“All the Prescotts in the universe and especially on this island are related. Matilda was his aunt, or great-aunt. The house they all want is that beautiful Victorian in Sanpere Village you can see from the causeway. The question on everybody's mind is which one of the thirty thousand Prescotts will inherit. Matilda never married, so there are no children. The way I always heard it was she went away to the normal school, and when she got back all her brothers and sisters were married, so she had to stay at home and take care of her parents. And they lived a long time. When her father died, he was the oldest resident on the island and had the Boston Post gold-headed cane. But she did teach, in the old schoolhouse by the crossroads, and I guess she didn't spare the rod much.”
Faith had stopped listening after "beautiful Victorian."
“You mean the house with the gazebo?!" she exclaimed. A lifelong apartment dweller with an instinctive distrust of only two or three stories, she had been surprised to discover that she occasionally fell instantly in love with a certain house—a butter-yellow rambling Colonial in Aleford, a Bauhaus gem in nearby Lincoln; houses that seemed to be as rooted in the setting as the trees and bushes surrounding them. She'd seen the Prescott house the first morning they'd arrived when she'd gone to the IGA for supplies. A causeway separated a large mill pond from the small harbor, and the house was set back in the woods across from the old mill with a spit of land projecting into the pond. The gazebo was at the tip of it, surrounded by slender white birches like girls in their summer dresses. The house, keeping watch a discreet distance away, was tall and stately, with the gingerbread, gables, and furbelows of the period kept firmly in check. Both the house and gazebo looked squarely out toward the western part of Penobscot Bay. Sunsets could be spectacular, streaks of deep rose and violet stretching across the sky, randomly broken by the dark shapes of islands that pushed up into the horizon line—islands with names like Crabapple, Little Hogg (and Big Hogg, which was smaller now), and Ragged Top.
“Yes, that's it." Faith was dazed for a moment by the sound of Pix's voice. She had been mentally dressed in voile and a picture hat, sipping some chilled chablis with Tom as they gazed at the setting sun and each other. Invisible hands were meanwhile feeding and putting her suddenly docile child to bed.
“That's one of the most beautiful houses I've ever seen." Faith spoke enviously. "I don't suppose you have any Prescott blood mixed up with all those New England strains, Tom?"
“Sorry to disappoint you, love, and I agree. It is a jewel. I wonder why houses like that never seem to end up as parsonages." He sounded a bit wistful. "Probably whoever inherits it will make it into condominiums or something.”
Pix answered, "Oh, I doubt it. That's only farther down the coast so far. I think anyone who tried to introduce the idea of condominiums here would get quite a cold shoulder. Or worse. I'm not sure everyone here even understands what they are, but they sound bad—like Yuppies, and years ago Hippies."
“Which reminds me," said Tom, "I saw a flower child on the clam flats yesterday morning, quite early. Youngish with all the accoutrements—long hair, bandanna, granny sunglasses, tie-dyed mini dress around three inches long. And she had a baby or something in a pouch strapped to her back. Was I dreaming or is she a neighbor?"
“I saw her too, Tom, later. She was coming over the rocks, spied me, and fled instantly—before I had a chance to say anything."
“That's Bird, not her real name," Pix replied. "Although come to think of it there must be quite a few adults with similar names bequeathed to them by their letting-it-all-hangout parents—I actually knew someone who named her daughter Emma Goldman Moonflower. Anyway, Bird lives with her significant other in that tiny shack you can see from your beach, directly across the water from the lobster pound. I don't think it even has indoor plumbing. They're into macrobiotics and she was probably gathering seaweed. The guy she lives with, Andy, is a rock musician and seems to spend most of his time in Camden playing with a group down there. I don't really know them, although they've been here all winter and I can't imagine how they survived in that house, especially with a baby." Pix paused for breath. There was nothing like fresh Maine air and a gin and tonic to loosen her tongue.
“Someone you don't know? Well, I, for one, am shocked," teased Tom. "You're slipping, Pix.”
Pix clamped her mouth shut and returned to the paper.
“Come on, make up and read me `Police Brief,' you know it's my favorite. What kind of a week has crime had on the island?" Tom cajoled. With only one officer of the law and accordingly one police car, he hoped it hadn't been too unruly.
Pix acquiesced readily. "Well, the kids are stealing hubcaps again. Oh, and this is really funny—I'll read it: `A pickup truck was found upside down in Lover's Lane last Tuesday evening. A search found a quantity of empty beer cans inside, but no driver. The truck, a 1967 Ford, was registered to Velma Hamilton, who reported it stolen the next day. The truck was totaled and the matter is under investigation.' “
Tom and Faith laughed. "You mean there really is a Lover's Lane on the island?" asked Tom.
“Yes, you follow Route 17 to Sanpere Village and it's the road before the lily pond. But what could they have been doing to turn the truck upside down?”
Tom and Faith laughed harder. Faith caught her breath and said, "Oh Pix, only you. Don't you think the truck just drove off the road? It couldn't have been stopped and flipped over no matter how frisky the couple were."
“You never know; one time I heard—" Pix started, when she was unfortunately interrupted by the appearance of a much-disheveled Samantha lugging a squirming Benjamin. She came up the stairs to the deck and deposited him on Faith's lap before he could take flight again.
“I hope it's all right, Mrs. Fairchild, but Arlene and I want to go swimming now while the tide is right." She motioned behind her. "Arlene, this is Mrs. Fairchild and Reverend Fairchild." Arlene giggled and said something in that Maine accent that Faith had not yet managed to decode.
“Of course, Samantha. We were coming to get him anyway, and after all this work you need a break. But don't tell me you actually swim in this stuff without turning into a solid block of ice.”
Arlene giggled some more, and Samantha laughed. "This is the best time. The tide's come in over the rocks after the sun has been warming them all day, and the water isn't cold at all. You should try it.”
Faith shuddered. "Not this lifetime.”
Samantha turned to Tom. "How about you, Reverend?"
“You have a deal. Benjamin and I will go with you tomorrow. I don't want him to turn out like his mother. She doesn't know what she's missing." Tom had been swimming every day since they came.
Faith looked at Tom, planned to rake him over the coals later for suggesting in front of Benjamin that she might be an inadequate role model while Papa was simply too good to be true, and answered crisply, "Oh yes she does, thank you, and the only salt water I want to go near is in a pot waiting for a lobster or some mussels or clams.”
Benjamin had had enough lap sitting and was ready for round two, so they said good-bye and started back through the woods. They had taken the shore route with Ben once, and it took so long to tear him away from the tidal pools and shells he found that they stuck to the wooded path now and tried to keep him from wandering off into the bracken. He insisted on walking these days and howled if either of them came near him with the stroller or backpack. He seemed to have developed a logic all his own—after all, these same people had wanted him to walk, coaxing and encouraging him to take those first steps. Now he could do it and they wanted him to stop. It was a very puzzling universe.