A Winter's Miracle, page 3
She hated to admit he’d piqued her interest. It had been a long time since she felt curious about the world. Great-aunt Eloise had said her curiosity would come back one of these days—that it would flow like a rushing stream when the time was right. But Anna hadn’t imagined her curiosity would return on the snow-filled night of Christmas.
“I’d better be going,” Smith said, turning on his heel and guiding his dog to the side entrance of the house.
“Let’s get you up,” Grandpa Bernard said, taking both of Anna’s smaller hands in his massive ones and lifting her. “Does anything hurt?”
Anna shook her head. “Just my ego.”
Bernard chuckled and brushed snow from her shoulders and arms. “Welcome to being an adult, honey,” he said. “We’re all nursing our wounds.”
Long after Anna returned to her bedroom, she could hardly breathe, remembering Smith’s eyes floating so close to hers. She felt like a fool.
Chapter Four
Julia decided to let Smith settle in over the next few days. She knew pushing any artistic process before it had fully percolated wasn't good. Anyway, she was lost in the throes of Christmas family reunions, eating cookies with Rachel, having deep conversations with Henry on the back porch, and taking care of Anna. Being a mother was always her number-one job—and she would soon become a grandmother. She wanted to relish this time before putting her full effort into work.
It was no surprise to anyone that Smith kept to himself. He was secluded in his room, cooking his own meals in the residency kitchen (mostly spaghetti, it sounded like) and hardly communicating with the other residency artists.
“I don’t know why I assumed the magic of this old place would work on him.” Julia sighed, leaning against the kitchen counter as Greta made a decadent sauce to go with the potatoes. “I figured he’d step inside and immediately feel, I don’t know, the energy you and Dad put into this place over the years. I figured he’d finish his memoir by the end of January.” She laughed wryly, realizing she was only half joking.
Greta arched her brow and stirred the sauce. Just that morning, Julia had shown Greta some of the pages of Smith’s manuscript, and Greta had remained quiet about them thus far. Julia burned to know what was on Greta’s mind. It wasn’t often she kept her opinions to herself.
“The kid has been through a lot,” Greta finally said, removing her spoon from the pot and tasting the edge. “It must be outrageous for him to see all the Copperfields together. He’s never known a big family like that. I mean, he’s never felt that kind of warmth.”
Julia rolled her shoulders back, remembering the scene Smith had painted of his home back in Pennsylvania. It seemed like something out of a nightmare.
“And you’re sure he’s okay with publishing all that? About his mother?” Greta asked tentatively.
“He sees it as a way of exorcising his demons,” Julia said, quoting Smith precisely. “He’s twenty-six going on fifty-five.”
Greta wrinkled her nose and gazed out the window, where another late December snowfall filled the edges of the windows.
That afternoon, Julia met with Smith in her office for the first time. He appeared in a ratty red T-shirt and a pair of loose jeans, with Luka hot on his heels and his tongue lolling from his mouth. As Smith sat, he patted Luka’s head gingerly and looked at Julia with full eye contact, which startled her. It was rare to meet someone so unafraid.
Julia clicked her pen and glanced back at the manuscript pages she’d printed to go over with Smith that morning. She wanted to discuss the story's arc, where to position the backstory to enhance the emotional effect, and how best they should proceed strategically now that Smith and Julia were under one roof.
“This is such a pleasure for me, Smith,” Julia began, stuttering slightly. “It’s rare I get to spend so much one-on-one time with one of my writers. And like I’ve said a million times before, I see real promise here. I could imagine it at the top of every best-seller list, selling at airports and traded between everyone from fifteen-year-olds to eighty-five-year-olds. But we have to get in gear if we’re going to make that happen.”
Julia put an authoritative slant to her voice, one she’d previously had to use occasionally with Henry when he’d been an unruly teenager. It felt funny to return to this version of herself. She’d thought she’d left this particular Julia in the suburbs of Chicago.
Smith remained quiet, petting his dog as he gazed at Julia baldly. Julia swallowed a lump in her throat.
