The Widow's House

by Carol Goodman

  “Mary Foley’s child,” Sunny whispered.

  “Maybe that’s what Mary wants,” I said, “for Monty to know that she was his mother.”

  Sunny sighed. “Yes, that’s what Mary wants. But what do you think Minnie wants?”

  “Minnie?” I asked, feeling chilled.

  “Yes, Minnie. She lost her own baby and then she was given another woman’s child as if she wouldn’t know the difference. When she told people it wasn’t her baby they told her she was crazy.”

  I thought of Minnie hearing a baby crying from downstairs, the sound traveling up the dumbwaiter. And then they’d placed another woman’s baby in her arms and she’d known it wasn’t hers. In her delirium she’d conceived the idea of putting the baby back where she thought it came from: the dumbwaiter.

  “It would have driven any woman crazy,” I said.

  “Yes,” Sunny said, “especially right after giving birth, which is such a vulnerable time. It made her so crazy she shot her husband. Then she was all alone in this house with a baby she didn’t think was hers. No wonder she took her life in the same bathtub where she miscarried. She certainly has as much reason to curse this house as Mary did—and as much reason to haunt it.”

  “But why is she haunting me?” I asked.

  Sunny didn’t answer. She was looking over my shoulder. Following her gaze out the window I saw that someone had come to the kitchen door. “It’s just Katrine,” I said, getting up to let her in.

  “I came by to see how you were doing,” Katrine said to me, and then, eyeing Sunny in Monty’s shirt, “but I see Sunny’s beaten me to it.”

  “I stayed last night to make sure Monty was all right,” Sunny said defensively.

  “How considerate of you,” Katrine said. “It must have been a terrible shock for him—and for you, Clare, being there when it happened. I’m afraid you haven’t had much luck since coming here. I confess I feel guilty since I was the one who suggested you and Jess move here.”

  “I told Clare I didn’t like the idea of her and Jess living in the house,” Sunny said.

  “Did you have a presentiment?” Katrine asked, her face so serious that if I hadn’t recalled her making fun of Sunny I wouldn’t have guessed she was doing so now.

  “I did,” Sunny said. “I don’t think it’s a good place for her or Jess.”

  “Perhaps you should do Clare’s chart,” Katrine suggested with only the slightest twitch in her mouth.

  Although I’d mocked Sunny myself, I didn’t like hearing Katrine do it after what I’d just learned. “That’s really not necessary,” I said.

  “I suppose it wouldn’t be a bad idea,” Sunny said, turning to me, “only I’d need the date and time of your birth.”

  “I don’t know the time,” I said. “It’s not on the copy of my birth certificate.”

  “Didn’t your mother ever tell you?” Sunny asked.

  “No,” I explained. “I was adopted.”

  “Oh,” Sunny said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

  I was surprised at how awkward she looked. And then a little angry. I’d just listened sympathetically to her story of letting her five-year-old daughter wander off and drown herself and she was looking at me as if there was something wrong with me because I was adopted. It was why I hated telling people.

  “You might be able to get your original birth certificate from the agency where you were adopted,” Katrine said. At least she wasn’t acting like being adopted was a disease. “Do you know where you were adopted from?”

  “St. Anne’s right here in Concord. But I’ve never asked for my records . . .”

  “I can see why you might not want to . . .” Sunny said, looking away uncomfortably. Then she looked alarmed at the time on the oven clock even though it was broken. “Oh my . . . I should bring Monty his coffee before it gets cold . . .” She hesitated, looking from me to Katrine. I had the feeling she wanted to say something more about what we had spoken about but didn’t want to mention it in front of Katrine. But then she said, “I told you that this house wasn’t good for you. Perhaps it would be better if you left.” With that Sunny hurried out of the kitchen with Monty’s coffee.

  I watched her go, shocked and baffled. Maybe telling the story of Anya’s death had unhinged her. No wonder she’d grown so strangely attached to her puppets. Her children. It was sad, really.

  “That was weird,” Katrine said. “She acted like there was something wrong with you being adopted.”

