The Ice Cradle (35 page)

“What happened today gave me pause, I must admit,” Baden conceded. “There were certain—indications I could not ignore.”

“It does make sense, though,” I said. “If you don’t believe
there’s water down below, why would you want to jump off the cliff?”

“I love
life,”
Baden finally explained. “I’d like to be
with
life and
around
life for as long as I possibly can.”

“And,” I teased, “you know I’m coming back sometime this summer.”

“I do,” he said.

The fog had all burned off by noon, revealing placid seas under a sky the blue of a robin’s egg. It actually smelled like spring, so we all took our coffee out to the front porch and left the brunch dishes spread out in the dining room. Lauren and I took the chairs in the corner, where I could keep an eye on Henry, who was playing in the side yard.

“I don’t know how to thank you,” said Lauren.

“Thank me for what?”

“I don’t know how you did it, but—”

“Did what?” I gave her an evasive little grin. The less said, the better.

She tilted her head toward Dayne and Gavin, on the other side of the porch. They were leaving on the same boat we were taking. Only one of their sensors had been restored to working order, and while the camera turned on, its lens was cracked. There wasn’t much point to their remaining on the island.

“Thank you for having us,” I said, determined to steer the conversation away from all things ghostly. I hadn’t allowed myself really to think about our leaving, and I’d been so busy, I’d hardly had time. Now, suddenly, I felt like crying.

I have one good girlfriend, Nat, but nothing like what I’d experienced this week: friends eating dinner together all the
time, in and out of each other’s lives many times a week. Lauren was great. So was Mark. I wished we lived near each other, so I could help them when the baby came along and sit having tea with her at her kitchen table.

“You’re coming back this summer, right?” she said, as though reading my thoughts.

“Yeah.”

“You’ll be amazed at the difference. It’s like another place.”

“I like it like this.”

“So do I,” she said moodily. “I never thought I’d say that.” She turned and reached out for my hand.

“So don’t say good-bye.” She gave my hand a squeeze.

I squeezed back. “I won’t.”

Bert drove us down to the ferry and piled all our bags and boxes by the side of the boat. They were immediately taken up by a member of the crew and stowed somewhere inside. Bert knew the ferry’s captain and asked the weathered old seaman if Henry could sit up front with the crew.

“Can I trust him?” the captain teased, in a heavy Scottish brogue.

“You bet you can,” Bert replied. “He’s a good sailor.”

“Can he swim?” the captain asked, and Henry glanced nervously at me.

“He won’t need to swim if you do
your
job,” Bert shot back.

I leaned down and whispered, “He’s only kidding, honey.”

The captain took Henry by the hand and led him away, leaving Bert and me to be awkward with each other.

“Safe trip,” Bert said formally.

“Thanks. Thanks for everything.”

He nodded and glanced out at the horizon. “Should be a smooth crossing.”

“You’d know.”

“Not always, but I think you’ll be fine today. How will you get home from the boat?”

“Grab a cab.”

“Good, yeah.”

Bert raised his eyes and then waved to a member of the crew. I turned around and saw that final preparations for departure were under way: the gangplank connecting the dock and the boat was about to be slid aboard.

“Take care,” I said, longing to say something witty and charming and full of just the right kind of feeling, the kind that wouldn’t embarrass him and yet would communicate the fact that I was crazy about him and couldn’t wait to see him again.

I wasn’t able to think of anything.

Nor was he, apparently.

He leaned over and gave me a swift kiss on the cheek.

I searched his eyes. They were warm and kind, but firm and resolved.

I could have made this harder, by getting all mushy and saying all the wrong things, but I could tell he didn’t want that, and neither did I.

“See you soon,” I said brightly, and then I turned and walked away.

“The sooner the better,” I heard him call.

And that did it. I turned and saw the grin on his face, then raced back and threw my arms around him one last time, breathing in the scent of his coat and his hair and the sea and the hint of aftershave that reminded me of my dad’s. The crew blew the whistle. I had to get on. I gave him one last kiss on the side of his neck and pulled myself away.

JULY

T
HE
LARCHMONT
COLLECTION
was opened to the public in the middle of July. The celebration went on all weekend. There were two lectures: one on the historical uses of Long Island Sound, from commercial fishing to travel and recreation, and a second on the tragedy itself, a gripping and dramatic account of the fateful few days by a maritime hobbyist, a retired navy admiral now living in Little Compton.

On Sunday afternoon, a professor of art history from Brown, a specialist in photography, gave a talk called “The Brownie: Into the Hands of Everyman (and -woman).” After her lecture, we all walked upstairs to the cramped but freshly painted rooms displaying the photographs of Honor Morton. There hadn’t been enough money to frame them all, but I’d personally cut sixty-four window mats from stiff, cream-colored stock, and we’d set the matted photographs on pushpins encircling the two upstairs rooms. Over the course of the three-day celebration, 179 people signed the guest book, trudged up the stairs, and filed past the images that had never been seen before, except by our eyes and the artist’s.

On Sunday night, there was a dance in the ballroom of the Ashmont Hotel. The music, played by a seven-piece orchestra called the Mill Stream Boys, was all waltzes and show tunes from a hundred years ago, and Bert and I shared a table with Lauren and Mark and Aitana and Peter. As usual, in my rush to get Henry packed and off for the weekend with Declan and Kelly, I hadn’t given enough thought to the clothes I would need, so Lauren loaned me a green chiffon dress and Aitana talked me into wearing a pair of her heels, heels so high that after a couple of dances, I had no choice but to spend the rest of the evening barefoot. You can’t just start wearing high, high heels when you’re almost thirty years old. You need toes that have grown to meet in a point.

