And this was just the airport. Who knew what I’d find in Stonekill?
What an odd name for a town.
“ ‘Kill’ is Dutch for creek,” Paul had told me when I mentioned how peculiar I found the name of the town where Henry and Silja lived. “So it’s Stone Creek, if that seems less strange to you.”
It did seem less strange, but only slightly so. A creek is called a crick at home. Depending on where they’re from, tourists say the same thing, or else they use the word creek.
I’d been a cottage girl at Gordon’s for four summers—every year since I was sixteen, except the past summer, when PJ was a newborn. With all my experience, I thought of myself as rather worldly. I’d cleaned rooms for people from as far away as Philadelphia, Washington, DC—and yes, New York. I even saw Californians one time, a group of three childless couples who took rooms in the lodge and sat in the Top Deck drinking tequila shots into the wee hours.
But none of those tourists—and tourists do all kinds of crazy things—ever did anything as odd as calling a crick a kill. Although I was trying to keep an open mind, I found the name of the town sinister.
• • •
The drive to Stonekill in the turquoise Ford Fairlane Paul rented took over two hours. Paul got lost twice, missing the exit onto something called the Bronx River Parkway, and then missing the exit onto another road that led into Stonekill. He handled these inconveniences with fortitude—neither flying off the handle like some people would, nor getting flustered as I surely would if I had to drive on these narrow, congested roadways and make split-second decisions about when to turn. When he got it wrong, Paul took the next exit and pulled over to consult the map the rental car agent had given him. Once satisfied that he knew how to get back on track, he said nothing and continued on.
It was almost seven when we pulled from Stone Ridge Road into the driveway of Henry and Silja’s home. “Ruby said she wouldn’t be here,” Paul told me. “But she left a key under the doormat for us.” Ruby, Paul explained, was staying at the apartment of a Miss Wells, her English teacher, who lived alone on the other side of town.
I thought that odd. Surely Ruby would be better off staying with a family, in a house with a mother and father. “Doesn’t she have any friends her own age?” I asked Paul. He shrugged.
I shook my head fondly at him. A man can’t be expected to understand such things, but every girl should have at least one close girlfriend. I thought of the girls I’d grown up with. Besides my sisters Dorrie and Carol Ann, there are Joyce Lang and Alice Solberg, whom I’ve known since first grade. The Three Musketeers, we were back in school. Joyce still lived in our hometown of Baileys Harbor, just down the road from North Bay. Alice was a couple miles south, in Jacksonport. We saw each other most Sundays after church. We went to our parents’ homes for Sunday dinner, and we’d generally gather at one house or another for part of the afternoon, toting our babies along. The other girls had married local boys; they found my relationship with Paul wildly exotic and were always pressing me for details about his painting, our home life, and even our romantic moments. I laughingly measured out such details only in minimal doses.
I usually didn’t see the girls during the week; none of us had her own car and we all had limited use of our husbands’ vehicles. But I couldn’t imagine a day going by without speaking on the telephone with at least one of my friends or sisters.
I didn’t see how it was possible that Ruby had no one her own age to rely on. The poor girl clearly needed a woman in her life—someone besides a teacher. Perhaps, I decided, my role in Stonekill was to stand in as both mother and friend to Ruby.
It was fortunate I’d convinced Paul to bring me along. It would be a disaster if Paul were there without me.
• • •
Henry and Silja’s property sat on a winding, thickly wooded residential street. An expansive lawn sloped gently toward the road. On either side of the house, stands of thick pines, oaks, and elms separated the home from its neighbors. The country location surprised me; despite Ruby mentioning that Henry’s body was found in the woods, I’d been unable to let go of my lifelong mental image of New York as consisting only of skyscrapers and asphalt.
