The Broken Hours

by Jacqueline Baker

  He told me then that it was a special place, that my mother had buried something there, a silver pier glass of some remarkable value, years ago, in darker times. Naturally I asked why she would do such a thing. He leaned in, then—I can picture his face still, with its big white walrus moustache—he leaned in and said, “Howard, if you can explain to me the confounding ways of women, I will be much obliged.” And we had a good laugh, then. In fact, he often made such jokes, about the women; it was a sort of them-and-us situation. It was a fine joke. And I moved my little Arab village and thought no more about it.

  But then we lost it all, and everything changed. He changed. He was no longer the man I had known. Sometimes, I caught him looking at me blankly, as if he could not remember who I was. One afternoon I was passing by his study window and I caught sight of him. I stopped there, peeking out, despicably, from behind the shrubbery. He was standing on the old moth-eaten scarlet carpet my grandmother had always hated, and which I’d always loved, woven as it was into a sort of tapestry of the gods. He was standing there, adrift in the center of this great room, staring into the palms of his upturned hands. He stared and stared. Then, as if he sensed my presence, he looked out the window, at me, and I did not move. I thought I would catch hell from him. Privacy was sacrosanct among all us Phillipses. But he only stared at me the same way he had, a moment previous, been staring at his own hands. With nothing of recognition there. Not that he did not know me, but that he did not even know what I was. You understand?

  I think so.

  I was still a child, really, not even quite a young man. I wanted to weep. Instead, I grew angry. I went to him. I barged into his study, where he still stood on the scarlet carpet and I railed at him. A tantrum, as I hadn’t thrown in quite some time. And something in my vitriol reminded me of that treasure my mother had buried out behind the carriage house. The priceless pier glass. I stopped short, myself silenced by the revelation. I marvelled, felt I had saved the day. I came forward, eagerly, reminding my grandfather of it—how could he have forgotten? How could we all have? Surely it was worth quite a lot. He had told me as much himself. Oh, I was very pleased with myself.

  But the old man, he just put his head in his big hands and he wept and wept. I had never seen him cry. It was terrible for me. It was that moment, I think, when I knew things would never again be the way they once had.

  When, after the old man’s death, only a few weeks later, my mother told me we were to move, that we would be leaving the house on Angell Street forever, I went out behind the carriage house and, taking a shovel, went back to the woods. I intended to dig that pier glass up—it was valuable—but once I was there, I could only stand dumbly, staring. I don’t know why, even now. And my mother calling, her voice ringing out across the evening lawns, until I could stand there no more. I raised the shovel up over my head and brought it down with all my childish, adolescent rage and grief upon that stone, so hard my palms rang with pain. I dropped the shovel. A chunk of stone fell away into the grass. I could hear my mother coming then and, wiping my nose on my sleeve, I grabbed the chunk of stone and ran back to her.

  “What are you doing?” she said when I’d come round the side of the building.

  “Nothing,” I told her. And she looked at me oddly but said nothing more. That’s how it was with us, you know. It’s the aristocratic way. The New England way. It is how I, too, have lived my life. I often think how it must build and build and I wonder how any of us stand it.

  Mother became quite ill, sometimes I think from that very thing. From all that pretending. Then I grew ill myself. Again. Sometimes I think I have never been truly well. Time passed. I grew to understand it was just another of my grandfather’s stories, and I wondered even if there had been a name on that stone at all, my mother’s name. It seemed always that he and I walked such a fine line together between reality and fancy. There has been so much that feels real in my memory but which I know cannot possibly be.

  He turned the stone again in his fingers and then passed it back to me. I was taken aback.

  Forgive me, sir. Don’t you want it?

  He waved his hand at me, the stone still held loosely there, but did not reply.

  What could I have done? I took the stone and in so doing my fingertips brushed his; they were cold, so cold he might have been one of the dead. I repressed the urge to wipe my fingers on my trousers.

  Change is the only enemy of anything really worth cherishing, he said. I have been homesick my entire life. I imagine I will die so.

  We sat awhile, then, without speaking. The rocker creaked again beneath me, offensively, and I stilled it. My knees ached with the effort.

  He leaned his head back against his chair and closed his eyes.

  I fear I’ve tired you, I said.

  I am tired, Candle. Yes. You will have to excuse me. One cannot spend one’s youth gazing at the stars and not feel hopeless, as I’m sure you understand only too well. If there’s something else you need, I must ask that you put it in a letter.

  Of course, I said.

  It was a moment before I realized he had dismissed me and that he would say nothing further. I thought of his mother, dead there beneath the still-brown grass of Swan Point. I thought of his letters. But I could not tell him. I could not.

  Taking the chunk of gravestone and yet another sin of omission, I left the room, closing the door behind me.

  Six

  1

  That night I went to the aunt’s room. I thought I’d heard a noise there when I was fixing a cup of tea in the kitchenette. And perhaps I had. But my employer’s story—and the sad truth I’d discovered at Butler—had made me curious, too. It was the one room in the house I had not entered. And then, I wondered: Was there even an aunt at all? Was she mad, too? Or dead?

