Authors: Barbara Delinsky
It did have a bunny nose. It wasn’t quite pink, but it twitched.
“How many of these do you have?” she asked Zoe.
“Currently? Twenty-three adults, twenty-five babies.”
“Babies?” Julia did look up then. “I don’t see any babies.”
“See the wood boxes in some of the cages? Those are nest boxes. The kits are inside.”
“How do they fit?”
Zoe laughed. “They are little, Julia. Here, I’ll show you.” She opened one of the cages and reached in. “Come here, cutie pie,” she cooed. Closing the cage again, she carried the baby to Julia. Though she used both hands, the baby would have fit comfortably in one.
Julia caught her breath in delight. The kit was pure white, with tiny ears, eyes, and nose. “How old is it?”
“Three weeks. It’s just beginning to fuzz up.”
“But it looks more like a rabbit than these biggies.”
Zoe chuckled. “More like a rabbit than cotton candy? It does. Give it another little while and it’ll sprout fringe on its ears and face.” One small leg kicked its way through Zoe’s hands. She shifted to hold the kit more securely. “This little guy is the dominant one in the litter. He’s the biggest of the bunch.”
“How do you know it’s a boy?”
“I’ve sexed it.”
“Ah.” Julia wasn’t ready to ask how
that
was done. Both hind legs poked out this time. “He’s an active little guy.”
“I’d be worried if he wasn’t. The strength of their hind legs is really the only defense Angoras have. If one kicks you, you feel it. You’d be amazed at how fast they can move.”
“Twenty-five babies?”
“Four litters, with five, seven, seven, and six kits, respectively,” Zoe said, ticking them off with a glance at each cage. “My rabbits do well at birthing, because the environment here is ideal. The temperature’s just right—never too hot, which would spell death for an Angora carrying this kind of fur. Angora wool is seven times warmer than lambs’ wool. Anything over seventy-five, and they start panting. Forty-five to fifty-five degrees is perfect for them. Once in a great while, in the dead of winter, we have to hook up supplementary heaters, but the walls of the barn deflect the wind, and the air coming off the ocean is always more moderate than it is on land. The screens here provide the kind of cross ventilation the rabbits need. Give them shade and a breeze, and they’re great.”
“How did you learn all this?” Julia asked, because she had seen nothing of this magnitude in earlier visits. Yes, those visits had been brief, stolen time when Molly had been her excuse to come. And, yes, Zoe had emailed her bits and snatches of information in between. But Julia hadn’t imagined such a serious operation.
Zoe carried the kit back to its cage. “I did a lot of reading. I visited with breeders. I had a friend in Rhode Island, Caroline Ellis, who raised Angoras and was a
huge
help when I first started out. Now a group of us is in constant touch on the Web, but in the final analysis,” she closed the door and returned, “it’s been trial and error. I began small, while I worked out the bugs. The thing is, no two rabbitries are exactly alike. For starters, the weather here is unique. Rabbits are like a green plant, in a sense. A plant may thrive in a nursery, then wither and die when you get it home because the light isn’t right, or the food you give it isn’t right, or your cat eats it up.” She glanced toward the barn door and said with gusto, “That’s why I don’t bother with houseplants, right, Ned?”
Ned was a cat. He was large and black, and would have faded into the shadow of the door had Zoe not singled him out.
“Mind you,” Zoe went on, “Ned might eat up these kits, too, if I put them on the floor. He’d think they were rats.”
“Will he harm the adults?” Julia asked. The cat was certainly larger than Gretchen.
“No. He’s trained to consider them friends and is actually protective. He might not be able to catch a fox or a raccoon, but he’ll make enough noise to bring me running.” She looked at the nearest cages. “I have to do some cleaning.”
“Let me help,” Julia offered. The creature in her lap was so sweet. “Show me what to do.”
Zoe gave her a curious smile. “Is this the woman who was three weeks in replying when I first emailed her that I was buying rabbits?”
Julia protested, “We were away for two of those weeks and returned to no heat in the condo, so we had to stay in a hotel. Did I ever tell you not to buy them?”
“No, but you never offered to help with them, either.”
“I never narrowly escaped death before.”
“What does A have to do with B?”
