A vineyard tide, p.10
A Vineyard Tide, page 10
“And they didn’t say what was wrong with your husband’s passport?”
Frederika shook her head. “No. Val was supposed to meet us there to help us with any problems, but, as you know, he died. It’s possible it was random. They didn’t want to put me and the baby through another trip back to Europe, but they could easily do that to him. Maybe they wanted to make an example of him. I don’t know!” Frederika reached out to take Anna’s hand. “I’ve been so frightened, almost every day and night, thinking that they’ll find me here. That they’ll take the baby away from me. That they’ll send me back.”
“You’ve been working here at the inn for almost six weeks,” Anna reminded her. “And nobody has barged down the door. Nobody has demanded any paperwork. Nobody has even caught on that we’re paying you under the table!”
Frederika gazed out the window, her eyes glazed. “I know that I relied too much on him, his heart, and his strength. I never imagined we’d ever be apart. And now, I’ve had to find a power within myself, one that I don’t always trust.”
“Your baby feels that power,” Anna said quietly. “And I feel it, too. You’re an inspiration, Frederika. And you’re going to get through this. You’re going to see your husband again. And you’re going to find a way to make it in this country. I promise you that.”
Frederika blinked back tears and began to gather up the tissues on the bed. “I can’t believe what a mess I made.”
“This isn’t a mess,” Anna insisted. “Why don’t you come down to the Bistro with me? We can eat together, maybe open a bottle of wine?”
Frederika looked hesitant, but Anna was resolute. The worst thing in the world Frederika could do right now was hide away. Slowly, she inched toward the side of the room to set up the baby monitor, a gift from Anna. And then, she nodded and followed Anna to the door, where they retreated into the hallway, ready to face the evening. Within five minutes, Anna had taken a gorgeous bottle of German white wine from the bar and opened it at their table, winking as she said, “The perks of owning an inn!” And Frederika closed her eyes as she drank, her hair relaxed around her ears, her face shining from the sweat of the day. Anna’s heart lifted at the vision of this woman who’d lost so much. They were only twenty-five years old. There was so much left to gain— and lose.
Chapter Fifteen
Present Day
Lola and Audrey were back in the library archives, up to their ears in documents and names and passport photographs— all for people who, if they weren’t yet dead, were quite old, forty years past this traumatic event. As they searched for Frederika, they held up the photograph that Anna Sheridan had taken all those years ago, trying to find similar expressions, similar hair. In truth, a lot of the women from that area of the world looked similar to Frederika, with her high cheekbones and inability to smile with her whole face.
Lola and Audrey’s three-hour block of time in the archives finished at two that afternoon. But they hadn’t found anything, not one strand of evidence to take them further down the rabbit hole. And so, Lola stalked back to the front desk to speak to the same librarian with her thick-rimmed glasses.
“We need more time,” Lola explained. “It’s urgent.”
The woman slid her glasses up her nose. “We have three-hour blocks of time for a reason.”
“I understand that,” Lola said, although she didn’t, not really. “But we’re very close to figuring out something huge. And we can’t make it back to Boston for the rest of the week. This is our last chance.”
The librarian grumbled and turned to her computer to check something, presumably the schedule. But Lola was pretty sure that they were the only people who ever went into those archives. They’d never seen anyone else.
“Very well,” the librarian said. “I can give you two more hours. What do you think?”
“We’ll take it.”
Lola hurried back into the archives to find Audrey hunched over a large ledger filled with passport photographs and names.
“Anything?” Lola asked, hovering over her own ledger.
“Nothing.”
Lola groaned, and Audrey touched her shoulder, this time being the strength that Lola needed instead of the other way around.
“We’re going to find her. Or, if we don’t, we’re going to find something else that pushes us forward,” she said. “We have to. We owe it to Claudia.”
Lola set her jaw and continued her search, diving all the way through the spring of 1983, through summer, and entering into autumn. Still, every single woman named Frederika wasn’t the Frederika in the photograph Anna had taken. There seemed to be no connection.
Audrey leaned back in her chair and rubbed her temples. They’d been in the archives for four and a half hours, far longer than normal, and Lola was beginning to understand why the librarian arranged for three-hour sessions only. Your brain gave out eventually. You stopped being able to see things as they really were.
“Didn’t Claudia say that her parents probably had to change their names?” Audrey said after a moment.
Lola nodded.
“Do you think Frederika was her original name? Or the one she changed to?” Audrey asked.
“Probably her original name,” Lola said. “It sounds really German to me.”
“Me, too. She must have picked a more American-sounding name for her new identity,” Audrey said, her eyes stirring. “Which must have been after she knew Grandma. Right?”
Lola shrugged. “Maybe. Although maybe Mom preferred to call her by her original name to make things easier.”
“But Frederika left Martha’s Vineyard at some point,” Audrey spoke quickly. “I mean, we don’t know when exactly. But we didn’t see any more photographs of her after that autumn.”
Lola nodded. “You’re right. So, we should look later in 1983?”
“For a woman who looks like Frederika but isn’t named Frederika,” Audrey said with a small laugh.
“It’s getting more impossible by the second,” Lola offered.
