The Driftwood was not open. The Driftwood had not been open, in any October I had known it, since 2003, when the woman who had run it for thirty years had decided to spend her Octobers in Lisbon and had handed the keys to her nephew, who had decided, in his own turn, that the only profitable month of a Marble Cove coffee shop was July and that the rest of the year the coffee shop should be closed. The nephew had been right, in the way nephews are right about the things their aunts have not given them permission to be wrong about. The Driftwood had been closed, every October since 2003, on the first Monday after the first frost and had not reopened until the first Saturday of May.
The third day was the first Saturday of October, which is to say it was, by the rules of the nephew, a day on which The Driftwood was closed. The third day was also the day I had decided, on the second day, to begin, which is to say it was the day I had decided to call the lawyer. I called the lawyer at nine in the morning. The lawyer answered on the second ring. The lawyer said, in the same small precise voice the letter had been written in, Ms. Sokolov. I have been expecting your call. I did not ask the lawyer how he had known I would call on the third day. The lawyer had not, in his letter, told me to call on the third day. The lawyer had, in his letter, told me to call at my earliest convenience, and the lawyer had underlined the word earliest, which was, from a man who had known my grandmother for nineteen years, as close to an order as he was willing to put on paper.
I made an appointment for eleven o'clock. The lawyer's office was on Harbor Street, three blocks from the cottage, in a building that had been, in my childhood, the offices of the Marble Cove Cooperative Bank. The lawyer's office was, on the morning of the third day, the same building, except that the small brass plaque by the door that had said Cooperative Bank had been replaced, in twelve years, by a small brass plaque that said Mercer, Calder & Whittaker. The plaque was small and matte, the kind of brass that doesn't call attention to itself.
I arrived at eleven. The door was unlocked. The receptionist was a young woman I did not know, who had not been born, in 2003, when I had last been in this town. The receptionist led me down a hallway that had been, in the year of the bank, the hallway that led to the vault, and that was, on the morning of the third day, the hallway that led to a small corner office at the back of the building. The corner office had a window that looked out over the harbor. The corner office had, on the wall, a single photograph of my grandmother that I had not seen in twelve years and that I had not, until the moment I saw it, realized my grandmother had ever posed for. The photograph was black and white. The photograph had been taken, by the look of the light, in the late afternoon of some October in the early 1990s. The photograph showed my grandmother standing at the door of the cottage, in the place where the lavender had been. The lavender was, in the photograph, in bloom.
The lawyer was not yet in the room. The lawyer came in behind me. The lawyer was a man I had not yet met. The lawyer was, I saw when he came in, the man who had been at the back of the church on the second day. The lawyer was tall and broad in the shoulders, the same build as the man at the back of the church, but the lawyer was wearing a dark suit and a dark tie, and the suit was cut close enough to the body that he moved in it without sound, the way a man moves when he has spent a long time learning not to take up space. The lawyer's face was the face of a man who has decided, for a long time, not to be looked at too closely. The lawyer held out his hand. I did not shake it. The lawyer put his hand down. The lawyer did not, in the first minute, say anything more than Ms. Sokolov. The lawyer said it the way the man at the back of the church had said it, careful and formal, a name spoken like a password he'd been handed.
He did not, in the first ten minutes, tell me anything I had not already been told. He confirmed what the letter had said. He confirmed that he had been retained by my grandmother as the executor of the estate. He confirmed that the documents he had in his care pertained to the disposition of the cottage, its contents, and certain obligations of the estate that he was not, in this office, at liberty to specify. He said, Your grandmother was a meticulous woman. She left me a single set of instructions. The instructions were that I was to give these documents to you, in person, when you asked. She asked me, in particular, not to give them to anyone else. She asked me, in particular, not to give them to the company.
I said, The company.
He said, Pinnacle Industries.
I said, I have already had a letter from Pinnacle.
He said, Yes. I expect you have.
