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Chapter 16:  Mr. Braithewaite’s Story

            The dream begins the same way as the first in which Teresa is the little girl with the butterscotch pony, only the scene has expanded like a panoramic shot in a movie.  Now, in the curious way of dreams, Teresa is both the little girl in the dream and the observer.  The father is the same lean, blue-eyed man with the loving smile.  He presents her with the pony, only this time he says, “Here you are my darling little bird, my Maggie-pie.  A pony of your very own.” 

            “Oh, Da, she’s lovely,” the girl says, patting the horse’s nose.

            He lifts her up onto the pony’s back and leads her around the grassy yard.  She feels a surge of pure joy from her toes in the stirrups to the dark curls on her head.  Beyond the pasture, Teresa the observer can see a low farmhouse.  Out of the door comes an older man with a shock of gray hair.  He runs toward them across the grass.  As he gets closer, Teresa, who is also Maggie on the pony, can see the man’s face is anguished.  He runs toward them, waving his arms and shouting, “George!  George!” 

            When he is close enough to be heard, the older man calls, “Eliza’s in a bad way!  Her time’s come and she’s bleeding something fierce!  I sent Harry for the doctor!  You’d better hurry!”

            For the girl on the pony, the day’s happiness drains away as if a plug were pulled from the sunlit sky and dark clouds rushed in.  There is a surge of shadows and the scene folds and then reopens at a graveside under a rainy sky.  Three mourners in dark, worn clothing cluster in the mud around the grave where two simple coffins, large and small, become shiny and slick in the rain.  Teresa, as the little Maggie, holds the older man’s hand.  She feels him trembling with sobs.  Her chest is so heavy with loss that she can barely breathe.

             Teresa awakens with tears on her face.  She feels sadder than she has in years, not since the death of her little boy, so many years ago.  The digital clock by the bedside glows 2:48 in red numbers.  Teresa turns on the light.  She wipes her eyes with a tissue and blows her nose. 

            “Whew, this is some painful way to get information, Margaret.” 

            She lies in the bed with moonlight striping the covers, and lets herself remember Marco, her baby boy.  She rarely opens that box of memory, but here in the predawn in a house not her own, she spends time with him, his tiny, perfect fingers, his twisted little legs and feet. 

            “Oh, Marco,” Teresa sighs.  There is something so terrible about tiny white coffins covered in flowers.

            Morning finally comes in shafts of bright sunlight and ecstatic birdsong.  Teresa lies in bed, letting the light glow through her eyelids.  She wishes she were like those birds, able to greet each new day with such a fury of joy.  She fingers the necklace she has worn for almost forty years.  It is a flat, cream-colored spiral, set in beveled gold.  Angelina gave it to Teresa when Marco was born, explaining that the spiral was actually the door of a sea snail.  One could find these delicate spirals in the beach sand of the Costa del Sol, but it took a sharp eye and much searching.  In her travels, Teresa has found a few of these herself, but none as lovely as the one she wears. 

            In less than a quarter of an hour, Teresa is dressed and stepping through the wrought-iron garden gate.  Mr. Braithewaite is there as she’d hoped.  Today he is deadheading a patch of primroses.  The battered brown felt hat is crushed down on his head.  He has his pipe clamped between his teeth; it seems to have gone out.

            “Good morning,” Teresa calls out.  “Do you have a moment to chat?”

            He waves her over without turning around.  “Can’t get up until these are done or I’ll never get down again.  The damp weather aggravates my joints.”

            “Yes, it can do that.  I can help, if you like.”  Teresa squats down beside him, mentally congratulating herself on the decades of yoga that allow her to be limber still.  She begins to nip off the brown, spent flowers, tossing them into the frayed basket.

            “What can you tell me about the Braithewaites who lived here in 1790?” she asks.

            “Let’s see,” Mr. Braithewaite pauses and squints up at the sky as if the answer might be scrolled in the passing clouds.  “John Braithewaite worked the farm with his father, who tried raising dairy cows.  But the land couldn’t support a large dairy operation, so, after John’s father died, he supplemented the farm with wrecking.  They smuggled out the brandy, you know, and tea, keeping whatever else they could use, and selling the rest.”  There is a long pause while Mr. Braithewaite relights his pipe.  “At some point, John joined up with the wreckers who put out false lights.”  Another pause while he puffs and shifts to the left.   Teresa feels disappointed.  This is the same story she heard from Miss Micklewhite.  She was hoping for more details from a member of the family. 

            Mr. Braithewaite continues, “His son, George, was Margaret’s father.  I suppose you’ve heard about Margaret from Miss Micklewhite.  George had been a partner in the farming and the wrecking, but he balked at joining the false lighters.  Said it was one thing to pick up cargo from foundered ships, another to be the cause of the wreck.  He packed up his family: his wife Mary, Margaret, and their infant son, and moved to Somerset.”

            “But I heard that Margaret’s mother died in childbirth,” Teresa says, surprised.  “And I thought her mother’s name was Eliza.”

            Mr. Braithewaite turns abruptly to squint at Teresa, almost scowling.  “Who told you that?”

            “Uh, I–I don’t remember,” Teresa stammers.  “Someone who was a guest here, perhaps.”  Why would two such conflicting versions exist? she wonders. 

            Mr. Braithewaite says, “I don’t know anything about that.  The family moved away, that’s the story handed down to my forebears.  And now, Ms. Salerno, you’ll excuse me.  I’m due to meet with my solicitor at ten.” He creaks slowly to standing.

            Teresa stands up as well, brushing soil from her jeans.  “About how old would Margaret have been when her family left Devonshire?” 

            “Hmmm…around ten years old, I should think.  Ta.”  He moves off down the path, leaving Teresa with more questions than before the conversation began.