“Todd Slokum, for one thing,” Julia said. “If he were here, you wouldn’t be doing these chores yourself.”
Zoe’s shoulders sagged. “I skipped it yesterday, because I figured he’d be in today. I have to run down to his place. He may just be sick.”
“I’ll work here while you go.”
“Later, maybe. Have you called your parents?”
Julia shook her head.
“I would. We have no way of knowing what Monte told the
Times
. I wouldn’t want them getting a call from a reporter. They’d be hurt.”
“
They’d
be hurt?” Julia cried. “Know how much support they’ve given me lately?”
“The problem is Janet. Not your dad.”
“Well, it hurts just the same.”
“I know,” Zoe said. “I’ve been there.”
Julia went back to stroking Gretchen. When she spoke again, her voice was calmer. “I know you have.”
“Which is why,” Zoe said quietly, “I can’t make that call for you. I’d do most anything else. But not that.”
Julia had been born knowing that Zoe was considered the black sheep of the family. Back then, though, Zoe and Janet had still talked. Julia didn’t know what had caused the final rift, only that it had happened when she was fifteen. For a while, she had blamed herself for annoying Janet by loving Zoe too much. Her father had assured her that wasn’t the case, but he had never given her anything in its place, and she quickly learned that the subject was too raw to pursue.
Quietly now, she said, “I don’t understand my mother.”
Zoe sighed. “With a little luck, she’ll have left for work, and George will be the one to pick up the phone.”
Julia didn’t need luck. Without fail, Janet was on her way to work by eight. She claimed that the hour she had before the rest of her staff arrived was the most productive of the day, and who was Julia to argue? Janet was an important person. She headed one of the largest charitable organizations in greater Baltimore and was responsible for raising millions of dollars each year for the underprivileged. Life didn’t get any more important than that, Julia was taught, and from the time she was twelve, with brothers nine and seven, she had covered for her mother during those oh-so-important absences.
Watch the boys for me, will you, sweetheart? Make sure Mark wears his jacket.
Or,
Oh my, I forgot! Jerry needs cookies for school. There’s a roll of those Pillsbury things in the freezer. Slice them up and bake them like a good girl, Julia?
And it wasn’t only helping her brothers at the start of the day. Julia was often the mommy at the other end, as well.
I’ve left a container of frozen stew on the counter. If you put it in a pot when you get home from school and put the gas on low under it, we can eat as soon as I get home.
Or,
If Mark comes home with grass stains on his uniform, will you just throw it in the wash? I’ll put it in the dryer myself, but the head start will help. He needs it clean for tomorrow.
How could Julia possibly object? How could she be the one to make things hard for Janet, when Janet was doing such meaningful work? And Janet couldn’t have been more appreciative. If it wasn’t,
You are the best daughter, Julia, I am a very lucky woman,
it was,
The boys listen to you, Julia, you have a knack for this,
or,
My friend Marie is struggling with her career because she doesn’t have a daughter like you at home.
Julia thrived on the praise. She became the best homemaker there was, the best cook there was, the best helpmate there was. Only in hindsight, when she looked back on both her childhood and her marriage, did she wonder if she hadn’t been used more than necessary.
“Hello?” came the wary voice of Julia’s father now.
George was a whole other issue, so different in temperament from Janet that Julia had often wondered what had brought them together in the first place. An accountant by profession, George was introspective and shy. The most conventional of men in his navy suits and pressed sportswear, he was as supportive of Janet’s whims as he was supportive of Julia.
Hearing his voice now, she felt a surge of warmth. “It’s me, Dad. Thank goodness I caught you before you left. I have to tell you—”
“This isn’t a good time,” he cut in. “Your mother has a headache. She’s late leaving for work.”
Julia was instantly concerned. Janet was in good health, but she was, after all, sixty-four. “A headache?”
“Just tension,” he said and added in a whisper, “but it wouldn’t help seeing Zoe’s name on the caller ID.”
Julia felt chastised. “I had no choice. This is the only phone I have. I had an awful experience last night.”
“
Be right there, Janet,
” he called, then said impersonally, with innocent curiosity, as if he were talking to a friend, “Can I phone you later?”
