THERESA WAS ANXIOUS to get back to Whimsy Towers. The hour-long drive gave her time to think about her life, the thirty-four-year prologue to this trip, and the visible and invisible imprints she’d left in getting here. The future sometimes raises its curtain slowly. She sensed that happiness and fulfillment depended on the improvement of moments, the gradual realization of promise. Had she wasted the years? Could she figure out the direction forward for her life?
The lights she’d left on inside gave the house a warm glow, with moonlight spreading over the roof. She stopped the car midway in the drive. Tomorrow she had plans to see Stormy again, and he would tell her things about this place that would bring the past right to her door. Whimsy Towers would no longer be a painted lady with secrets; she was about to be exposed.
Theresa heard Gypsy barking as she pulled up and turned off Red Rover. Hurrying around the corner of the house, she wondered what the commotion was about. Gypsy was standing inside the door, barking anxiously, while wagging her tail with enthusiastic greeting. The front of her was on guard-dog alert, and the back half was pet-me friendly. Protective, eager love was a great companion, thought Theresa, as she glanced around to see whether anything looked amiss. Gypsy stopped barking only when Theresa let her race outside, eagerly sniffing the porch floor and following a scent that hung in the evening air.
“What’s the matter, girl?” asked Theresa. “Everything’s okay.” She tried to reassure her furry detective, but then her eyes fell on a folded piece of paper tucked under one of the large flower pots. There was not enough light to read the note, and her heart pounded with apprehension as she went inside. The phone began to ring.
“Hello, Theresa? It’s Jeff.”
“Well, hi.”
“I just wanted to be sure you got home all right and were doing okay.”
She didn’t remember giving Jeff her phone number.
“Oh, yes, I’m fine. And thanks again for all your support. You’ve been my guardian angel, being there when I needed help. You really were the one who brought this all together, and it was a beautiful evening.”
“I was an unknowing facilitator!” Jeff laughed and then became serious. “I enjoyed being with you and meeting Stormy. He seems like quite a guy.”
“Yes, I look forward to getting to know him. He’s a gift of new family.”
The phone line became quiet, and then Jeff said, “I think relationships have a way of replenishing themselves. The players change, but the relationship connections get refilled. Do you think that’s a cold-hearted way to think of it?”
“No, I suppose that’s a very practical way, a healing way. People do not stay in our lives forever, but fresh beginnings have risk—and disappointment.” And then she added, wistfully, “I think what we hold onto is safety, wanting the certainty of the familiar, but I wish I could talk with my father and ask him why he kept Stormy and Grandmother a secret.”
Theresa could hear the waves through the still-open door. Crickets offered their night song, and Gypsy had disappeared into voiceless prowling. The lullaby of wind, water, and darkness was pulling her drifting thought away from conversation. She yearned to sink into the deep cushions and dream of birthday cakes and lacey socks, hamsters wearing pink bows, and Easter eggs hiding in the bushes. She wanted all her yesterdays. She wanted to line up the people from her life and be reintroduced.
“Theresa, are you there? Hello?”
The voice startled her, and she remembered with a jolt that Jeff was still on the phone.
“Oh, I’m sorry. I was just thinking …. ”
“That’s okay. I know you’ve had quite a day, and I won’t keep you. But, Theresa … ” He hesitated. “Could I see you again?”
She tried to focus her drifting mood and understand what he was asking. The silence lingered a little too long.
“Maybe you could join the girls and me for a picnic,” he began. “Or a beach walk. We’re experts at finding sea treasures. Have you seen the gorgeous colored pebbles on the beach? They’re like rainbows just under the water. Provincetown is full of surprises.”
Theresa laughed to herself and wondered what Jeff really meant.
“That would be fine,” she replied. “You have two very nice little girls, Jeff, and I’d like to see them again.”
She suddenly realized it sounded as though she wanted only to see the children, but she lacked the energy to retract her words or fumble through innuendo. Let it be. After all, she was not positioning herself for a relationship, and friends set limits by behavior as well as words.
“They liked you, too, and that sounds great! I’ll call you in a day or so.”
Theresa was touched by his enthusiasm and genuinely grateful for the help he had been to her, but she was tired, exhausted beyond civility, and feeling adrift in new currents. She briefly closed her eyes. Oddly, she wanted to call Kevin.