He did not tell me, in the first ten minutes, what was in the documents. He did not tell me what the obligations of the estate were. He did not tell me whether the documents were the same documents Pinnacle had referred to in their letter. He told me only that the documents had been in his care for the last nine years, and that he had been instructed, in writing, in a letter dated the September after my grandmother had received her diagnosis, to deliver them only to me, in person, and to no one else. He said, I have followed her instructions. I have, in nine years, told no one that I have these documents. I have not, in nine years, opened the sealed sub-envelope that came with them. I have not, in nine years, told anyone, including my partners at the firm, what was in the documents.
I said, You have not opened them in nine years.
He said, I have not.
I said, Why not.
He said, Because your grandmother asked me not to.
I said, And you do what my grandmother asks.
He said, I do.
He did not smile. He did not, in the first ten minutes, smile. He watched me with the careful, correct attention of a man under written instruction from a dead woman to be polite to her granddaughter. He did not tell me, in the first ten minutes, that I owed anyone anything. He did not say the word ninety. He did not say the word Pinnacle. He said, I would like to give you these documents today. I would like to give them to you here, in this office, so that you can take them home and read them at your own pace. I would like, if you are willing, to make an appointment for the following Monday, so that we can discuss them together.
I said, I am willing.
He gave me the documents. The documents were in a single manila folder, plain and unsealed — the sort a lawyer reaches for when he has been told, specifically, not to use the leather one. The folder was closed. The folder had, on the front, a single line in my grandmother's hand that read for Ada, when she is ready. The line was written in the same hand that had written remember the bloodline on the top of the tin box.
I took the folder. I did not open it. I had decided, before I had come to the office, that I would not open the folder in the lawyer's office, because opening the folder in the lawyer's office would have meant opening the folder at the pace of the lawyer, and I had decided, on the first day, that the documents were going to be opened at my own pace.
I left the office. The lawyer walked me to the door. The lawyer said, at the door, quietly, as if he were reading from the last line of a script he had been given years ago, Ms. Sokolov. Your grandmother asked me, in particular, to give you one piece of information in person. The information is that the company will contact you. The company will contact you within the week. When the company contacts you, you are not to respond without first speaking to me. You are not to respond, in particular, to any letter that asks you to dispose of any of the contents of the cottage. You are not to respond, in particular, to any letter that asks you to dispose of any of the documents that are in the folder I have just given you. I said, I understand. He said, Good. He said, Good morning, Ms. Sokolov, and closed the door behind me before I had reached the stairs.
I walked the three blocks back to the cottage. I put the manila folder on the kitchen table beside the leather folder and the two envelopes and the small cream card. I put the kettle on. I stood at the sink and drank a cup of tea. I did not, on the third day, open the manila folder. I had decided, before I had come to the office, that the manila folder would wait until the fourth day, because the fourth day was the day I had decided to open the tin box, and the manila folder and the tin box were, in the order of my grandmother's kitchen, two parts of the same problem.
I left the cottage at half past eleven. I had not, in twelve years, walked the length of Harbor Street, and I had not, in twelve years, walked past the closed doors of The Driftwood. I walked the length of Harbor Street. The closed doors of The Driftwood were the same closed doors. The closed doors had been, in twelve years, repainted once, and the new paint was the same color as the old paint, which is to say it was the color the woman who had run The Driftwood for thirty years had decided was the only color a Marble Cove coffee shop should be. The sign above the door still said The Driftwood in the same hand-painted letters. The small hours sign on the door still said closed for the season in the same hand-painted letters. The hours sign did not say, in the small hand-painted letters, when the season would end. The hours sign had never, in any October I had known it, said when the season would end.
I was standing in front of the closed doors of The Driftwood, looking at the hand-painted letters, when a man came up behind me. He wasn't sneaking up on me. His steps carried the steady weight of someone who had been walking toward me for some time, from the other end of the block. He had been walking, I thought, from the direction of the harbor.
He said, Ms. Sokolov.
I turned. The man was Lucas Marsh. Lucas Marsh was wearing, on the morning of the third day, a dark wool coat over a gray crewneck sweater and dark trousers. The coat was the coat he had been wearing at the back of the church. The coat was the one a man wears when he has decided to wear the same coat he wore the day his grandfather was buried and the day my grandmother was buried, because a man who wears the same coat on both days has decided to be the same man on both days.
