, but K stopped her. She explained that they couldn’t start searching until forty-eight hours had passed and we’d do better to start looking for her ourselves. We all went out to search, K to the dunes and the breakwater beach, Mother out across the fields.

  They made me stick close to home, because I wasn’t fully recovered from—I can’t even say it. And someone had to stay with the baby. But I searched the house, the outbuildings, calling the girl’s name, but she never answered. Maybe she was hiding and didn’t trust us to help her. W
hat could make a girl so frightened? Unless she had broken the law. Or she’d been abused.

  Meri knew it had been coming, that possibility that her mother had been abused. Somehow she thought it would be easier to know her mother had robbed a bank or even killed someone than to learn she’d been raped by someone in her own family or a family friend, even a stranger. That would be an awful end to a life.

  An awful beginning for a baby. She shuddered. And fervently hoped that this question would eventually be answered by the diary. Because if it weren’t, she didn’t know how she would reconcile herself to not knowing.

  The baby, Merielle, precious little Meri, began to cry. I lifted her out of the crib and my milk let down. I was surprised. My blouse was wet from it. I didn’t think about that. I sat in the rocking chair with her and she nuzzled my breast. I didn’t think I would have enough milk, but she latched on and pulled and pulled until she fell asleep.

  Meri dropped the book on the coffee table. TMI, Mom. She went to the little kitchen and looked in the fridge. Nope, still nothing there. She heartily wished for a glass of wine but settled for another bottle of water. She was tempted to go to the store. But she knew she couldn’t leave until “Jane” was found and Meri found out what happened to the baby.

  She froze with her hand reaching for the water. Really? Find out what happened to the baby? The baby was her. She knew what happened to it; it grew up as a Calder. What she needed to know was why.

  She returned to the couch, picked up the diary, and found where she’d left off.

  I held her while she slept. I didn’t want to put her down. I didn’t think I would be able to put her down. Because weird ideas were filling my mind. And while Mother and K were searching the fields for Meri’s mother, she became mine.

  Meri read the words. Reread them. Maybe she didn’t know what happened at all. Maybe she didn’t want to find out. And the questions she had been suppressing for days shot to the surface of her mind. How had the young mother—her mother—died? Why was she buried in the family plot? And how far would Laura Calder go to keep her baby?