  Still, it was more than uncertainty, more than curiosity, which drew me there. I was drawn, as we always are, by something outside myself also.

  I tried the latch; to my surprise, the door was unlocked.

  I stood, listening, for a long moment in the darkness. I was thinking still on the story my employer had told me, turning it over and over in my head, wondering at the strangeness of it and of the details I had learned at Butler. That Sixty-Six was a disturbed house, I had no doubt any longer; and that this disturbance, this haunting, this child I had seen, was connected to the darkness at Butler Hospital, the darkness of my employer, I had come to believe a certainty.

  I opened the door and stepped softly inside, pulling it shut behind me.

  I was hit by that scent of overripe cherries, and I realized it must be some sort of perfume or talcum. I pushed the button of the electric light and the bed chamber swilled yellow.

  A bed, a matching set of dressers, all of a dark, carved wood, mahogany or walnut perhaps, expensive. The coverlet the deep yellow of daffodils not quite fresh. A round braided rug, just a shade darker, lay upon the wood floor. A framed photograph had fallen to the rug and I picked it up, placed it carefully back among the little bright glass jars of cream, the pots of powder. I reached for the nearest jar and opened it. I stuck my finger inside, then rubbed my hands together and smelled: lemon verbena, not the scent of cherries I was seeking. I closed the jar, wiped my hands on my trousers.

  Several framed photographs sat among the jars and bottles. I picked one up: a young man of about fifteen, serious and rather handsome in a prim, aristocratic way. I realized it must be my employer as a much younger man. I set it back down.

  On the nightstand was a vase of dried lavender gone dusty with age. I touched a stain of lipstick on the rim of a glass of nearly evaporated water. The peachy color flaked away on my fingertips. Again, I wiped my hands on my trousers, then opened several of the cupboard doors, for what I could not say, merely exploring, I suppose. Women’s things—shoes, cardigans, hats, chiffon scarves, unidentifiables laced and crocheted and embroidered, an entire shelf of washed jelly jars containing buttons and safety pins. Among them, a smaller jar holding what I
at first took to be tiny ivory pebbles until I poked my finger inside. It was a collection of child’s teeth, small and sharp as splinters of bone. In my disgust, I dropped the entire jar onto the carpet and it rolled away beneath the yellow bedskirt, scattering its contents.

  I could feel my heart loud in my chest. I got down on my hands and knees to collect the teeth, depositing them in the palm of my hand, then stretching my arm beneath the bed for the jar. I felt around, trying not to be repelled by the dust and other debris I discovered there, and by that other feeling that spaces beneath beds have always roused in me, making my skin crawl. I found the jar lodged against a stack of papers and I pulled them out.

  It was not a sheaf of papers, as I had thought, but rather a packet of photographs. The first was of a young man in spectacles, obviously my employer, that lantern jaw; the second of a young boy who bore a vague resemblance to the other, and I assumed this, too, was my employer at a younger age. Across the face of the third was clipped a handwritten note which read, When I am gone, darling, keep these and know you were never terrible to look upon. It was only her sickness which caused her to speak so.

  It was then I heard, distinctly, a voice.

  I froze there, my blood racing. It had not been the voice of a man, not my employer. I held my breath. Nothing. I knelt down to hastily stuff the photographs back under the bedskirt, and just as I did, something clattered behind me. I swung about to see the photograph I had found on the rug earlier toppled again from the dressing table. I bent and picked it up and this time turned it over. My skin crawled.

  It was the child. The one I had mistaken for, imagined was, Molly. Slowly, I peeled back the note from the third photograph in my hand. It was the same child. And it was no little girl. I recalled what Dr. Tinseley had told me of Susie, how she’d dressed my employer as a little girl.

  Arthor.

  The voice came from outside the closed bedroom door. Seizing the latch, I flung it open in a panic, scarcely knowing whom, or what, to expect.

  There, in the shadows, stood Flossie.

  She wore her blue velvet cloak and clutched her white leather travelling case in both hands, looking remarkably as she had when I’d first seen her. But now there was in her face something sunken and weary that I regretted to see at once. She had only just returned, she said, and could not find the key she had left under the potted palm in the foyer.

  Then she added, with what seemed to me a strained cheerfulness, I thought maybe you could put me up for the night.

  I must have given her an odd look, for she said sharply, You needn’t look so shocked, Arthor. Did you think I was gone for good?

  I took the case gently enough from her fingers and pulled the door of the aunt’s room shut behind me, and led her wordlessly out to the stairs.

  Where have you been? I asked in a low voice.

  Did you miss me?

  I led her down to the foyer and set her case on the bottommost stair and rolled up my sleeves.

  The key wasn’t under the palm? I said.

  Without waiting for an answer, I tipped the heavy pot to one side and felt underneath. There was the key.

  Oh, how did I miss it under there? Flossie said flatly.

  I straightened, wiping my hands on my trousers.

  I passed by the other day, I said. And the lock was undone.

  Impossible, she said, taking the key. I watched her struggle with the lock an unreasonably long time. The clock chimed out the quarter hour and seemed to rattle her further. She shook the lock in frustration.

  I could remove that for you.

  Yes, you keep saying that, she said sharply.

