The Glass Forest

by Cynthia Swanson

  Kindly, your brother,

  Paul

  “Holy Mother of God,” I breathed.

  I leaned back against the headboard. Who was this man? This didn’t sound like the Paul I knew. This didn’t sound like the man who—just a few days ago—snapped at me, then immediately gave me a soft, loving look and apologized.

  How could Paul say to Henry that he didn’t love me? How could he call me Angel and then tell his brother he wasn’t in love with me?

  I glanced at PJ, nestled peacefully against my thigh. I thought about Paul—the stranger with whom I’d created this sweet child.

  What in heaven’s name could I have been thinking? What compelled me to take that kind of risk? To have sex with—and wind up having a baby with—someone I barely knew?

  And now I might be carrying another child of his. I felt a surge of nausea at the thought.

  I put the box back in the nightstand. Letters in one hand, I carried PJ to the kitchen. Holding him on one hip, I mixed and began heating a bottle.

  After I fed him, I set him back on the shawl with his toys. I went back to Ruby’s room and retrieved Paul’s letter from her jacket sleeve.

  I took a deep breath, then drew the single-page letter from its envelope.

  Dearest Ruby,

  I think about you all the time. I know I shouldn’t write to you. I know I should be content to just talk on the phone. I love hearing your voice. It reminds me of my mother’s voice. Of how it sounded when she was happy. So pretty and lilting, so full of life.

  A man should not think about a world where there’s only himself and his niece. I know that, Ruby.

  And yet I do think about it. About what it would be like if everyone else was out of the picture. If there was no one but the two of us, without a care in the world.

  Please know I say this with all the love in my heart. I want to give you the world, Ruby. I want to experience everything with you, and with you only.

  I know this cannot be. I know I shouldn’t put such thoughts in writing.

  And yet here it is. I can’t help myself. I feel better having said it.

  If only it could come to pass.

  Love,

  Paul

  The breath ran out of me. I let the letter slip from my fingers as fat tears rolled down my cheeks.

  Eventually, I composed myself. Sniffling, I took Paul’s letter and the construction drawings to the living room. I patted PJ’s head, then sat on the davenport. I studied everything carefully—letters, drawings, photographs. Then I stood, took the items with me, and tucked everything into PJ’s suitcase in the guest room.

  On my way back to the living room, I glanced through the big windows. The day had turned foggy and dark; looking out at the weather sent an involuntary shiver through my body. I returned to the guest room and found PJ’s blue wool jacket and hat. I grabbed my own tweed car coat from the front hall closet, slipping it on as I crossed the living room.

  Baby dressed in his outerwear and in my arms, I opened the sliding glass door that led to the backyard. Taking a deep breath, I descended the deck. I crossed the yard and looked around. Sure enough, at the back edge of the yard, there was a faint dirt path—barely discernible—leading into the forest. I stepped onto the path and followed it.

  I wound through thick, dark trees—so much denser and taller than the spindly, new-growth pines that dotted my forest property on North Bay. I lost my way several times—there were numerous small trails throughout the woods, some that ended abruptly, some that seemed to circle back onto a trail I’d already passed.

  The forest here frightened me—and the fear was an uncomfortable, unfamiliar sensation. Never in my life had I been afraid of unknown places. Never in my life had there been many unknown places. I knew every corner of Baileys Harbor. I knew my way through not only my parents’ property and house, but also all the others on their street, and the next street, and the next. On North Bay, at my grandmother’s cottage that was now mine, I could find my way around every nook and cranny with my eyes closed on a moonless night.

  Everything in my life, until I met Paul, had been comfortable and familiar.

  How had I become the only girl from my town who took a risk? The girl who did what no one else was willing to do. Married a stranger. Took a chance on a different sort of life.

  At the time, I’d felt plucky, dauntless. Even a bit rebellious. People looked at me with new eyes when I walked around town with my handsome husband and my big belly sticking out. My belly that showed the world who I truly was—a grown-up woman with grown-up desires. My pregnancy told the world what he’d done to me. What he’d done with my permission.

