by Karen Kelly
Behind the sympathy in her mother’s eyes, Joanna discerned a trace of reproach. She was well aware that her parents loved Frank, and she also knew that their conventions and values were staunchly old-fashioned when it came to marriage and spousal roles. But she still felt a thud of disappointment in her chest. She had expected her mother to feel her frustration and resentment and offer some semblance of support. And then she realized something: despite her preconceptions about Susannah, she had encountered a deeper, more empathetic understanding from her mother-in-law than she had from her own mother.
“I think you need to join a club. A knitting group, maybe. Or a coffee klatsch … Something to make some women friends.”
Did she imagine a slight emphasis on the word women? Joanna felt an uneasy little clutch, wary of her mother’s intuition. And then, as she took a sip of coffee, her mother made a comment that stopped the cup in its path.
“Most men don’t realize—until it’s too late—the dangers of a lonely wife.”
* * *
Now, standing in the kitchen at Grange House, the sentence echoed so loudly that Joanna wondered for a split second if her mother were in the room. In response to Daniel’s question, her words were tinted a pale shade of ambiguous. “It was fine. Good to be home. Well, obviously, it isn’t home anymore.…” She shook her head, surprised at herself. “The house seems so much smaller than it used to. And it didn’t help that the kids were a little rambunctious—Frank calls it Santa Frenzy.” A rueful smile crept into place. “You’ll like this: Charlie got an ant farm, and then we found Daisy with it, squatting in a sunbeam with a magnifying glass. Fortunately, my mother discovered her in the nick of time and saved the livestock from going up in smoke.”
Daniel chuckled. “I bet that put a dent in diplomatic relations.”
“Charlie never knew. Thank God for small blessings. Other than that, it was…” She flashed again on the conversation with her mother, and she sounded less than convinced. “Fine.”
He caught the nuance as if he had a net. His eyes questioned and waited for more, but Joanna turned away.
Wandering to the hallway, she peered into the darkened parlor. It faced north, and there wasn’t much light coming through the tall, narrow windows, but she could see a few pieces of heavy Victorian furniture and the ghostly bloom of lace antimacassars draped across the backs of stuffed chairs. She understood that this was where the grieving were received, as they waited for the sad business of choosing headstones and engravings and plots. Placed on a table against the wall were several large albums—catalogs, she supposed. She was taking in a grouping of sepia portraits on the wall when Daniel appeared behind her, holding two steaming cups.
“First stop on the tour, the ominous reception room. It isn’t really used for much else—Gran and Gramps have a sitting room upstairs where she knits and he watches television.” He handed her a teacup and moved around her, taking a few strides forward. “Over here”—he gestured toward an archway that was bordered by a framed fretwork of oak spindles—“is the dining room, which—to my knowledge—is only used on Thanksgiving and Easter.” This room was also dim in the winter’s light, and a bit stuffy with a looming, carved walnut sideboard and dark William Morris wallpaper. “And over here”—they crossed back through the parlor to the front hall and a closed door—“is the office.” He didn’t bother to open it. “Nothing much to see in there—just an old desk and a two walls of filing cabinets.”
Joanna looked at him. “Filing cabinets … full of records?”
“Yup.” He nodded slowly as the light went on. “Full of records.” Through narrowed eyes, there shone an appreciative glint. “I never pegged you for devious.”
“Well, after all, you do work here.” Her eyes widened innocently. “I’m surprised it didn’t occur to you.”
With a conceding shrug, he reached over and turned the knob. As he flicked on the light, Joanna brushed past him, tracing a finger along a row of cabinets and peering at the bracketed labels until she found what she wanted. Setting her teacup on the desk behind her, she pulled out a heavy oaken drawer. It was stuffed to overflowing with files, and her fingers flicked over them—Haas, Habermann, Hachette … until she came to Hayward. Her brow furrowed and she combed back through the names, searching again for Hayes. But the alphabetization was precise—there was nothing. She turned with a disappointed huff. Then, biting her cheek, she made a tentative suggestion: “We could check Janssen … if it’s not too personal.”
