Small Plates (21 page)

“We're eating lightly, because of Tom, but we'd love to have you with us,” she said.

“That's very sweet of you, but I'm afraid I can't get away.”

“Oh, Mary, the goats will be all right for a few hours,” Faith said. It suddenly seemed important that she join them. Faith didn't like the idea of Mary all by herself in that isolated house on Christmas. Mary had told Faith that Nubian goats were very needy and got upset if they were left for very long. It apparently affected their milk. “I should really have started with a Swiss breed, something like White Saanens, much more placid,” she'd told Faith. “But my first two were Nubians and here I am.”

“It's not the goats,” Mary said. “It's, well, it's something else. Faith, I know this is a lot to ask, but is there any way you could come over here for a little while?”

Startled, Faith heard herself answer, “Of course. When would you like me?”

“As soon as possible,” Mary said, hanging up.

Faith hung up too, thinking how human the goat in the background had sounded. Almost like a baby crying.

M
ary Bethany had not slept since she'd found Christopher in her barn. At first, she'd determinedly blocked out all thoughts of what to do except take care of his immediate needs. She changed his wet diaper and burst out laughing as he sprayed her before she could get the new one on. His skin was softer than any kid's fleece. Soft—everything about him was soft from the top of his head to the soles of his feet. How could finger- and toenails be so small, so perfect? He curled his fist around her finger and made that soft mewling sound again. So different from her demanding nannies. So different from the cries of enraged infants she'd occasionally heard in the aisles of the Harborside Market.

Lacking any alternative, she had filled one of the bottles with goat's milk, warmed it, and watched in delight as he greedily sucked it dry. Mary prided herself not only on her cheese but also on her milk. It was always sweet and fresh. Two lactose-intolerant customers swore they couldn't tell the difference from cow's milk, as if that were the standard. Cow's milk—Mary thought it should be the other way around. She would never have taken up with cows. Much too bovine. No personality.

It was only when Christopher had once again fallen asleep—as she rocked him gently in the chair her mother must have rocked her in—that Mary began to consider her alternatives. Happily, calling the authorities was not a choice. There were no authorities to call. There were no police on Sanpere, just occasional patrols by the county sheriff. She was happy about this for several reasons, first and foremost being an innate disinclination to “open up a can of worms.” They'd bring in social workers and put Christopher in a foster home, everything his mother was clearly trying to avoid by leaving him in Mary's barn. Mary had no idea who the woman could possibly be, but she did know one thing: Christopher's mother had chosen Mary, and she had chosen her because she thought Christopher was in danger. The baby was a trust, a sacred trust, and Mary Bethany was not going to betray that. Let it be according to her wish.

But what to do? Even though she rarely saw other people—only at the bank, the market, or if she happened to be in the shed when they came to buy cheese or milk—there was no way she could pass the baby off as her own. Besides the lack of any physical evidence—Mary had always been as slender as a reed—the notion of Mary with a lover would be greeted with not only skepticism but derision. She could hear them now: “Mary Bethany pregnant? Maybe by one of her goats.”

Mary had been born on the island, but the Bethanys were from away. Her parents had come to Sanpere when her father got a job at the shipyard as a welder after the war. Her mother's family had come from Italy and endowed Mary with the dark hair and Mediterranean features that she shared with others on Sanpere. But their looks had come down from the Italian stonecutters who had arrived in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries to work in the now abandoned granite quarries. Mary's grandparents had landed in New York and worked in the garment business—the wrong kind of Italians for Sanpere. True, Mary's father's family were Mainers, but from the north, Aroostock County—potato farmers. They weren't fishermen. Her father had learned his trade in the service, met her mother, Anne, at a USO dance, and when the war was over they'd ended up on Sanpere not for any particular reason, but because people have to end up somewhere.