She tried another tactic.
“How are you liking Nantucket so far?”
Smith blinked. “It’s obviously beautiful.” He said it as though it were a ready-made fact.
“Yes.” Julia stuttered. “I loved growing up here.”
That was a lie in many ways. If Julia was honest with Smith, she would tell him about Marcia Conrad framing her father, about how she’d run away at seventeen, and how miserable she’d been when her family had fallen apart.
But Smith came from a family without pieces to put back together again. She didn’t want to force him to compare and contrast stories.
“Who is that?” Smith nodded out the window toward the beach below, where a violent sea wind rushed off the water and crashed against the frame of the old house.
Julia followed his gaze to find Anna walking alongside a woman Julia recognized as Dean’s mother. Her heart lifted. Anna had said Violet would arrive today, and Julia was grateful everything had gone according to plan. Even now, Violet paused and placed her hand over her eyes as a shield, gazing out across the waves. She looked captivated.
More than once, Julia had tried to put herself in Violet’s shoes—to imagine that she’d lost her child instead. Each time had brought Julia to her knees. It was nothing a parent should ever have to endure.
“That’s my daughter, Anna,” Julia answered.
Smith nodded.
“As you can see, she’ll become a mother any day now. We’re all quite excited.”
Smith remained wordless, although his eyes flickered. Julia struggled to read him.
“And walking with her is Anna’s friend,” Julia said, stuttering with the lie.
“A friend?” Smith arched his eyebrow, sensing something wrong. Anna was only twenty-four, after all. What was she doing, being friends with a woman old enough to be her mother?
“She was engaged to her son,” Julia explained.
“Past tense,” Smith observed.
“Unfortunately, yes. There was a tragedy.”
Smith leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. A flash of humanity came into his eyes, and he remained rapt, watching Anna and Violet out the window. Violet held her hand over Anna’s stomach, and her eyes shone. This was the grandson she’d never thought she’d be allowed to have. It was a blessing.
“Your daughter is a writer?” Smith asked.
“Yes.” Julia was surprised Smith knew anything about Anna. “She writes travel articles for local newspapers and magazines.”
Smith coughed. “She’s better than the publications she writes for.”
“You’ve read her stuff?”
Smith waved his hand and returned his attention to the manuscript on the desk. “I’m going to write about the events of my fifteenth year next,” he stated, his tone cold and difficult to read.
Julia caught her breath. When Smith was fifteen, he’d been kicked out of his mother’s house after his mother’s (now ex) boyfriend admitted he “couldn’t stand the kid.” He’d threatened to leave Smith’s mother if Smith didn’t leave first. This meant Smith had spent six months mostly homeless, working odd jobs and getting by on the goodwill of others. When Smith had first shared these tidbits from his past, Julia had had to fight the urge not to throw her arms around him and take him home to be cared for properly.
Why was it that some people were born into such difficult circumstances? Why was life so often about the luck of the draw?
After Smith returned to his bedroom to get started on his new pages, Julia padded downstairs to find Anna and Violet at the kitchen table with mugs of steaming tea. Violet was in the midst of a story about Dean when he was a kid, which made Anna laugh.
“You should have seen him, Anna,” Violet said. “He was the most gorgeous little toddler, but he didn’t know how to behave! You never would have thought that, meeting him later. He was such a gentleman.”
With Julia in the kitchen, Anna perked up. “Mom! This is Violet. And Violet, this is my mother.”
“Call me Julia,” she said, reaching out to shake Violet’s hand.
But before the handshake was over, Violet was on her feet, her smile enormous, her curls bouncing. She cradled Julia in her arms the way you might a friend you hadn’t seen in a few years.
“I’m so pleased to be here!” Violet cried. “Anna has told me so much about you.”
“Welcome,” Julia said, taking a seat at the table. “How was your Christmas?”
Violet waved her hand, and Julia felt a jolt of grief. This was the first Christmas Violet had spent without her son. There were no words for how miserable it had probably been.
