She stopped in front of a two-family clapboard with a half porch in front and a second entrance under a small portico to the side. Out of the sidewalk grew an ancient sycamore tree and a gas street lantern, long ago converted to electricity. Up in the third story, she saw a small porthole window which looked down on Benefit Street. Winna turned on her heels and looked across the street. Just a little to the north, on a rise above the sidewalk, sat a colonial mansion. She was looking at Nightingale House. She stood there a moment taking in the exhilaration she felt. I see just what he saw. Could this poet—this thief—have been my grandfather? And why do I have tears in my eyes?
35
WINNA DROVE HOME questioning herself. Why had she jumped to the conclusion that the poetic thief was her grandfather? She’d never been attached to her Poppa Edwin, who worked long hours every day of the week but one. On Sundays, she would find him in the library behind a newspaper or one of his history books. He seemed alone—maybe the loneliest person she had ever known—sitting in the shadows, huddled under his reading lamp, his feet propped up on the footstool, a cloud of cigar smoke circling his head. Though he had a large appetite, he looked like a string bean. He was afraid of everything: cold drafts, not chewing each bite of food twenty times before swallowing, your stomach being eaten away by the Coke you just drank, your features freezing into the ugly face you just made.
When Winna was very small, she would sit on his lap and he’d blow big floaty smoke-rings for her. When she got tired of that, he would wiggle his ears. He taught her how to wiggle hers. She wondered if she still could. Wishing for a mirror, she flexed her ear-wiggling muscles and laughed at herself.
Winna thought back to his long canoe-like feet. He’d ask her to put her own small foot up next to his and they’d laugh at the difference. When Juliana wasn’t looking, she would urge her grandfather to drop his false teeth. If her grandmother caught him doing that, he’d get a scolding. Besides Cuban cigars, he had a passion for ice cream and ate a dish of it every night before bed.
She had loved him because he was funny and he was her grandfather and because you are supposed to love the people in your family, but he had never offered to show her his world, nor asked to enter hers.
Winna shrugged her shoulders. That’s the way men were back then—none of this diapering babies, pushing strollers around, giving mom a break from childcare like Hugh does for Emily.
In an attempt to organize her thoughts, she stopped along the road to make notes. She parked in grass growing alongside the right lane, so close that the car shook as tractor-trailers barreled past.
On a notepad, she wrote: Check details in J’s story—read between the lines. Go with evidence not coincidence. “Chloe says she doesn’t believe in coincidence,” she said aloud. “But I do.”
Her thoughts turned to the present. Who is searching the Seventh Street house? She couldn’t imagine. Did someone tamper with my brakes—what about the stair rail? She returned to that night her brakes had failed: John’s kisses, driving down the mountain, sharp curves, hidden precipices, pumping the brakes, the sound of her tires screaming on the curves. Did someone want her dead? Who?
Cars and trucks whizzed past, their wakes violently shaking her car. A driver leaned on his horn as he approached. She clapped her hands over her ears. Terrified, she restarted her car and moved farther to the right, off the road. She was shaking.
Winna took a deep breath and forced herself to relax. She wanted to believe that she was suggestible, that the break-ins had threatened her sense of security, that she was imagining that someone had wanted her to drive off that mountain. Had the stairs been tampered with—and the rail? No one had suggested it. Did Seth say the rail had been touched up with paint? She knew it hadn’t—at least not under her direction.
Look into the fall. Make list of break-ins and dates, she wrote. Where was Todd? Where was Seth? Where was—she paused, her hands broke out in sweat as she wrote, John?
THE HOUSE IN New Castle welcomed her home in a way that it hadn’t the other day. She stocked the kitchen with food and settled in. On her way home from the market, she took a detour into town and drove by the old house—Walt’s house.
Mornings, Walt and lawyer lady were at work and she would not be seen. She stopped the car and stared at the large gray-shingled house where she had lived for over twenty years, where she had been under the illusion that she was living the good life as a wife and mother. The front door glared at her. Thinking red or a deep forest green too traditional, Winna had the door painted bright yellow. She drove away feeling like a peeping Tom, wondering what was wrong with Walt’s new wife, why the door had not been repainted.
