The Glass Forest

by Cynthia Swanson

  “For heaven’s sake, Henry,” she snapped. “I don’t need an inside authority. I read the newspaper.”

  Henry gave her a withering look, as if he were not convinced that the New York Times—the most prestigious paper in the nation—could contain information of any value. It shouldn’t surprise her, she knew. Henry’s idea of keeping up with current events was to occasionally read the White Plains paper, The Reporter Dispatch, and to pore over the local rag—that silly Stonekill Gazette that arrived each Friday. “Written”—Silja used the term loosely—not by true journalists, but by a bunch of townie hacks.

  “You know big newspapers are run by Communists,” Henry said. His voice was low, as if someone might overhear him giving away national security secrets.

  Silja couldn’t help it; she laughed aloud. “Now you are completely off your rocker.”

  “Goddamn it!” Red-faced, he picked up a plank and raised it above his head. He adjusted his stance and choked his grip, as though the plank were a baseball bat and he was setting up to hit a home run. He glared at her and took aim—it was as if she were a baseball coming toward him, as if he planned to hit her squarely across the jaw with enough force to knock her backward into the forest. She stepped away and put up her hands to protect her face.

  Her actions seemed to give him pause—enough to come to his senses. He thrust the plank onto the ground, sliding it across the hole’s opening next to its neighbor. She breathed a sigh of relief.

  He regarded her fiercely. “You do what you need to do,” he said, his voice chilly and even. “But remember that I’m keeping my eye on you, Silja.”

  • • •

  After dinner one night in early April, during the first thaw of the spring, there was a telephone call that Henry answered. Silja heard him exclaiming joyfully. Without a word, he jumped into his truck and tore off.

  “Whatever was that about?” she asked Ruby, who was helping her load the dishwasher. Ruby shrugged.

  Ruby continued to do well in school. At her last parent-teacher conference, all of her teachers, including the nice new English teacher, Miss Wells—thank goodness Henry hadn’t been there to see that Miss Wells was black; he would have thrown a fit—gushed about Ruby’s smarts. They mentioned how well-thought-out her papers and assignments were, how she consistently raised her hand in class. “A model student,” the teachers told Silja, and she beamed with pride.

  But still she worried. She’d tried, more than once, to talk to Ruby about finding a hobby or a club. The school play? Debate team? Track and field, with those long legs of hers? To each idea, Ruby shrugged and said it wasn’t her thing. After one too many rebukes, Silja gave up. At least Ruby wasn’t a delinquent. And she wasn’t fast; Silja needn’t worry about that. In fact, Ruby showed no interest in boys whatsoever.

  Of course, neither had Silja, as a girl. Not until she met Henry.

  A half hour after he left, while Ruby and Silja were settled in the living room reading, Henry returned. And he brought the biggest surprise Silja had seen in years: Paul.

  They came in together through the heavy slab front door, breathless and bustling—arms around each other’s shoulders, looking every bit the matched set they’d always been. Paul set down his small leather satchel and whistled, looking around. “Well, you’ve certainly come up in the world,” he said, meeting Silja’s eye as she rose from her chair.

  She crossed the room to the entryway. “Paul. What a surprise.”

  From behind her, a thin figure with a flash of long blond hair barreled forward and wrapped itself around Paul’s lean frame, almost toppling him over.

  He laughed and put his arms around Ruby’s back. “Hey, there,” he said. “Be careful or you’ll knock your wobbly old uncle on the floor.”

  Ruby buried her head against his neck. “You’re back,” she whispered. “Finally, you came back.”

  He gently pried her away from himself. “Let me get a look at you.” He held her at arm’s length. “You’re practically grown up,” he said. “So tall and pretty. You look like—”

  Paul glanced at Henry, who nodded. “Like Mother,” Henry said. “I see it, too, especially around the eyes. Just like Mother.”

  This was news to Silja. She’d never so much as seen a photograph of her mother-in-law; she’d no idea Ruby bore any resemblance to her.

