Monarch Manor

by Maureen Leurck

  He looked at her in surprise, his white brows lifting toward the starched cap on his head. He studied her face before cracking a smile. “Funny joke, Mrs. Cartwright.”

  She didn’t return the smile. “Not a joke. I want to take a ride out onto the lake. One more ride.”

  Captain Scott dropped his arms to his sides, frowning. “There is a storm coming, the same storm that I mentioned earlier today. It’s simply not safe.”

  “It’s not here yet. It’s still over Fontana, and seems to be taking a long time to get here.” She looked down at John and swallowed hard. “I promised him. Please. We should have been on one of the earlier boats, but he fell and I was taking care of him. Please,” she said again, her voice crackling. John’s eyes were wide, his head snapping back and forth between her and the captain.

  He looked down at John and then out again over the lake, toward the gathering clouds, and slowly exhaled. “Fine. But it will be a quick trip, and we can only stay on this side of the lake, not far from shore. Understood?”

  She nodded and jiggled John’s hand. “Ready to go for a ride?” she signed.

  * * *

  “Em, what are you doing?” Matthew called from the dock as Amelia and John began to step onto the gangplank to the boat.

  Amelia faltered and made a motion for John to continue onto the boat, and she turned to Matthew as John settled into one of the wooden benches on the yacht.

  “It’s just a quick trip. I promised John.” She slowly turned and looked at the dark clouds, still far enough away from the estate to interrupt anything. “We will be back before even a drop of rain falls, I promise.”

  Matthew took a step forward and placed a hand on her arm. “I know you’re upset about Margaret, and I don’t think your head’s in the right place right now. Please, it’s too dangerous.”

  Amelia took a step away from him, toward the yacht, and stood on the gangplank to the boat. “It will be perfectly safe. We will be back in just a few minutes. John really wanted to see the party from the boat. Please, have a glass of champagne waiting for me, and we can sit together on the porch and watch everyone be soaked by the rain, if they are even of sound mind enough to realize they’re wet.” She laughed, but it was hollow and fell to the ground and burst into a million pieces.

  “Then I’m coming with you,” he said, and took a step toward the boat.

  “No.” He stopped in surprise at her tone. “Please, no. I want to be alone with my son. Please,” she said again before she turned toward the water.

  “Amelia—” Matthew said, his hand outstretched, but she continued onto the ramp.

  She sat next to John, her arm around him. She pulled him close and kissed the top of his head. “Ready?” she signed, and he nodded. She couldn’t look up, into Matthew’s eyes, for everything she had planned and arranged might fall into dust. She didn’t trust herself to let him see her, and all that she was willing to do.

  The captain wearily walked down the dock. As he did, Rose Savington saw him boarding and screeched in delight. She ran toward the yacht, her heels digging into the uneven grass as she tipped forward and to the side, her glass of champagne sloshing all over her pale blue skirt.

  “Oh! I still haven’t been on the yacht yet!” She lurched up the metal stairs, dockhands rushing to her side to prevent her from tipping over the railing and falling into the water below. She fell into a seat in front of Amelia, waving toward her friends on the lawn, until they, too, boarded the yacht.

  “Rose, you know I get seasick on these things,” Georgina Lindemann grumbled as she sat down next to her. She turned around and shot a look of disdain at John and Amelia before turning back to Rose. “And it’s supposed to rain. If my gown gets wet, I’m sending you the bill.”

  Amelia peeked over the railing, down to the water around the boat. It was dark, but she knew the bottom wasn’t far below. That part of the lake appeared much deeper than it was, with black water swirling around the edges. She swallowed hard and pulled John closer to her as she imagined how cold the center of the lake was and how deep it was to the bottom. The yacht rocked from side to side as the wind picked up, causing Georgina and Rose in front of her to fall into each other, dissolving into laughter as they tried to sit upright. Georgina lit a cigarette, barely making it to her lips.

