Blackberry Winter: A Novel

by Sarah Jio

  I laughed. “Your Mini-Me?”

  Emily nodded. “I’m in for it. But Evelyn—we call her Evie—is our little peacemaker. The girls still share a crib, and when Nora wakes up crying, Evie pats her head. It’s the sweetest thing.”

  “Adorable,” I said, handing Evie another toy.

  Jack gestured toward the hallway. “Why don’t you take her to visit Bee?” he said to Emily. “She’s usually up from her nap about now.”

  “Yes,” Emily said, “Bee would love to see you.”

  I nodded and stood up, following Emily to a closed door at the end of the hallway. She knocked quietly, and moments later, we heard a feeble but friendly, “Come in.”

  Bee wore a white nightgown. She lay in her bed, propped up by pillows. A stack of books and magazines sat untouched on a table to her right. She stared blankly out the open window, where waves rolled quietly onto the shore.

  “Hello, dear,” Bee said, sitting up.

  Emily saw the breeze rustling the curtains and ran to close the window. “Bee, you must be frozen,” she scolded, pulling an extra blanket from a nearby chair and draping it over her aunt.

  “I miss the sea air,” Bee said. “I’d rather freeze to death than do without it.”

  “Well,” Emily said, fiddling with the thermostat, “fair enough. But let’s at least turn the heat up a bit in here.”

  Bee reached for a pair of glasses on the table. “Oh, you have company.”

  “Yes,” Emily said. “You remember my old friend Claire, don’t you, Bee?”

  “Of course, Claire,” she said, waving me over to her. “How are you, dear?”

  “As well as can be,” I said to Bee. “And you?”

  “Well,” she said sarcastically, “as well as one can be cooped up in this damn bed all day.”

  Her voice may have been feeble, but I was happy to see that her spirit remained strong.

  “You’re a writer, like Emily, aren’t you, dear?”

  I nodded. “Yes, I am. Emily and I met in college. She chose the more glamorous life of fiction, while I hit the gritty newsroom.”

  Bee smiled. “Oh, I remember. You write for the newspaper.”

  “Yes,” I said. “The Seattle Herald.”

  “What are you working on right now, dear? I read the paper cover to cover.” I remembered the stack of newspapers I’d seen piled up outside the bedroom door.

  “I’m working on a particularly interesting story right now,” I said. “About a little boy who disappeared in 1933. The day of the May snowstorm.”

  Bee looked startled. “I haven’t thought about that snowstorm in a long time,” she said.

  “You remember it?”

  She smiled, her eyes lost in memories. “I was just a girl. We were living in West Seattle then. Mother let us play in the snow all morning. It was a dream come true for a schoolgirl hoping to get out of her morning arithmetic lesson. And what a shock to all of us. Snow in May. The cold snap we had this week reminded me of it. So what did you say the little boy’s name was again?”

  “Daniel,” I said. “Daniel Ray. Probably no chance you’d remember him, right?”

  “Sorry,” she said. “I wish I did.” She folded her hands together thoughtfully. “But you might try talking to an old friend of mine. Lillian Sharpe. Well, she was Lillian Winchester when we went to school together in Seattle. Our families were old friends. Her father was one of Seattle’s most prominent attorneys in the 1930s. He took on several famous cases. I remember Lill thinking his work was very dull when we were young, but she became quite fascinated by his legacy as an adult. After he passed, she collected all of his files and donated most of them to a museum in Seattle. He took on some high-profile cases back then. Most have long since been forgotten, of course, but let’s see….” She paused, as if trying very hard to make the wheels in her mind turn faster. “Yes, he represented the woman who shot her husband. It was the talk of Seattle, that case. You should interview Lillian. It’s probably a long shot, but maybe she knows something about your missing boy.”

  “I’d love to talk to her,” I said. “I’ll look her up when I’m back in Seattle.”

  “I just saw her yesterday,” Bee said. “At the soda fountain. She didn’t like Esther much, but Evelyn…”

  Emily gave me a knowing look, then rubbed her aunt’s arm affectionately. “Bee, you must be remembering something from the past. We didn’t go to the soda fountain yesterday.”

  Bee looked startled, then embarrassed. “Oh yes,” she said. “Of course. The days sort of jumble together sometimes.”

