New Girl in Little Cove by Damhnait Monaghan (book club suggestions TXT) 📗

“I found this about three years ago out on the road. I left it on my fencepost for a few days, but no one claimed it, so I washed it and put it in here. Look at those stitches,” she said, holding it up. “They’re perfect. Whoever knit this is right crafty.”

She put the mitten on the table and dug into the box again. “Of course, I favours shiny things. Bottle caps, bits of jewellery. I’m like a magpie.” Then she looked down at her sling and laughed.

“A magpie with a broken wing, hey. Oh, I dies at myself sometimes, girl. Good thing I lives alone.”

Her face was animated now and it seemed to me that the goose egg was shrinking.

“Oh, my dear,” she continued, “I’ve found all sorts of things. People knows to come see me if they’ve lost something. Between me and St. Anthony, things tends to turn up.”

“What’s St. Anthony got to do with it?” I asked, thinking, Does everything have to come back to religion in Little Cove?

“And you a teacher in a Catholic school,” she said. “Shocking lack of knowledge.” But when I looked up, she was smiling. “St. Anthony is the patron saint of lost things.”

Was there a patron saint for lapsed believers? I silently wondered.

“Dear St. Anthony, please look ’round, something’s lost and must be found,” she intoned.

I must’ve rolled my eyes because Biddy tutted and told me that the prayer was absolutely known to work. “You try it the next time you loses something, girl. Go on, now, say the prayer for me so I knows you’ll be ready if you needs it.”

“Dear St. Anthony, please look around, something’s lost and must be found,” I said, somewhat sulkily, I realized. But thankfully Biddy wasn’t really paying me much attention. She was delving back into the box.

“Some nights when I’m here on me own, I turns on the radio and then I gets the treasure box out. I likes to imagine stories about all this stuff.”

Now I was interested. “Stories? That’s wonderful, Biddy. Why don’t you write them down?”

“Oh go ’way with you, girl,” she said. “You’re talking nonsense now. Write them down? Sure who’d want to read them?”

“Me!” I said.

She shook her head. “No girl. The treasure box stories are for my own amusement, no one else’s.”

“But, Biddy,” I began.

“The only stories I tells are in the rugs I hooks,” she said. “And that’s final.”

It seemed Biddy could be as stubborn as me.

She reached into the box again.

“I found this when the snow melted,” she said. “It was on the path down to the wharf. I don’t recognize the initials and it don’t seem to work no more, but it’s real silver.”

I was half paying attention and half thinking about a book of Biddy stories, but when I saw what she’d placed on the table, my hand went to my mouth.

“What is it, girl?” she asked.

I wiped tears from my eyes. “It’s mine,” I whispered.

“J.O’B.?” Biddy said, puzzled.

“Joseph O’Brien,” I managed to say. “My dad.”

“Oh my dear,” she said, reaching over and patting my hand. “St. Anthony, you see?”

I placed Dad’s lighter on the palm of my hand, tracing the engraving with the index finger of my other hand. As hokey as it sounded, especially to this non-believer, the return of the lighter seemed like a blessing.

32

If I hadn’t come to stay with Biddy, I might never have been reunited with Dad’s lighter. I said as much to her and offered to take her for fish and chips as a reward.

“What a treat!” she said. “I never has that.” She gestured out the window and I saw it had begun to rain. “But I’m not sure I wants to brave that weather. Could you get takeout?”

I said yes, as long she promised not to set the table.

The first person I saw in the takeout was Cynthia, sitting with her mother at one of the booths. Mrs. O’Leary called me over and we chatted briefly. I tried to catch Cynthia’s eye but she stared resolutely down at her plate.

Then I joined the lineup to order. Even though there were three people in front of me, Mrs. Corrigan bellowed, “What can I get you, Miss O’Brine?” from behind the pass-through.

I bellowed my order back and the people in front of me shuffled to the side so I could pay.

“You’re some good to be looking after Biddy,” said Mrs. Corrigan, wiping her hands on her apron and coming out to stand by the cash register, where Belinda was ringing up my bill.

“She and Lucille have been good to me ever since I arrived,” I said. “It’s the least I could do.” Besides, I added to myself, thinking again of Eddie Churchill, I’m part of the community.

“How’s Biddy getting on?” she asked.

Was it my imagination, or did everyone in the takeout seem to lean in to hear my answer? I thought about what Doug had said about the gossiping, and how Biddy valued her privacy so much.

“She’s fine,” I said, falling back on the O’Brien code. “Just fine.”

Biddy raved about the fish and chips and said she must treat herself more often. She was much livelier that evening, going so far as to ask for a drink of sherry. Naturally, I joined her. It would have been rude not to.

But when it was time for bed, she asked if I wouldn’t mind reading her another chapter, which I gladly did. I knew there was a second Maeve Binchy book out and I resolved to buy it for Biddy if I could find it in Clayville. And, if not, then heck, I’d been in Newfoundland for almost eight months, maybe it was time to check out St. John’s.

I slept on the daybed again that night. It was warm and cozy in the kitchen, and despite Biddy’s obvious improvement, I wanted to be within earshot if she woke in the night.

The next morning, I woke early and looked around Biddy’s