The house was modern, one story, with dark wood siding on the right half and a wall of glass on the left. The setting sun’s rays reflected off the glass. The roof was composed of several zigzagged peaks and valleys. It reminded me of an article I once saw in a movie magazine about stars’ houses in Palm Springs, California. In the magazine spread, such houses fit right in, their peaks mimicking mountain ranges, with scant desert foliage around them and the bright blue western sky as backdrop. But here, set into dense woods, the overly modern house felt out of place. It looked as if it had been constructed here by mistake.
Paul told me that Silja and Henry had the house built about seven years earlier. “Silja wanted something contemporary,” he said, pulling suitcases from the trunk of the Fairlane. “Their last house dated from the 1890s. Big Victorian place with gingerbread trim work and a creaky front porch. It was in the center of town, near the train station. In the old days, I’d arrive here from Grand Central and Henry would meet me at the station. We’d walk back to their place.” Paul looked toward the road, squinting into the setting sun. “Henry loved that old house. He was constantly remodeling and repairing. But Silja complained about things breaking all the time—no matter to her that Henry fixed them right away. She wanted a brand-new house, one that no one had ever lived in except them.” He slammed the trunk shut. “Well, she got what she wanted.”
I didn’t know how to answer. I cradled the baby to my chest and followed Paul up the steps to the fancy house.
As Paul was unlocking the front door, a female voice behind us called out a greeting. I spun around to see a woman climbing out of a Chevrolet parked at the curb beyond the sloping lawn.
“Yoo-hoo!” the woman exclaimed. “Might I have a word?”
Paul set down the bags, then strode the length of the driveway with swift, firm steps. I hurried behind and caught up as he reached the woman. “Can I help you?” Paul asked, his voice cool.
I inspected the woman. She had short, frosted-brown hair and looked to be in her early fifties. Her legs were slender, but she had the thickset middle common to women her age; I had seen it happen to my mother and prayed it wasn’t my own fate.
The woman held out her hand to Paul. “Jean Kellerman, Stonekill Gazette.” She paused and then added, “Surely you remember me, Mr. Glass.”
“You have the name right,” Paul said, without taking her hand. “But no, I don’t remember you.”
Mrs. Kellerman raised her eyebrows. She glanced at me, then back at Paul. “Fine,” she said. “Maybe a few questions . . . ?”
“Mrs. Kellerman,” Paul said. “This is a time for us to mourn and give our attention to family matters. We’ll thank you to leave us in peace. Come on, Angie.” He took my elbow and steered me up the driveway.
At the front door, I glanced back and saw that Mrs. Kellerman was still observing us from the street. After we stepped inside, I peered out the narrow window next to the door. I watched as Mrs. Kellerman slowly drove away.
9
* * *
Ruby
Miss Wells is so good to Ruby. She serves a healthy dinner with all four food groups represented. Meat, milk, bread, and a vegetable. Just like Ruby’s mother would want her to eat, if she were there.
Ruby wishes her mother were there.
She drinks her milk like a little girl, gulping it down and using a paper napkin to wipe the mustache from her upper lip. As they clear the table Miss Wells tells Ruby she has homework to grade. Ruby assures her she’ll be quiet as a mouse in Miss Wells’s spare bedroom, read a bit, and then go to sleep.
Miss Wells asks, “You’ll see your uncle tomorrow, is that right?”
“Yes,” Ruby says. “That’s right.”
She truly does intend to go to sleep. She doesn’t put on her nightgo
wn—she stays in the dungarees and sweater she’s worn all day—but she crawls onto the bed. She has To Kill a Mockingbird with her, such an excellent book; she’s read it three times since it came out in July. She curls up with Miss Harper Lee, looking forward to reading until she gets tired. Reading takes Ruby to other worlds so she doesn’t have to think about her own. She opens the book to part one, chapter one, in which Scout and Jem argue about what started the cascade of events leading to Jem’s broken elbow.
But it’s lonely in that room, with Miss Wells so far away at her kitchen table, quietly penning comments on Ruby’s classmates’ papers, Jimmy who Ruby knows will get a D because he doesn’t give a shit and Glenna who’ll get an A but not because she’s a reader like Ruby, only because she’s a Goody Two-shoes who does her assignments the way the teachers want.
