your gift at the table,” she was pulling me back in the direction of our table.
When we got back to the table there was a square box sitting at my place. “hey, you had my gift in the car! I recognize that box, “I joked. I immediately recognized the wrapping paper because Katie and I had purchased it together when we were out Christmas shopping over the weekend.
“Lucky for you, I got you,” she smiled and shrugged. “Open it,” she said as she gently nudged the box toward me, “Merry Christmas, Janie.”
Underneath the paper was a box from the San Francisco Music Box Company. The box contained a snow globe which contained a figurine of a basset hound frolicking in the snow. My eyes immediately welled up. It was my Maggie and she loved playing in the snow. I jumped into Katie’s lap and threw my arms around her. “This is no $10.00 Secret Santa gift,” I squeezed her so hard I suspected her eyes bulged. And you know who gave it to you so I am no longer your “Secret” Santa. Have a Merry Christmas – you deserve it.”
At that moment, safely nestled in the arms of my closest girlfriend I looked up and saw the shadow of the fisherman watching through a nearby window. I am not very hairy but whatever hair there is on my arms immediately stood up, “There he is,” I said louder than I needed to considering we were embracing.
“Who?” she turned to follow my panicked exclamation.
“The guy I was talking to” I pulled away from her. “I’m glad to see he’s not in the water,” I half-mumbled to myself.
“What?” Kate was wearing a look of complete and utter confusion. “The guy you were talking to outside? Where?” she was trying to follow my face for direction.
“Outside,” I pointed, “he was just watching us from outside the window.”
She turned to look, “where?”
“he’s not there now.”
I ran outside again, Katie followed, but he was nowhere we could see.
She looked at me with a concerned expression, “Janie, that’s just creepy.”
“I know. I agree – my whole encounter with him was on the bizarre side. Remember, I said I didn’t want to talk about it?”
“Yep.”
“Okay. So let’s not.”
I watched for him to appear at the windows for the remainder of the evening but never even caught a glimpse of him again. Profoundly curious I even went back to the pier early the next morning thinking that he might be part of the morning hubbub of fishing people moving about their business. The rain had stopped so I walked around for a bit. I even asked a few people who were working in the restaurant and around the pier. I described him, I really wanted to know who he was. Unfortunately, no one knew him, or anyone fitting that description. I honestly believed that the glass eye would have made him memorable, but I was wrong.
Christmas came quickly after that night and so did New Year’s. I kept my snow globe next to my bed so I could see it every day and kept my new year’s resolution to myself. Ultimately my resolution was not to quit smoking as I had assumed it might be when I entered the storm that evening, but to try to live better and more and to live in the moment – not worried about the future or fixated on the past. As the mysterious stranger had preached as I exited the storm and unknowingly entered my next chapter that evening. With the new year I started a diary and a diet and started exercising and eating better. I made inspirational or life quote cards and placed them in various places around my apartment. Reminders to stay focused on me and my goals for self-improvement. By Spring I had become someone, physically, that even I didn’t recognize. I felt better. For the first time in a long time – I felt and I made an effort to question less. I wanted to trust in the process of my life unfolding as suggested, in so many words, by the old man that night.