  “I’m lucky if I can remember the year lately,” I chimed in.

  Bee gave me an appreciative grin, then reached for my hand. “It’s nice of you,” she said.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “What?”

  “It’s nice of you to care about a story from the past,” she continued. “So many young people don’t give a hootenanny about anything that doesn’t involve the here and now.”

  “Well,” I said, “the story captured me the moment I learned of it. There’s just something about a mother and her little boy separated. I couldn’t not pursue it.” I didn’t have the heart to tell her that my editor had killed the story. For me, however, it was very much alive.

  Bee nodded. “You’ll find your little boy,” she said assuredly.

  “I hope so,” I said, standing up.

  “Did you take your medicine?” Emily asked, hovering over her like a mother hen.

  Bee smirked and turned to me. “She’s always nagging me about my medicine, this one.”

  Emily grinned. “Someone’s got to keep that heart ticking.”

  “It’s nice to have someone nagging,” she whispered to me. “Frankly, I don’t know what I’d do without her.”

  “All right, you,” Emily said, pulling down the shade. “Time for rest. And no more open windows. You’ll catch pneumonia.”

  “Good-bye, Claire,” Bee said, shifting positions. “I hope you’ll come visit again. I’ll be looking for your story.”

  “I’ll send you a copy,” I said, walking to the hallway.

  I caught the six o’clock ferry home, and Gene greeted me where the cab dropped me off. “You just missed Ethan,” he said.

  “Oh?” I hadn’t heard from him all day; not that I expected to. We held grudges. If there were going to be an undoing of our marriage, that would be it.

  “Yeah,” Gene continued. “He was all dressed up. In a tux. Left in a cab ten minutes ago.”

  Where would my husband be going in a tux? Without me? My heart filled with the lonely realization that he was slipping away from me, like sand between my fingers. I could stop this. I could find him and take him into my arms. Tell him I love him. We could end this nonsense. The painful memories of the past began to seep into my mind, but I shooed them away. Reconciliation. It’s what my therapist had been pushing for all along. One of us needed to make the first step, she’d said. One of us needed to grab the other by the collar and say, ‘Look at us! We’re dying! We can fix this! We love each other!’ I’d been thinking about making that first step for months, but each time I tried to take one forward, we took two steps back, sometimes three. Not this time. I nodded to myself and held my hand out to the driver. “Wait a sec, please!” I yelled, before whipping my head back to Gene. “Did he say where he was going?”

  “Yes, some big event at the Olympic Hotel.” He looked nervous, as if he worried he’d just divulged a marriage-shattering secret. “I, um, assumed you were joining him.”

  “Thanks, Gene,” I said, ducking back into the cab. I turned to the driver. “Can you take me to the Olympic Hotel?”

  I clasped my hands together nervously as the cab approached the old building. I marveled at its ornate facade and intricate columns. Valets buzzed like bees, plucking keys and flying incoming cars off to inconspicuous parking garages. A couple arrived in a shiny black Mercedes-Benz a few feet ahead. The woman’s sequined dress sparkled as she took her date�
��s hand, shimmying her svelte body out of the car in five-inch heels. I glanced down at my own shoes, a pair of worn gray ballet flats with a black scuff on the right toe that I hadn’t bothered to buff out. I tried in vain to smooth the wrinkles from my shirt. When a tube of lipstick didn’t turn up in my purse, I ran a nervous hand through my wind-whipped hair. I regretted sitting on the outside deck of the ferry on the return trip to Seattle; the salty breeze had pulverized my hair into a mangled mess. I gathered my straggly locks into a tight bunch and tucked it into the rubber band I pulled from my wrist. I handed the driver a ten-dollar bill and stepped out of the cab.

  I approached a doorman clad in a black trench coat. “Is there an event happening here tonight?” I asked, peering through the gold-trimmed glass doors ahead, trying to make out the scene.

  He eyed me suspiciously. “Yes. It’s invitation only.” He turned toward a young woman, no more than twenty-five, a few feet away. She clutched a clipboard. The PR type. “Talk to Lisa,” he said to me. “You have to be on the list.”

  “Hi,” I said to her. “I’m Claire Aldridge.”