  Look at me! I’d shouted—without ever saying a word. Do you see me—sweet little Angie Doyle? Ha! Now you know what I’m capable of.

  Those times had been among the most self-satisfying in my life. But now I saw that taking a chance on Paul may have been the biggest mistake I’d ever made.

  I went in circles, holding the baby against my chest to protect him from the spitting rain. I looked over my shoulder, apprehensive as an escaping prisoner.

  Fearful of—what? An owl? A fox?

  Paul?

  Spotting the hill-and-valley-shaped roof of Silja’s house above the tree line, I got my bearings and found a path heading east. I breathed a sigh of relief and walked with determination along the faint path. The rain began coming down more heavily. It pelted the yellow, orange, and red leaves clinging to branches, making them look like vibrant shards of stained glass.

  Toward the back of the property—precisely where I would have expected to find the structure from Henry’s drawings—I came into a clearing with a low stone wall nearby, separating it from an ancient cemetery.

  I shook, brushing raindrops from my brow and covering the baby’s head with one hand. I looked around, up and down. There was nothing in the clearing except a flat-topped boulder. There was no structure. Clearly, it had never been built. Some grand plan Henry had; a grand plan for—something. I wasn’t sure what. But whatever it was, it hadn’t been built.

  Holding PJ against my chest, I stared at the space and the crumbling tombstones beyond it. A low rumble of thunder in the distance made PJ whimper. I ran my hand over his back, soothing my child and trying to decide what to do next.

  51

  * * *

  Ruby

  Rain is pouring down as Ruby and Uncle Paul pull into the driveway on Stone Ridge Road. She thinks about how the house looks the same as always. If you didn’t know better, you’d think her parents still lived there.

  It certainly doesn’t look like a crime scene.

  They dash through the raindrops and into the house. Aunt Angie is nowhere to be found. Uncle Paul frowns. “Strange,” he says. He goes down the hall to check the bedrooms.

  Ruby shakes off Shepherd’s sweater, sits at the counter, and waits. The birdcage is very still—the only sounds the rainfall outside, Uncle Paul’s footsteps, and the click of doors opening and closing. Ruby sees her grandmother’s shawl on the floor in front of the hearth. The plastic cups and bowls Aunt Angie has been letting the baby play with are scattered on the shawl. There’s a single coffee cup set on a coaster on the side table next to the sofa.

  Other than that, nothing in the birdcage—nothing Ruby can see, anyway—is out of place.

  Uncle Paul strides back down the hall and crosses the kitchen. He opens the sliding door to the backyard, looking around for Aunt Angie.

  He turns to stare at Ruby, his eyes wild. She’s never seen him look like that before.

  Without a word to her, he runs outside. Ruby watches as he crashes into the rain-glazed woods, calling for Aunt Angie. His voice overflows with more panic than she’s ever heard from it.

  52

  * * *

  Angie

  I turned out of the drenched, muddy clearing and into semiprotection under the trees. I was about to make my way back to the house when I heard my name shouted—loud and clear across the w
oods. Paul’s voice.

  My heart pounding, I turned to my right and scrambled through the forest. Pushing aside branches, I wound through the woods, turning west when I estimated I was out of the Glasses’ property and behind the house to the north. Over my left shoulder, I could hear Paul calling for me. Thunderclaps and rainfall masked the noises I made crashing through the narrow passages among trees, and I said a silent prayer of thanks to the Virgin Mother—or maybe Mother Nature, or whoever was listening—for the deafening cover.

  My instincts sent me in the right direction, and I found myself in the neighbor’s backyard. I glanced around quickly, then crept toward the far side of the neighbor’s house. I emerged onto Stone Ridge Road.

  Walking briskly up the road, I heard something jangling. I stopped and reached into my coat pocket. What I felt made me pause and lean against the back of a wide oak, where I wouldn’t be seen from the Glass house. I pulled the item out, dangling it in front of my eyes. PJ reached for it and I let him hold it.