Settling in back at home, she called her realtor and made an appointment for him to come see the house. He could come later that day. She called the kid who mowed the lawn and paid some bills. She followed that with business calls. A cup of tea in hand, she rang two old friends. She called Emily to tell her about her find—Adolph Whitaker was a thief—at least she thought so. What did Emily think?
“Sounds pretty obvious to me,” she said.
After lunch, she was ready to rest. To help get the house in Grand Junction out of mind, she picked up a book she’d been reading and stretched out on the window seat in the living room with a pillow under her head.
“Sometimes I feel loneliest when I’m with people,” the heroine said. “Solitude is different. In solitude I enjoy being with me.”
Winna had suffered loneliness after her divorce. She stopped to think what solitude meant to her. Her work required solitude and she thought of it as her friend.
The following words she read aloud: “I’ve lived with him for years, now there is something in our blood and bones that no change in us can alter.”
She read it again thinking of John, not Walt. Something still lingers in our blood and bones that no changes in us have changed. The words hit her hard and her eyes filled up with tears. Was that something the reason her marriage had failed? Why she and Walt had never experienced the intense physical love she had shared with John?
She had hidden her past from Walt. She wanted him to believe she was good, unspoiled, a virgin—someone he could proudly marry. She had never again wanted to hear the ugly words Johnny had spat at her—words and thoughts that were part of the culture then.
She had never been able to let herself go and had always been guarded in her response to Walt in bed. Then it came to her—that long-ago vow she had made when she thought she was pregnant with Johnny’s child. She had promised God that she would never want sex again.
Now, she wondered how different things might have been if she had loved him freely. Winna sat up and put her feet on the floor, wiping her tears on the back of her hand. She felt like a door had opened in her mind, like Walt had been wronged, like she could finally see what she had done to the marriage. She wished she could tell him that she now understood why he had sought the love of another woman. Maybe someday she could.
Feeling thankful, like a light had gone on in her mind and heart, she lay down and clasped the book to her breast. Closing her eyes, she let herself rest again. She thought about the house, the one where she lay in a window seat with a view of the ocean. She had lived there nearly three years, not enough time to collect many memories—but one came to mind.
After the separation, Emily had come for a visit. She had stayed half the week with her mother and the rest in town with her father. Emily had always loved the island and its history. Everywhere in the landscape and the architecture one saw traces of the past.
One morning, Winna woke up to the smell of coffee and found Emily making French toast. She no longer remembered why she had burst into tears in front of her daughter, but she thought back to the moment when Emily had embraced her and whispered in her ear, “Mom, you don’t really love Dad. I’ve known that for a long time. Right now you are just jealous because he has someone else.”
Winna had felt hurt by her words and wanted to protest,
but instead she kissed her daughter and held onto her embrace. Emily was right. The marriage was convenient, not nurturing—not for her, not for him.
After breakfast, Emily cleaned up while Winna toured the garden to see what was left after the frost. She found butternut squash, beets, and cabbages. Chores done, they decided to take a walk in the woods.
Heading across the lawn in the back of the house—over a fence and around an overgrown field full of goldenrod and roseberry bushes—they came to a stone wall built hundreds of years before around a small field. Inside, the field had reforested with trees—oaks for the most part. Animals must have grazed there because the grass was trim. The scene was almost park-like, but an eerie light radiated from the overcast sky through the trees down to the nibbled grass. Emily stopped at the wall and gasped. In that light, the old field seemed enchanted. As if they had come to the edge of a window into the past, they stood there in silence unwilling to move or speak.
From her perch at the window, Winna turned on her side, tucked a second pillow under her head, and looked out at the view. She promised herself that early tomorrow morning she would visit the enchanted field. She wanted to see if her camera could capture the feeling she and Emily had experienced in that place. She would go, knowing that once missed, an image is gone forever.