Daniel shrugged. “These records exist for a reason, right? If there’s something in there, then it’s hiding in plain sight. It’s not like we’re reading Gran’s diary.” He pulled out a drawer just to the right and started leafing through it.
There were several files of Janssens—ancestors old and young—but none were infants. “Well, that’s that. No secrets there.” He closed the drawer and dusted his hands together. “I guess Baby Hayes is destined for eternal obscurity.” He cocked his head, thoughtful. “There’s something in that, though. Somehow it makes it more … affecting. It could be anyone’s child—like a little unknown soldier. Maybe it’s better to leave it that way.”
“I know. When Daisy was playing there, it really struck me. There was something sort of … haunting about it. For a moment, the grief just wrapped around me—like the baby was mine.”
“Speaking of haunting, do you want to see the rest of the house?”
Joanna was taken aback. “Is it really haunted? I mean, Doe talks about her soldiers and her laughing lady and the little boy on the swing, but I thought she was just being Doe. Have you ever seen anything?”
He looked a little sheepish. “Maybe Gran’s craziness is contagious. Or maybe it’s just … what do you call it … suggestion. But, well, I’m up in the attic, and sometimes there’s a strange noise at night. Like crying. It’s faint though—I’m never sure about it. I’ve looked at the radiator, the pipes, the shutters … but I haven’t been able to figure it out.”
Joanna was intrigued, but she also felt a disquieting heaviness pulling on her heart. The idea of some lost soul crying in the night was unspeakably sad.
“And that’s not all.” He hesitated, his mouth twisting. “There’s a rocking chair in the corner of the attic, and I could swear that whenever I hear the sound, it rocks a little.”
“Have you asked Doe about it?”
“I didn’t at first. I honestly didn’t want to admit that she might have been on to something all this time. But after a while, I gave in.”
“And?”
“For a minute she didn’t say anything. She was just quiet, which—as you know—is not like Gran. And then she said something about how spirits don’t necessarily have to be from ghosts, that there can be energy that lives in a place, left over from events or … emotions, I think she said, that leaves a permanent … what did she call it? Imprint? Something like that.”
“And what did she think it was?”
“I don’t know. I probably never will. I mean, ghosts are one of her favorite subjects, so you’d think she would have been happy to talk about it, but she didn’t seem too interested. She said something about … things we can’t ever know.”
There are some things we’re just not meant to know. The sentence echoed from that day in August. It was what Doe had said about Baby Hayes.
Despite a hesitance at the propriety of wandering through private quarters, Joanna was hooked. “Could I see it?”
“Only if you happen to be here in the middle of the night.” The words hung there for a moment; his expression betrayed nothing. “If it really happens at all. But if you’re up for a climb, you can see the room.” He glanced at his wristwatch, then swept an arm toward the stairway. “After you.”
On the second floor, he took a quick detour to show her around, making a cursory effort to complete the tour. Apart from Doe and Nico’s bedroom, there were two others. One was used only for storage, with towers of boxes stacked against the walls. “One of
the first things I learned about Gran is that she never gets rid of anything. There are probably penmanship exercises from the third grade in there, along with any mail she’s ever gotten and newspaper clippings going back to 1911.”
The other bedroom retained a twin bed with a ruffled satin coverlet, and a large collection of porcelain dolls—lined in frilly exhibition on mounted wall shelves. But the most prominent feature was an elaborate dollhouse on a table in the middle of the room. “Gramps made it for my mom when she was young. All the furniture, too.”
Joanna was enchanted, stepping into the room for a better look at the perfect miniatures that furnished what was clearly a replica of Grange House, down to the wallpaper in the dining room. The little house was made of wood, not brick, but the exterior was carefully painted in a trompe l’oeil of sienna and brown.
“This is amazing. Look at the detail! Your grandfather is a real craftsman.” She was shaking her head in wonder as she turned to Daniel. “It’s a shame that no one plays with it. Didn’t your mother ever want your sisters to have this?”