  “I’m used to it,” I said, “but I don’t know if that’s why she was acting so strangely. She’d just told me this awful story.” I leaned closer to Katrine and lowered my voice. “Did you know Sunny had a little girl who drowned here?”

  Katrine’s eyes widened. “No! I’d heard that a little girl had died during one of those sixties parties but I didn’t know it was Sunny’s. Hell, no wonder she’s so loopy about her puppets. I’d go out of my mind, wouldn’t you?”

  “I might,” I admitted.

  Katrine shook her head. “Some children are better off being adopted than getting stuck with their birth parents.” She paused and took a sip of her coffee. “Have you really never tried to find out who they were?”

  “My mother told me the records were sealed.”

  “I’ve heard it’s easier now to have those records opened,” she said, getting up. “And St. Anne’s is so close. But perhaps I’m being a noodge. I’m sure you’ve got enough on your mind with the book you’re writing—and taking care of Jess. Tell him I hope his ankle’s better—and that he owes me a Vicodin.” She winked, and then squeezed my shoulder. “Remember, if you ever want to go have that glass of wine, I’m available.”

  I told her I’d like that and then, when she’d gone, I poured two cups of coffee—dumping the sweetened coffee down the drain—and brought them into the library, thinking as I went that I really should take Katrine up on going out. She was the closest I’d found to a sensible, levelheaded friend up here and I could use one.

  I found Jess awake, sitting at Monty’s desk.

  “How’s your ankle?” I asked.

  “Hurts like a motherfucker,” he swore. “And my head feels like it’s stuffed with cotton.”

  “That’s the Vicodin,” I said. “You took two last night. You’d better—”

  But he was already swallowing one of the pills with a swig of black coffee. He grimaced at the taste.

  “You really shouldn’t be taking that on an empty stomach.”

  “You’ve become quite the authority, haven’t you?” he snapped. “Is it because Monty’s taken you under his wing?”

  I looked down at the desk and saw that he had the folder where Monty kept my pages. I was shocked that Jess would read someone’s work in progress without their permission. I could have pointed out that he would be appalled if I had done the same to him, but instead I said, “We’ve been working on this together because we’re both interested in the same story. I didn’t tell you because I know what you think about collaborations.”

  “Is that what you call this . . . historical romance?” He spit out the last words as if they were the most damning epithet he could come up with, which they were probably for Jess. I felt the blood rush to my cheeks.

  “Monty thinks it’s good,” I said.

  “Then he truly is losing his mind. Really, Clare, you can do better than this. ‘His kisses tasted like apples,’” he read in a falsetto imitation of my voice. “Were you thinking of Dusty when you wrote this?”

  I snatched the page out of his hand. “I thought you wanted me to write again. I thought that’s why we came here.”

  He looked up at me, his eyes blank and unfocused. “What are you talking about, Clare?”

  Too late I realized I would have to admit to eavesdropping, but that seemed minor considering he’d been rifling through Monty’s desk. “I heard you tell Monty that you thought I might start writing again here. I thought it was why you turned down the Brooklyn job.”


  Jess was staring at me as if I’d sprouted horns. “You must have imagined that little bit of conversation. First of all, why should I feel bad that you stopped writing? That was your choice. I always told you that editing other people’s work would kill the writer in you—just as teaching would kill the writer in me. That’s why I turned down the Brooklyn job and accepted Monty’s charity so I could finish my book. I see now, though, that he only wanted you to finish his for him.”

  “That’s not what I’m doing . . .” I began, but then realized I’d fallen into one of Jess’s traps of changing the argument. I was stung to realize that Jess hadn’t come here so I could write again. Had I misheard him? Or had he been lying to Monty? But I also recognized that Jess was in pain and high from the Vicodin.

  “I’m sorry you don’t like what I’m working on, but I don’t need your approval. I suggest you focus on your own work.” I plucked the folder out of his hands. “I’m going to drive over to the hospital to see how Dale is doing. Do you need anything before I go?”

