Page 58 of Our Last Vineyard Summer

Louisa sunk back onto her heels. She was trembling. “Why on earth did he write this to you?”

Betsy honestly didn’t know. It was dated four years ago. She read it once more.

To my Betsy girl,

I am uncertain if you’ll ever see this letter, which makes it an oddity to write, but if you are reading it, then it’s likely you’re cleaning out my papers. It’s hard to imagine there will be a time when I won’t be on this earth, but I suppose, like everyone, my time will come. You are nineteen as I write this, and we’ve just returned from depositing you at college for your sophomore year. The entire drive home from Barnard to Washington, I carried something on my mind that I need to expunge.

In 1965, I was gifted a piece of land on Nantucket, a few acres in Madaket, that is in my name. For reasons that I am not free to explain, both politically and personally, I have kept this property to myself. I could not make anyone aware of this transfer for a myriad of reasons, so I will rely on your discretion in handling this information.

12 Chapel Way, Nantucket.

I love you always and forever,

Dad

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREEVirgie

Nantucket

1965

Maybe they’d sail to Nantucket this century. The car ferry in Woods Hole was full, so Virgie sat in the standby line watching walk-on passengers lugging suitcases onto the boat. There were three cars ahead of Virgie’s, and a new ferry was docking.

Betsy and James were in the back seat reading aSpider-Mancomic. One of the sailing instructors had given them a stack of comic books the day before and they’d been huddled over theSupermanandSpider-Manstories since. It was risky bringing Betsy, but Virgie couldn’t leave her home all day. Aggie and Louisa would go to a friend’s house in the afternoon, but she didn’t trust Pamela to watch the children, especially when she was prisoner to the ferry schedule.

The tender waved them on the boat, and Virgie parked. They shuffled up to the sundeck for the two-hour trip, the departure horn sounding. Virgie pressed her lips into a tight line. She checked the tiny gold face of her wristwatch; it was after twelve. She didn’t have much of an appetite, but she’d need to feed the kids. “Would anyone like a cup of clam chowder?” she asked the children. They followed her to the canteen, still reading the comic.

It’s probably something innocent, she told herself, handing the children each a packet of oyster crackers and creamy soup. She crossed her legs and watched them eat.A huge misunderstanding.

Virgie stopped at a small gift shop just after driving off the ferry to ask for directions, but they sent her to the tourist office down the road where a nice young man used a red marker to hand draw a map showing her the way to Chapel Way in an area called Madaket. When she got back in the car, she tucked a few strays into her French twist, the children in a tickle fight, whooping it up in the back seat.

“Quiet down, children. I need to focus.” She smacked the passenger seat harder than she needed to, and they fell silent, returning to their comic.

“What a lovely bookshop.” Virgie pointed to a brick shop housing rows of novels in the windows. “If the day goes well, maybe we can stop there on the way home.” They were driving rural roads out of the town soon after, making their way through acres of open land and grassy moors, and while it took some turning around and backtracking, after twenty minutes or so, Virgie steered the car into a small grid of houses. She located an unpaved single lane road labeled CHAPELWAY.

How strange that the address led to a house.

A small, shingled saltbox-style house. Virgie had imagined something sinister, like a big empty warehouse with the windows drawn black with shades. She pulled in beside the Ford truck and parked in the drive, shushing the children in the back seat. There were two bikes on the side porch next to a charming swing. A little girl was in the backyard on a playset, and behind it, a calm inlet with a boat rocking lazily in the blue.

“Can we go play?” Betsy asked. The child waved to them, and Virgie had the eerie sense that she’d seen the girl before; she was lanky and knobby-kneed, wearing an adorable bathing suit with a strawberry printed on the front.

“First, let’s see who else is home,” Virgie said, feeling a bit hopeful that maybe she wouldn’t discover anything damning. On the door was a shiny brass knocker in the shape of a sailboat. She knocked it twice. She could hear a television inside, studio applause and phony laughter coming through an open window.

Footsteps. Virgie adjusted her skirt suit, retucking her blouse and sucking on her teeth to remove any errant lipstick, poised to smile as the front door opened.

A tall, elegant woman answered the door holding a small Igloo cooler. She was Virgie’s age and wearing a red one-piece bathing suit with a fashionable matching headscarf. She took a small step back, dropping the plastic cooler by her foot, then rushing forward to pick it up and returning to stand.

“I can’t believe it,” the woman said. She pulled off the headscarf, crumpling it in hand, almost like a person couldn’t know her wearing it.

The ground under Virgie felt a little less steady.

It was Melody. Her old best friend from Washington. Melody, with that pretty dark reddish hair that fell blunt to her shoulders. Melody, who had abruptly moved to Boston. How terrible Melody had been about answering Virgie’s letters, sending one back for every four Virgie had written. At some point, Virgie had stopped writing. But it had bothered her; for a time, Melody was her closest friend.

Virgie snuck a glance into the hall behind her. Was there someone else inside? A husband that would turn off the television and come to the door?

Melody’s smile looked pasted-on. “Virgie, oh my goodness, Virgie Whiting. What are you doing here?”

Virgie wasn’t sure she was happy to see her, waiting a moment for her brain to catch up with her eyes. “I’m not sure.”

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