His response was a bit slow in coming, as if it had never occurred to him. “I’m not sure. She never talked about her life … before. Once she left here, there was no going back. I guess taking a version of this place with her wasn’t really an option.”
He shrugged and turned away, moving on to the sitting room across the hall. It was on the snug side, with a braided rug and faded floral curtains. Doe’s knitting basket overflowed from the hassock by her chair, and the aromatic smell of cherry tobacco was evidenced by Nico’s pipe, nested in a large ashtray next to his well-worn recliner.
“This is where you can find them most every night, watching Huntley-Brinkley and working crossword puzzles out loud. I think Gran has knitted mittens for every charity case in the county.”
Joanna was glad to be able to picture Doe and Nico in their places, but she was distracted by her impatience to see Daniel’s room. She turned from the doorway, eyes searching the hall. “Where are the attic stairs?”
He pointed to a narrow door—it could have been a closet. When he opened it, there was a steep staircase with very shallow treads, leading up to a faint light. He let Joanna lead the way, and at the top she found an open space—it was just one big room with a ceiling that slanted on each side and a window at each end. There was another braided rug on the floor, and a set of bedroom furniture in bird’s-eye maple, and in the corner, a tall Windsor rocking chair.
“This is it. The scene of the crime.” Daniel stood at the top of the stairs, his hands on his hips, watching as Joanna took it all in.
She looked around at the unfinished space, which was somehow quite welcoming with its patchwork quilt and low lamps. There was a small radiator under the window. “It’s very cozy—nice and warm. Did you move the furniture up?”
“No, it was here already. I’m not sure why.”
Walking to the rocker, Joanna gave it a tentative push.
“Not so spooky in the daylight, I guess.” Daniel seemed a little abashed.
“No—not spooky.” Joanna sat down in the chair and rocked. “But there’s something.…” As she rubbed her hand along the worn, smooth maple, she felt the same odd sadness from before—an unintentional empathy that knew no source. And suddenly it overwhelmed her, triggering an unhappiness of her own—one which she thought she had been covering quite well. As she rocked, the facade of calm collection crumbled, and she was helpless against the tears that trailed down her cheeks.
“Are you going to tell me about it?”
He had known all along. She didn’t think she had given herself away—in fact, she had suspected herself of using poor Baby Hayes as a distraction. But it was clear now that, as her mother did, Daniel knew better. And there was something so comforting, so needed, so … intimate … in his steadfast perception, that her careful restraint—worked to an exhausted lather over the past months—fell away like a broken harness. Sore and halting, the words came forth. She told him all that she felt and all that she feared. In addition to the lost and powerless portrait she had painted at her mother’s table, she admitted a bleak hunch that an essential connection had been lost—that her husband no longer knew her heart, and she did not know his. And this openness, this act of complete disclosure, changed something. When he pulled her into his arms, it could have been simply compassion—nothing more than caring concern. But it wasn’t simple, and it was more.
His kiss was a reprieve. It was sanctuary. It was sustenance. She kissed him back, and didn’t stop. When they stumbled against the bed, Daniel drew away. He peered at her, and his words were as imperative as they were strangled: “It can only go one way or the other. Don’t do this if you don’t mean it.”
If you don’t mean it. In the clarity of mere inches, Joanna’s vision was suddenly and blazingly circumspect, and the line they had crossed tightened around her chest like a cord. What did she mean? What did she want? Now that she was here, could she say with certainty it was this? Frank … the children … her family … her life as she knew it—everything on the table. These thoughts wheeled through her mind like a cartoon image of a printing press, rolling out pages on a desperate deadline. The bold headline was unmistakable, even in the frenzied rush, and it shouted of looming disaster. There could be no hiding now, and no going back. The convenient, protective shield of friendship had been smashed and it lay on the floor around them in glinting pieces. In the space of moments, she had become someone she had never imagined she could be. She was, officially, an unfaithful wife.