Julia wasn’t a friend. She was his daughter, and she needed comfort. “There was an accident.”
“What kind of accident?”
“A boating one. I was on a ferry—”
“Are you hurt?”
“Miraculously, no. But—”
“Thank God. Listen, sweetie,” he said under his breath, “I will call you back. Right now, I need to get your mother some tea. She has an important meeting at ten. I’m going to try to get her there. She won’t be happy if she misses it. Later, Julia.” Without another word, he hung up the phone.
Julia wasn’t as quick. Stunned, she held the receiver in midair, realizing only then how much she had wanted to talk, and not only with George, but with Janet. Her parents had given her life. She had nearly lost it last night. She couldn’t think of any more appropriate people to give her comfort.
Disconnected. That was what she felt as she slowly returned the receiver to its cradle. Disconnected. And it went beyond the call to her parents, even beyond the call to Monte. She was feeling disconnected from
everything
back in those places she had called home. It was as if the accident had created a barrier between past and present, as if a wall had sprung up out of the water and was now separating the two.
She would have thought that if anyone could moor her again, it was her parents. Apparently, she had thought wrong.
N
oah felt thwarted. He needed to blame someone for the accident, and Artie Jones fit the bill. Big boat, big noise, big wake—big house, big dock, big wallet—Artie was everything year-rounders dreaded and lobstermen despised. It didn’t matter that he hadn’t hurt anyone before. He would have made a perfect scapegoat for a disaster that shouldn’t have happened.
Early word on the autopsy, though, ruled that out. Artie hadn’t been playing chicken. Nor had he deliberately aimed his boat at the
Amelia Celeste
. He’d had heart failure before the crash ever occurred—which meant Noah had no one to blame but fate.
That realization came midday Thursday. Shortly thereafter, the Coast Guard recovered his father’s remains.
With Hutch’s death confirmed and no fall guy, Noah was numb. He sat in the stern of the
Leila Sue,
staring out at sea, so overcome with frustration and regret that they canceled each other out.
His cell phone lay beside him. He couldn’t go ashore to make the call, because something held him there on the water. He didn’t know whether it was Hutch’s soul, not yet fully risen, or the bond he had always felt with the sea. If there was comfort to be had anywhere, it was here.
Determinedly, he picked up the phone and dialed his ex-wife’s number. Sandi had moved twice since the divorce, following teaching jobs that had carried her steadily into administration. She still taught history, now at a private high school in Washington, D.C., but she was also the dean of studies there. He phoned her office, guessing that her administrative responsibilities went on even though the school year was done.
“Sandi,” he said when she picked up.
“Yes,” she replied blankly.
“It’s me.”
There was a brief pause, then a cautious, “Noah? It doesn’t sound like you. Is something wrong?”
“Hutch is dead.”
In the ensuing silence, he saw her close her eyes and bow her head. Sandi had never been particularly fond of either of Noah’s parents, but she was a compassionate woman. She was also acutely aware that regardless of her feelings for Noah’s family, they were Ian’s forebears. She had been sympathetic when Noah’s mother had died. She would be no different now.
“I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “How?”
“Badly. There was an accident.” He gave her the bare outline.
She was appalled. “I hope he died instantly.”
So did Noah. The alternative was too horrible to consider.
“How are you?” she asked. “Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“Not at all?”
“Not at all.”
“How?”
she asked with some of the same bewilderment he felt.
“Beats me.”
“Were you the only survivor?”
“No.”
There was a pause, then, “One other? Two?”
“Two.”
“Are they hurt?”
“Not much.”
“What does that mean?”
“One has a small cut.”
“And the other?”
“She can’t speak.”
“Is it a physical problem? Burned windpipe? Crushed vocal chords?”
“No.”
“Trauma, then.”
“Apparently.”
“But you’re fine?”
“Yes.”
A long moment’s silence. Then she sighed. “I’d say you’re traumatized, too, if I didn’t know that even in the best of times, you suffer from an inability to speak. Why is it that every conversation with you is like pulling teeth? Okay. Don’t answer that. We’ve been through this before. I don’t know why I always expect more. I guess it’s because there was more when we met. So if
this
is your natural state, where did
that
come from? Or if
that
was your natural state, where did
this
come from? Is it just with me that you can’t say more than three words at a stretch?”