Since this is Ruby’s fourth reading of To Kill a Mockingbird, she already knows what will happen. She starts thinking about Boo Radley and how he went around Maycomb without anyone noticing him. She starts thinking about how handy it can be to feel invisible, like Boo.
She slides the novel into her pocketbook. It’s a cloth bag her mother bought her in the city, patchwork with a long leather strap that goes over one shoulder and crosses the body. It’s nice and roomy, allowing Ruby to keep everything important with her at all times.
Because you never know.
Ruby carries the pocketbook and her shoes to the apartment’s front door and slips through without Miss Wells spotting her. It’s a long walk, but it feels good to have cool air on her face.
10
* * *
Angie
Paul turned on the overhead lights and we stepped into the open, wide space. Separating the kitchen from the living and dining areas was nothing but a bar-height countertop with three backless chrome stools topped by black leather seats lined up below it. There was a massive stone fireplace on the wall opposite the kitchen, with a davenport and two easy chairs arranged companionably around it. Wall-to-wall carpeting in a faint chevron pattern, beige mixed with brown, was everywhere except the tiled kitchen floor. A teak dining table with a view to the backyard had seating for eight. The ceiling, accentuated with lustrous teak beams in the exact hue of the dining table, mimicked the hills and valleys of the home’s roofline. The expansive, thick glass windows—both front and back, with no draperies—made me feel like I was inside a fishbowl.
I sniffed the air and wrinkled my nose. The house had a smoky, stale smell. I wanted to open a window, but I didn’t see latches on the tall window frames.
I fixed a bottle for the baby, and Paul found some crackers in an upper cabinet and a jar of Cheez Whiz in the refrigerator. After we ate, Paul stood up from his barstool. “Come,” he said. “I’ll show you the rest of the house.”
Down the hall, he opened the door to the master bedroom, which featured a king-size bed, a dresser, and a large, glossy oak desk on spindly metal legs. And, thankfully, drawn-shut drapes. “We can sleep in here,” Paul said, dropping our suitcase on the floor.
I swallowed nervously at the idea of sleeping in the bedroom of a missing person. What if Silja came back in the night and found us in her bed?
But Paul would be right next to me, his arms wrapped around me. It would be all right.
I followed him into the hallway. He opened the door to Ruby’s room, which faced the woods behind the house. It was a typical girl’s room, with posters on the wall of Elvis and James Dean and Frankie Avalon. A messy, unmade single bed. Piles of unwashed clothes on the floor. Books in a haphazard heap on the bookshelf.
There was one more bedroom, also facing the rear of the house—smaller than the master or Ruby’s, with a modest dresser and full-size bed neatly made up with a navy bedspread. “We can put PJ in here,” Paul said, setting down the baby’s luggage. While I got PJ ready for bed, Paul fashioned a makeshift crib by pushing the bed into a corner and arranging several of the tall dining room chairs on the other side of the bed, facing outward. “He’ll be fine,” Paul assured me, apparently reading the worried look on my face. “He’s exhausted, Angel . . . he’s going to sleep and sleep.”
I smiled gratefully at my husband. I ran my fingers lightly over the baby’s cheek, and he closed his eyes.
“I’m fixing myself a drink,” Paul said. “Want one?”
I nodded. Paul disappeared toward the kitchen, and I took a few moments sitting next to the baby, rubbing his back until he fell asleep.
In the main room, Paul carried icy tumblers of Scotch and soda from the kitchen to the living area. We sat on the davenport, which was long and spare, upholstered in stiff tawny leather. Paul handed a glass to me.
“To life ended too soon,” he said, clinking his glass against mine. “To Henry.”
“To Henry,” I echoed, raising my glass to my lips.