Leaning back into the pillows of the couch, she gazed at the kitchen ceiling and saw the painted life preserver ring with the words, “Too Late.” She said Kevin’s name aloud and reached to dial the number, but the room closed in and gently carried her off with the painted angels, slipping between the clouds.
She awoke in an hour, still clutching the recent delivery. Slowly unfolding the paper, she saw the same careful handwriting as before. Theresa needed answers about these nibbles and notes! She paused as curiosity chased dread, and then began to read:
I run fast when the ocean calls. Trees hurry by the other way as we pass. They sing in wind of danger and sorrow. They echo the whisper of lost baby. I look for her. Every day I look for her. The water is empty of babies, but the clouds look down with softness. Tree voices tell clouds to make a pillow for the baby. She can trade her cold wet sleep for softness. I look for her. Every day I look for her.
Theresa read the note several times and felt strangely comforted by it. The writer of these words was not a threat to her or a danger. A poetic and thoughtful stalker? This writer had an aching soul and a desire to help. There was love in these words. But who was the lost baby? And why was the message at Whimsy Towers?
She reached again for the phone and dialed Kevin. A groggy voice answered on the third ring.
“Oh, Kevin, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize it was so late. What time is it?”
“Are you calling to set your clocks?”
“No, Kevin,” she answered, not sure whether he was being humorous or irritated. “I wanted to tell you about my day.”
“At midnight? Is everything okay?”
She seemed to be asked that question rather often recently. She put it aside for future thought and did not answer.
“I buried my dad tonight. And I met Stormy. He took us out this evening in his fishing boat.”
She did not explain the “us,” but let it float in the space between them as if she meant her father. Theresa had not talked to Kevin since before the whale watching trip and losing the ashes the day before, and she had news to share that was safe and nonthreatening to their marriage. Her clipped sentences did not immediately convey the information or betray her emotions. She could tell that Kevin was waiting patiently for the details to unfold.
“It was really peaceful. The ashes just melted into the water. A painless union.”
She was rehearsing the evening as if talking to herself.
“Nobody else was anywhere near. Just us and the vastness of forever water and sky. Mission accomplished. My parents are together again.”
Her midnight musings were eating up her husband’s scarce sleep time, but Theresa needed to sort slowly through the events that were opening up Whimsy Towers, and Kevin was part of the discovery process. She wanted to include him, but only from a distance that would allow facts without personal exposure.
“How did you meet Stormy?”
“That’s a miracle!” exclaimed Theresa, eager to share her new connection to the past. “I went on a whale watch, and someone there recommended him as a way to send off ashes to the sea. When I met him, I asked if he knew my grandmother. I mean, how many ‘Stormys’ can there be? What do you think the odds were of that happening?”
“Just enough. Besides, I thought you didn’t believe in chance.”
“No, I don’t really. I believe that things happen with purpose, that there is a plan. I don’t think I was there by coincidence.”
“Where does he live?” continued Kevin, which avoided a philosophical detour.
“I really don’t know. We met in Provincetown. He has a small fishing boat, and I assume he’s a fisherman and takes out charters. I have so many questions! I’m going to meet him there tomorrow for dinner—or rather, tonight, I guess. Want to be jealous of a weathery old man?”
She hadn’t mentioned the other two men she had spent time with, and she suddenly blushed with the memory of Rick. Kevin didn’t pick up the bait, and she was glad not to go down that slippery road. She wanted Kevin to know what she was discovering about her family but not about herself.
“I’ll be anxious to hear what you learn,” he said.
Kevin’s response was his way of wrapping up the conversation. Useful information that would open closed doors of the past was coming in installments. Theresa knew that until she had peace of mind, they would both be unsettled by her restlessness.
She fell asleep on the couch, stretched out full length on the flowery cushions. Still warmly dressed from being out on the water, she dreamed of walking the beach, looking for a lost baby, calling helplessly in the wind. She walked and walked, as if the beach had no end and the search had no answer.
A faint scratching sound startled her, and she opened her eyes unwillingly. A little more time. She needed a little more time to find the baby. Feeling exhausted from the dream, Theresa lay still and watched the clouds float on the ceiling. Daylight filled the room. She felt the soft cushions around her and realized she was in her own house, and there was no baby.