  It was a set of keys. Gently, I turned it over in PJ’s hands. A car key was riveted onto a narrow, looped swath of navy leather, embossed with MG in an octagon on one side and the words REAL ENGLISH LEATHER IS USED IN THIS UPHOLSTERY on the other. Two house keys and another, smaller key were attached to a metal ring at the other end of the looped leather.

  They must be Silja’s keys, I thought. Jean Kellerman’s article had mentioned Silja drove an MGA, which I knew was built by the MG Motor Company. But why were Silja’s keys in my coat pocket?

  I frowned and pulled the collar close to my nose, inhaling deeply. The coat had an unfamiliar smell—something strong and fragrant like perfume, a scent I couldn’t pinpoint.

  With PJ cradled in my right arm, I let my left arm dangle. The coat sleeve hung off me, well below my fingertips. The coat’s shoulders, too, I realized, were cut much broader than I needed for my small frame.

  This must be Silja’s coat. Did Silja and I own the same tweed car coat? Or at least something so similar, I hadn’t noticed the difference when I grabbed the coat from the front hall closet. I shuddered, suddenly hating the scratchy feel of Silja’s coat collar against the bare skin of my neck.

  Why were the keys in Silja’s coat pocket? Silja had left her car at the train station. Wouldn’t she have taken her keys with her, or at least left them in the car’s ignition, or the glove box? Why would her keys be in a coat Silja hadn’t even been wearing when she ran away? It had to be a duplicate set.

  Gently, I pried the keys from PJ’s hand and slipped them back into the coat pocket. I hurried up the road to Silja’s house and turned into the drive.

  53

  * * *

  Ruby

  In a few minutes, Uncle Paul is back. “Not out there,” he says. He shakes rain from his head as he steps inside. “I can’t imagine where she would have gone. It’s not like her to run off.”

  Ruby just shrugs again, because what does she know?

  The front door opens and Aunt Angie comes in, carrying the baby. Her head is drenched and Ruby notices there’s a small evergreen branch trapped in her hair on the left-hand side. Aunt Angie must notice, too, because she runs her hand through her hair. The little twig falls to the floor.

  Uncle Paul comes forward and takes PJ, pulling off his little blue coat and hat. Aunt Angie hands him over silently. She has her lips pressed together in a thin line. It reminds Ruby of a look her mother often gave her father.

  “Where were you?” Uncle Paul asks.

  “I . . . I was just taking a walk. To pass the time.” Aunt Angie doesn’t look at him when she says this. She stares at Ruby, who stares back but doesn’t say anything. “It was only cloudy when we went out. Then the rain started and we got caught in it.” Aunt Angie opens the hall closet and hangs up her car coat, which is similar to one of Ruby’s mother’s coats.

  “Well, I’m glad you’re back,” Uncle Paul says. He sets the baby down on Grandma’s shawl in front of the fireplace. “Is anyone hungry?” he asks. “I can go out and get a pizza.”

  Ruby knows that Uncle Paul and Aunt Angie probably expect her to go to her room, but instead she crosses the living room and sits next to PJ. She fingers the fringes of the shawl and looks up at Aunt Angie. “This was my grandmother’s,” Ruby tells her.

  “I didn’t know,” Aunt Angie says, and her voice sounds defensive. “I’m sorry. I saw it in the hall closet the other day and just grabbed it. The carpeting is sort of rough, and I wanted something soft for PJ to sit on.”

  Ruby meets her gaze. “It’s okay,” she tells Aunt Angie. “I want him to use it. It’s nice to see it getting used.”

  She brushes a bit of the shawl’s fringe against PJ’s face and he giggles. Leaning toward him, Ruby takes in his honest, simple scent. “He smells so good,” she says. “Like soap, but even better.”

  “Well,” Aunt Angie says. “He certainly seems to enjoy your company.”

  Ruby nods. “We’ll take the shawl with us to Wisconsin,” she tells Aunt Angie. “He can use it there, too.”

  Aunt Angie is still staring at Ruby. It might be that she’s just surprised Ruby is talking so much.

  “I mean it,” Ruby says. “We’ll pack it up and bring it along. It’s a nice memento to have.”

