Santa Barbara, 1997
The meeting of the Environmental Coalition was important. The most influential representatives of local organizations were attending, and Kate was trying to focus her attention on the issues at hand. Her colleague, Lydia King, was presiding, but Kate knew that she should be taking notes and giving good advice. Kate felt unusually weary on this very warm day, and the smell of orange blossoms from the trees outside of the Nature Defense Center was not conducive to serious matters.
Kate looked around the room and wondered what it was that made some folks spend their time and energy fighting for these environmental causes. Secretly, she thought that they were all standing about with their fingers in great dikes holding back the flood of humanity and devastation that loomed on the near horizon. They kept a large stuffed gorilla in this conference room, parked up on a bookshelf and glaring down at any occupants. The gorilla reminded Kate that there was an urgency about getting people to face the death of the ecosystem, and the terrible impacts that would ultimately affect human beings. He was the 800-pound figure in any scene these days, never to be ignored.
Today they were pondering the seeming inability of local government to follow environmental rules about building large and upscale projects in sensitive coastal areas. Kate smiled inwardly as the gentle, strong, and energetic lady from the League of Women Voters gave a concise and well-researched review of legal processes. She groaned as advocates for another group defended their opposition to creating denser zoning in the city. What, wondered Kate, was their alternative? To build more housing on undeveloped land? Sooner or later, the world would run out of places to stack people, but how to get humanity to recognize that? Kate often expressed her private opinion that humans would be the first species to become extinct from their own stupidity.
A wise old former newspaper reporter, young and still idealistic students, representatives from the offices of sympathetic elected officials, the Sierra Club, Surfriders—all of these people worked hard and had so much knowledge. What they did not have was enough money—and enough power to hold back the environmental catastrophe of the future.
Then again, maybe they would be able to win after all. She thought of her conversations with Maddie and Aunt Bette about their ancestors, and realized that those somewhat disorganized folks had fought the world’s greatest military power in the late eighteenth century. They won, somewhat to their own surprise and that of the world. “We are all descended from misfits and revolutionaries,” she thought with some pride. “We managed to put a country together. . .”
“Did you say something, dear?” asked Constance Harper, one of the League Ladies. Her blue eyes were gentle but perceptive. Kate shook her head. “Just thinking out loud, Connie,” she said. “I’m a bit tired today.”
“Well, get some rest. We need you,” she said. Kate looked into the wise brave face, and suddenly, the pressure on the dikes seemed to lighten.
Aunt Bette’s call was waiting on Kate’s answering machine. “Katherine, you must come up to the house for dinner tonight. About six, I think. I have a very special surprise for you. See you about six.” Aunt Bette rarely “invited” anybody. She issued proclamations, and Kate knew that even if she had made important plans for the evening, which she hadn’t, there would be no question of not going to Aunt Bette’s for dinner. And she would have to wear a skirt, because Aunt Bette believed that women who dined in slacks never exhibited class. Kate, despite years of training in arguing cases in court, did not like to argue with her Aunt Bette. She stopped by her home and changed her clothes before driving up to join her aunt for dinner.
“Why … Aunt Blanche!” Kate was both stunned and delighted when she entered Aunt Bette’s living room and saw her oldest female relative sitting comfortably in a big easy chair. “It actually is you—and you’ve actually come back to Santa Barbara!”
Now eighty-four years old, Blanche Cobham Wilson had been the beauty of the family. In the 1930s she had made quite a scandal by marrying a man who was not only Jewish, but in politics. Both characteristics were cardinal sins to her family. Her brother, Robert, forgave her only after she was widowed, very rich, and wed to a properly Protestant banker from San Diego. She had been as fair as Maddie in her youth, but now seemed frail and devoid of colors. She wore a silvery gray robe, and her hair was tied with a white ribbon. She leaned on a wooden cane, clutching the carved silver lioness’ head at the top. Kate leaned over to kiss her aunt, and gave her a gentle and careful hug.
“Katie—my dear. You’ve become too thin,” said Aunt Blanche. Her gaze was very much like that of her sister Bette’s, piercing and perceptive.
“I’m sorry, Aunt Blanche. No time to eat anymore!” replied Kate, turning quickly to give Aunt Bette a proper kiss on the cheek. “I didn’t mean to ignore you, Aunt Bette, but I was just so surprised to see Aunt Blanche!”
“You can curtsey later, dear,” Aunt Bette responded and signaled for her maid to circulate glasses of wine. “Well, it is about time that Blanche removed herself from that dreadful cesspool that they now call Orange County,” she commented, taking a seat near her sister. “She has come to her senses and will be moving into Casa Dorinda as soon as an apartment can be decorated for her.” Casa Dorinda was a very upscale senior residence in Montecito, clean and proper and given high marks for care of elderly residents.