Jaw tight, Noah waited until several seconds passed. When she remained quiet, he said, “Here’s more’n three words, Sandi. Hutch died night before last. I’m not going into my inability to speak right now. I just want to tell Ian the news. Hutch was his grandfather. His grandfather’s gone.”
Sandi was quickly contrite. “I’m sorry.”
“For his death or the outburst?”
“Both. I’m always amazed at how close to the surface everything is, even ten years after the split.”
Noah didn’t pretend that she still held feelings for him. Nor did he want it. They had failed as a couple. The divorce was mutually agreed upon.
The problem was that Sandi didn’t like to fail. She had been analyzing their marriage since the day it fell apart, and, naturally, she blamed him. He worked unconscionable hours, she claimed, and was distant when he was home. He excluded her from his thoughts and was insen sitive to her needs. He was impatient with her colleagues and couldn’t stand her friends.
So maybe she was right. Maybe the whole lot of it
was
his fault. Just then, though, he couldn’t have cared less.
“Where’s Ian now?” he asked. At three in the afternoon, the boy would normally be playing baseball, but this was June. The varsity season, like the school year, was done until fall.
“Stewing. He mouthed off to the coach yesterday, so he’s warming the bench today.”
“What bench?”
“It’s a local league,” Sandi explained. “I needed him to be involved in something until summer school begins. He isn’t an easy kid.”
“Seventeen’s tough.”
“
I’ll
say.”
“I was thinking of him, not you.”
“I
was
thinking of me,” she charged, “because you’re not around to deflect any of what’s going on.
I
didn’t have trouble being seventeen. I was busy with school, I had friends and dance class and soccer. I was excited about being a senior and excited about looking at colleges. Ian is none of those things.”
“And you see no other kids like him?” Noah asked knowingly.
“Of course, I do. That’s my job. But those are other kids. Ian’s mine. I take him personally.”
Noah couldn’t argue with that. He had always felt Sandi was a good mother. “So when’ll he be home?”
“Maybe four. Maybe five. He’s been somewhat unreliable lately.”
“Have him call me when he gets there?”
“When’s the funeral?”
“Tuesday.” Noah would have rather it be sooner, but the medical examiner wanted Hutch for a while, and by the time Noah talked with the minister, three other funerals had already been lined up.
“Should I fly him up?” Sandi asked.
“Only if he wants to come.”
“Noah.” She sighed. “That’s a cop-out. Do you
want
him there?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll tell him that. It may not hold much weight. Lately, defiance is his middle name.”
Noah was suddenly weary. “Just tell him. If he doesn’t want to come, he won’t come. I can bury Hutch just fine without him.”
There was a pause, then a guarded, “I could bring him, myself. Do you want me there?”
“Why? You couldn’t stand Hutch.”
“It wasn’t that. It was just that over time I was seeing in him all of the things I had to struggle with in you. But that takes us back to the talking thing. I didn’t know Hutch. How could I? He didn’t have much to say to me. He didn’t seem to have much to say to your mother either, but she was used to it, being a Mainer and all, and there’s a whole
other
issue. There were times when I was up there and I’d see a bunch of local guys on the dock, talking and laughing. I’d approach, and they’d go stone silent. So was it just that they hated outsiders? That’s what I always felt like when I was there. An outsider.”
Again, Noah waited until the silence lasted long enough to suggest she was done. Then, quietly, he said, “This isn’t the time, Sandi. Just have Ian call me, okay?”
Julia didn’t get a call from her father. She did get a call from her friend Charlotte, who had heard about the accident from her husband, who had heard about it through Monte. Charlotte wanted to know for herself that Julia was all right, and once she was satisfied, she begged Julia to let her send clothes from the store. Charlotte sold the finest of Italian imports. Julia’s lost bags had held several of her outfits. But those clothes seemed all wrong now.
Unable to explain this to Charlotte, she must have come across as being disturbed, because, less than an hour later, Julia got a call from their mutual friend Jane. Jane taught psychology at City College and was, actually, just the person Julia wanted to speak to. She described the accident and told her about Kim Colella. By the time she hung up the phone, she had learned the rudiments about post-traumatic stress disorder and muteness.