  Angie nods. She comes forward and scoops up the baby from the shawl. Without looking at Uncle Paul, she says, “Maybe you should go for that pizza now.”

  “Sure thing,” he replies. “There’s a place downtown, if it’s still there. Ruby, is Dinardo’s still downtown?”

  Ruby nods and stands up.

  “You want anything else?” he asks. “Garlic bread, soda pop?”

  Ruby shakes her head. “I’m not very hungry. Just get what you want.”

  • • •

  After he leaves, Ruby expects Aunt Angie to say something to her. To ask what happened at the cop shop. To ask what’s going on.

  Looking at her—standing next to the dining room table with the baby in her arms and a confused look on her face—Ruby can tell Aunt Angie opened her mother’s photograph album.

  It’s okay if she did. It’s what Ruby expected would happen.

  “Ruby, I—” Aunt Angie starts to say.

  Before she can go on, Ruby turns away and heads down the hall. “You and Uncle Paul eat the pizza. Save me a piece for later.”

  She goes to her room and closes the door.

  54

  * * *

  Angie

  I knocked on Ruby’s door. “Ruby? Please open up.”

  There was no response. I tried the handle, but it wouldn’t give. Ruby had locked it from the inside.

  I wasn’t sure what to do. Did Ruby assume I’d looked at the photograph album? Moreover, did she suspect me of snooping? What if she found out I’d taken the letter Paul wrote to her, and the construction drawings? If she looked for them in her closet, she’d know that I took them—or she’d think the police did.

  Well. She’d talk to me then, I was sure. If she wasn’t going to let me in now, I’d simply wait for her to come to me.

  I brought the baby to the guest room for his afternoon nap. After he was down, I went back to the living room and looked out through the front windows. Rain spattered lightly outside, but for the most part the storm had passed. I walked across the room and turned on the television set. The New York Yankees were playing the Boston Red Sox in what the announcers said was the last game of the regular season, before the Yankees headed into the World Series later that week. I had no interest in baseball, but I watched mindlessly for a while, then turned off the television set and instead switched on a small transistor radio sitting on the kitchen counter. I fiddled around with the stations until I heard a newscast, then sat down on one of the barstools to listen. There was mention of the narcotics sting in Yonkers, the one Jean had told me about. Five men had been arrested; two more, plus a woman, had fled the scene and were still at large.

  There was no news about Senator Kennedy; apparently,
he hadn’t been campaigning over the weekend. I became wistful as I remembered how excited I’d been—less than a week ago, though it seemed like a lifetime—by the debate between Senator Kennedy and Vice President Nixon. With no television in our cottage, Paul and I had spent the evening at my parents’ house, watching the debate on my parents’ set. The baby asleep on my lap, I sat on my parents’ davenport and held Paul’s hand. All of us were mesmerized by the engaging, handsome senator from Massachusetts. Jack Kennedy’s good looks reminded me of Paul’s. They didn’t look exactly alike, not the way Paul looked like Cary Grant, but the senator had the same sort of thick dark hair and warmth in his smile as my husband.

  That night—the night of the debate—my world consisted of my family, Paul, PJ, and thinking about the first time I’d step into a voting booth. Now, everything had been turned upside down.

  The door opened and Paul entered, pizza box in hand. He met my gaze and said hello. Without responding, I rose from the barstool and turned off the radio.

  Paul set the pizza on the kitchen counter. He crossed the room and made drinks, while I got out plates and napkins for the two of us. He brought the drinks to the counter and handed one to me. I sipped my Scotch, not quite believing that we were drinking at this time of day. But then again, nothing was what it had been before.

  He took a swallow of his own drink. “Where’s Ruby?”

  “In her room. She says she’ll eat later.”

  He sat down heavily on a barstool. “They wanted to question her,” he said, and his voice was barely above a whisper. “But she’s not being charged with anything. So I got her a lawyer and that scared them off—for now. But, Angel, the lawyer says the cops think . . . ” He bit his lip. “They think Silja killed Henry. They want to know what Ruby might know about it.” He took a bite of pizza, his eyes averted from mine.