She fell into a peaceful place and slept for a while. The doorbell woke her. Disoriented, she sat up and looked around at the room and out to the sea. She answered the door, inviting the realtor in.
“I am so sorry,” Winna said. “I didn’t have time to call to cancel our appointment. I just now realized it—I could never sell this house.”
36
ON THE FLIGHT from Boston to Denver, Winna thought hard about the fact that she no longer knew what she wanted. All of a sudden, she had too many choices. Or were they problems? She was obsessed by the past. She had two houses she loved and two men on her mind—one whom she had just forgiven. She had become a wealthy woman, but it had not been enjoyable because she thought someone wished her harm. Questions, fears, and wild suppositions never let up during the whole flight. She wished that while she was in Portsmouth she had gone to talk to her priest about all her fears. She dreaded her return to the town where she was born.
In Denver, she boarded one of the small planes that flew west over the mountains. Even though she knew what to expect, she prayed, trying to make bargains with God. The plane rattled and shook as it flew through crosswinds and down drafts off the mountains. At one point, she looked out the window. The aircraft’s wings were shuddering. She held on, wondering if she would survive to find the answers to her questions. By the time the plane bounced onto the runway, Winna was relieved to be back in Grand Junction.
Unsteady as a landlubber just in from the sea, she found her car in the parking lot and drove to the house on Seventh Street. Once inside, she called John.
“I’m home. I’m exhausted and still airsick and, after a bath and a scotch, I’m going straight to bed to nurse my wounds.”
“What wounds? Are you all right?” he asked.
“Yes, I just feel damn silly. I flew all that way to sell a house I can’t sell.”
“Nobody says you have to sell your house, Winna.”
He was right. It had been her idea. Winna’s mind was too unsettled for any further conversation. They signed off with a promise to talk tomorrow. They had agreed to get together soon—he wanted to cook dinner for her again, up on Little Park Road.
Once she had dragged in her suitcase and camera equipment, she realized that she would not rest until she went over her list. She poured herself a scotch and pulled out the list she had made on her way from Providence to New Castle.
With a quick snap of the mind, it occurred to her that if it meant driving down that road again at night, she did not want to go to dinner at John’s. She didn’t care how silly he thought she was.
Winna read the through her list. One thing needed immediate attention—to check the details in Juliana’s story, making sure to read between the lines. The search was on. She must find the notebook. After looking in every room, every drawer in the library and kitchen, Winna knew it wasn’t there. The thief had it.
IN THE MORNING, Winna felt nauseated again, as if she was still on the plane. After a cup of tea and dry toast, she fled the house. She had to get away—get some groceries. Feeling angry, but unable to assign the emotion to anyone or anything specific, she drove to City Market’s crowded parking lot where she had to park all the way over in front of Herb’s Pet Ranch. On a whim, she wandered in.
There didn’t seem to be anyone around. Feeling aimless, Winna browsed for a while through the dog toys, fondling a stuffed chipmunk guaranteed to stand up to dog play. She heard canaries chirruping and followed the call past aquariums full of darting neon lights. Suddenly, she burst into tears, glad that no one was around to see her shudder as she tried to regain her composure. Turning away, she found herself standing in front of a glass enclosure full of puppies in wire crates stacked one on top of the other. She walked along the glass looking at their eager faces; tails wagged, some yelped, others seemed to cry with joy at the sight of her. They were all adorable. Winna wanted one. She looked at the puppies with purpose, as if she was going to make a purchase.
I don’t have time to raise a puppy. They are as much work as a baby. Having gotten a grip on reality, she turned and walked toward the exit. As she pushed the door open, she came face to face with a homemade sign advertising two-year-old Pembroke Welsh Corgis, fully pedigreed, fully housebroken, and free to good homes. A phone number was hand-printed on tags across the bottom of the sign. Wondering why the offer was free, Winna tore off a number and slipped it into her pocket. Here’s an alarm system I can love.