August 15
For as long as I can remember the first week of August every year Katie and her cousins rent a place at the beach in Massachusetts on the cape. This is the area where their grandparents first settled when they came to this country from Ireland. A family reunion of sorts, if you will, it is always a great excuse to get away for a bit. I have been tagging along for so many years that it feels like it’s my family, I truly hope the feeling is mutual. I really love the quiet relaxation with my best friend and her cousins who I have become quite close to. This year it was a very old, very lovely, two-story house right on the beach in a sleepy resort town on Cape Cod. Our first night there we co-op’ed our cooking skills, ate an extravagant yet casual meal, and drank far too much wine while we caught up on life since we’d been together last year. There was a lot of chatter, some serious, some not, a handful of tears and an ample amount of breathtaking belly laughs. Laughter, oh, it felt so good to let go. The following day we all recovered lazily in the warm sand. That night we ate out and retired relatively sober. In the middle of the night I was awakened during the night by a barking dog. The winds were very heavy (“Mother Nature must be talkin’,” I told myself in the old man’s gruff voice) and it rained sporadically (“and cryin’” If I believed everything I felt and heard on that pier in December). I rolled over and pulled the covers tight under my chin, an instinctive maneuver to try to ward off or at least protect myself from whatever was making the dog bark but eventually the barking lured me out of bed and over to the window. Hesitantly, I looked outside into absolute darkness, the only illumination at all was by moonlight. I could hear the barking but could not locate the actual source on the ground, in the dark. Poor dog was so distressed but I could not see much of anything, much less her, against the back drop of the water and beach grass on the dunes. Maybe she was just barking at the wind whistling between the grass reeds. I crawled back into bed and listened – between the wind blowing past the old windows, it’s whistle through the blowing reeds and the steady rhythm of the barking below I was eventually lured back to sleep where my dreams collided into a storm of puppies, mermaids and grumpy old men.
The next morning at breakfast I asked if anyone knew whose dog had been barking during the night. Strangely no one else heard her and of course no one had any idea who she might belong to.
The rental property came equipped with touring bicycles so later on that day Katie and I rode into town to shop and pick up some groceries. On the way back I spotted a primitive, hand-painted sign for ‘Puppies.’ Remembering the barking dog, I decided to see where the sign might lead me. Maybe these puppies were close to our beach house. Maybe it hadn’t been one distressed puppy I heard, but, a litter of cackling babies. I told Katie that I wasn’t ready to head back, and if she didn’t mind I would like to ride around and scope out the area some more. I insisted she didn’t have to join me, she could continue back to the house, and I would catch up with her. She looked a little surprised, but didn’t fight the right of first refusal against more exercise than needed so a few minutes later I was on my own to follow my curiosity.
On the next block there was another sign, similar to the first, offering ‘Puppies.’ I followed the trail of signs back through and out of town and a few miles until I reached what I did not know at the time was the last sign. This sign was propped against a beautiful sign introducing Townsend, Massachusetts. I stopped in front of the sign which had an image of an old beach front estate in the background behind the town name. “This must be the town’s landmark,” I thought to myself, “beautiful,” I said out loud as I took in the details of the beautiful structure and the fine landscape. The name felt so familiar. I looked around to get my bearings. Something on the ground caught my attention out of the corner of my eye. When I looked down there was a chewed up dog toy, a ball, on the ground beneath the sign. It was just like my Maggie’s favorite red ball. She used to chase it down the beach and into the water then bring it back for another round of the same. And for pretty much her entire life she was tireless when she played with that ball. Which is why I retired it into the sound just before going into the Christmas party in December. I felt Maggie needed her ball so she could have fun chasing it in and out of the waves in her next life.
I paused for a moment and picked up the strangely familiar ball, I studied the bite patterns. The ball’s rough texture in my hand made me miss my girl even more.
“Could it be?” I asked myself out loud, “no way. There must be millions of chewed up dog toys in the world.” I looked at the heavy, tattered red rubber ball in my hand, “It’s the right color,” I thought. “Nah” I dismissed the notion again. “Too far away to drift over here and far too bizarre if it had,” I concluded quickly. Then, without even thinking, I slid it into the basket on the front of my bicycle and turned to peddle back in the direction of the house.
I sat on the porch that night after dinner with a glass of wine in one hand and that old, red ball in the other. I thought a lot about Maggie and our life together. Maggie had been with me through so many events in my life. I thought about the events of my life leading up to that night. That night was the very anniversary of the night everything started to unravel I thought about that night on the pier and that bizarre encounter with the mysterious old man. He had only spoken to me that one time yet, Maggie and that man, had both had such an impact on my perspective today. My life has transformed so much since.
I was going to get it together – eventually – but that old man, that creepy, peculiar old bugger and his words. Those words resonated in my head for days, eventually they took root there. Soon they worked a path through my psyche into my core where they vined their way through my limbs to the outside and lead me on the path to a place where I felt safe to let go. Let go of the past and the pain it had embedded in my heart and contaminated my spirit with. Letting go is the first step to true healing, at least that’s what my hundred dollar an hour therapist tells me.