  She scanned the clipboard and then looked back at me with a satisfied smirk. “Sorry,” she said. “I can’t seem to find your name.”

  I shook my head. “No, no,” I said. “I’m not here for the event. My husband’s inside.”

  She looked doubtful, as if considering the possibility that I was making up a creative story to get access. “If you’re not on the list, you’re not on the list.”

  “Listen,” I said, “my husband is—” Just then I spotted Ethan. The scene was a bit blurred through the glass doors, but he looked handsome; that much was clear. Tuxedos were made for Ethan. He held a champagne flute to his lips, then nodded and waved at someone across the room. The man knew how to work a crowd. I recalled the way he’d weaved through the tables at our wedding reception with such ease and grace, while I’d plodded along behind him awkwardly, dreading the nonstop stream of well-wishes and mandatory hugging. Social anxiety, my therapist said. Lots of people have it. Not Ethan. Inside, the room sparkled, from the enormous crystal chandelier overhead to the glint of the jewels draped around women’s necks.

  I pointed to Ethan. I didn’t feel like Mrs. Ethan Kensington. Instead I was thirteen again, lanky, wearing cutoff jeans and a Hypercolor T-shirt, nose pressed against the rusty chain-link fence behind my junior high school, alone, watching the popular girls play basketball. This time, I spoke up. “See?” I said. “My husband’s right there. Ethan Kensington.”

  She looked at me with scrutinizing eyes, as if it were a good possibility I only wanted to score free champagne and all-you-can-eat stuffed mushrooms and crudités. “Listen,” she said, “I can’t let you inside if you don’t have an invitation.”

  My heart lightened when I saw Ethan turn toward the entrance. He’d bound through the doors, and I’d run to him. I’d take his cheeks in my hands and tell him I was ready to end this war. Ready to try again. He set an empty champagne flute down on a waiter’s tray and selected two more. He smiled as he walked toward the foyer. I waved. But then my heart sank when a woman walked toward him and kissed him on the cheek. He handed her the second glass of champagne. I was so close, I could see the fizzy bubbles in the glass. It took a second before I realized who she was, and then it hit me like an arrow to the heart.

  Cassandra.

  I shuddered, watching them together. They smiled. They laughed. She placed her hand on his arm flirtatiously. Part of me wanted to charge through the doors and tear her hand off of my husband’s sleeve. Instead, I reached into my bag and fished out my cell phone. I dialed Ethan’s number, and held the phone to my ear. A moment later, I watched through the doors as he pulled his phone out of his pocket. He glanced at the screen, said something to Cassandra, and walked a few steps toward the door. I slunk back, worried he would see me through the glass.

  “Claire?” His voice sounded distant, foreign over the phone line, even though he stood mere feet from me. “Is everything all right?”

  I felt too numb to answer. I thought about all the things I wanted to say to the man I loved, all the things I had rehearsed on the cab ride over. But when presented with the opportunity, I could only stare at my scuffed shoes.

  “Claire, are you still there?”

  “I’m here,” I said, my voice cracking. I bit my lip.

  “You don’t sound well, honey,” he said. “Listen, why don’t I come home? I’m just at a work function. I can cut out early.”

  I peered through the window and watched Cassandra pop an hors d’oeuvre into his mouth. She grinned at him, and helped herself to another on a nearby tray.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I’m eating on the fly tonight.”

  “Right,” I said, pulling myself together. “Never mind. I didn’t mean to interrupt. I have to go.”

  I watched as Ethan walked back to Cassandra’s side. She spoke, her face animated, and he laughed, before they meandered deeper into the crowd.

  “Excuse me,” the woman with the clipboard said in a voice that was both syrupy sweet and exceedingly annoyed. “We really have to keep this entrance free to invited guests.”

  “Yes,” I said, with no attempt to try to mask the defeat in my voice. “I was just leaving.”