It wasn’t until even later, though, when she was accessing her email on Zoe’s computer, exchanging comforting notes with her lawyer friend Donna, when she received one from George.
SORRY I HAVEN’T CALLED, BUT IT’S BEEN A BAD COUPLE OF DAYS, he wrote in the all-caps style he insisted on using, though shouting was not his way. He was a quiet man of necessity; being married to as forceful a woman as Janet, he couldn’t get a word in edgewise. Julia had often suspected that since Janet didn’t use a computer, he spoke loudly on the web simply because he could.
I GOT YOUR MOTHER SET YESTERDAY AND THEN HAD A MAJOR PROBLEM HERE AT WORK. I’M JUST NOW COMING UP FOR AIR. SUFFICE IT TO SAY THAT WE’RE BOTH GRATEFUL YOU CAME AWAY FROM THE ACCIDENT UNSCATHED. GIVEN THE SITUATION, JANET FEELS YOU OUGHT TO RETURN TO NEW YORK. LET US KNOW.
Stung, Julia didn’t reply.
Actually, “stung” barely covered it. She was angry.
Heart pounding, she closed out her email, turned off the computer, and, putting the anger to use, set off for town. There, she bought the makings of half a dozen casseroles and as many batches of cookies. The first of the funerals wasn’t until Monday, but she wanted to take something to the families involved—and she was a good cook. She couldn’t do gourmet the way her daughter could, but she knew basics. She had thrown innumerable parties for Monte’s colleagues, and even apart from what a caterer brought, she always prepared something herself. She often gave home-baked bread or cookies as gifts when they went to friends’ homes for dinner. As for bereaved families, someone was always dying in Monte’s circle of clients, which went to show what happened when you represented clients who had taken long lifetimes to amass a fortune worth investing. Bottom line? Julia was a pro at making homemade little somethings to satisfy one or another of Monte’s professional needs.
That said, she would have gladly cleaned rabbit cages if Zoe had shown her what to do. She found the rabbits surprisingly clean, and the scent in the barn unexpectedly pleasant, what with those little bursts of chrysanthemum extract and rosemary oil to keep the flies at bay.
But Zoe was still out with the search, looking for Todd Slokum.
So Julia baked. The familiarity of the activity was a comfort at a time when she was feeling unhinged. Monte hadn’t helped. Her parents hadn’t helped. If her life were a boat that had been torn from its mooring, she was all on her own as far as tying up again went. Embracing the old and familiar was one way to do it, albeit a stopgap measure. She didn’t know what the long-range answer was.
Four o’clock came and went, and still Noah waited for Ian to call. He didn’t budge from the boat. There was nowhere better to go. Lucas was aboard one minute and loping down the dock the next, seeming unfazed by the gravity of the moment. But Lucas was a dog. He had no way of knowing Hutch was gone for good.
Noah knew it and grieved. But grief wasn’t all. Making plans for the funeral had been an eye-opening experience in a pathetic kind of way. Had he known what Hutch wanted? No. They had never talked about funerals. They had never talked about Noah’s divorce. Or about his mother’s death. They had never talked about Ian. Or about why Noah had returned to Big Sawyer to haul traps after the divorce, rather than continue on in New York. He was good at what he’d done there, and had made a lot of money in a very short time. They had never talked about that, either.
What did they talk about? They talked about the weather. They talked about the boat and the traps and the buoys. They talked about the day’s catch, the price it would bring, the new minimum-size regulation the state was rumored to be considering. They talked about the
Trapper John
’s engine overhaul and
My Andrea
’s new GPS. They talked about the lime-grape-lime buoys that were popping up in waters traditionally fished by Big Sawyer lobstermen. And they talked about the weather, again.
These were the things lobstermen discussed. Noah could discuss them as well as he had discussed the pros and cons of an IPO with colleagues in New York. They were real. They interested him.
Small talk did not.
Julia visited the Hornsby house. Nestled not far from the harbor, it was filled with friends. She dropped off a chicken casserole, offered her condolences, and left. She did the same at the homes of Grady Bartz and Dar Hutter.