Now, I was staring at the ball in my right hand, glancing at the smoky wine glass in my left – seeing his cloudy glass eye and his deeply wrinkled, weathered skin. Suddenly it hit me.
I remembered where I had seen the name Townsend that was on the road sign today. ‘Townsend is the name of the seaside village where the “magical” Merry Weather Inn is,” I whispered to myself. Suddenly the horn of the nearby ferry bellowed loud and long. I hadn’t heard it before, not since we arrived, maybe not ever, but it was foggy on the sound, maybe they were trying to dock. Or maybe someone, perhaps my girl Maggie, was telling me to get off my bum and look for the Inn.
I am not one for witchcraft, fortune tellers or things that go bump in the night. I’m practical and calculated, even though I am trying to curb it some. Even I have to admit that sometimes coincidences that can’t be anything but chance occurrences don’t seem so coincidental. That said, I was not about to abandon my wine or cozy seat on the porch to hunt, in the dark, for an “enchanted” Inn.
What is an enchanted Inn anyway? Even in fairy tales there have to be two willing participants or at least two characters of the opposite sex for any ‘enchanting’ magic to happen. I was here with my best friend Katie and her cousins Tracy and Jack. Jack is out-of-the-closet-one-hundred-percent-gay and Tracy is not so the odds of enchanting relationships blooming on our vacation was already not working in my favor.
That night I was awakened by the barking dog again. She barked for at least a half hour before I even got out of bed to check on her. Once again, when I looked, I saw nothing. Eventually I turned on the bedroom light thinking that the light could stream through the window to illuminate the ground below the window, no such luck. Shortly after the light went on the barking stopped. I still could not see anyone or thing against the back drop of the water and dunes. The puppy was obviously called back home. With nothing further to investigate I went back to sleep.
I brought it up the next morning at breakfast and, again, no one else had heard her.
“Must have been the wind” Tracy offered, whistling a slow, long whistle, meant to mimic that wind as she added more coffee to everyone’s coffee cups.
“I think I know the difference between wind and a barking dog, Trace.”
“Maybe the neighbors have a dog” Katie offered.
“I thought of that last night but it still doesn’t look like that place next door is occupied. No cars in the drive and no lights – not even a porch light. Besides, it was too close. That dog was right outside, below my window.”
“I doubt that. No one else heard it Janie, it couldn’t be that close. Barking for as long as you’re saying and no one heard it, not a chance.”
“I heard her” I responded defensively.
“I just don’t see it,” Katie responded, “maybe it was a dream.”
“I got out of bed Katie. I heard it while I was awake. It wasn’t a dream.”
“Kate has a point. No one else heard it and no one SAW it Janie, not even you.” Tracy added. “How much wine did you drink last night?”
“Not enough to start making shit up, that’s for sure. But thanks for the implication and the vote of confidence.”
“I know!” Jack perked up, “Maybe it was the ghost of Maggie dropping in for a treat!”
“Kiss off, Jack!” I hissed.
“I’m only trying to help,” he responded, with his hands raised as if he was offended by my response and trying to avoid being struck.
“I wasn’t dreaming. I’m not crazy. I wasn’t drunk and I’m not making this up. I know what I heard. It woke me from a sound sleep, TWICE.”
“Sorry Jan” Katie sounded remorseful “maybe we are just more sound sleepers than you are.”
“Maybe we drink more,” Jack added under his breath without raising his eyes from his coffee, “you might consider trying it some time.” This caused Tracy to spit out her coffee.
“You guys are rude,” I picked up my coffee, stormed out of the kitchen and retreated to the porch. I sat on the love seat with the overstuffed cushions again, where I had been last night, and watched the ebb and flow of the ocean as the waves crashed and rolled across the shoreline. Without taking my gaze off the water, I forced my hand in between the cushions to retrieve the ball that I had stuffed in there last night, it wasn’t there.