“Anna said you had just about every Copperfield under the sun here at the house,” Violet said. “Dean just adored the family values of this little island. I could have seen him moving someplace like this to raise his son. He was never fond of the hustle and bustle of a bigger city. Even Seattle was too much for him, sometimes.”
Violet spoke with the authority of a woman who still wanted to know her son better than anyone. She spoke as though Dean had known Anna was pregnant before his death. Anna’s eyes flashed.
Julia poured herself a mug of tea and sat down with her daughter and the woman who should have been Anna’s mother-in-law. Violet continued to smile at her. She was practically beaming. Julia guessed her cheeks were aching, that she was overdoing it, perhaps out of politeness.
“Anna was just telling me about how the pregnancy has gone,” Violet said after a pause, her smile still plastered across her face. “She says it’ll be any day now.”
“You should see the presents Violet brought me,” Anna said, puffing out her cheeks. “You went way too far!”
“It’s not every day a woman becomes a grandmother for the first time,” Violet assured her. “Your mother knows that, too.”
Something in Anna’s eyes gave Julia pause. “You’re so generous. I’d love to see what you brought,” Anna said.
For the past several months, Anna, Julia, Ella, Alana, and Greta had crafted a state-of-the-art nursery for Baby Copperfield, complete with a cradle, a rocking chair with a cushion, a diaper changing station, soft blue walls, and a rug that felt like clouds beneath your feet. More than a month ago, Anna and Julia had officially called it “finished.” But when Anna led Julia and Violet back into the nursery this afternoon, Julia found it piled high with baby things they simply wouldn’t use. Violet had bought additional items—another stroller, another cradle, and far more baby toys than anyone ever needed. Worst of all, the things she’d bought reeked of bad plastic. It made Julia cringe, thinking of Baby Copperfield in the midst of that terrible material. She and Anna had been purposeful about what they’d purchased.
But the look in Violet’s eyes told Julia just how important these gifts were to her.
“As soon as you told me I could come out East to visit, I went on a shopping spree,” Violet explained, picking up a dark yellow blanket and pressing it against her chest. “It reminded me of being a young mother twenty-five years ago, buying little things for baby Dean. Gosh, it breaks my heart to think about it.” She blinked back tears.
Anna gave Julia a look that meant everything would be okay, and they would get rid of the new stuff in due time. But right now, they had to uphold Dean’s love for his mother and his mother’s love for his baby. It was the proper thing to do.
Not long afterward, Violet confessed she was tired after her two-day drive and retired to her bedroom to nap. They walked her down the hall, chatting about things that immediately fled Julia’s mind. Before Violet closed the door, Julia thought she spotted four large suitcases stacked against the wall. Her eyes widened, even as she raised her hand to say goodbye. Anna took Julia’s hand and guided her down the hall and upstairs to her bedroom, where she closed the door behind them and whispered, “I think she plans to stay forever.”
Julia winced and crossed her arms over her chest. “Did she say anything?”
Anna dropped onto the bed and sighed toward the ceiling. “I mean, I thought she still had a job to get back to,” she began, “but apparently, she quit last summer.”
“I imagine the grief made it too difficult for her.”
Anna nodded and swallowed. “She kept telling me how happy she is to be a part of my baby’s life. And I can’t push her away, you know? We both lost Dean. And I don’t want her to think I don’t honor his memory.”
Julia sat on the bed beside Anna and collapsed onto the mattress, making it shake. Anna chuckled lightly.
“Nobody thinks you’re not honoring Dean,” Julia said quietly, taking Anna’s hand.
Anna squinted. “But it’s true that I’ve forgotten things about him. Little things.”
“You’ve had a lot on your mind. You’re growing a baby.”
Anna raised her shoulders. Julia felt the heaviness of Violet’s visit, how loaded it was for Anna. She resolved to make it easier on her.
“We’ll do everything we can for Violet,” Julia said tenderly.