Without the kinship network that was as essential and basic to Sanpere as the aquifer and ledges the entire island rested on, Mary and her older sister, Martha, were always viewed as outsiders. Martha, a bossy big sister, had left as soon as she turned sixteen, married at eighteen, and lived in New Hampshire with what was now a growing brood of grandchildren. Mary had stayed. Someone had had to take care of their elderly parents—the sisters had been late children. Maybe if she had been more outgoing, more self-confident like Martha, she would have fit into island life better—or had the guts to leave, parents or no parents. But she had been a shy child, preferring her animals to any human playmates and books to everything animate or inanimate. Her father had died first, but the farm was paid for by then and they'd had enough to get by, especially after Mary started running a small B and B during the summer months to pay the mounting shorefront taxes. Her mother had taken her father's death as a personal affront and after several years of intense anger joined him, presumably to give him what for. That had been ten years ago.

Mary was alone. There was no lover past, present, or future. When she considered the complications love presented—gleaned from her reading and from observing those around her—she was usually glad to have been spared the bother. But it did mean she couldn't pass the baby off as hers.

Gradually, as the sky lightened, she had come up with a plan. Easy enough to say that Christopher was her grandnephew, that his mother wasn't well and couldn't take care of him. Although Martha hadn't been on the island since her mother's funeral, it was well known that she had had ten children herself and that those ten had been equally fruitful and multiplied. Mary invented a rich tale of a young niece with three children already, abandoned by her good-for-nothing cheater of a husband, driving through the night to leave the baby after calling her aunt in desperation. She'd tell her neighbor Arlene, asking her to pick up some clothes and other things the next time she went off island to Ellsworth. “She was so upset, I'm surprised she remembered to bring little Christopher,” Mary rehearsed. Arlene had two grandchildren she thought hung the moon. She brought them to play with the goats when they visited every August. Arlene would be a big help. And since she also had a big mouth, Mary wouldn't have to tell the story to anyone else.

That settled, Mary had turned her thoughts to the rest of the plan. And the rest of the plan had meant calling Faith Fairchild. She watched the sun come up and waited for the right time.

F
aith knocked on Mary's back door. No one used front doors on Sanpere—or anywhere else in New England to Faith's knowledge. It was a mystery why they bothered putting them on houses at all. Using Mary's front door was also complicated by the tangle of lilac and rosebushes that had grown up over the granite stoop.

Mary opened the door and slipped out. Faith was puzzled. From the urgency in Mary's voice, she had expected to be ushered immediately in and told whatever Mary thought was important enough to pull someone away from hearth and home on Christmas day. The goats? It had to be the goats. Mary didn't have anything else to worry about. Or, Faith thought with sudden apprehension, it might be Mary herself. This must be it. She was ill. Cancer. She had cancer.

“Faith, I don't know how to put this any other way, but I want to tell you a secret.”

Faith felt relief and anticipation in equal measure. She loved secrets.

“But I have to have your absolute word that you won't tell anyone else. Not even your husband.”

Husbands were exempt from the not-telling-secrets rule, but maybe Mary didn't know that, not having one herself. “You know, Tom's a minister,” she said. “He'd keep anything you tell me totally confidential. He has to or they take away his collar or robes or something.”

Mary folded her arms across her chest. She was the kind of woman who looks so ordinary that you feel you must know her or at least have seen her before. The gesture and the current expression on her face transformed her. This was a woman you'd remember.

“No Tom. If you can't agree, I can't tell you.” She paused. “And I'm sorry I called you out all this way for nothing.” Mary's farm backed onto Eggemoggin Reach. By water, or as the gull flies, it wasn't far from the Fairchilds'. By land, it took a good fifteen minutes.

“It's not a crime or anything like that, is it? I mean of course you haven't murdered anyone.” Faith thought she'd better ask. It was no never mind to her, but Tom tended to take a dim view of her involvement in these things.

“No crime has been committed to my knowledge,” Mary said firmly. “But you don't have to agree. Go into the shed. There's some fresh cheese. Take one home with you for your trouble.”