I sipped the Scotch, my eyelids heavy. The day had started out as an adventure—the airport, the plane ride, seeing New York for the first time. But now I was drained. I couldn’t remember a time when I’d felt this tired—even the day PJ was born. When I gave birth, my body took over. Though I’d been physically spent after PJ’s birth, I didn’t remember much of the actual experience—partly because of the drugs I was given, of course, but also because my body knew what to do. My brain hadn’t been in charge that day; it merely followed my body along.
This was different. Here, I would be expected to act in certain ways. To say the right things, do the right things. Be an adult.
Well, I am an adult, I reasoned. A married woman with a child. I was there to act as surrogate mother to my niece.
It was the sort of thing adults did.
I set my drink on a coaster. “I need to turn in,” I told Paul. “I’m sorry . . . I can’t keep my eyes open another second.” I reached out, putting my arms around his neck. “Will you come in soon? Please?”
Paul gave me the warm look I loved so much. But then he gently drew away from me.
“You go on and get ready for bed,” he said, staring contemplatively into the cold hearth. “I’ll be there soon.”
11
* * *
Ruby
It’s dark and when it’s dark no one can see outside. Inside, the lights are on and Ruby can see everything. She watches them moving around and her breath catches because she hasn’t seen Uncle Paul since he got married and stopped visiting Stonekill.
He has other people now. Aunt Angie and an infant son. But he still loves Ruby, too. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t be here, right? That only makes sense.
Ruby knows what makes sense. She’s not stupid.
Kids at school think Ruby is stupid because around most people she doesn’t talk much. But that’s not the same as stupid. Miss Wells once told her, “You’re still waters that run deep, Ruby.”
She stands outside, behind one of the ash trees in the front yard. They can’t see her but she sees them inside. She watches them eat, sitting at the counter. They do things that look ordinary, as if they are the people who live there now.
Ruby sneaks around the back and she’s there when they turn on the overhead light in her room. She’s glad they don’t stay in her room for long. She tries to read the expression on Aunt Angie’s face, but she’s not sure what her aunt is thinking.
After Aunt Angie goes to bed, Ruby watches Uncle Paul alone by the cold hearth, sipping first his own drink and then, once that’s gone, the drink Aunt Angie abandoned. Ruby thinks maybe he’s crying but she can’t tell for sure.
She wishes she could go in and take the seat beside him. Just sit beside him and not say a word.
12
* * *
Silja
1942–1944
Henry and Silja had two short weeks of wedded bliss. And then, with only a hasty phone call to tell Silja good-bye, Henry, along with his company, departed Camp Kilmer. The company began moving frequently, stationed up and down the East Coast in various camps from the Carolinas to Maryland. They continued training, Henry told her i
n his letters, while also protecting the coastline from potential German U-boat attacks. Henry wrote to her:
We expect to ship out any day. Where and when nobody can say. Sergeant claims we’re headed to the Pacific but we hear rumors of going to England. Nobody tells us dogfaces nothing.
Silja read and reread his letters until the pages wore thin in her hands. If not for the letters and her ring, she might have thought her marriage something she’d imagined. She kept the ring with her at all times, but rarely on her hand; she stored it in a velveteen bag on a satin string around her neck. Alone in her room at night, she placed it on her finger, looking in the mirror over her dresser with her hand next to her face, where she could see the sparkling diamond beside the twinkle in her eyes.
A few weeks after he left, she missed a period, which she attributed to nerves over midterm exams. Until, a month later, she missed another one.
She was overcome with anxiety. She wanted to be with him forever, but she’d assumed they’d wait to start a family until he got back. How foolish she’d been to throw caution to the wind. Why in heaven’s name hadn’t they used rubbers? So dazzled had she been with the notion of being his wife and lover, she hadn’t given it any thought. And Henry never brought it up.
Well, there was nothing to be done now but face the music. Silja cried privately and quietly. Then she wiped her tears and resolutely wrote to Henry. She waited nervously for his reply, rushing to the mailbox in the lobby of the Alku every evening when she returned from classes.
The Glass Forest Page 4