The scratching persisted. Theresa sat up and heard short bursts of whimpering from the direction of the porch, a mournful plea of distress and expectation.
“Oh, Gypsy!” she exclaimed. “Oh, Gypsy, girl! I forgot you!”
The dog had spent her first night outdoors. Theresa saw a rounded indentation in the fresh mulch around the lilacs, just about the size of a middle-aged, curled-up Labrador.
“Thanks for staying close to home. Let’s have some breakfast,” she said as she followed Gypsy into the kitchen and began to turn off the lights. “It’s going to be an exciting day.”
Gypsy munched her dry food eagerly, as if hungry for the return of familiar routine. The tea kettle whistled a piercing, loud scream as the phone rang. Theresa ran for one and then the other.
“Hello?” she said breathlessly.
“Hi, Theresa, it’s Rick. I’ve been wanting to call you and not call you at the same time.” He paused. “I’m really embarrassed by what happened. I have to admit I’m glad it did happen, but I really had no business …. I should never …”
He stopped, but Theresa finished the sentence for him.
“Should never have showed honest feeling? Never given in to passion?”
“No, should never have felt desire for another man’s wife. And yet I keep wondering if I’ll run into you somewhere or how soon the grass will need cutting again. I’ve been hoping for a little rain to speed up the growing!”
He laughed, and Theresa could picture his smile and the way his blue eyes watched her. She wanted to see him.
“It is looking a little long,” she teased. “Why not come by this morning? I’ll buy you a cup of coffee.”
Rick hesitated. He probably did not trust himself, but they had stirred up something that excited Theresa, and she was anxious to be with him. Perhaps he could be pulled from the magnet of his past and entertain new possibilities. She was not sharing his guilt and tingled with anticipation. She felt bold, beautiful, and unwilling to let one intimate encounter be enough.
“I could stop by between deliveries this morning,” he said.
“I’ll be here,” she answered. “Coffee or tea?”
“I’m maxed out on coffee. Tea sounds nice. And Theresa, I found the answer to my question.”
She waited, wondering what he was talking about, what question was hanging out there unanswered.
“It’s a gerund. Remember? ‘A verbal noun ending in -ing’? I got thrown off track when I got the letter ‘n’ and assumed the word itself ended in ‘ing.’ These puzzles are really a tease, just like somebody I know. I can’t quite leave them alone.”
“I think I’ll take that as a compliment.” She laughed, relieved that the answered question did not conjure up a barrier between them. “I’ll see you soon.”
An hour later Rick was at the door. Theresa greeted him in her terry bathrobe. Her hair was still tousled from sleep, but she had taken a long, hot bath after spending the night in her clothes. She smelled of sweet jasmine powder. He held out a brown bag of fresh cinnamon rolls, and the delicious scents combined as she reached for him and they held each other.
There was no waiting, no polite conversation. He did not resist. She led him to the Oriental carpet and slipped off her robe as he lay on her, anxious and ready. The wool nap of the carpet rubbed hard against his knees. She arched to meet him, reaching for the pleasure. They rolled across the clusters of ivory birds and blue patterned vases, and the painted clouds above began to move and swirl with them. Angels nodded, and someone whispered, “yes … yes.”
Their clothes were strewn about the floor, but the two lovers showed no interest in retrieving them. Theresa leaned up on her elbow, “Tea time?”
Rick pulled her toward him, their warm, moist skin melting together as one. “You’re a bad influence on me, Theresa. But tea sounds great.”
She stood up to go to the stove, aware of the eyes following her.
“See,” she said, “you should have stuck around at the beach that day I was swimming. You would have gotten the preview.”
“Are you kidding?” He laughed, reaching out to touch her. “I was so scared! But you can’t imagine how much I wanted to. And then I wondered and fantasized. Theresa, you are so beautiful, but what in the world are we doing?”
“We’re having a naked tea party,” she answered, handing him a cup of orange herbal tea. “What happened to the cinnamon rolls?”
He reached over and found the bakery bag, handing her a sticky, twisted roll as she sat down on the carpet.
“Sorry these aren’t still hot.”
“They’re perfect,” came the reply.