But miraculously, approximately ten minutes before the librarian would assuredly come to kick them out, Audrey shrieked, aligning the photograph of Frederika with a passport photograph of a woman who looked remarkably like her.
“Fiona! She changed her name to Fiona!”
Lola frowned, taking in the surly expression, the sorrow in the woman’s eyes. Sure enough, Frederika was Fiona— Fiona Franklin.
“Look! She applied for passports with her family,” Audrey continued, breathless. “Luke Franklin and their daughter, Claudia.”
Lola’s jaw dropped. There, beneath Fiona’s photographs, were photos of a handsome man with thick black hair and a square jaw and a little girl, approximately one and a half years old. And sure enough, the little girl’s name was listed as Claudia.
“Oh my gosh!” Lola cried, sitting back down in her chair. The world around her had tilted. “Claudia used to live at the Sunrise Cove!”
Audrey was pale with shock. Neither of them had suspected that Claudia’s story would align so closely with theirs.
“But it doesn’t make any sense,” Audrey whispered, interrupting the silence. “Why would Frederika abandon her baby? It looks like they were all set up! Fiona, Luke, and Claudia were an American family! Look, it says here that they were legally born in Bangor, Maine!”
Audrey was right. These documents had been forged expertly. Lola saw them as real, American passports for people who’d been born on American soil. Why, then, had Frederika had to drop Claudia off in Chicago? And what had led them to Chicago in the first place?
“I guess it’s possible this Claudia isn’t our Claudia,” Lola said reticently.
“The years add up. So does the last name,” Audrey said.
“You’re right.”
“And Claudia knows she came to Chicago by way of Martha’s Vineyard.”
“The woman in charge of foster care told her that,” Lola said. “And it’s not like she’s sure of anything.”
Audrey raised her shoulders. “These are the clues we have to go on. We have to take them, if only to move forward.”
Lola had heard herself recite this previously. She wasn’t sure why, but learning that Frederika had lived alongside Anna, both with babies approximately the same age, had chilled her. For, if it was true, Claudia and Lola had been babies together before Claudia’s parents had left her behind.
They’d both had their mothers at the same time, in the same place. And then, later, they’d lost them.
“We have our work cut out for us, I guess,” Lola said with a sigh, taking numerous photographs of what they’d found just as the librarian walked into the archives, hitting her watch with her index finger.
“It’s ten minutes past!” she called to them. “It’s time for you to go!”
Lola and Audrey hurriedly put everything back and whipped past the librarian, laughing to themselves nervously until they were out of her sight. When they left the library, it was pouring rain, and Lola hailed a taxi expertly, grateful that they’d left the car at the hotel.
“Where are we going?” Audrey asked.
“I need comfort food,” Lola said.
In fifteen minutes, the taxi dropped them off at the old diner they’d often frequented during their many years as Boston residents. Lola had fond memories of sitting there with little Audrey, as Audrey had drawn pictures or read books, and Lola had written articles for magazines or newspapers or whoever had hired her that week. It was in this diner she’d ripped herself to shreds for her dreams. Always, the grilled cheese sandwiches had helped lift her spirits.
Their booth was open. It felt like coming home, sitting at their old booth, and studying the menus that hadn’t changed once, not in the twenty years since Lola had started coming.
“I don’t know why I’m even reading this,” Audrey said. “I know exactly what I’m getting.”
The waitress who approached knew their names, and they knew hers.
“Connie!” Lola jumped up to hug her, inhaling the smell of her French fry hair. “How have you been?”
“I’m doing just fine.” Connie placed two iced glasses of water on the table and clapped her hands. “You both look just stunning. How’s the island?”
“It’s nice,” Audrey said, her eyes shining with nostalgia as she raised her phone to show photographs of Max. “This is my baby. We just moved in with my boyfriend, Noah.”
Connie’s smile was as bright as the sun. “You can’t know how happy that makes me, honey. I wish you were here in Boston, close to me. But I’m thrilled you’re back with that big family of yours! And I hope you’re still writing?” She gave Lola a motherly look.
“We’re working on a big project right now,” Lola admitted. “It’s part of the reason we’re here. I’m exhausted! And I need fuel.”
“Two grilled cheese sandwiches with extra cheese? Onion rings? Coleslaw?” Connie placed her hands on her hips, reciting their old order.
“You’re brilliant, Connie,” Lola said. “I don’t know how you remember all this.”
Connie winked. “They’re begging me to bring my skills to the Pentagon, but I think my memory is better served here at the diner. Two coffees, too?”
“Yes, please,” Audrey said.
After Connie whisked back through the swinging kitchen door, Audrey and Lola joined hands across the table. They wouldn’t comment on what they both were thinking: that Connie looked older now that time had passed. That this meant they were older, too.
“Are you going to call Claudia?” Audrey asked.
Lola nodded. “I’m dreading it.”
“Maybe she could confirm or deny if she looked like that as a baby?” Audrey suggested.
“She’d bound to feel very strange about all this,” Lola said. “Especially because we still don’t know why her parents left her behind if these are her parents.”
Audrey winced.