“Oh, Mary, of course I agree. You have my word.” Instinctively Faith put out her hand, and Mary shook it, opening the door wider.

Faith stepped into the kitchen, thinking they should have mixed spit or pricked their fingers with a safety pin. But she didn't think for long; she simply reacted and was on her knees by the basket instantly. The baby was wide-awake; his dark eyes shone up at her and his mouth curved in what was definitely a smile. They weren't supposed to do this until they were older, but both of Faith's babies had smiled from birth—and recognized her face, despite what the experts said.

“Where on earth did this beautiful baby come from?”

“I found him in the barn last night when I went to do the milking. His name is Christopher.”

“In the barn! Christopher! Was he in the manger? Any visits from angels lately?” It was too much.

Mary grinned. “And I'm a virgin too. You can hold him if you want. He's a hungry little fellow and I was just going to warm a bottle.”

Faith was only too happy to comply. She adored babies, especially other people's at this point in her life.

“Sit down and I'll tell you everything I know, which is not much. And I'll tell you why I wanted you to come.”

F
aith called Tom and told him Mary's story—literally Mary's story—the one fabricated for public consumption. She wanted him to take the flan out of the oven and asked if he'd mind her staying for another thirty minutes or so. Since he was almost asleep, Ben still involved with his Legos, and Amy gathering more pinecones, Tom thought she could be spared.

Mary continued her explanation.

“I can't involve anyone on the island. It would be too dangerous for the baby. His mother obviously brought him here because she knew how isolated it is—still there is the bridge and word could spread to the mainland easy enough.”

The Sanpere Bridge across Eggemoggin Reach connecting the island to the mainland had been a WPA project, a graceful suspension bridge that looked from a distance as if a particularly talented child had constructed it from an Erector set. For many on the island, it was still a bone of contention. ( Joe Sanford, age ninety, had never been across. “Never had a reason. Everything I need is here.”) But others found it pretty handy, especially before the Island Medical Center was built and the closest health care was in Blue Hill. A new generation of bridge haters had recently sprung up as wealthy off islanders began to build second homes similar to Newport's “cottages.” These people wanted to preserve Sanpere in aspic, in other words, “the last person across always wants to pull up the bridge behind him.”

Mary was right not to involve anyone on Sanpere, even with a blood oath. There were no secrets on the island, and the bridge made sure they traveled.

“But I can't find his mother by myself. Aside from taking care of him, I can't—”

Faith finished for her. “Leave the nannies. So, very fortunately, I'm here for a while.”

Mary looked a bit embarrassed. “I'd heard about that business with the real estate man who was found murdered by the lighthouse and how you figured out who did it.” Several summers ago, Faith had found a corpse while walking along the shore near Sanpere's lighthouse. The death appeared to be accidental, then more “accidents” occurred until Faith untangled the threads leading to the killer.

“This isn't like that,” Mary said, “but I thought you might be able to help me find out who his mother is and why she left him here.”

Faith studied Mary's face. It was a plain, pleasant face, rather flat and with the look of one of those antique Dutch wooden dolls. But not today. Faith had never seen Mary look so excited. Not even when one of her does had quintuplets the spring before last.

“But why? Why do you want to find her? To give the baby back?”

Mary was horrified. “Oh no, not to give him back.”

“Then why don't you just keep him? Your little grandnephew.”

Mary had been through this the night before many times. Just as she had debated back and forth whether to call Faith. She had changed her mind about the latter so many times that she still wasn't completely sure that it was the real Faith in front of her or the one she had conjured up and talked to during the wee hours.

“I think she's in trouble. She must be in trouble; otherwise she wouldn't have left him here. And I feel that I have to find her. It's hard to explain. It just doesn't seem fair to Christopher either, to have her simply disappear. What would I tell him when he was older? I'd have to tell him. Too horrible to find out when he's grown that everything he thought was real wasn't.”