“I’m so glad,” said Kate. “We will be able to see much more of you.” Kate had not forgotten the woman who had taken her and Maddie home after her mother’s death. Aunt Blanche had been fun in those days. She lived on a big ranch near La Jolla, rode horses, and dedicated herself to animal welfare causes.
“I’m not well,” she announced. “I just can’t see maintaining that big house alone, and God knows that my sons don’t want it—only the money from the sale,” she added with a wry laugh. “So here I am to annoy my sister in her peaceful retirement.”
Aunt Bette sniffed haughtily. “Oh bullshit, Blanche. If you moved in with me, life would be simpler for us both.”
Aunt Blanche clutched her throat in mock alarm. “We’d kill each other in two weeks, Bette, and you know it. Hell, the town is barely big enough for both of us. Don’t you remember that time that we both wanted to sit next to Ronald Coleman at the San Ysidro Ranch? Then there was the reception for John and Jackie Kennedy that you wanted to arrange when they were here on their honeymoon? I talked you out of it because they wanted privacy, but you said that as long as. . .”
“I remember,” snapped Bette. “You spilled cognac all over that darling mauve silk dress …”
Kate stifled a laugh and took a drink of her wine. “I’m so sorry that Maddie has gone on up to San Francisco. She would adore this evening together.”
Blanche and Bette exchanged glances, their memories fading quickly into a simultaneous present grief.
“Geoffrey should back to Santa Barbara too. Like me, he should come back and breathe his last air here. Madeleine should settle down and see to her children, and you, Katherine …,” snapped Blanche. She paused, thinking the better of whatever she was going to say as she surveyed her niece’s pale and concerned face.
“I had Alicia and Stephanie to visit me this summer while they went to that Marine Institute … They sorely need supervision.” Alicia Antonelli and Stephanie Birch were Maddie’s daughters, both in their twenties and attacking life with all of their mother’s zest.
“Maddie thinks that the girls are smart enough to take care of themselves,” said Kate in her sister’s defense.
“Hah!” Both aunts snorted. “Girls are never that old. I hear that your son Christopher is off with his father in Europe,” began Aunt Blanche. “Well, I suppose that it is as it should be. Christopher can see Europe and keep his father from doing anything too stupid! When they return to California—”
“Jerome and I are not, repeat, not getting back together, Aunt Blanche,” said Kate quickly. “He is too enchanted with svelte blondes half his age.” She frowned. The memory of her ex-husband was an old, very raw wound, but Jerome had been a favorite of Aunt Blanche’s.
“He made you feel old and unattractive,” said Aunt Bette. “The man was brutal to you, and for that I’ll never forgive him.”
“A true cad,” admitted Aunt Blanche, noting the pain on her niece’s face. “But now … let us not brood over the past. Bette tells me that you and Maddie are digging up the old family secrets. Nobody ever asked me about them … well, except newspaper reporters who were writing about my first husband for those dreadful Hearst papers. Dear Lord, how I loathed that man! I actually went to San Simeon and visited that ghastly house of his a few years ago on some tour for us aged folk!”
“Daddy always warned us not to tell the truth to reporters,” laughed Aunt Bette. “They never get the stories right anyway. But I am surprised that you hated William Randolph Hearst so much, Blanche. After all, he wasn’t that anti-Jewish … or was he? I know that your first husband felt that the Hearst papers helped ruin his political career, but you’ve never liked to talk about it.”
Aunt Bette shook her head. “I told you that I do not dwell on the past. But I did spit on the stairs of Hearst’s big castle.”
“Blanche! I never knew that you could carry a grudge like that. Sounds like something that I might have done!”
“I wish that I had been around when you two were young. Dad always said that his older sisters were the liveliest and most beautiful women he had ever known,” said Kate.
“He was much younger than we were, so he didn’t know the half of it,” Aunt Blanche sighed, remembering for a brief moment the adorable little brother who had been young enough to be her son. “We live when we must, Katie.”
“Yes, but we can make of it what we will!” replied Aunt Bette. “That is why I worry about my nieces so much!”
Kate shrugged. “James says that we are taking refuge in the past, and Maddie says that we are looking for ourselves. Sometimes I think that we’re crazy!”
“Possibly. We can rewrite the distant past in any way we choose, and I am glad that you are rescuing those old ancestors,” said Aunt Blanche, tapping her gently on the head with her cane.
“But not the future, alas,” replied Aunt Bette. “We know that all too well.”
“God, but you’re gloomy, Bette!” snapped her sister.
There was a long silence.
“Let’s go in to dinner,” said Aunt Bette at last. “Katherine, help your Aunt Blanche out of that chair. I hope that the cook hasn’t ruined the dessert tonight. I ordered it especially for you.”