THE MOMENT SHE stepped through the kitchen door with her groceries, Winna’s dread returned. She didn’t know why. The sky wasn’t falling, the world wasn’t coming to an end. It made no sense to her. She unpacked her purchases, put everything away, and picked up the phone to call Emily.
“Something’s wrong with me,” she said. “All of a sudden I feel awful in this house.”
“No kidding,” her daughter said. “It’s about time. You’ve been blithely walking around on a cloud all this time. It’s about time you woke up.”
“What would you think if I got a dog?”
Emily said nothing for a moment. “Well, that’s a step in the right direction. Dogs bark. They let you know when you are no longer alone on your property.”
“I thought of that.”
“Look, Mom, you’ve been through a lot. Get away from the house for a day, even a few hours would help.”
“I just got home from a trip.”
“Go out for lunch, think seriously about a dog. Go for a long drive. Come up here if you want. You can help me fold laundry.”
“So you think what I’m feeling is normal?”
“Yes. Think about it.”
“That’s a relief.”
“Mom, you are a riot. Call me tonight. I’ll want to hear how you spent your day and I’ll expect it to be good. Hey, it just occurred to me—we’re going up to Hanging Lake tomorrow and you’re coming with us.”
WINNA WALKED TOWARD Main Street, taking in deep breaths of air, just like her mother had when she was out for exercise. Nora would throw her head back, inhale deeply, and command to her daughter: “Breathe, Winna, breathe,” as if Winna had never taken a deep breath before. Swinging her arms in time with her long strides, Nora would stir up the dust on the canal road.
Remembering the fabric store where she had seen the tempting drapery material, Winna set off in search of it. She looked across the street at the Cooper Theatre and realized she was only a couple of blocks from the old Grumman’s department store.
The impressive three-story edifice still occupied half a block on Main Street. Constructed of red brick and sandstone from the Colorado mountains, Grumman’s was still an imposing building. Grumman’s est. 1882 was still proudly car
ved over the entrance.
She stopped on the sidewalk and looked through the store windows. The first floor of the old department store had been divided up into smaller stores: a weight-loss clinic, a consignment shop full of used clothing, and a senior center which took up the greater portion of the space. Through the windows, she could see what looked like perfectly functional people gathered around craft tables, playing cards and checkers at tables for two and four. Some were clustered in front of a TV set ringed with over-stuffed chairs. The second floor held a furniture outlet where one could rent-to-own a whole living room suite for seventy-nine dollars a month.
Once, these windows featured the latest things people wanted to own. Mr. Dinkins, Grumman’s window dresser, had put on the best show in town when he provocatively disrobed mannequins for people watching on the street. No longer did her grandfather’s polished sales personnel wait on thickly carpeted floors for customers interested in the latest styles, fine linens, furniture, and rugs. Very few people can make a living in a place like this anymore, only in big cities like New York, Winna mused. What had happened to people like Miss Ethel Conrad, head of the women’s department, who fit Winna for her first bra, sensitive to both the excitement and trepidation a young girl feels at a time like that? And Mr. G. Percy Hampton who, as far as Winna knew, had traveled the Eastern deserts on camelback buying rugs from weavers. He always had time to read her the stories woven into her grandfather’s collection of oriental rugs. And what about Jack Talbot, in the shoe department, who measured her feet, pressing his thumb down at the tip of her toes, and teased, “How many hearts have you broken this week, Winna?”
Now, if you want to make a decent living, you have to go to college and become a rocket scientist. Something significant has been lost, she thought. While she’d watched, the world had changed at the speed of light. She looked at the able-bodied old people playing cards. Why are these people idle? Don’t they have vegetable gardens to tend, or grandchildren to chase? Maybe old ladies don’t make jam anymore; it’s cheaper to buy it. Who is making soup, bread, and heirloom quilts? She knew they didn’t sew anymore, neither did she. It’s too expensive. Yes, the world has changed. Price is everything. She turned away without discovering who occupied the third floor. All of a sudden, Winna knew that, because of her age, she had become a resident of a foreign country.
The House on Seventh Street Page 23