  Besides, people always said Ruby looked like Silja. And she couldn’t imagine that she looked anything like Henry’s mother. She’d never met the woman, who’d died a few years ago. Was it 1955 or 1956?—Silja wasn’t sure. She remembered Henry had received a telegram telling him that his mother had passed. Pneumonia, it was; she’d been stricken suddenly and was unable to make a recovery.

  “Goodness,” Silja had said to Henry. “Do you need to go to California?”

  Henry sighed. “I suppose I do,” he said. “She’ll have left little in the way of an estate. But God knows Paul wouldn’t be capable of settling her affairs without me there, too.”

  “Well, you’ll get no argument from me on that score,” Silja agreed. But she couldn’t help adding, “Practical matters aside, though—you want to pay your respects, don’t you? Even if Paul could handle it himself, you belong there, Henry.”

  He narrowed his eyes at her. “What do you mean by that?”

  “For heaven’s sake,” she said. “Even if you weren’t close, she was your mother. You were her elder son. Of course you want to be there to attend to her last wishes. Perhaps Ruby and I should go, too.”

  Henry had glared at her. “There is absolutely no need for you and Ruby to go,” he barked. “And I’ll thank you to mind your own business, Silja. It has nothing to do with you.”

  Before she could say anything else, he stomped out of the room.

  She’d let it go, and he made the trip himself, traveling cross-country by train and returning two weeks later. She asked him how it went, and his only reply was that it went as expected. “There’s nothing more to say about the matter,” he told her. “It’s a closed chapter.”

  Now, seeing Ruby for the first time in years, Paul asked the girl, “Do you forgive me?” He gave her an imploring look. “For leaving all those years ago—and on the night before your birthday, no less! Can you forgive me for that unforgivable sin?”

  She nodded and said, “You’re back. Nothing else matters.”

  • • •

  Paul, Silja learned, was there to help with the next stages of the bomb shelter construction. It seemed that getting the roof done alone was too much even for Henry.

  “I’m surprised to see you,” she told Paul from the doorway as she watched him unpack his things in Henry’s room; he was to sleep on the couch in the living room, but Henry said Paul could store his things in Henry’s dresser.

  The house had a celebratory air; Ruby was fixing Paul a snack, and Henry was pouring a beer for him. At Henry’s insistence, Silja had taken Paul down the hallway so he could settle in. “I thought you said you were never coming back here,” Silja went on, crossing her arms over her chest.

  Without turning around, he continued to move shirts and socks from his battered satchel into an empty dresser drawer. “Henry wrote to me. He needs my help.”

  Silja bit her tongue to keep from mentioning Kristina. Instead, she said, “Yes, building a steel beam, concrete block roof is pretty important stuff. Not a project to attempt on one’s own.”

  “Henry told me you think this is a joke,” Paul said. “That doesn’t shock me.” He placed several pairs of boxer shorts into the drawer, then closed it firmly. “But unlike you, Silja, I have my priorities in order.” He turned to face her. “I make sacrifices to do what’s right.”

  “You make sacrifices?” she said, a bemused smile playing around her lips. “You? What sacrifices have you made, exactly, Paul?”

  Paul gave her a cold stare. “Thanks for showing me to the room,” he said. “You can go now, Silja.”

  She nodded toward the drawer he’d filled. “Just don’t get t
oo comfortable,” she said. “You’re already wearing out your welcome, as far as I’m concerned.”

  She turned and left without another word.

  • • •

  Both Paul and Henry assured her the visit was temporary, just a week or two. “And then what?” she asked Paul. “Where are you off to next?”

  He shrugged. “I’m not sure,” he said. “Somewhere I can continue to paint. That’s all I know at this point.”

  Paul had taken up a hobby—painting watercolors—and his art supplies were all over the dining room table. Twice she’d cleaned up spills on the carpeting. Really, she thought—this couldn’t be taken somewhere else? Perhaps outside?

  “You should think about painting nature,” she suggested to Paul one evening after she got home from work. “The woods are lovely this time of year. You could go out in the woods and paint.”