I pushed deeper and moved my hand back and forth, nothing.
I got up, pulled the bottom cushion off and dropped it onto the porch. The back cushion followed suit, still nothing.
“Guys!” I called into the house, “GUYS!” I called louder.
“What’s wrong,” Tracy was first, then Katie.
“Did one of you take the ball?” I asked excitedly.
“The ball? “Katie repeated.
“Yes, the BALL.”
“That skuzzy thing you picked up on the side of the road yesterday?” Tracy confirmed.
“That would be the one,” I responded in disbelief.
“Who would want THAT thing?” Jack replied.
“I would,” I snapped.
“Not me,” Jack said, with his hands up, again, in a dramatic resistance.
“Me either,” Tracy added.
“Add me to that,” Katie said, “It’s all yours.”
“Well, it was here last night and now it’s gone,” I was scanning the surrounding area with my eyes as I announced this. I couldn’t believe it.
“Maybe the wind blew it off the porch,” Tracey offered in support.
I looked at her. I’m sure my facial expression showed how stupid a suggestion I thought that was but I only allowed, “It was stuffed into the cushions,” to escape my lips.
“Ohhh, I know.” Jack perked up, “Maybe your phantom puppy came and retrieved it after it woke you from a sound sleep last night. Or maybe it was barking so you would come out and play ball with it,” Jack continued obnoxiously.
“Sorry I asked. You can go back to your breakfast.” And they did. I abandoned my coffee mug on the porch and hopped on a bicycle. Deep down in the place where you CAN’T lie, even to yourself, I was starting to think there was something more to the phantom barking dog and the coincidental ball, mysteriously found and just as mysteriously lost.
I rode back to the place where I had seen the sign posted for puppie
s yesterday but the puppy sign was no longer there. I continued to the location of the second sign, it was also gone, but the sign for Townsend, a permanent fixture, remained. I stood there for a minute, in front of the sign, the bike propped between my legs, not sure of what to do next. Yesterday there had been signs to follow – literally. I had been following the signs for Puppies and then I happened upon Maggie’s ball or what appeared to possibly have been Maggie’s ball. Now what? Less than a day later, there were no signs, no ball – the only thing that remained was the sign for Townsend. I considered that maybe everything yesterday had been leading me to this point but I freaked out when I saw the ball and ran home. Subsequently the dog came back to call me into town again. While I pondered this I started to hear bells from the ferry, either this is a sign or the ferry dock is very close, or both. But what are the odds that that ferry keeps tooting and ding-a-linging when I’m thinking about this place? Well, maybe it toots and ding-a-lings all the time. I thought about how silly I was trying to find a sign in every occurrence. - I needed to go check out Townsend.
Without another moment’s hesitation I rode the mile or so into town. It was charming. A quaint seaside resort town with small novelty shops lining Main Street. I stopped when I found a coffee shop. It was deserted with the exception of a worn out looking waitress, in a worn out looking uniform and a short order cook sitting near a grill behind the counter doing what looked to be a crossword puzzle in a book of puzzles. A single patron was reading the paper over his breakfast at a table in the back.
I sat on a stool about midway at the counter and she immediately put a mug down in front of me, “coffee?” It was one fluid motion, the question and the mug, it wasn’t a challenging feat, but her easiness surprised me.
“Please.”
“You visiting?” she asked. This was clearly a drill she had performed on too many occasions over the years.
“I am.”
I heard the reader turn the page off his oversized newspaper behind me. ‘Must be the Times’ I thought to myself. Everyone loves the New York Times, despite the size of the pages.
“Where from?”
I opened my mouth to speak, but she cut me off, “let me guess.”
“New York,” the cook announced from his stool behind her.
“Floyd!” She screeched.
“Give me a break Claire, she’s got the accent!” he barked back.
I could feel my cheeks flush. “This is a nice little town,” I added awkwardly. I was never a very smooth small-talker.
“We like it here,’ she responded as she put a menu down next to my coffee, “Where are you staying, honey?”