  As Amelia settled back into her seat, she saw a figure in a pale pink dress running toward the dock, one hand on her skirt and the other in the air. Eleanor kicked off her pink slippers as she ran toward the boat, leaving them next to the cocktail table at the end of the pier, where the guests had picked up glasses of champagne and brandy when they disembarked the yacht a few hours before.

  Amelia rose and signed to John to stay, and he nodded and looked out again at what was left of the floating Chinese lanterns over the lake, just a few dotting the sky like lighthouse beacons, ready to steer sailors into safe passage. She stepped around Charles Wacker and hurried toward the staircase to the dock.

  “Coming along for a cruise?” she said lightly, her hand resting on the wooden railing decorated with pink ribbons.

  Eleanor reached forward and grabbed her by the wrist, tugging gently. “Matthew told me. He’s worried. It’s too dangerous, Amelia. Please don’t do this.” She pressed her lips into a thin line, tugging again at her sister, who didn’t move.

  Amelia gave her a shaky smile. “It’s just a quick trip. Like I said, I promised John. He will be devastated if he doesn’t get one ride out on the water.” She held a hand up when she saw Eleanor’s frown deepen. “I promise we will be safe.” She leaned forward and whispered, “Captain said we will be fine.” She pointed a finger behind her, in the direction of Rose Savington and Georgina Lindemann. “If anything happens, we will throw them off first.” She laughed lightly.

  “This is a terrible idea. There is lightning over there, Amelia. You can’t put yourself or John in that kind of danger, no matter what you promised,” Eleanor said. Her voice rose, and Amelia straightened her spine.

  “We will be back before you know it,” she said with a quick nod. She turned around and began to walk toward John on the boat. The vessel swayed back and forth again, and she stopped, steadying herself on one of the chairs. And a memory came to her quickly.

  It was of the first summer at Monarch Manor, when she and Eleanor were ten and thirteen years old. When her father had presented the Monarch Princesses to Mary and asked the captain to take them on a cruise around the lake, Amelia was too afraid to step on board. The lake was choppy that morning, and the boat swayed back and forth next to the dock. Jane had happily jumped on, holding their mother’s hand. But Amelia remained on the dock, frozen, unable to step onto the wooden walkway that led to the moving boat.

  Eleanor was right behind her, waiting. After a moment, Eleanor grabbed her hand and whispered into her ear, “I will be right here. I promise I won’t let go. Trust me.”

  Amelia had squeezed her sister’s hand tighter than she thought possible, certain she was going to break a bone. But Eleanor didn’t so much as flinch as she led her on board, sat next to her, and put her arm around her shoulders.

  “Trust me.” Her sister’s words echoed in Amelia’s ears once again as she boarded the Monarch Princesses.

  Amelia turned back to Eleanor, hand lifted in the air. “Eleanor, can you do me one favor?” Before her sister could reply, she continued, “I forgot to ask Alfred to feed the baby bunnies in our garden. With the events of the day, it slipped my mind. I don’t think their mother is coming back, so please remind him to do so before any rain falls.”

  Eleanor’s brows knitted together in confusion, and her mouth twisted to the side, open slightly. “Amelia, is that really—”

  “Please do it, Eleanor. It will weigh on my mind heavily. Please,” she repeated. She walked over to John and sat back down next to him, putting an arm around his shoulders and pulling him close.

  Eleanor still stood on the dock as the captain approached, walking around her to the stairway, and
boarding the yacht. She hitched up her dress, and for a heart-stopping moment Amelia thought that she was going to step onto the boat, but she remained on the dock.

  “Don’t forget!” Amelia called to her sister as the dockhands pulled up the staircase, folding it onto the yacht before they passed out life jackets to the passengers.

  Captain Scott stood at the helm, his hands on the steering wheel. He turned around slowly and gave her a grim nod before he pulled the boat away from the dock, the steam billowing out from the top of the smokestack.