  He gazed through the plate-glass window in the dining room toward the forest. “I can see the woods just fine from here. I can paint what I see from here, without getting cold or rained on.” He winced. “Or bit by mosquitoes. I hate mosquitoes.”

  Oh, for heaven’s sake. Silja turned away. With a tiny smirk in Paul’s general direction, she opened the sliding glass door and stepped into the forest for her evening walk.

  45

  * * *

  Ruby

  Before Shepherd started meeting her there, Ruby had walked in her family’s woods alone.

  She remembers when Uncle Paul came to help her father with the Shelter. She remembers sneaking up on them one afternoon when she got home from school. Stealing quietly through the woods, in the way only Ruby knew.

  Her father and Uncle Paul were laying the roof beams. Steel beams, ten feet across, that they’d brought home in her father’s pickup, a few at a time, and then hauled through the woods. They did the hauling after dark, when no one was watching. Ruby’s father said the Shelter had to be a secret, because if the neighbors knew about it, when the bomb dropped they would all come knocking and want their place inside. “And there’s only room for family,” her father said. “Only blood matters, Ruby.”

  After she crept up on them, she crouched down behind a rock and watched. She didn’t have to hide; Uncle Paul and her father always welcomed her presence. But she wanted to hear what they’d say if they didn’t know she was listening.

  Uncle Paul was talking about why he left, the last time he was in Stonekill. “You remember the fallout, Henry,” he said. And then he grinned and added, “Metaphorically speaking, of course. Not the fallout we’re creating protection from here.”

  Ruby’s father did not return Uncle Paul’s grin. His look was stern. “You left an awful mess behind,” he told Uncle Paul. “You left a lot of unanswered questions.” He stood up and stretched. “I would’ve had a hell of a time keeping all that from Silja if she hadn’t been so obsessed at the time with finding a plot of land for the house.” He shook his head. “That damn reporter, that Kellerman woman. Her questions could easily have been resolved, had you’d stayed and told the truth.”

  “Mrs. Kellerman wouldn’t have believed me,” Uncle Paul said. “No one would.” He took hold of one end of the beam, waiting for Ruby’s father to lift the other side. “It was my word against hers,” he said. “Against theirs. Kristina was on that girl’s side. Not that I blame Kristina for that; her job was on the line.”

  Ruby’s father lifted his end. “But you didn’t do it. You told me you never laid a hand on that girl.”

  “Never did,” Uncle Paul agreed. “But it could have been read more ways than one. That’s the trouble.” He shrugged. “Did that girl kiss me? Yes, she did. Did I kiss her back?” Uncle Paul shook his head. “Not in a million years,” he told Ruby’s father. “I pushed her away.”

  “But you’d befriended her in the first place.”

  “Not intentionally,” Uncle Paul explained. “More than once, she came to Kristina’s house. Our house. Kristina hired her to walk the dog when I was busy putting in new kitchen cabinets.”

  They set the beam carefully into place and Uncle Paul bent down to pack dirt around his end. “Kristina wanted it all,” he said. “A cheap dog walker. Free labor for her house. Not to mention a toss in the hay whenever she wanted it.” He scoffed. “Old bag. What did she think? That she’d put a pretty girl in front of me—that she’d send a pretty girl to our house alone—when I was there by myself? And Kristina thought I wasn’t going to react when that girl came on to me?”

  “So you did do it.” Her father said exactly the words Ruby was thinking.

  Uncle Paul stood up, reaching for another beam, and told Ruby’s father he’d done nothing.

  Ruby breathed slowly, in and out, listening to the calm in Uncle Paul’s voice. She knew he was upset, but he wasn’t losing his cool. She knew then, and she knows now, that she can learn things from Uncle Paul.

  “I did nothing,” Uncle Paul repeated. “She was pretty, yes. She was young, yes. Do I like young, pretty girls? I’m only human, Henry—only a man. So what do you think?”

  Uncle Paul picked up the next beam. Sweat stood out on his brow when he lifted it, but Ruby knew that was from physical exertion, not from the conversation.