Anna turned her head, and her eyes flashed. “I can’t help but think about Baby Copperfield. About what it would be like to lose him twenty-four years from now.” Fear overtook her face, and Julia squeezed her hand harder.
“As a mother, you’ll never stop worrying,” Julia said, her heart shattering. “It’s just something you’ll have to get used to.”
Anna winced and turned her head back to gaze up at the ceiling. She sighed. “This is Violet’s home for as long as she wants it. I’m sure we’ll get used to each other. And I’m sure her husband will want her to come home soon.”
“Right,” Julia agreed. “Have you spoken to him?”
“Not at all,” Anna said. “But Violet said he wants to come out to meet the baby in January. So I guess we’ll have another guest at The Copperfield House soon.”
Chapter Five
It was the second week of January. Anna checked her phone’s pregnancy app—she was just a week and a half away from her due date so after stages of being the size of a walnut, an avocado, and a tiny melon, the baby was now the size of, well, a human baby. She sizzled with expectation and fear, even as acid reflux made her stomach and chest burn. She tried to cheer herself up, imagining her little baby with a full head of curly hair peering up at her.
There was a knock on her bedroom door. Anna gritted her teeth, already knowing who it was. It was confirmed a second later.
“Anna? Honey? I brought you a smoothie!” Violet’s voice rang through her head like a gong.
Anna rubbed her eyes and put her feet on the floor beside her bed. “Come on in!”
It had been this way ever since Violet’s arrival. It seemed like Anna never had a spare moment to herself, that Violet was perpetually on the other side of the door, or around the corner, or asking to make plans. She kept saying she wanted to form the “mother-daughter” bond they hadn’t been allowed to have due to Dean’s death. “Dean wanted to marry you,” she’d said. “And just because it didn’t happen doesn’t mean I don’t think of you as a daughter-in-law.”
It was clear she was lonely. But Anna’s patience was running thin.
Violet popped into Anna’s bedroom with a mango-strawberry smoothie and placed it on Anna’s bedside table, grinning broadly. She wore a pair of light green yoga pants and a zip-up sweatshirt, and her hair was tied into a tight ponytail that straightened out her eyebrows.
“Good morning, beautiful Anna!” Violet said, hurrying toward the window to draw back the drapes and let the January light in. She’d read somewhere that natural light was good for the fetus. This was yet another on her very long list of things to do for “baby’s health” during the ninth month of pregnancy, all of which she’d attempted to cram into the past two weeks. Anna felt claustrophobic.
“Hi,” Anna said, taking a sip of the smoothie and trying to remind herself that this situation wasn’t forever. Violet would go back to Ohio. Eventually. “That tastes amazing. Thank you.”
Violet beamed and wrapped her hands behind her back. “I thought we could get mani-pedis today. Don’t worry. I looked it up, and it’s a myth that you can’t get mani-pedis while pregnant!”
Anna winced. In her normal life, manicures and pedicures weren’t her thing. She wasn’t a girly girl and instead considered herself an adventurer or a creative type.
“Besides,” Violet was saying, “you’re going to want fabulous nails when the baby comes. Photos of the baby will feature your hands. Remember that.”
Anna remembered Dean saying that his mother was slightly high-maintenance. She wasn’t sure how she’d forgotten that before telling Violet to stay in The Copperfield House for as long as she wanted. She felt on the brink of losing her mind.
Anna asked Violet for a bit of time before they left for mani-pedis. She showered and sat on her bed, staring into space as her hair dripped across her shoulders. Around her, The Copperfield House was vibrant, with numerous footsteps shaking the ancient bones of the place. It sounded like Scarlet was still around—a surprise since she spent so much time in Manhattan. But Anna remembered now that Scarlet had just graduated from NYU in December. Maybe she planned to stick around the island for a little while. Maybe she needed time to think about what was next.
Anna texted her cousin with questions.
ANNA: Hey! You’re still here?
SCARLET: Definitely! I’m still not sure about grad school, and Dad and I have another idea for a documentary.