“Actually I’m visiting with some friends in Loyton.”
“Loyton? Kind of far for a coffee.”
“I was out riding my bike this morning and I happened upon the sign for Townsend. I had heard about it once before so I stopped to look at the sign and I heard the ferry ding --…”–
“Ferry?” interrupted me mid-sentence.
“…a-ling, so I thought I might stop and check out Townsend.”
“We’re sure glad you did, but there ‘asn’t been a ferry running here in…” she was thinking, “help me out here Floyd, how long ‘as it been?”
The reader shifted his paper again.
“Least, probably, I dunno…15 years,” Floyd eventually offered.
“Sounds ‘bout right, 15 years or so,” she agreed.
“But I could swear that I heard --- nevermind.”
“Must have been something else cause it wasn’t no ferry, “she said matter-of-factly, “would you like some breakfast, you must be hungry?” she asked kindly.
“No thanks, coffee is great for now,” she acknowledged with a nod and turned to do whatever it is that she does when she’s not delivering food or topping off coffee.
“So, there’s no chance that I heard a ferry horn, either here or in Loyton?” I threw out to no one in particular.
Floyd answered, “no chance,” I could feel the reader peeking around the paper to see who the idiot was who was going on about a non-existent ferry, but when I turned to spy back he had resumed his position with the paper covering everything but his hands.
“Not any time recently honey and certainly not today. But, I’m curious – I’ve lived here my whole life and we’re a pretty small gig, you know,” Claire started.
“Yes, from what I can see this is a quaint New England town,” I responded politely. More small-talk awkwardness.
“So, what did you hear about us?” she finished.
“Well, I heard that it’s very nice. Specifically, the Inn. I shouldn’t say it like that, perhaps you have many Inns here – especially with it being a beach community. Would you be able to tell me where I might find the Merry Weather Inn in particular?”
“The Merry Weather Inn? Huh. Curious you should ask that…”
The man with the paper cleared his throat loudly, she turned her head to look then she excused herself with the pot of coffee.
There was some whispering in the corner behind the newspaper, she returned a moment later.
“Why is it curious that I asked that?”.
“For someone who just happened into town, it is.”
“Well, I kinda didn’t just happen into town, I “happened” into the sign but once I found the sign I came here to check out the Inn. Funny part for me is that I didn’t expect to find Townsend at all – ever. but I had heard of the Merry Weather Inn. So. I thought since I’m here I might check it out.”
“Are you one of those,” she turned toward the back, “what do you call them, Floyd?”
“Who?” he responded, sounding annoyed this time.
“People who buy things, houses and buildings, you know, then –”
“Investors,” he interrupted her.
“Right, investors. You an investor? Interested in buying it?” she asked me.
“Buying it? NO. I was only curious to see it. I didn’t know it was for sale.”
“To see it, you’re a few years too late. It’s been closed to patrons for, hmmm, must be almost five years now. You are welcome, as anyone would be, to go see the property, but the house is unoccupied and for sale.”
“I’m not interested in buying, not now anyway and probably not anytime soon. What happened? Why is it closed? Someone once told me it was ‘Magical’ – ‘enchanted’ was actually what he said.”
“Really? Enchanted?” she leaned into the counter and lowered her voice to just above a whisper. “Who told you that?” she seemed genuinely interested and possibly amused.
“Oh. Just a man I met.” I answered as coolly as I could.
The page turned again behind me.
“The Inn itself closed to patrons, oh, gosh, I can’t believe it but it must be about five years ago when Merry, the Captains wife, died.” But I think it’s pretty safe to say it had lost its “enchanting” quality quite some time before. I bet the man you met was old.
“You could say that,” I replied.
“Back in its hay day they say the Merry Weather Inn was something else. But only an old-timer would remember that,” Claire informed me as she added hot coffee to my mug.
“I guess the Merry Weather was named after this captain’s wife?”