  Jess shook his head and got up from the desk, intending, I was sure, to stomp out of the room. The effect was ruined, though, by his hobbling gait. Watching him leave, I almost felt sorry for him.

  AS I DROVE out the front gate I thought about what Katrine had said about it being easier to open adoption records now. St. Anne’s was just across from the hospital. I could easily go there and ask to see my records. I didn’t care about Sunny doing my chart, but I was tired of all the things I didn’t know about myself, down to something as simple as the hour of my birth. Other people knew where their blue eyes or their artistic talent or propensity for alcoholism or high blood pressure came from. All I knew was that my mother had been in a mental hospital when she had me. Perhaps that’s what had kept me from wanting to know more. I didn’t want to find out more about a mother who had been crazy. But now it occurred to me that maybe she hadn’t been crazy. Maybe she, like me, saw things and that had been enough to get her locked up. Maybe if I could find her I could let her know that she wasn’t crazy.

  I didn’t know if I could just show up at St. Anne’s and demand to see my records, but at least I could get the ball rolling.

  The orphanage had originally been located in an Italianate mansion on the edge of Concord, founded in the late nineteenth century by Anne Montague as St. Anne’s Asylum for Young Orphaned and Otherwise Neglected Girls. “Otherwise neglected” was often a euphemism for unwed mother. It had been Anne Montague’s aim to provide these young girls with the domestic skills that they would need to find a husband or employment at the River Road mansions. Although I didn’t doubt that Anne Montague’s heart had been in the right place it always seemed to me as though she had founded a training academy for her own future housemaids.

  The orphanage had closed in 1934 and was subsumed into St. Anne’s Home for Children, later St. Anne’s Services when orphanages had gone out of style and were replaced by the foster care system. I was lucky, Trudy often explained to me when we passed the old crumbling edifice of St. Anne’s, that I’d been adopted so quickly. I might have spent my life shuttled from foster home to foster home or, if I’d been born in an earlier era, reared up to be a rich woman’s slave.

  St. Anne’s Services was in a clean, antiseptic steel and concrete building across from the hospital. An improvement over the old orphanage, I supposed, but it had always looked to me far colder and more frightening, more like an institution where you would be locked up. When I pulled up in the parking lot I saw that at least the bars had been removed from the windows and orange and red chrysanthemums planted on either side of the driveway. There were Halloween decorations that reminded me that the Halloween parade was tomorrow and made me wonder if Sunny would be up to ushering “her children” through it. The thought of those papier-mâché substitutes for poor drowned Anya struck a chill in my heart as I pressed the handicap button to open the wheezing automatic doors. I remembered what Katrine had said. Perhaps some children were better off in orphanages.

  I asked at the front desk where the adoption records were kept and was told by a woman who looked up from her needlepoint to go down the stairs, turn left, and keep on to the last door on the right.

  Perhaps they were kept in a dungeon, I thought, descending the stairs. I was beginning to feel like the heroine of one of those Gothic romances we read in Brit Lit, wandering through catacombs and underground passages to unveil the secret of the cursed mansion where she was imprisoned.

  The records office, though, was a brightly lit room with vinyl couches and inspirational posters featuring sunsets and mothers and children playing in meadows. The woman behind the counter was—big surprise—knitting a scarf. Were all the office workers in Dutchess County engaged in some kind of fiber craft? She had short choppy highlighted blond hair and huge enamel cat earrings and was wearing an artful lavender tunic that matched the scarf she was knitting. Her blue eyes looked familiar, but I’d already begun to guess that all the office workers were related. Perhaps there was someplace like St. Anne’s that trained homeless women to knit and file.

  I told her I wanted to find out if my adoption records were sealed.

  “You’ll have to fill out these forms,” she said, licking her finger and peeling off half a dozen Easter egg–hued pages from the wire baskets lined up on the counter. “Do you know if you were adopted from St. Anne’s?”

  “My parents—my adoptive parents—told me so. Do you know how long it will take to find out?”