I said, Mr. Marsh.
He said, Marsh is fine.
I said, Marsh, then.
He said, You are standing in front of The Driftwood.
I said, I am.
He said, The Driftwood is closed.
I said, I see that.
He said, The Driftwood has been closed every October since 2003.
I said, I see that too.
He did not, in the first minute, say anything more. He stood beside me in front of the closed doors of The Driftwood, studying the hand-painted letters the way a man studies a thing that has been, for a long time, in someone else's hands and that he has, for a long time, been thinking about.
He said, I knew your grandmother.
I said, I know. She was kind to your grandfather.
He said, She was.
He did not say any more. He stood for a moment longer. He looked at the hand-painted letters. He said, She came here, in the last year, on the Saturdays it was open. She came here with Helen. She sat at the table by the window. She drank her coffee black. She read the paper. She did not, in the last year, talk to anyone.
I said, She was tired.
He said, She was tired. And she was waiting.
I said, For what.
He did not, in the first minute, answer. He looked at me the way a man looks at someone when he is deciding whether to say the thing he has been thinking about saying since the second day — weighing it, because I was the granddaughter of a woman he had known for nineteen years, and he had decided to be careful with the granddaughter.
He said, For you.
I did not, in the first minute, answer. I had decided, before I had come to the cottage, that I would not, on the third day, be surprised by the things people said to me in this town. People in Marble Cove, in my experience, said the things they had been waiting to say. People in Marble Cove, in my experience, said the things they had been waiting to say at the pace at which they had been waiting to say them. I had decided, on the first day, that I would let them say the things at the pace they had decided to say them. I let him say the thing.
He said, She came here on the Saturdays it was open. She came here with Helen. She sat at the table by the window. She drank her coffee black. She read the paper. She did not, in the last year, talk to anyone. She was waiting for you, Ms. Sokolov. She waited even after it was clear you weren't ready to come.
I said, I am here now.
He said, Yes. You are.
He did not say any more. He stood for a moment longer. He looked at the hand-painted letters. He said, There is another place, three doors down. It is open in October. The coffee is not as good as The Driftwood's was. The coffee is, however, drinkable. The woman who runs it is named Margaret. She is not, despite the name, related to your grandmother. She is, however, the kind of woman who will, when she sees you, recognize you.
I said, How will she recognize me.
He said, You have your grandmother's walk.
I did not, in the first minute, say anything more. The sentence he had said was the sentence the postmaster had said at the funeral, the sort a Marble Cove man says to a woman only once he has decided to say it. I had decided, on the first day, that the sentences of this town were not my sentences to refuse. I let it stand.
He said, I will not take more of your morning. He said, I am, however, going to walk you to the other place, if you will let me. I am, in particular, going to walk you to the other place, because the other place is the place where I have been going, on the Saturdays it is open, for the last nine years, and because the woman who runs it has been waiting, on the Saturdays it is open, for me to bring you to her.
I said, Why has she been waiting for you to bring me to her.
He said, Because your grandmother asked her to.
He did not say any more. He turned and walked in the direction of the other place, without offering me his arm. I walked three paces behind him, a stranger's distance, from a man I had met twice in a town I had not been in for twelve years. The morning was pale and still, the October light lying flat on the empty street. The man in the gray coat, who had been at the cemetery and at the church and at the reception, was not on the street. The street was empty of the people who had decided, on this morning, to be in their houses, and full of the people who had decided, on this morning, to be in their porches. The people in the porches did not wave. They looked at me the way people look at something they have been waiting for.
The other place was three doors down. The other place was, on the morning of the third day, the place my grandmother had been going on the Saturdays it was open. The other place had, on the door, the same hand-lettered sign that had been on the door the day of the funeral. The sign said We Are Sorry For Your Loss. The sign had been taken down, I saw, and was now propped inside the door, against the wall. The sign had been replaced, on the door, with a small wooden sign that said Open. The wooden sign had the look of a wooden sign a woman has decided to put up on the morning of the day a man she has known for nine years has decided to bring the granddaughter of the woman she had been waiting for to her coffee shop.
