The Cliffs

After David’s call, Jane goes outside only to walk the dog. She knows she should quit drinking, but since she has already lost everything she doesn’t see the point. Jane wants her mother, who always knew what to do with a broken heart.

One day, Jane gets out of bed at noon and finds a box in the driveway from Caitlin. Inside are items from the Lake Grove house, including a hat, letters, and a photo of Samuel and Hannah Littleton. Caitlin shares that Daisy died in the house and was buried in the small cemetery. Jane realizes that Daisy’s message, “I’m not at Lake Grove anymore” (393), might connect to Genevieve’s removing the cemetery. Caitlin includes a letter to Marilyn from Jane’s grandmother Mary, dated years ago.

When Jane reads the letter, she realizes that Mary had an affair with Marilyn’s husband. Mary admits that after her husband’s death, she drank too much and treated her daughter, Shirley, badly. After Daisy’s death, Mary drank more heavily, and her husband’s family took Shirley away for a year. While Shirley was gone, Mary started going to church and Alcoholics Anonymous, but after Shirley returned, their relationship was never the same.

After reading the letter, Jane sees her mother in a new light. She understands why Shirley didn’t want her to go to the Lake Grove house. She shows the letter to Holly, who isn’t as shocked as Jane. She knew that Mary had an alcohol use disorder and that her childhood was difficult. She tells Jane that Shirley kept the knowledge secret from Jane because she wanted her to break free of the family’s destructive patterns.

The next day, Jane visits Allison’s mother, Betty, who doesn’t recognize her. Jane realizes that though Betty doesn’t have the chance to start over, she does. She texts an apology to Allison, who promptly responds and accepts. Jane calls Marilyn and gets her voicemail but passes Daisy’s message along. Then she drives to the nearest AA meeting.

Naomi finds a padded envelope on her desk from her cousin Barbara. Inside is a hand-drawn map of a coastal area with the word Sawadapskw’i printed on it. Barbara got it from someone who “claims [the map] is re-created from a birchbark map, which was in his family for centuries, but ultimately lost. […] He is Canadian, Abenaki, from Adanak, but […] the family originated in what is now southern Maine” (407). The place name is familiar, but Naomi can’t place the reference.

Naomi and Barbara were distant second cousins, but after Barbara’s mother died, Barbara asked if she could help with Naomi’s work. Barbara was from California: Her family moved there after her mother was forced to give up her citizenship in the Penobscot Nation. Barbara confided in Naomi that having to do that hurt her mother deeply, and she never really recovered. Naomi quickly found that Barbara, a retired librarian, was an extraordinary researcher, had a strong online presence, and “found stories and made connections Naomi never would have” (409).

Naomi had started her career by working as the chief’s secretary and, within two years, was intimately involved in every aspect of the reservation’s community. One day, she received an envelope from a white man named Trip Baker containing “several black and white photographs of men in turkey-feather headdresses, standing together, looking straight at the camera” (410). Baker’s grandfather, an anthropologist, visited the Penobscot reservation in the 1920s or 30s. Working with the elders, Naomi identified the men, learned their stories, and began her career.

In addition to the map, Barbara included several typed sheets dated 1987. On them, Naomi reads the story of the Abenaki at Sawadapskw’i, specifically of an Indigenous woman named Kanti.

Early one summer, a large ship came to Sawadapskw’i when Kanti’s people were camping nearby. The men on the ship had many questions and smelled and dressed strangely. Kanti’s people invited them to celebrations on the beach. One day, they invited four men, including Kanti’s husband, Manedo, out to their ship for a meal. The men rowed out to the ship, and Kanti watched them board from the cliff. Then the ship began to move, and she watched, horrified, as it sailed out of sight. Every day, Kanti returned to the cliff and watched for Manedo’s return. She gave birth to a baby girl, but her daughter only reminded her of her lost husband.

When summer ended, Kanti’s people left the area, but each spring when they returned, Kanti immediately went to the cliff. Eventually two of the Indigenous men returned, speaking of the place they were taken, called London. One of the men, N’tahanada, was with Manedo on a ship that was supposed to bring them back, but their ship was captured, and they were sold into slavery. He was later freed but never found Manedo.

The English ships kept coming. They destroyed the landscape and clogged the river with sawmills and logs. One year, when Kanti’s people returned to Sawadapskw’i, Kanti discovered that someone had built a house near her cliff. When she approached, a man waved a gun at her. N’tahanada, who had learned English, told her that the man said he owned the property and she was trespassing.

Relations between the English and different Indigenous tribes were mostly peaceful until some English men threw an Indigenous baby into the river to see if he was born knowing how to swim and let him drown. The resulting conflict lasted three years. The white men made life impossible for the tribes, bringing diseases, stopping the fish from swimming, and perpetrating violence on the Indigenous people they encountered. One day, while the white men were out working, Kanti’s people burned the English village as well as one man’s sawmill and house on the cliff. After the resulting conflict, thousands of English and most of the Indigenous people were dead. Many surviving Indigenous people were sold into enslavement, and the rest escaped to Canada. Kanti, however, remained near the cliff until she died, and her daughter buried her there.

After reading the history, Naomi focuses on the word Sawadapskw’i, trying to remember where she heard it before. In the middle of the night, she remembers Jane Flanagan. She heard that Jane opened a small history museum in Awadapquit and was looking for Indigenous stories about the area. Naomi can’t wait to call her.

Jane is opening a new exhibit about Shaker women at the museum and is proud of her work. The idea for the museum came to her soon after her first AA meeting, and then Lydia offered her a job organizing the historical society’s papers. She decided to stay in Awadapquit and not sell her mother’s house. When she learned that Genevieve and Paul were trying to sell the Lake Grove house, she remembered hearing from an old colleague that they had been trying without success to sell the house. She called Genevieve.

Jane apologized for barging into Genevieve’s dinner party, and Genevieve expressed regret for digging up the cemetery. In the end, Genevieve and Paul agreed to sell the house to Historic Homes of New England, and Jane struck on the idea to open a museum centering on the women who had lived in the house. After she was hired as director, Jane began finding and buying back everything from the house, even the ring with the lock of hair in it. Although she never sees the ghost that Benjamin spoke to, when she brings Walter to the museum, he always runs to the edge of the cliff and barks.

At first, Jane wants to leave every AA meeting she goes to, still believing she doesn’t really need to be there, but soon finds that her story is like those of many others. She goes four times a week and starts running again. She and Naomi create an exhibit at Lake Grove house about the area’s Indigenous women.

Jane’s relationship with David has changed too. He still lives in Boston but visits every week or so. After they divorced, he brought her possessions to her, and they had sex. Their daughter, Mary, was conceived that day, and after her birth, David was a constant presence. They’ve settled into a new normal but are comfortable with the arrangement. Jane can tell that he’s still working through his feelings. They love each other and co-parent their child, and their new life is unexpectedly good.

Now, Jane hears the museum’s phone ring. Her assistant tells her that Naomi is on the phone with a story.