And then there was a sound. Three dulcet chimes, as jarring as a siren. Daniel swiveled toward the stairs. Joanna could see his throat move as he swallowed. “That’s odd—there weren’t any appointments for today.” For an indecisive moment, he stared across the room. “I don’t know if someone called ahead. The mortuary or … someone…” And then he met her eyes again with a long look—possibly an admonition, possibly a plea. “I have to answer it.”
He left her there, standing by the bed. And as she watched the top of his head disappear, it became piercingly clear. She couldn’t stay. Doe’s imminent return didn’t matter anymore, nor did the possibility of a customer—bereft and urgent at the door. She couldn’t stay there, waiting in his room, because in doing so, she would be telling him a lie. He had been unequivocal: It can only go one way or the other. And in her heart, she knew. She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t choose Daniel.
She would go. She would simply slip out the back. Anguished apology would dishonor what they had—the truth and the beauty of their friendship. It would be more than she could bear.
In the hallway of the second floor, she paused, listening for voices. There was an indiscernible exchange as Daniel opened the door. Someone introducing himself, she presumed, explaining his sorrowful purpose. But there was something.… She moved forward, treading lightly. There was something in the caller’s voice. Something familiar. Something recognizable. As she approached the top of the staircase, the voices became clearer, and suddenly she was rooted to the spot.
“I’m sorry to bother you.” A slight pause. “I’m looking for my wife, Joanna. It was suggested I come here. I know she likes to walk in the cemetery. I thought someone might have seen her. Your grandmother, maybe? Again, I’m sorry to bother you like this.”
The thoughts that could crowd the span of an instant are boundless, and in that moment Joanna’s were a veritable donnybrook. Among that which jostled for elbow room was the fact that Frank was not at the office today, but out looking for her. That her absence was noticed and responded to with this level of concern prompted a small, relieved gratitude. At the same time, she had a rueful awareness that this gratitude was inherently pathetic.
Simultaneously she considered Daniel, his hand on the gates of hell. He would lie for her if she let him, and that would rob him of everything he was—the core of his being.
She processed her options. She could bluster through it, descending the stairway
with an enthusiastic description of the house, exclaiming over the woodwork and the height of the ceilings and the dollhouse—all part of a spontaneous look-around … waiting for Doe … warming up a bit. She thought of her teacup, forgotten on the office desk. As a prop, it would have helped.
But over all this, she heard Daniel’s words: I never pegged you for devious. And she knew she couldn’t do it.
Daniel glanced up as she came down the stairs, and Frank followed suit. Joanna looked from one to the other: Daniel—tacitly (heartbreakingly) deferring to her lead, and Frank—visibly puzzled to see his wife emerging from the private reaches of this man’s home. When she took the last step, she looked directly into her husband’s eyes, offering no excuse.
The process of realization spread over his features slowly, like a dull November dawn. He looked from Joanna to Daniel, and his mouth fell open as his eyes ran down and up again. Dumbly, his gaze returned to Joanna. When he spoke, it seemed to come from some distant automation. “Grandmother had a stroke. It doesn’t … look good. I thought…” Back again to Daniel, incredulity replacing shock; and then, again, to Joanna. “I thought you should know.”
With that, he turned and walked stiffly to the car.
Twelve
DECEMBER 1924
“There’s something on your coat, dear. Turn around.” Helen happened to be passing through the foyer with her evening cup of tea when Susannah came through the front door. She stepped close to her daughter, holding the saucer in one hand as she brushed at the back of Susannah’s shoulder with the other. “What could this be?” Squinting at the poiret twill, she made a closer inspection. “Some kind of soot?” She gave a sharp sniff. “Your coat smells like woodsmoke.” Stepping back, she gave Susannah a quizzical look. “Have you been at a bonfire?”
“Heavens, no!” Susannah gave a light laugh as she took off her gloves. “I’ve been studying at Evelyn’s, I told you. The fireplace in the parlor backed up. It was like a forest fire in there. We opened all the windows, and I had to put my coat on. I must have brushed up on the firebox when we were fanning the smoke.”