Several moments passed until Seth said, “I think you’ve done all you can.” Then he changed the subject. “What’s next for you?”
“We’re going to see the baby,” Lydia said.
28
Lydia drove the two of them to Rachel’s house in Amherst. “You’re quiet,” she said to Meg.
“I’m angry,” Meg told her. “I’d like to throttle Jacob for never saying anything about any of this back then. Maybe there wasn’t any proof, but his information might have introduced reasonable doubt. Or if the jury bought into the accident theory, Aaron might have gotten a shorter sentence. It’s all wrong.”
“What are we going to tell Aaron?” Lydia asked.
“I don’t know. I’m trying to avoid thinking about that conversation. Are we planning to stay long at Rachel’s?”
“I’ll see how it goes; it’s up to her. Are you in a hurry?”
“No, not really. If I go home too soon, I’ll just get in Seth’s way, and I want him to finish his project quickly.”
“So that’s his wedding present? Bathrooms?”
“It is. Unique, isn’t it?”
“That it is. What are you planning to give him?”
“Besides me?” Meg smiled in spite of her grumpy mood. “Actually . . . you remember his friend Eric, who deals in architectural salvage out of a barn in Hadley?”
“The name sounds vaguely familiar. Why?”
“When we were at his place looking at plumbing fixtures, Eric mentioned that he’d just acquired a bunch of antique carpenter tools and equipment, and he wondered if Seth would like them. Seth passed, because I guess he didn’t want to indulge a hobby, what with everything else that’s going on. But I went back to tell Eric to set them aside for me. Everyone needs a few indulgences in their life, don’t they?”
“That sounds perfect. If a bit hard to wrap. But then, so is a bathroom.” Lydia smiled. “Your parents will be arriving soon. Are you ready for them?”
“Heck, I don’t know. I love my parents, but I don’t have the time to entertain them at the moment. Not that I’m suggesting that you should! They’re here to see me, but I’ve still got to figure out what’s going on with this wedding stuff. At least they didn’t show up in the middle of the harvest, like last time.”
“Your mom can help with the wedding part.”
“Maybe,” Meg said dubiously. “But there’s really not much that needs to be done. And holding it in a restaurant with a university professor handling the vows is definitely outside her comfort zone. Plus, most of the decisions have been made. Sorry, I’m just whining. Too much happening right now.”
“I can set her to making Thanksgiving food. That’d keep her busy. Don’t stress too much about it, Meg: it’ll all work out.”
Meg hoped that Lydia was right. They joined a long line of waiting parents at the school that Chloe and Matthew attended, and once they had collected the two children and installed them in the car, seat belts fastened, Lydia headed toward Rachel’s house. “Are you looking forward to meeting your sister?” Lydia asked over her shoulder.
“I guess,” Chloe said, with little enthusiasm.
“I wanted it to be a boy,” Matthew muttered. “Now Dad and me, we’ll be outnumbered.”
“You’ll survive,” Lydia said. “And be nice to your mom—she’s going to get tired a lot for a while.” She pulled into Rachel’s driveway three minutes later. The kids piled out first and ran to the front door, which Rachel opened quickly. She grabbed up her children with one large hug, but then cautioned them. “Careful, loves—things are still a bit sore. Go on in; your dad’s inside. Hi, Mom, Meg. Come meet her—I assume it’s the baby you want to see, not me.”
“Rachel, you amaze me,” Meg said. “You had a baby yesterday. What are you doing home so soon?”
“I guess you haven’t spent much time in hospitals—it’s not like a hotel, and there’s no way to get any rest. It was an easy delivery, and I know the ropes. I’d rather be here. Noah can help out for a couple of days, and Chloe’s old enough to help, too. Get inside! It’s chilly out there.”
In the front parlor, Rachel’s usually tidy room was chaotic, with assorted blankets and piles of diapers and a very small cradle taking up the space. “Noah?” Rachel called out. “We’ve got company.”
Noah came into the room, drying his hands on a dish towel. “Hey, Lydia. Hi, Meg. You guys want some tea or something?”
“Don’t worry about us,” Lydia said. “We just popped in to meet the baby.”
“She’s asleep at the moment. But then, they’re usually at their cutest when they’re asleep, at least for a few years. Take a peek!” Rachel said.
Lydia and Meg tiptoed over to the cradle and looked down at the sleeping infant. She looked like . . . a very young baby. A bit scrunched up—but then, she was less than twenty-four hours old. Meg tried to remember the last time she’d seen a baby that young, and came up with . . . never. She was wearing a tiny knit cap, so Meg couldn’t see her hair, but her hands were bare, with teeny-tiny fingernails. The baby flexed her fingers in her sleep, and Meg suddenly realized that she was looking at a person, not a thing. A human, who was going to go on to lead a whole life, and things would never be so simple again. At that moment, the baby opened her eyes, which turned out to be an almost slatey blue, and which looked preternaturally wise. She shut them again quickly.
Rachel came up to stand beside her. “Wow,” Meg said. “She’s adorable.”
“She looks like a baby, Meg. All babies are adorable,” Rachel said, albeit fondly, looking down on her new daughter.
“What are you going to name her?” Lydia asked. “Have you decided?”
“We’ve decided on Margaret, but it’ll probably be Maggie for short. Or Mags.”
Meg felt tears pricking behind her eyes. “I’m honored. That is, if there aren’t seven other Margarets up your family tree?”
“Nope, you can take the blame. Although nobody has ever called you Maggie, right?”
“Maybe Meggie, but Maggie’s good for her.”
“Well, there we go. You want to sit for a bit?”
“As long as you aren’t exhausted,” Lydia said. “If you are, just say so and we’ll go.”
Somehow they drifted toward the dining room and sat at the table there. “Not with all these great hormones perking. Of course, the downside is that I might burst into tears at the drop of a hat. But it passes. So talk to me. What’s new with your arson investigation?”
“Oh, right!” Meg had to shake herself to switch to a new subject. “Your noticing that the insurance agent was on the investors list was a big help. We talked to him this morning and learned some very interesting stuff.” Meg outlined the gist of the conversation, with a few prompts from Lydia.
Rachel appeared to be following, although every now and then her eyelids drooped. When Meg had wrapped up her explanation, Rachel roused herself to say, “So there really was something fishy going on?”
“It looks like it. But it seems a little late to do anything about it. If Kenneth Eastman did set that fire, something went terribly wrong, but there’s no way to prove anything. I hope what crumbs of comfort we can give Aaron will help him.”
“He’ll know you cared enough to try, and that’s something,” Rachel said. “Listen, guys, I think it’s time for my nap, so I’m going to throw you out. But come again!”
“Of course we will,” Lydia said warmly. “You take care of yourself, and let either of us know if you need anything.”
“Will do. Bye, you two. Great to see you.” Rachel bestowed hugs on each of them, and Meg could swear there were tears in her eyes.
Back on the road, Lydia said, “Where to now?”
“Home, I guess. If Seth’s made as much progress as he hoped, he may need my help to wrestle fixtures. Or something. And I’m the designated tiler
—something I’ve never done before.”
“Ah, it’s easy,” Lydia said. “Take it from me. I used to help Seth’s dad in a pinch, and I got pretty good at it. It’s even simpler now than it was then. Give me a shout if you need help.”
“I will, believe me. I don’t want to live with crooked lines or lumps and bumps for the next however many years. I want to get it right.”
Lydia dropped Meg off at her back door, and Meg walked into the house feeling some trepidation. It was quiet: was that good or bad? She went through the kitchen, into the dining room, then turned right. “Behold, it’s a room! A teeny-tiny room!” she crowed.
Seth emerged from the cellar stairs behind her. “That it is. With pipes and wiring. Once the inspector signs off on it, I can put up the walls. If you’re very good, you might get a door sometime soon.”
“I am so excited!” Meg said. Seth just raised an eyebrow at her, so she amended her statement. “Great progress. I’m impressed. Have you moved on to the upstairs yet?”
“Sort of. I’ve framed in the closet and moved the door, and I’ve opened up the wall between what will be the two bathrooms. If you shower, it may be a bit drafty. How’s the baby?”
“Small and babylike. I didn’t see her awake, although she has amazing eyes, which she opened for about two seconds. Did Rachel tell you what she wants to call her?”
“No, we haven’t had much time for chitchat lately. What?”
“Margaret, aka Maggie,” Meg said—and was once again surprised by how moved she felt by Rachel’s choice of name.
“Nice. Did you come away wanting one of your own?”
“Not yet. But ask me again later. Can we get the wedding out of the way first?”
“That was the plan,” Seth replied. “The tile was delivered . . . Looks nice.”
“I got so overwhelmed by all the choices that I picked the simplest patterns that they had in stock. But I thought they went with the house.”
“I agree. There’s nothing wrong with simple.”
“So when do I get to tile?” Meg asked, not sure whether she wanted to start sooner or later.
“Let me finish the rough-in upstairs. The timing may be tricky—you’ll have to get the tiling done before we move the new old tub up there, and that’s definitely a two-man job, so I’ll need help.”
“I am not going to volunteer! And don’t you try to handle it all by yourself, either. All we need is for one or the other of us to throw our back out before the wedding.”
“I hear you.”
“You about ready to quit for the day?”
“Just a couple more pipes,” Seth said. “Pizza for dinner?”
“Sounds good to me. I’ll go pick it up.”
By six Seth had scrubbed off most of the plaster and other ancient dust, and he and Meg were seated at the kitchen table, where a large pizza occupied the center. “Where’s Bree?” Seth asked, before digging in.
“Michael’s, I think. If you’re asking if we can eat this whole thing, the answer is yes.”
Seth grinned and helped himself to a couple of slices, and Meg followed suit. After finishing her first slice, Meg said, “I think we’ve gone about as far as we can go looking at this arson problem for Aaron. There’s just not enough evidence to prove anything.”
“I think you’ve done a great job. Well, that is if Aaron doesn’t mind hearing that his father was probably a con artist who cheated half the rich folk of Granford.”
“But the important point is that Dad may have had a hand in starting that fire, even though he ended up getting caught in it. That part still doesn’t make sense to me. If he knew there was going to be a fire, why wasn’t he able to get out?”
Seth finished his second slice and reached for another before answering. “People make a lot of assumptions about fires, most of them wrong. Fact: if you have a smoke alarm and it goes off, you have two minutes to get out of the building. Don’t stop to collect the family jewels or your photo albums, because then you won’t get out at all.”
“That’s depressing. Any more fun facts?” Meg asked.
“Yes. A very high percentage of fire deaths are caused by smoke inhalation. Not burns. But a lot of people take a look around and say to themselves, Gee, it’s not here yet—I’ve got plenty of time. Not true. And that’s the most likely scenario here. Ken Eastman didn’t want to get out too soon—he wanted to make sure the house would be a total loss so he could collect the full insurance. But he waited too long, and he paid the price.”
“That’s what Jacob said, too. But there’s no way to prove it. How long does it take to die from smoke inhalation?”
“To inhale enough fumes to kill you? Or if the fumes are contaminated with something other than smoke? Could be as short as two minutes.”
“So it’s possible that Dad set the fire then went back upstairs to wait for a bit, but he miscalculated. Could Aaron in the basement have come to, recognized that he was in danger, and made his way outside, and then realized that nobody else had made it out? And then passed out again?”
“Maybe. He could have been exposed to the same fumes, which would make him even woozier than whatever he had been smoking or sniffing before that. And that could have been long enough to kill the other family members. Fumes would spread fast in leaky old houses. In which case, there was nothing he could have done to save them.”
“That may be the best we can do for him,” she said softly. “He couldn’t have done anything to help his family. But that’s not the same as causing their deaths.”
“So we should tell him that.”
“You have any idea how long the other Eastmans plan to hang around?”
“Didn’t Kevin say something about leaving Monday? I don’t think Lori plans too far ahead. And Aaron? Hard to say. He’s doing good work on the fence, but that’s not a long-term solution to anything. You want to ask them over tomorrow night and get it over with?”
“That’s probably the best idea. And then we can get back to our lives, right?”
“Sounds like a plan.”
29
Meg refused to entertain the Eastman tribe at every meal. The evening before she had called the three siblings and invited them to come to dinner the following night, Saturday, pointedly saying nothing about that night. They were grown-ups, if a motley crew of them, and they had at least two cars among themselves plus a working kitchen at Seth’s house: let them figure out where to eat. She and Seth had far too much on their respective plates to deal with everyone at once. Meg’s parents were due to arrive sometime early the following week—they were being uncharacteristically vague about their plans, but maybe that just meant they were mellowing with age. Her father, Phillip, had always been almost aggressively driven professionally, and had thrived on it, but maybe he had finally realized that it was time to slow down and smell the roses. Or, given the time of year, the apples.
Her mother had had a rather odd experience the last occasion she had spent time in Granford, and since it had involved a death and a murder accusation, maybe she was dragging her feet about coming back, consciously or unconsciously, despite having accepted the invitation to Thanksgiving dinner at Lydia’s. It was kind of Lydia to have invited them to stay at her house for Thanksgiving, but Meg suspected that her parents would prefer the comforts of a fine hotel. She hadn’t heard the final arrangements. Meg admitted to herself that she felt she was acting childish, putting her own needs and wants ahead of her parents’, but hers were definitely legitimate: planning a wedding, finishing a bathroom or two, and fixing Aaron’s life. She still wasn’t sure how that last had crept in. At least the bathroom construction did not involve dealing with the stew of personalities of the unfamiliar people who were wandering in and out of their house, but rather focusing on putting sticky stuff on surfaces and laying out tiles. Lots of tiles. Why was it she had decided to go with tiny tiles
? She could have chosen big ones, a foot or more per side. But no, she wanted authentic, or sort of authentic. To be consistent with the eighteenth-century nature of her home she would have to have chosen chamber pots and an outhouse. No thank you.
Over breakfast she asked Seth, “So, where are we in the construction project?”
“All pipes roughed in, and the inspector will stop by any minute now,” he replied confidently. “I’ll need you to tile the bathroom walls and floors, in that order, before I can set the fixtures in place.”
“Can I do it in a day?” she asked.
“We’ll see. I have every faith in your innate abilities,” Seth said with a wicked gleam in his eye.
“Gee, thanks,” Meg muttered. “Have you found anyone to haul the bathtub in?”
“Aaron might be able to help out. Kevin probably wouldn’t be able to handle it with me, and there’s no way to fit three adult males and a bathtub in the stairwell, not without taking the balustrade apart, and I assume you don’t want to do that.”
“I don’t want to undo anything in the house. Keep things moving forward, please,” Meg said emphatically. “You sure everything will fit?”
“I’ve measured everything more than once. Don’t you trust me?” Seth asked, helping himself to jam for his bagel.
“Of course. I’m just deflecting my anxiety.”
“Onto a bathtub? Why are you anxious?”
Men are so clueless, Meg thought. “Plenty of things. That unfinished list of tasks for the wedding—I don’t even know what I’m wearing yet. My parents’ looming arrival. Having to face the dysfunctional Eastman clan with less-than-stellar news. Take your pick.”
Seth’s expression softened. “Hey, you know I’ll back you up. And you’ve done your best for Aaron. Better than he had any right to expect, given how long ago all this happened.”
Meg finished her toast and took her dishes to the sink. “Actually, right now I’m looking forward to doing something manual, so I don’t have to think. Will we be able to talk to each other through the floor? Or walls?”
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