  Amelia kissed the top of John’s head and first looked out at her sister, and then up at the estate in the background, her eyes floating up to the corner room, her childhood bedroom. Where she and her sisters had spent so many nights whispering long after bedtime, telling one another stories about beautiful princesses, handsome knights, and evil witches. They all wore the same white nightgowns, with eyelet lace on the hems and sleeves, and their hair was long and fell around their shoulders.

  It was the Before. Before engagements, and marriages, and decisions, and children. Before death, tragedy, and heartbreak.

  It was like the lake water in the morning, crystal clear and perfect. Beautiful, before the rest of the world disturbed it.

  Just as the lake was impossible to calm once the day had begun, they could never again touch their past.

  She looked out onto the water and closed her eyes as the yacht headed away from shore.

  CHAPTER 24

  ERIN

  On the day when we were due to tour Lakewood Academy, the private school for Will, I watched the sun come up for the third consecutive morning. It was a Thursday, and since the week had started I had fallen asleep quickly at night but woken up each morning around 4:00 am, unable to return to sleep as I let the demons of stress circle around my ankles and pull me over the anxiety cliff.

  There were so many things to consider: What if we loved the school? How would we ever pay for it? What if we hated the school? What other options did we have? And most important: What was the best thing for Will? Would we even know anymore?

  Every question, and thus every answer, felt like we were choosing a path for Will, with very little room to make a mistake.

  It reminded me of something my grandmother once said when Katie and I visited her in Powers Lake all those years ago. Just around the curve of the lake, on a diagonal from the green-covered pier where we spent our days, was the only thing that could be considered a marina on Powers Lake. It was part of the restaurant Harbor Lights, with a couple of piers for boat rentals, and some houses. All of the docks were close together, and one afternoon my grandmother was sitting on the pier with Katie and me and she pointed to a rowboat approaching Harbor Lights.

  The dad inside the rowboat was carefully navigating the water, heading into the pier to presumably return the boat or maybe to go inside the restaurant. The kids sat up front in bright orange life jackets, looking unhappy at their boat ride coming to an end. The dad seemed to be heading to the pier on the very end, closest to the mossy pond part of the shore where Katie and I always threatened to shove each other on our daily walks. Yet he miscalculated the exact angle to steer the boat and realized the boat would barely fit on that side of the dock. So he began trying to furiously row backward, to adjust and dock at a different pier, but it was too late. His adjustment, mid-docking, caused him to crash sideways into the pier and dump the kids out among the lily pads and seaweed.

  The kids were fine, albeit covered in green slime and moss, since the depth was only a few feet, but their screams made everyone in Kenosha County believe otherwise. And Katie and I learned some new, creative uses for the curse words we already knew.

  “See, girls? That’s why you should always be sure where you want to end up when you start something,” my grandmother had said.

  Of course, at the time, at thirteen, I didn’t think she meant anything other than parking a boat. Yet, as I sat and watched the sunrise nearly twenty years later, her words came back to me in a rush, and their meaning took my breath away as the sun began to peek out from the horizon, illuminating the enormous maple tree in my front yard.

  We need to be certain of where we want Will to end up when we decide on his school.

  Of course, it wasn’t that easy. There was what I wanted, there was what he would want, and then there was what was possible. Before I had kids, it never occurred to me that I would have to make a decision about something so monumental when my child was five.

  I always thought that I would do anything for my children and anything to help Will. Of course, I assumed that meant tracking down doctors, losing sleep, and spending all of our savings. I never once imagined it might mean changing my vision for his future.

  The thoughts stayed with me that morning as I dropped the kids off at school. They stayed with me as I met Luke in the parking lot of Lakewood Academy, and as I got out of the car and looked up at the redbrick building and noticed that the sunlight was illuminating the sign.

  “Hey,” Luke said as I walked over to his car. He still sat inside, staring down at sales numbers in his black work notebook.

  “I know you don’t want to do this,” I said quickly.