  “I have needs and desires like any man,” Uncle Paul said. “But that doesn’t mean I act on them when it’s inappropriate.”

  Ruby’s father—the man who had been sleeping alone for years—held his mouth in a straight, bitter line.

  “And now?” her father finally asked. “These days—do you have a woman, Paul?”

  Uncle Paul stepped to the side, bringing the beam beside its partner in the roof they were creating. “Well, there have been lots of women,” he said. “Lots of women over lots of years.” He grinned. “Who knows what I’ve left behind? There could be little Paul Juniors all over the goddamn country, for all I know and for all I care.”

  “But now?” Ruby’s father persisted. “Is there anyone specific? Any special woman in your life?”

  Uncle Paul grimaced and told her father that no, at the moment there was not.

  Her father leaned over and patted down dirt. “Here’s my advice,” he said. “Whether you want it or not. Finish helping me here. We only need a few more days. And then hit the road, Paul. Move on and find somewhere to settle down. Somewhere far from here.”

  Ruby’s father stood up and pulled a red bandanna from his back pocket. “And look for a pretty girl to settle down with,” he added. “There are plenty of girls out there who’d fall all over a guy like you, Paul.”

  He wiped his forehead and told Uncle Paul not to be a fool. He placed the bandanna back in his pocket. “There are plenty of fish in the sea,” he went on. “And if you choose wisely, you’ll find one who can keep you out of trouble.”

  46

  * * *

  Silja

  1959

  With so much of his attention on the bomb shelter, Henry had begun to neglect cooking and housekeeping. His own room was neat, and once a week he cleaned the hall bathroom, which he shared with Ruby. But other than a cursory wiping of countertops and stacking the dishes in the dishwasher after meals, he stopped tidying up the kitchen. They still enjoyed garden-fresh vegetables, but Henry’s elaborate main courses gave way to meat loaf, tuna salad sandwiches, or frozen fish sticks. He rarely ran the vacuum cleaner or washed the floors. Silja couldn’t remember the last time she saw him dust.

  Silja didn’t mind the meals so much; being in the restaurant business, she enjoyed gourmet lunches daily in the city, and several nights a week she had dinner with David. But the dirty house began to affect her. Yet again, she ventured the idea of a cleaning lady. They could afford it, and there was no reason the house should not be washed and disinfected on a regular basis. Silja dreamed of coming home to a spick-and-span, sweet-smelling home.

  But Henry would have none of it. “You send a cleaning lady here, and I’ll throw her out on her ear,” he barked. “No strangers in this house, Silja, and that’s fin
al.” He glared at her. “You want it clean, you clean it yourself.”

  “Well, fine,” she told him. “You’re being asinine, Henry—but I see I’m not going to win this battle.”

  She reserved all of a warm Saturday in mid-May for clearing out clutter. Much as she abhorred cleaning, it had to be done. With Paul finally gone and summer on its way, every room in the house needed airing.

  She started by organizing her own bedroom, followed by Ruby’s. She hauled out old papers, out-of-date magazines, bent hairpins. She tossed earrings with their back clasps broken off, slips with stretched-out elastics, shoes with heels broken beyond repair. She even dusted a little, slowly and deliberately pushing a rag across the horizontal surfaces in both rooms. She hated the way rising dust made her eyes water, but she knew dusting was good for the house, in the same way swallowing castor oil was good for the digestive tract.

  Dust rag in hand, she passed the door to Henry’s room. She hesitated, then ventured inside. Clean is clean, she told herself—she may as well do all of it while she was on a roll.

  The air in Henry’s room was stale; she pushed open the casement window, letting in a mild spring breeze. She tied her apron more tightly around her waist and began humming a cheerful, made-up tune.

  Tomorrow was Sunday. She’d see David in less than twenty-four hours.

  Smiling and humming as she dusted Henry’s nightstand, Silja came across a stack of pamphlets.

  How to Recognize a Communist in Your Midst

  The Importance of Being Prepared

  Do You REALLY Know Your Loved Ones?

  For heaven’s sake, Silja thought—is he serious? She opened one of the pamphlets and read: