by Karen Kelly
Though that development remedied one eminent risk, Susannah still had to keep a sharp eye whenever she was outside; almost any visitor to St. Gregory’s would know her. If she wandered too far from the house, there was no telling how long she might be stranded behind the nearest monument. It was easiest to wait until the gates were closed for the night. She fell into a familiar routine—a serene stroll along the curving paths at twilight, accompanied by the evening birdsong and the scent of dew settling onto the grass—a stroll that always led to an achingly new headstone, where she would end her day in soft, solitary conversation and a reluctant good night.
Her mother came to see her often. It was the reason Helen had devised the plan—she could keep her daughter close, and no one would find the visits to the cemetery all that unusual. She brought the family report, news of the world, and clothing to accommodate the changing requirements. She also managed to sneak Susannah her bed pillow, stuffed into a shopping bag. If Jimmy wondered about the occasional parcels Mrs. Parrish was bringing to her friend Doe, he didn’t ask.
Aside from the insufficient down in the pillows, the accommodations at Grange House suited Susannah. She liked the seclusion. To afford better privacy for all of them, Doe and Nico had moved the furniture from the spare bedroom to the attic, and the effect was of a cozy nest—warm and dry. A little too warm at high noon in July, perhaps, but Susannah could pass the days reading in the cool, dark parlor, or sitting with Doe in the kitchen.
Although her mother had been close to Doe for many years, Susannah didn’t really know her until those long days of confinement. The ceaseless demands of groundskeeping kept the woman outdoors for much of the day, but in her downtime she taught Susannah to make sourdough bread and angel food cake and boysenberry jam. She had a way of raising Susannah’s spirits. She could even raise a smile now and then too, coaxing forth the first semblance of anything like cheer in that cruel, miserable year. More than anything, Susannah liked Doe’s ghost stories. In a sad, strange way, the prospect of supernatural presence gave her hope. She didn’t really believe any of it, but not a night went by that she didn’t stand by the window to watch and wait.
She was in the rocking chair in her attic aerie the first time she felt the baby move. Although the tap was barely discernible, it carried the emotional force of a judo kick, instantly obliterating any chance her mother might have had to advance her case for the Episcopal Society. Susannah told Chap about it that evening, lying on her side with one hand on her belly and the other on the soft, mounded grass. Until that point, she had only pictured an embryo—the tiny seed that combined them—but now she could see a child, snug in her arms, with perfect rosy lips and dark sweeping lashes and a smidgen of downy, sable-colored hair.
It was mid-July when she felt the sudden rush of wetness. In one of his routine house calls, Dr. Schulman had given her a pamphlet that described the process of labor and birth. She knew about ruptured membranes and leaking fluid, but when she stood from the rocking chair and looked down, she saw what her heart already knew: The drops spreading at her feet were crimson.
Doe and Nico had gone to bed; Susannah slumped against their bedroom door as her fist banged against it. As Doe called for the doctor, Nico carried her back up the splattered trail on the steep staircase, the soaked nightgown smearing his arms with red.
Later, she didn’t have a clear memory of the pain, although she could recall the screams. What she could also recall was the tiny, perfect replica of his father. She had clung to consciousness, grasping desperately for her child through the descending fog. It was Doe who placed the still form in Susannah’s arms, giving her the chance to hold her baby boy in her last moments of awareness—to see the dark lashes against the waxen cheek, to feel the fine down of sable-colored hair.
Placental abruption, the doctor had called it. For a harrowing stretch, he thought he would lose the mother, too. But Susannah survived, despite her absent will. The baby’s name—Charles Hayes Collier Jr.—was recorded duly, but to the world he would be known only as Baby Hayes. His paternal grandmother’s maiden name. His father’s middle name. The inscription and placement of the headstone had been Helen’s suggestion. To reveal the truth now would cause nothing but pain—to Wyatt, to Charles, to everyone. There was nothing to be gained. Susannah was unresponsive: What could ever be gained again?
She remained at Grange House in ghostly convalescence, a hollow shell with nothing left to give and nothing left to lose. Over the following weeks, her mother was at her side for much of each day—searching her empty eyes for the girl who once was there. Inevitably, the time came for Susannah to return home. The parameters of the invention required it. Helen stood up and closed the lid of the trunk, nearly empty, on the attic floor. All of the dresses that hung in the makeshift closet were to be given to the Salvation Army. They billowed on Susannah, and there was no point in keeping them. Helen had brought a skirt and blouse from home, and she moved across the room to take her daughter’s hand and help her dress.
There was one final step in the baroque deception: Nico would take Susannah back to the train station, where she would wait with her trunk and carpetbag for Jimmy to fetch her. Helen led her daughter down the staircases and through the back door of Grange House, and there they stopped. The headstone was small—just a simple granite marker—but it filled Susannah’s entire field of vision. A low moan issued from deep within; as her legs faltered, her mother grabbed her. And then Doe was at her other side, and the two women braced her up, holding her fast between them as the grief poured forth in a quaking, keening torrent. And when there was nothing left but dry suspiration, it was their strength that guided her to the waiting truck, and their strength that settled her into the cab, and their strength that would carry her forward, as Nico put the gears into drive to bring her back into the world.
Fifteen
DECEMBER 1962
“Wyatt never knew?” Joanna was mesmerized, sitting farther forward with each candid utterance until she was leaning over, elbows on her knees. That after all these years she was the one her mother-in-law had chosen to confide in stunned Joanna almost as much as the revelations had. But what revelations. They explained so much—not just the curiosities in the photo albums, but also the enigma that was Susannah Parrish Collier, and—astonishingly—the riddle of Baby Hayes.
“No. He never knew. He was away at school then.” Susannah tilted her head, thinking back. “And he stopped writing after that summer. I was relieved. I didn’t … have it in me. To be honest, I was hoping he had found someone else. But after a time, I started to worry about him. And I missed him. He had been my best friend for most of my life. I didn’t see him until the following summer. It was strange, and sad. He wasn’t the same person. He didn’t talk about Chap anymore. I think it just dredged up too much sorrow.” She set her empty glass on the side table, then slipped her shoes off and tucked her legs beneath her on the cushion, stretching her shoulders as she shifted. “And that made it … bearable. Any conversation like that would have been … Well, I don’t think I could have managed it. We just went for long walks, not talking about anything at all. There were a lot of quiet walks that summer.” She looked at the window; her voice was tired and starting to fade. “We were all we had. He didn’t know it, but I needed him as much as he needed me.”
The long hand of the grandfather clock ticked to the top, triggering a coronach of nine low chimes. Susannah waited them out, gazing pensively at the darkness outside. When the last resonant tone had faded, she continued. “Eventually, we began to find our way back … both separately and together. And under the bruises, I started to see some of the old Wyatt. A year later he proposed. And I said yes.”
For a moment there was silence. And then Susannah leaned forward, her eyes oceans of deep blue regret. “I will never know if he could have forgiven me—if he would have found his way through it—because I never gave him the chance. It’s possible that our lives would have taken an entirely different course �
�� but I should have given him that chance.”
Still overwhelmed by all she’d been entrusted with, Joanna also felt something like gratitude. “I want you to know that your secret is safe with me. I would never share it—not even with Frank.”
But Susannah shook her head. “Don’t worry, Jo—you don’t have to carry my past around.” With a deep sigh, she sat back, shoulders falling in tired relief. “I realized today that I don’t have to live with the lie anymore. Because I wasn’t the only one hiding the secret, you see. I shared the burden with someone else—someone who had risked the”—she hesitated, searching for the word—“sanctity of her marriage. And believe me, that was no small thing.” She paused to let it sink in. “You have to realize, it was an enormous deception on Mother’s part. Keeping something like that from my father, with such painstaking effort, well … if he’d ever learned the truth, it would have torn them apart.” Absently, she ran a finger around the rim of the empty snifter. “Her intentions were pure—don’t get me wrong. Maternal instinct will always prevail. She would have stepped in front of a train for any of her children, and she thought what she was doing was for the best. But she was wrong. It was a mistake.” She reflected for a moment, watching her finger circle the glass. “It would have been worse had there been a child somewhere out there. A grandchild kept from both my father and Charles. But that wasn’t to be.” Her words carried a wistful sadness, but then her chin lifted significantly. “Still, it was a whopper of a lie. You have to remember, I almost died.”
Joanna swallowed hard as the implications became clear. She hadn’t thought about that. How would Helen have faced her husband had the worst occurred? It was a horrifying thought, and she felt a shiver run up her spine.
“And so we were both guilty,” Susannah continued. “But at the heart of it, I knew I was responsible. It was for me that Mother had betrayed her husband in such a terrible way. It was for my protection. And that was why I had to protect her, too. No matter what soul-saving impulse held out a hand, I had to live with the lie.”
She settled her feet back on the floor, as if to support the weight of her words, and looked intently at Joanna. “It’s a wretched thing to feel like an imposter. In some fundamental way, it changed me. And the worst part of it has been knowing that the people who loved me most—my husband and my children—are the ones I have most deceived. I decided today that I don’t have to be that person anymore. I don’t have to hide anything. There’s no one left to protect, and there’s no one left to hurt.”
The windows in the library were on the east wall, which faced the side drive as it wound past the house to the garages. As Susannah’s words faded, an arc of light moved across one window, and then the next. Headlights. Frank was back.
But the wave of relief that rolled over Joanna crashed against a towering rock of apprehension, and it must have shown on her face. Once again her mother-in-law came to the rescue. As the headlights passed, Susannah shook her head slowly, sighing. “I don’t know if I have it in me tonight.” Her face was pale. “I think I’d like to speak to both Frank and Gigi together. It can wait until tomorrow.” She smiled tenderly at Joanna. “But why don’t you let me talk to him about what you shared with me? I think I can help. I think I might be able to provide some perspective.”
It was utterly overwhelming. That Susannah would reach out like that—that from under the burden of all that weighed upon her, she could somehow summon the strength to offer her hand—left Joanna speechless. All she could manage was a simple nod. As she bowed her head, she noticed the snifter, still nearly full in her hand. Impulsively tipping it to her mouth, she drained the brandy in one long swig. And this produced a soft laugh from Susannah—released like church bells at the end of a long liturgy, clearing some of the heaviness from the air.
“Bravo. A little fortification can’t hurt.” There was the sound of a door closing on the other side of the house. Susannah picked up her empty glass and held it out. “Since you’re up…”
Joanna went to the small bar and filled her mother-in-law’s glass. Turning back to her, she saw that her eyes were closed and her mouth was set in a grim line. Joanna couldn’t imagine the strength it had taken to tell her the story, to bring it to light after all this time. But tomorrow’s tribunal would be the true test. For their entire lives, Frank and Gigi had been denied the truth. Their mother knew her liability, and she was about to own it.
Joanna set the glass next to the motionless figure on the davenport, whose hands were folded as if in prayer. She laid her hand on a taut shoulder, giving a gentle squeeze, and then moved quickly to the door. Fled, in fact. Her avoidance was wrapped in woolly layers of uncertainty—the thickest and roughest being the prospect that she would not again feel the warmth of her husband’s hand on her own shoulder in the dark, empty night.
* * *
Charles Hayes Collier. She could see the name from where she was standing, given the adjacency of the Parrish and Collier plots. And next to Chap was his mother, FRANCES HAYES COLLIER. Joanna couldn’t believe she hadn’t noticed it before. She hadn’t studied the wind-worn inscriptions; she hadn’t paid close enough attention. She hadn’t made the connection.
She turned her attention back to the minister, who was reciting a psalm. The family was gathered around the open grave; there was a wreath of flowers on an easel where the headstone would soon be positioned. The funeral service had been held, as a matter of course, at Nativity Episcopal. Despite Susannah’s concern about a small send-off, there had been quite a crowd. Kit just made it, flying in on the red-eye from Lima without his wife and children, citing something about passport problems. Joanna was pleased to finally meet him. Until then, she’d had only the images from the photo albums to go on. He was as strapping as he had looked in his college-era photos, and his features still bore a resemblance to Susannah’s. He also still called his sister Sassy, and Joanna could swear her mother-in-law lit up a little whenever he did.
India and Paul were there, of course, but there wasn’t much in the way of extended family—just two cousins from Boston, along with a couple of nieces and a nephew. What filled the pews was virtually the whole of Bethlehem Steel—from the chairman to a stenographer (retired now after forty years poised with her pad at the corner of Hollins Parrish’s desk)—and a heart-swelling horde of locals. Joanna stood next to Frank in the receiving line before the service, and she lost count of all the townspeople and tradespeople—dressed in their Sunday finest—who came to pay their last respects to Helen Avery Parrish.
Although the church had been filled to the transept, the interment was limited to immediate family. Accordingly, Harriet, Hazel, and Jimmy (propped up by his nephew Wayne) were there. None of them was on service today; even Wayne had turned over his duties to a couple of hired chauffeurs. And there were two others who qualified. They were regular fixtures in the cemetery, but instead of the usual overalls and apron, they were dressed today as mourners. At the church, Joanna had nearly walked right past Doe and Nico.
There wasn’t much snow on the ground—the last days of December had bequeathed a tepid thaw—but when Joanna looked closely, she could see pieces of charcoal mixed into the earth piled next to the grave. What she did not see was any sign of Daniel.
For the entire morning, Joanna had dreaded the moment they would pass through the gates at St. Gregory’s. Sitting next to her husband in the back of the limousine, she felt him stiffen as they rolled passed Grange House, following the hearse to the crest that overlooked the trees along the river, as stark and gray as the shame in her heart. Thus, when he put his arm around her during the committal—pulling her close as they watched the casket being lowered into the ground—her throat swelled with relief.
She had been asleep when Frank had finally come up to the bedroom on that fateful day—something she hadn’t thought possible. After tossing and turning for what seemed like hours, she woke to find him sitting on the edge of the bed. In a show of hopeful optimism, she had left a s
mall lamp burning in the corner; in the low light she could see him looking at her. And then saw something she had never seen before: there were tears in his eyes.
“I thought I’d lost you.” Though the words were hoarse, they were the sweetest ones she had ever heard.
“No.” Her own voice was just a cracked whisper as she shook her head on the pillow. “No. I’m so sorry. I was so stupid. So selfish.”
She could see his throat move as he swallowed. “I thought … I thought.…” He couldn’t say it.
Joanna knew exactly what he couldn’t say. “It wasn’t like that. I couldn’t have … I couldn’t.” Now she was crying, and he picked up her hand as she dredged up the words. “It wasn’t what I wanted. It wasn’t ever what I wanted.”
He closed his eyes for a moment. “It was my fault. I should never have asked this of you. It was too much. I should have seen it.” There was a gentle pressure as his hand squeezed hers. “We can fix this. We can change things. It won’t be long until Burns Harbor is up and running—things will calm down and we’ll get our own place. A place you can hang a painting … or choose new drapes … or buy a lamp.…”
“No.” Joanna interrupted him, sitting up. “We’re not going anywhere. I don’t want to live anywhere else.” With amazement, she realized the words were true. Besides, they couldn’t leave Susannah here alone, not now. Not when they’d all come so far. “This is my place. You are my life. You and the kids, and your mother, too. This is where we belong.”
* * *
When they had thrown the final spade of dirt onto the casket, the family moved toward the waiting cars. Kit escorted Gigi as India and Paul followed. Frank had taken his mother in one arm and Joanna in the other, the children trailing behind. But when they reached the road, he turned toward the house.