  He looked up in surprise. “I just think it’s such an extreme step. That we would be giving up on him in some way,” he said quietly.

  I nodded, brushing a piece of hair out of my eyes. “I know. Believe me, I know. But we have to see if this is even an option we should consider.”

  He got out of the car and I started toward the school, but he put a hand on my upper arm. “I’ll try to keep an open mind, Erin. I really will.”

  I swallowed hard, glancing at the school again.

  * * *

  “And this is the sensory room, where each student is encouraged to self-regulate when they need.” The school’s director, a woman named Valerie Halas, walked us through a room filled with exercise balls to bounce on, mini trampolines, a corner filled with foam blocks, and an entire bookshelf filled with sensory toys such as rubber balls, chewable necklaces, and fidgets.

  “And when do they come in here? During Occupational Therapy time?” I said as I observed a girl around Will’s age, quietly and happily humming as she spun on a disk in the corner.

  Valerie shook her head, her white hair floating around her shoulders like a permed cloud. “No. We believe a child cannot learn until they are regulated, so they are welcome to come here whenever they need. Who are we to say when they need OT or not? He will get as much as he needs, no limits.” She took in our wide eyes and smiled. “We have a lot of flexibility here since we are a private school.”

  “Sounds like it.” I thought of Will’s last IEP meeting in preschool, when the weary OT told us she could only offer him forty minutes per week of therapy and then whispered to us as we left that he needed much more, but the district had tied her hands.

  “And here is one of our classrooms,” Valerie said as we stopped at an observation window outside of a classroom. In the front, a young, cute teacher stood in front of a smart board, teaching what looked to be a lesson on how to read a map to a group of children of various ages. Some looked to be learning the information at an age-appropriate time, and others, much older.

  Valerie nodded, as though she could read my thoughts. “You’ll see students of varying ages in each classroom. The learning is also student-led. If a child shows an aptitude for, say, math, that student can excel in grades beyond their age. If they struggle with another subject, they will be grouped with learners at that level also, regardless of age. Again, it’s all student-led and about flexibility. It’s somewhat of a Montessori approach to children with special needs.”

  Luke cleared his throat. “What is the staff to student ratio?”

  “Very good. Two to one,” Valerie said proudly.

  “How can that—” I started to say when I looked around the classroom again and noticed the adults lingering around. One was sitting next to a girl who was fidgeting, and helping her pi
ck up her pencil. Another appeared to be helping another student follow along on a modified sheet.

  “Of course, our aides will certainly back off if a child shows independence, but the help is there for them should they need it. Shouldn’t we give them every tool to learn as much as they can?” Valerie said with a smile.

  We followed her down a hallway to her office, marked Administration. Luke and I settled into two brown leather chairs opposite her desk, and she pulled out a black folder and set it in front of her.

  “This is the admission packet for new students here. I encourage you to look through it, and let me know if you have any questions,” she said.

  I gingerly reached forward, my chair creaking and cracking under me, and handed it to Luke. He opened it, and I saw his eyes bulge out at the first page. Tuition, I thought. I swallowed hard.

  “It’s a lot to process, and there are a lot of decisions to be made, I’m sure. I just want to reiterate, we truly do commit to each child. We believe that setting them on the right course during these early years does make all the difference,” Valerie said.

  * * *

  “How many zeros to make a difference?” I said lightly as we walked to our cars. I laughed, but it never lifted, like a half-deflated balloon barely hovering above the ground.

  “Close to what you thought,” he said, the folder tucked under his arm. A look of sad relief passed over his face.

  “Are you going to tell me or do I have to play The Price Is Right? Closest to the dollar without going over?” We stopped at Luke’s car, and he wordlessly handed me the folder. There, inside, was the number: $60,000 per year.

  Something between a laugh and a cry escaped my mouth. I quickly shut the folder. “Oh,” was all I said.

  “Well, we have our answer: not an option. We should have asked for the number before we wasted our time,” Luke said tightly before he got into his car.