  Chapter 13

  VERA

  Sitting at the table with Lon was painful. Not because of the pressure of the corset binding my waist or the heat of his gaze, like fire, on my chest. No, it was seeing the faces of the people I’d worked with, the faces of disappointment. Lou, the old jolly doorman, once a father figure to me, looked away as I walked in on Lon’s arm. Two maids whom I’d counted as friends, Jenny and Vivien, gave me sour looks in the lobby before turning back to the sconces they were dusting. I didn’t blame them for feeling betrayed. Primped and pressed in clothes that didn’t belong to me, I stood for everything we all detested about the upper class and their penchant for taking what they wanted. But I couldn’t worry about that now. I felt a lump in my throat and closed my eyes, long enough to see Daniel’s face, his soft cheeks, those blond silky curls hanging over his blue eyes. He always waited there in the dark quiet of my mind.

  “What’s the sad look for, dollface?” Lon asked before prying open a crab leg with his teeth. A drip of butter rolled off his chin. “Why don’t you eat?” he said, pointing to the decadence laid out on the table.

  The tears were coming. I couldn’t stop them now. “I’m sorry, Mr.—I mean, Lon,” I said. “It’s my son. I miss him terribly.”

  “Now, now,” he said. “I’m sure he’s just fine.”

  Just fine? I dug my fingernails into the upholstery of the chair. How can everyone be so dismissive about a lost boy? A child of three is missing, and no one cares. I buried my face in my hands, feeling Lon’s warm, moist hand on my shoulder a moment later.

  “I’ll make some calls in the morning,” he said, trying to console me.

  “In the morning?” I cried, looking up at him. “I beg your pardon, but couldn’t you call tonight?”

  Lon shook his head. “All the offices are closed, darling,” he said. “Tomorrow.”

  I nodded.

  “Now,” he said, “let’s get you upstairs. You can relax there.”

  I stood up hesitantly, dabbing a crisp cloth napkin against my cheek to blot a fresh tear. Lon held out his hand to me, and I took it reluctantly. He gave it a suffocating squeeze as he led me through the restaurant out to the lobby. I saw the elevator ahead. Servants weren’t allowed to use the guests’ elevator, with its ornate trim and shiny brass knobs. But I’d stepped inside it before, the first time I’d been a guest of the hotel. With Charles. I’d ended up in a bed of soft down. The bed where Daniel was conceived.

  Four Years Prior

  Charles picked me up at seven. A week had passed since he had exited the dance floor in such a hurry, ushered away by his prickly sister. I’d thought of him every day after that, particularly in the evenings, after my shifts at the rest
aurant, when the apartment was quiet. That night, I slid into the front seat of his Buick. It smelled of finery—leather; good, sweet-smelling tobacco; and cologne. “Hi,” he said, grinning. I felt my heart race faster the moment our eyes met.

  “I’ve missed you,” he said, tucking a stray lock of hair behind my ear. His fingers sent a chill down my neck. A good chill.

  “I’ve missed you, too,” I said. “How’s your mother?”

  “Much better,” he replied. “Pneumonia. The doctor was able to catch it just in time.” He tilted his head to the right, peering deeper into my eyes. “I’ve been feeling terribly, leaving you at the dance hall like I did.”

  “Don’t think of it,” I said. “Your family needed you.”

  He shrugged. “Well, it wouldn’t have killed my sister to be a little kinder. Don’t be offended by her, though. That’s just Josie. She disapproves of every girl I’ve ever taken out.”

  “Oh,” I said, looking at my lap.

  Charles inched closer to me. “That came out wrong,” he said. “I don’t mean to imply that she disapproves of you, Claire. She’s just, well…”

  “A snob?”

  He smiled playfully. “Why, yes.”

  “It’s all right,” I said.

  He stepped on the gas pedal and turned the car into the street. Nobody I knew had a car. I relished the sound of the engine and the jazz playing on the radio. “Why don’t we head over to the Cabaña Club? We could grab some dinner, and maybe try our luck with dancing again.”

  “I’d love that,” I said, pressing my cheek against his shoulder.

  Seattle looked glorious from inside the Buick, its windshield like a pair of rose-colored glasses blurring the world outside into a lovelier place. From my comfortable seat, I did not see the shadowy apartment buildings where dozens of poor families I knew dined on stale bread, nor did I notice the trash-strewn alleys where young children played jacks, unattended, while their mothers, as mine had, worked late into the night in the homes of the city’s elite. Instead, I let myself dream about what it might be like to live in Charles’s world, a place where life was handed to you, pressed and polished, on a platter.