“This captain was Captain Bill Townsend and indeed, it sure was. Captain was born and raised in that house with his sister Caroline. It’s a magnificent place, right on the beach. Caroline died in childbirth when she was in her early twenties so when the Captains parents passed away the place was left to him alone. Didn’t really do him much good, he was a seaman. Seaman don’t have families, they have the sea and Mother Nature – the house was left virtually empty. He hired help to maintain the place for him year round in honor of his parents, he didn’t want the place to fall prey to vandalism and/or dis-repair . He would come back to it whenever he was in port, wasn’t more ’an several times a year though, but that was what it was.
One December when
he was in his early thirties he came home around the holidays, no doubt – after some months at sea. When he arrived he found John, his groundskeeper, and his whole family had been staying in the house as in, living there, full-time.”
“Was he angry?” I interrupted.
“he had a right to be, but it was more inviting to come home to than an empty house.”
“No doubt.”
“Long story short, John’s daughter was Meredith. Although the captain was ten years her senior the Christmas Spirit brought them together and they fell in love under the Christmas tree that year. Meredith and her parents stayed in the house with the captain’s blessing after that, in fact, legend states that he insisted they stay there.
Anyway, on December 13th the following year, when he returned home again from sea, they were married. They lived in that house. They raised four children there. When the children were grown they opened the Inn so that the house would always be full and happy.
Almost 5 years ago, Meredith passed. They had been married almost fifty years. Two years ago, on December 13th the Captain joined her on the other side.”
“No kidding!”
“It would have been their fiftieth wedding anniversary that day. Word is that he died of a broken heart.” The waitress’ demeanor grew somber.
“Bless him – them. He must have been a very old man.”
“he was, almost 85. His health was good, until the end, that’s where the broken heart theory comes in. There’s a picture of him on the wall over there if you want to see him for yourself,” she pointed to some frames on the wall.
I walked over and studied the pictures in the frames.
“That’s him, second picture…fishing jacket,” she added.
I sucked in my breath.
“Are you alright?”
“Yeah, sure, I’m fine.” I responded. Truth was, I wasn’t sure that I wasn’t going to faint. There as clear as the nose on my face, in the picture on the wall in front of me, stood the old man I met at the pier.
“What happened to his eye?” I immediately asked.
“he never really talked much about it, not to me anyway. They say it happened after his sister died,” she replied.
“Wait. You knew him – Captain Townsend?”
“Sure, everyone here did. Captain Bill Townsend is a legend around here.”
“Captain Bill Townsend” I said it slowly as it unfolded in my mind, “as in, Welcome to Townsend?”
“Put this place on the map, he was a very powerful man. Wouldn’t know it looking at him, but he had a force within him.”
“A force? What does that mean?’
“A force. He had a strong, no nonsense type of personality. When he made a plan, he researched the requirements and got the job done. When he made up his mind to do something, that’s what he did and although he was a child of the sea and a man’s man he was kind and gentle.”
“Then why was he so grumpy?” I was really just asking this to myself, but I said it out loud without thinking and by the time I realized it had been heard, it was too late.
“Grumpy? He wasn’t grumpy? Did you say you knew him? I don’t remember hearing you say that you knew him.” The page turned again behind me.
“No, I didn’t know him. He reminds me of someone I met once. But, he doesn’t look happy.”
“he was pensive and thoughtful – just missed his partner in the end but he’s reunited with her now – I’m sure of that.”
“On December 13th – TWO years ago?” I asked.
“Yep. Right on their anniversary, really says something if you think about it. House hasn’t been unoccupied ever since.”
“You’re sure it was two years ago?”
“Positive. Captains passing was big news around here. It will be two years this coming December,” she answered matter-of-factly.
“Why has the house been unoccupied? Where are the four children?”
The man with the newspaper clinked his spoon on his cup for a refill. She responded without hesitation, but kept talking.
“Miss, most young people don’t settle around here when they grow up. The two girls, Caroline and Mary are both married with families. James is a writer, lives up north somewhere ‘so he can think,” She made air quotes around the, so he can think, as she said it. “And William, their youngest, he’s a professional man -- an attorney up in the city.”
“And no one comes to visit the old house?”
“Apparently