Conspicuously absent from the weekend’s festivities was the senior senator from Rhode Island. According to the aide who had phoned Caleb on Thursday afternoon, the senator had been called to Washington on urgent committee business, but in my opinion, shared by everyone around the table, the crisis was more personal than legislative.

The previous Wednesday, a piece had appeared on the front page of the
Boston Globe
, written by none other than Mark’s friend and confidant Andrew Fuller. According to the article, the Project on Government Oversight, an independent nonprofit that investigates charges of political corruption and misconduct, had called for a probe into the links between RMI Partners, the Lenox Consortium, and Senator Rawlings, particularly relating to issues of alternative energy. The piece suggested that Rawlings might be guilty of conflict of interest, and further referenced RMI Partners’ recent forays into wind and solar power technology.

The article had been picked up by the Associated Press and
had garnered national attention. No mention had been made of links to the Oceanic Liberation Front, but Andrew had been apprised of our suspicions. He was looking into all that now.

This probably should have been the highlight of the weekend for me, but it came in a distant third.

Second place was occupied by a conversation I had with an elderly farmer who came dressed in his work clothes to the lectures and the art opening. He was Honor Morton’s second cousin. His grandfather Lawrence Ames had been ten years younger than Honor’s mother, Phyllida, who had married a man named Marcus Morton. Honor had not ended her own life, I was awfully happy to hear. She had died of tuberculosis in a sanitarium in Massachusetts.

As excited as I was to learn more about the elusive photographer, I was even happier with the latter part of our conversation. Hugo explained that as he was getting on in years and no longer interested in working eighteen hours a day, he had decided to divest himself of some property he owned on the island. The parcel in question consisted of a small barn built entirely of fieldstones, and an open meadow giving onto an unobstructed view of the sea. Over the course of the weekend, Hugo had come to feel that the
Larchmont
Collection deserved a place of its own on the island. Did I think that the Historical Society might welcome a gift of the barn and the land, so as to create a permanent home for the photographs, books, and mementoes?

Did I ever! Not only would his cousin’s photographs, my very favorite part of the exhibit, receive the permanent display they so clearly deserved, but this might be the solution to the problem of my promise to the ghosts! I began to envision a serene and glorious garden, with wooden benches and paths of
crushed seashells and a breathtaking view of the sea. I walked Hugo over to Caleb and made the introduction. And then I went looking for Bert.

In my ranking of the things that had happened on Block Island, my time with him occupied place number one. All my efforts to tie the experience up in a neat little package have completely failed. It’s a series of happy images and memories, pieces I take out and arrange and rearrange, like a toddler on the floor with colorful blocks. Being out on his boat as the sun is setting. Cooking lobsters. Seeing shooting stars—some in the sky and some behind my eyelids. The hike that took four hours. The breakfast that took three.

I could go on and on, for there was literally nothing I saw, ate, drank, heard, or felt in my three days on the island that didn’t rest somewhere on the spectrum between pretty fantastic and absolutely great. We have plans for another weekend in August, and our phone calls and e-mails are getting more frequent.

Only one thing made me sad that weekend: I never caught sight of Baden again. He was obviously avoiding me, and I finally understood why.

The why had weighed nearly nine pounds and was twenty-one and a half inches long at birth. The name bestowed upon him by his very proud mother and father was Christopher Baden Riegler.

As for that check, I tore it up. Caleb paid all the suppliers directly, and I did the work for the balance in my spiritual checkbook. There was no point in telling Caleb this, so I didn’t. It was a little tight at the end of April, but I’ve been there before and I’m sure I’ll be there again. There are worse things in life than having to eat a little more pasta.

In the grand scheme of things, my refusal to cash the check probably didn’t make a bit of difference. But you do what you can do. It mattered to me.

Jay’s probably right: I should get a real job.

I’ll have to give that some thought.

My husband, Ted, for his love and encouragement in all areas of my life. Our daughters, Amber and Tara, for keeping me young at heart.

Jennifer Gates, my literary agent, for doing your job so well; you are incredible. The support from Lane Zachary and the staff at Zachary Schuster Harmsworth.

Maureen Foley, your amazing skill; you have gotten better and better. It is a privilege to work with you.

Thanks to Three Rivers Press and our editor, Heather Lazare, for being so available and supportive.

Scott Schwimmer, for all of your legal guidance done with such love and humor.

All of my relatives and friends. Thank you for all of your love and support.

Thank you to every earthbound spirit I have met or will meet. You all have a story to tell.

Thank you, God, for my abilities. I know that they are Your gift to me.

—MARY ANN WINKOWSKI

I offer warm thanks to Lane Zachary, Mary Ann Winkowski, Jennifer Gates, Heather Lazare, Dyana Messina, Sibylle Kazeroid, and Cindy Berman. For their generous provision of a quiet place in which to write, I am most grateful to Sarah Baker and Tim Albright. For insights about Block Island, I am indebted to Susan Kenyon, Rick Abrams, and Justin Abrams. And I extend my deepest gratitude to my beloved children and husband: Charlie, Grace, and Rob Laubacher.