The woman who ran it was inside. The woman who ran it was named Margaret, and Margaret was not, despite the name, related to my grandmother. Margaret was, however, the woman who set the cup down in front of me without asking what I wanted, the way a woman sets a cup down when she already knows.
She said, You must be Ada.
I said, I am.
She said, I have been waiting for you.
She did not say, in the first minute, what she had been waiting for. She poured me a cup of coffee. The coffee was not as good as The Driftwood's had been. The coffee was, however, drinkable. It was, I decided, what a woman pours for someone she has been waiting for, when coffee is the only thing left to give.
Lucas Marsh did not sit down. He stood at the counter and drank his coffee standing, his eyes on the door, as though he'd rather watch it than sit. He did not, in the first ten minutes, say anything more than Ms. Sokolov — careful and formal, the same name spoken the same way he'd said it on the second day.
Margaret, the woman who ran the place, brought me a small cup of coffee and a small piece of cake. The cake was the cake my grandmother had liked. The cake had been ordered, Margaret said, by Lucas Marsh. Lucas Marsh had, I saw, ordered the cake on the morning of the third day. He had called ahead, I knew, before nine o'clock — the kind of thinking-ahead that meant he'd been considering, more than once, what a woman gone twelve years might need.
I ate the cake. It was the one thing my grandmother had left me, on the morning of the third day, that carried no number on it — nothing to divide, nothing owed. Twelve years, and I had waited that long just to taste it again.
I did not, on the morning of the third day, talk to Lucas Marsh about the leather folder. I did not, on the morning of the third day, ask Lucas Marsh what was in the leather folder. I had decided, on the second day, that the leather folder would wait until I had opened the tin box, and the tin box would wait until the fourth day, and the fourth day would be the day I had decided to begin, and beginning, in the order of my grandmother's kitchen, meant opening the tin box before the manila folder.
I thanked Margaret. Margaret said, Come back, on the Saturdays it is open. I will be here. I have, in the last nine years, been waiting for you, and I have, in the last nine years, been keeping the cake. I said, I will come back, and meant it.
I walked back to the cottage. Lucas Marsh did not walk with me. He stood at the counter of the other place and watched me go, all three blocks, and he did not wave. He stood and he watched me and I walked and I did not look back. The morning was pale and still, the October light lying flat on the harbor. The man in the gray coat was not on the street. The street was empty of the people who had decided, on this morning, to be in their houses, and full of the people who had decided, on this morning, to be in their porches. The people in the porches did not wave. They looked at me the way people look at a thing they have been waiting for.
I went inside. The cottage was, when I came back to it, exactly as I had left it. The kettle was on. The cup was upside down on the drainboard. The radio dial was set to the classical station, and the station was playing, very softly, the piece I did not know the name of, in the key I did not know the name of. The drawer with the folded paper that said my name was still closed. The linen drawer was closed. The manila folder was on the table. The leather folder was on the table. The two envelopes were on the table. The small cream card was on the table. The wild rose hips were not in the jar. The jar was empty. The fourth day would be the day I would open the tin box, and the fourth day would be the day I would cut the hips, and the hips would wait, in the empty jar on the kitchen windowsill, until the fourth day.
I put the kettle on. I drank another cup of tea standing at the sink. The kitchen light over the sink was on. It did not flicker. I did not turn it off. I stood at the sink for a long time. The light came in through the kitchen window at the angle it had come in through the kitchen window for forty years, and the light fell across the empty jar on the windowsill and the light fell across the table and the light fell across the manila folder in the center and the light fell across the leather folder on the left and the light fell across the two envelopes on the right, and the morning, which had been quiet, was, I noticed, no longer quite as quiet as it had been.
Somewhere down by the harbor, an engine turned over, coughed once, and settled into the lower idle of a man who was also in no hurry to be anywhere.