The cook had not ruined the dessert, a sumptuous chocolate soufflé with a sprinkling of fresh raspberries as garnish. All three of the Cobham women finished their food with smiles of satisfaction. “I always say—never ignore dessert!” said Aunt Bette, patting her lips gently with a linen napkin. “Forget the soup and salad and entrée if you must, but always eat dessert!”
“Sweetening life again, eh, Bette?” replied her sister with a wink. Blanche was always the best-natured of the two, and Bette was noted by all who knew her as the cool and practical sister.
“And why not? Life is not for cowards and you know it, Blanche. Why in the future—”
“Indignities yet to come?” Aunt Blanche gave her sister a sharp look. “I am eighty-four and will probably outlive my baby brother’s son. You must remember to give me some messages for our ancestors, Katie.”
“I can’t imagine a world without either of you,” said Kate sadly.
“Katie, I’ve already made my will so don’t go sweet-talking me!” Aunt Blanche laughed wryly, and tried to rise from her chair. Kate jumped up to help her aunt. “I’m leaving all my money to the Humane Society and the Happy Corral Horse Rescue Foundation. My sons can just fret their little hearts out.”
“Your sons don’t need your money, Blanche. They always say that they are just too involved making their own money to visit you, remember? They don’t visit, and they don’t call, and neither do their overly indulged wives. So—let’s have coffee and you can show Katherine what you brought. No … sit still, Katherine. Blanche, just relax where you are. I’ll have Maria bring the papers in here,” directed Aunt Bette. “La caja de la Senora Blanche—aqui, por favor, Maria.”
The maid, a young Hispanic woman in a clean white uniform, had cleared the table of food and was serving coffee in a quick and efficient manner. She was slightly overweight and had an unfortunate scar running down the side of her face. Although she looked barely twenty years old, her dark eyes were weary. Kate knew that this girl had seen too much of poverty and hard work. Although she knew that Aunt Bette paid her employees very well, she always felt guilty around servants. I’m a born peasant, she thought, adding cream to her coffee. I’m never comfortable with servants.
Maria returned with a small metal box and sat in before Aunt Blanche, who nodded her thanks. “Get your staff to speak English, Bette,” she commented.
“But you speak Spanish, Blanche,” retorted her sister, fingering a bottle of cognac with some indecision, and then pouring a generous amount into her coffee.
“So? These people are in the United States and will be exploited until they learn to speak English,” replied Blanche calmly. “Muchas gracias, Maria. No hay mas que debes hacer aqui.” Maria smiled, for she understood far more English than she generally admitted. Kate groaned silently at her aunt’s accent.
“Katherine, I found these papers many years ago in an attic at Grandmother Hudson’s house. You didn’t know her—but you are the spitting image of her. No one in the family has expressed much interest in them until now, and quite frankly, I didn’t know if showing them to you would make you feel better or worse.” Blanche opened the box and took out a packet wrapped in clean white linen. Kate noted idly that her aunt’s nails were carefully groomed, but that her hands had become warped with arthritis and moved somewhat awkwardly. She remembered those same hands combing her hair, holding the reins of spirited horses, and kneading bread in a sunny kitchen. Kate bit her lower lip, suddenly feeling a bit sick inside.
Blanche peeled away the linen carefully. Within was a small, brown piece of old lace and a few pieces of paper, yellowed with age and as fragile as her own aged hands. “These are letters, Katie, letters from our kinfolk written many years ago.”
Kate felt a rush of excitement. She jumped from her chair to stand beside her aunt. “What are they? Who wrote them?” she asked, leaning down as close to the papers as possible.
“That is the difficult part, Katie. They’re practically illegible,” replied Aunt Blanche sadly. “Somebody just stuffed them in a trunk years ago—and they’ve mildewed. The ink is faded, and the paper is almost too fragile to handle.”
Kate put out a finger and gently touched the lace, and then an edge of the top sheet of paper. The date was dimly visible near the top of the document—1787. Unfortunately, that was all that she could make out. Only traces of writing remained. It might have been Rebecca’s own hand—or Samuel’s—or somebody who was completely unknown to her. The sadness of these lost words overwhelmed her. She touched her Aunt Blanche’s cold and bony hand in her own, willing the life and warmth of her own body into that hand and the long-dead hand that had written these letters. They placed them back in the box with sad faces.
Kate thought about the letters later that evening, even more aware that the only way to save these once-living people was to find out what she could about their real lives, learn about their time, and use her imagination. She decided that it was time to move Samuel and Rebecca out of their familiar setting in Maryland, and into the wilds of western Virginia. She booted up her laptop and began to write once more.