“I was so excited to fall into this story,” Lola breathed. “And now, I’m involved in the story. And it feels so intense. So real.”
Very soon, Connie returned with platters piled high with three-level grilled cheeses, dripping with cheddar and Swiss, oily onion rings, and vinegar-y coleslaw. Lola and Audrey ate quietly as the jukebox in the corner played the top hits of the 1970s— years before Frederika had come to this country and changed her name. Time was moving forward. And it was impossible to know what would reveal itself next.
Chapter Sixteen
1983
After Anna sent a letter off to the passport office demanding where Frederika’s husband was being held and what had happened to him, the waiting was horrific. Every day felt heavy with doubt. She walked to the mailbox with her heart in her throat, praying that somebody had written her back with the information. But August kept going, leaving them empty-handed, and then, it was September, and still, they had no answers.
Frederika had grown into the single most-capable worker at the inn, understanding the ins and outs of the place better than Wes did, sometimes. She was organized and hardly ever got tired, and she insisted on doing everything by the letter in a way that Wes wasn’t able to, as he was almost always overworked. The staff members and surrounding islanders respected her, and Anna found in Frederika a wonderful, if often serious, friend. Anna hadn’t fully realized how lonely she’d been in motherhood before Frederika had come into her life. A part of her, selfishly, hoped she would remain in their world forever.
In bed one night, Anna finally confessed to Wes that she and Frederika were hard at work looking for Frederika’s husband. Wes propped himself up on his elbow and looked at her through the darkness as a September rain pattered across the windowpane.
“Why are you just telling me this now?”
“Frederika swore me to secrecy.”
“And have you tracked him down?” Wes asked.
“No,” Anna breathed, her voice wavering. “When I called the number, the secretary was very rude to me. I wrote a letter, but I haven’t heard anything back.”
“I’m going to call them tomorrow,” Wes insisted, his voice gritty.
“No! Wes, I promised Frederika I wouldn’t tell anyone about this.”
But Wes was determined. “Just let me try, Anna. I can’t stand the thought of Frederika living out her days broken-hearted. Let me help you get to the bottom of this.” In the dark, Wes took Anna’s hand gently. “Let me be the husband you deserve.”
And so, the following morning, before Frederika got to the desk for her shift, Wes made the same call Anna did, presumably reaching the same secretary. But there was a difference this time.
He was a man.
“Good morning! How are you doing?” Wes sounded confident and sure of himself. “I wondered if you could help me with a problem. A friend of mine was on his way to the United States. I was supposed to pick him up from the train station here in New York City, but he never showed up. Would you be able to tell me where he wound up?” Wes’ eyes were illuminated as he listened to whatever the secretary responded. “That would be fantastic. Thank you so much. What was your name? Genevieve. That’s a pretty name.”
Anna rolled her eyes and smiled. Wes’ charms worked on everyone. Not long after that, Wes frowned and scribbled an address on a piece of paper. “That’s where he’s being held, Genevieve? Okay. And he’s going to be sent back home in the next month or two? So, I had better hurry to make sure I see him. Okay. Thank you so much for your help.”
Wes hung up and blinked at Anna, who was trying not to cry. Anna hugged him and whispered, “I can’t believe you found him. Thank you so, so much.”
She couldn’t believe she hadn’t considered asking for his help before this. It had been so easy for him. It almost made her angry, the walls that were built in front of women that men so easily bolted through. But it was 1983. That was just how the world worked.
Because there wasn’t long to wait, Anna requested to Wes that Frederika have the day off. This way, they could go immediately to the facility on the outskirts of Boston.
“I won’t be able to watch the girls,” Wes said, palming the back of his neck. “Maybe you could ask Kerry?”
“Kerry’s busy all week,” Anna said. “She’s got houses to sell and four children to take care of. But the girls can come along with us. They’ve been a part of Frederika’s journey from the beginning. I hope they’ll learn something. Something about human compassion and the spirit of perseverance.”
“Let’s hope they don’t learn something much worse,” Wes said with a sigh. “I wish I could come with you.” He bent and kissed Anna with his eyes closed, there at the front desk in front of the milling breakfast goers. It had been a long time since he’d shown so much affection for her in public. Anna felt renewed in her love for him.
Frederika appeared at the front desk a few minutes later, her eyes bright and focused on the day ahead. When she saw Anna’s face, hers fell instantly. She knew something was up.
“What happened?”
Anna explained what she’d found out, omitting the fact that Wes had been the one to call. She didn’t want to complicate things.
“We should go this morning,” Anna said. “Apparently, they’re planning to send him back in a month or two.”
Frederika set her jaw and hurried back upstairs to fetch Ricarda, her coat, and their passports. By the time she returned downstairs, Anna had coats on Susan, Christine, and Lola. They were ready.
Just like all the other times they’d traveled together, they put the two baby car seats on both sides of the backseat and strapped Susan and Christine together in the middle. The girls were so small, cuddled close to one another, Susan with a book always in hand and Christine lost in thought. Anna kissed them on the cheeks and thanked them for being so good. Susan glowed at the compliment, looked up at Frederika, and said, “Dankeschön!” Frederika laughed through tears.