  “Well, even if your records aren’t sealed you’re supposed to make an appointment . . . but let’s see . . .” She snatched the robin egg blue sheet I’d started filling out and read my name. Her blue eyes flicked up at me and she pursed her lips. “Give me just a minute,” she said. “Why don’t you have a seat?”

  She gestured with a hand jangling with silver bracelets and vanished into an inner office. Had my name set off some automatic alarm system? For children of mental patients, perhaps? I sat reading a poster that listed twenty-six (one for each letter of the alphabet) reasons for happiness while I waited for men in white suits to take me away. I had just gotten to “You have permission to be who you are” when the woman in lavender came back carrying a thin manila folder.

  “This isn’t how we’re supposed to do it,” she said, “but your records aren’t sealed and I sense you need answers. Here.” She handed me the folder, gave me a pat on the back, and went back behind the desk. I felt her eyes on me as I gripped the folder and wished that I hadn’t come, but how could I not look with all the posters around me telling me to Dare, Dream, and Aim High?

  I opened the file. There was the adoption form signed by Trudy and Bill Jackson. Seeing their signatures on the yellowed page gave me a pang. What a big leap it must have been for them to take in a stranger’s baby! It must not have been easy to raise a child who was so different from them. I felt suddenly disloyal looking for my birth mother, but then Trudy and Bill were dead. And although I’d come to believe in ghosts I didn’t think they were spending their afterlife thinking about me.

  I turned the page and found my original birth certificate. I suppose I was expecting to feel some frisson of recognition at the sight of my mother’s name but I didn’t. Amy Louise Birnbach. The name meant nothing to me. But then I looked down to the next line and felt a tremor that shook me by the roots. Under NAME OF FATHER Amy Birnbach had written Alden Montague III.

  Chapter Seventeen

  She could have lied, I thought as I drove home. Amy Birnbach, who listed her occupation on another form as “English Major, Bailey College,” could have written the name of her favorite teacher on her baby’s birth certificate because she wanted it to be true. How much grander to write “Alden Montague III” than the name of some pimply boy she’d hooked up with after too many beers at a dorm kegger or “I don’t know.” Maybe she had planned to extort money from Monty.

  But if that were true—if she had told Monty that she’d had a baby—why hadn’t Monty done s
omething? Had he really known that he had a child left at St. Anne’s?

  The thought that Monty had known about me and let me be adopted by the Jacksons made me so angry I had to pull the car over to the side of the road and catch my breath. I sat in the parking lot of Del’s Dairy Dream staring at the THANKS FOR A GREAT SEASON—SEE YOU IN SPRING! sign swinging in the wind until my vision cleared.

  I didn’t know for sure that Monty had known about me—or even that he really was my father. But I was pretty sure one person knew that Amy Birnbach had had a baby.

  WHEN I REACHED the fork in the road I turned toward Sunny’s barn. She was sure to be there with only one day left before the Halloween parade. I found her supervising the loading of the puppets into half a dozen assorted vans and trucks.

  “Make sure the skeletons’ legs don’t get tangled in the witches’ hair,” she was explaining to one of the Bailey guys who had helped carry Dale yesterday. She was still wearing Monty’s shirt, now under an orange kimono that flapped in the wind as she waved her arms. She looked like one of her own puppets, sweeping from truck to truck, but when she saw me she juddered to a stop as if one of her strings had been cut.

  She knew. And she knew that I knew.

  “Noelle,” she cried. “Take over for me, will you? Make sure the children are all settled for their journey.”

  I bristled at the word children. While I’d been lying in an adoption home she’d been attending to her children. But I held my tongue until we were alone in the barn.

  “You found your birth certificate, didn’t you?” Sunny said. “I can see by your aura—”

  “Fuck my aura, Sunny, you knew Amy Birnbach, didn’t you?”

  Sunny sighed. “Poor Amy, she wasn’t well—”

  “Did you know she had a baby?”

  “It’s you, isn’t it? I thought you had a bit of Amy’s energy.”

  “Do I have Monty’s energy, too? Because that’s who Amy named as my father.”