  She seemed to note this sharpness herself, for when she spoke again her voice was softer, though still strained.

  I’ve been up in Boston, if you can believe it. That convention I told you about. My feet are killing me. Standing around eight hours a day in heels. They can have it. I told my agent so. I don’t need to work that bad. But how have you been? Come in and have a nightcap, do. I want to hear all about what you’ve been up to. How’s your aunt?

  My aunt?

  Silly, she teased flatly, batting my arm. You always say that.

  But she was only going through the motions. Even I could see that.

  Finally the lock clicked and she opened the door. I thought she seemed rather odd about it, pausing there a moment on the threshold, as if she did not want to enter. I handed her the travelling case.

  Aren’t you coming in? she said, and I detected, I thought, a note of panic there.

  I hadn’t better.

  Oh, please.

  I’ve a good deal of work.

  Oh, you terrible great baby, she cried. You’re sulking.

  Nonsense.

  You were worried about me, weren’t you.

  I scarcely knew how to reply. Flossie had struck me as the sort of girl who always landed on her feet, but I judged it best to allow her to believe I had been anxious indeed. Relations between women and men are often fraught with such little deceptions. What a laugh, as Flossie would say.

  Then I noticed she held something in her hand. A rolled magazine.

  What is that?

  What?

  In your hand?

  She genuinely seemed to have forgotten about it.

  Oh, she said, handing it to me, I picked it up upstairs, in your apartment.

  It unfurled slowly in my palm. The Weird Tales magazine I’d thrown into the trash can of my attic room.

  Where did you get this?

  I told you.

  You were in my room?

  What? Don’t be ridiculous. It was sitting right there on the kitchen table. I went in there first, looking for you. The light was on.

  But I certainly did not remember taking it there.

  Anyway, she said, smoothing the magazine flat in my palm, I saw it sitting there and picked it up, awful thing. I mean, really, Arthor, she’s hardly wearing anything at all; they needn’t have bothered. But, look, she said. She looks a bit like me.

  Now that she’d mentioned it, there was a faint resemblance. I rolled the picture of the woman, essentially nude, up again, embarrassed.

  You know, you might have left word, I allowed. A note, at the least.

  So you were worried. Well, good. I’m glad. I hope you were sick over it. A girl likes to be worried about now and then, you know. Now throw off your pouting and come in and keep me company while I put up my poor, bruised feet. You never know what sort of creatures might have found their way in here. Maybe one of yours.

  One of my what?

  She seized my arm, then, and to my surprise pulled me violently inside and shut the door behind us. I stood, rubbing my wrist, in that bright living room.

  Honestly, Flossie. Don’t be a child.

  She tucked in her chin, looking hurt. I just meant those things you make up, those monsters and things, like in that magazine you’ve got. I don’t like them, you know.

  Well, I don’t like them either.

  You write them.

  It doesn’t mean I like them.

  Who sounds like a child now?

  How had things devolved so quickly between us? I was glad to see her, I really was. But Jane …

  I’m sorry, I said. I’ve just had this terrible headache.

  She uncrossed her arms and stepped toward me then, laying a hand on my arm. Poor you, she said, sincerely. So different from Jane, who could nurse a grudge into the wee hours of the morning.

  Sit here, Flossie said, and put your feet up and I’ll make you a hot drink, to help you sleep. There now. I saw then a bottle of aspirin stood on the coffee table. She cranked the top off the bottle and shook two into my palm. Take your precious aspirin and just relax.

  She disappeared into the next room with her travelling case. When she was gone, I shook out two more aspirin into my mouth, leaning back into the sofa.

  I confess a part of me was pleased. I’d felt starved for the kind of light Flossie emanated; she was al
l clear sunlight where everything else was murky, dark. I put my head against the violet cushions. The electric light shone against the draperies, making the room dreamy, ethereal, and I closed my eyes, just for a moment.

  I must have dozed off. When I opened my eyes, the light had changed; the apartment was still and cold. The bottle of aspirin lay in my lap with the magazine. I listened for the sounds of Flossie puttering about in the kitchen but all was quiet. The air had, somehow, grayed. Something—I cannot explain it—felt so awful just then, so, I don’t know, frightening, so empty, that I was afraid to rise from the sofa. I pressed my eyes shut again.

  And then all at once Flossie was there, with two steaming mugs on a tray, smelling of cinnamon and green apple.

  Silly, she said. I saw you open your eyes. You can’t fool me. You’re going to have to sit up here and drink this like a good boy and keep me company. She stared at me hard, then. My goodness, she said, gently touching her fingertips to my temple. What’s happened?

  I scarcely know.

  Poor you, she said again.

  She sat down on the coffee table, facing me, and gave me a wobbly smile. Then, all at once, she started to cry.

  I stared at her, dumbfounded.

  What is it? I said. What’s happened?

  She shook her head, fumbled for a tissue in a box on the table, smiling as if she were surprised by it herself, as if it were not her but someone else weeping there.

  Something, obviously, I said.

  She was crying heavily now, great wracking sobs, and trying to catch her breath as she wept. I didn’t want to tell you before.

  Tell me what?

  She shook her head again.