Sophie grimaces. ‘You’re not selling it to me, Sam. Have you ever thought about Florida?’
Laughing, Sam opens a drawer under the table and takes out a package of Jam Jams, wiggling them at Sophie. ‘Consider them a bribe to stay.’
Sophie’s smile dissolves into a frown.
‘What’s the matter? I had Ace bring these back from Wesleyville especially.’
Reaching into the drawer, Sophie removes a white envelope. Sophie is scrawled across the envelope in blue ink. ‘What’s this?’
‘I don’t know.’
Sophie turns over the envelope. Through the white paper she can feel something hard. She tears open the side and tips a key into her hand. ‘A key? What am I supposed to do with this?’
‘There must be a note.’
Sophie peers into the envelope. At the bottom, a piece of blue paper is folded in two. Taking it out, she reads. She looks at Sam. ‘It’s the key to a safety deposit box in St John’s. It’s from Emmett.’
Chapter 80
Seal Point Lighthouse – 24 September 2011
Emmett pulls in the oars and rubs the calluses at the base of each of his thumbs. He raises his face to the sky. It’d been a fine day. Another hour or so left before the chilly autumn night draws in. He’d thought summer was done for sure after the rain yesterday. It’d been right mauzy and cold enough to skin you. But, there you goes. Just when you thought things were what you expected, something came along to change everything. Something or someone.
He bobs on the waves, letting the rowboat drift. He squints up at the lighthouse on the cliff, the jab of white like a flag against the blue sky and grey cliff. Leaning over, he picks up an old leather satchel with a frayed strap held on by uneven stitches of green twine. He nods as he feels inside the bag. Still there.
He looks up at the clouds hovering in the sky like wads of cotton. Are you there, Mam? Up in Heaven? It’s where you belongs. I saved you, Mam. You knows that now, don’t you? I knows it was hard for you after you came back from England. After the baby. You didn’t think I knew, did you? I was away up in Fogo. You fixed that up for me, didn’t you, Mam? Got Jim Boyd’s brother-in-law to get me the job on the boat so I wouldn’t see the baby growing in you.
A spray of water shoots through the waves about fifty feet starboard. A grey-black hump curves through the water and disappears. Emmett scratches his nose. He pulls out the stack of papers from the satchel, sifting through them until he finds the one he’s searching for.
Alder Lodge
Newmarket Road
Norwich
5th May, 1963
My dearest Ellie,
I hope this finds you well, and that the trip back to Newfoundland wasn’t too onerous. The baby is a delight. We’ve named her Sophie Mary and she has your eyes. Dottie is delighted to have a little project to keep her busy. I must confess I’m happy to have her divert her attention from me! I feel I’ve always come up short whenever she’s attempted to ‘improve’ me.
I’ve enclosed the first cheque of eight as promised. I’m sorry it’s taken a few weeks, but it’s a large amount, so the bank took some time to make the proper arrangements. All you need to do is countersign it and present it to your bank over there. I’ll send the subsequent cheques quarterly over the next two years, as we agreed.
There, that’s enough of all that, though I hope you find your situation eased with the additional funds. I hadn’t realised it had been so difficult since … Well, since the awkward business with Dottie a few years ago after Thomas’s passing.
You mentioned you’d buy a camera with some of the money and send me a picture of Emmett and Winny. I would love to see them. I will do the same with Sophie so you can see how she grows over the years. Dottie and I will do our very best for her, of course. You have no worries on that score.
Do take care of yourself, and please know how very much we appreciate what you’ve done for us.
With sincere fondness and gratitude,
George
He folds the letter and slides it back into the satchel with the others. Eight letters in all and eight cheques. Mam hadn’t needed to see those. Poison letters. Letters about her shame. It’d been one of his chores to collect the post from Jim Boyd’s store when it came in. It’d been easy to take the letters. As soon as he had all eight, he was back up to Fogo to fish on one of the new boats up there. Another government initiative. You could say what you wanted about that Smallwood fella over in St John’s, but he sure knew how to spread Ottawa’s money around.
He needed to put the letters in a safe place. He didn’t want her finding them, with her snooping around. It had to be the cave. No one would ever find them there.
She’d probably found the envelope by now. Or maybe Sam had. He was in and out of that drawer ten times a day when he was using the old lathe in the store. Said he liked it better. ’Course he would. It’d been Marsh Puddester’s down in Windsor. Best wood lathe in central Newfoundland.
Maybe that woman was reading the note at this very minute.
Soon, Mam. Soon, you’ll be free. The poison money will be back where it came from. Heaven’ll open its doors to you and you’ll be the angel you always were to me here on this earth. A real angel, Mam. You’ll be where you
