There was a banging on the bathroom door. “The dirt’s already flowing into Boston Harbor,” Beth yelled. “You’ve been in there for almost an hour—it’s all gone, believe me. You’re as clean as you’ll ever be.”
“Bye,” I said, hoping she would go away, but instead she came into the steamy room and settled herself on the closed toilet seat. Beth had little tolerance for delayed gratification and even less for someone else’s agenda.
“Michael sent me up to make sure you’re okay,” she continued. “He’s taking Trina back to WaifHaven, and he brought a bunch of cartons up from the cellar—he said it’d make it easier for you in case you didn’t want to go back down there again.” She pulled back the shower curtain and raised one eyebrow at me. “I think someone’s sweet on you.”
I yanked the curtain out of her hand and jerked it closed. “Butt out,” I said, but I was pleased. “I acted like an asshole.”
“Men love assholes in distress.”
“How about some privacy here?”
“Hey, you’ve got to look at the upside of this,” Beth said. “Maybe your childhood fears have finally been realized, and now you don’t have to worry about them anymore.”
I peered around the edge of the shower curtain. “What are you talking about?”
“Destiny, precognition, predetermination.” Beth rubbed her palms together and her eyes gleamed. “Maybe when you were a kid, your subconscious guessed that someday you’d be buried down in the cellar, and that’s why you were always so afraid of the place.”
“Yeah, right.” I stuck my head back under the running water. “It was all my subconscious’s fault—it had nothing to do with you and Tommy.”
“Whatever.” The door clicked shut.
Although Beth’s theory on the origins of my claustrophobia was a bit over the top—and didn’t jibe with my childhood memories—I kind of liked it. And when I turned off the water, I actually felt lighter, freer. As if I had faced the worst of my fears and survived. As if I didn’t have anything to be afraid of anymore.
When I got downstairs, Michael and Trina were gone, and Beth and Gram were sitting on the old Victorian sofa in the kitchen, surrounded by the cartons Michael had brought up from the cellar.
“Feeling better?” Gram asked.
I leaned over and kissed her. “Much.” I nodded toward the carton in front of her. “Anything interesting?”
“Less than you might think.” Gram reached into the box and pulled out a handful of moldy children’s clothes. One of the things I loved most about Gram was how she didn’t fuss: I said I was fine, and she was going to take me at my word. “Storing things in a damp cellar isn’t the smartest thing I’ve ever done,” she added.
“It’s all wrecked?”
“Most of it.”
“Do you want me to call this disposal company I used the last time we moved?” Beth asked. “They come pick up all your stuff and chuck it for you.”
Beth was almost single-handedly responsible for the surge in the service sector in the greater Boston area. She was a marvel at finding people to do every and any chore. Need someone to tint a skylight? Fight with the insurance company about an erroneous bill? Drop off dry-cleaning? Beth knew who could do it for you. But it wouldn’t be cheap.
Gram frowned at her. “I don’t think that will be necessary, Beth. Lee and I can handle this ourselves, if you’re too busy. Michael wants the cellar cleaned out as soon as we can do it so that he can start grading the floor.”
Beth slumped into the sofa. “That isn’t what I meant.”
Gram didn’t say anything. She dropped the moldy clothes back into the carton and pulled another one toward her.
Gram could be awfully hard on Beth. She disliked what she viewed as Beth’s sense of entitlement, and even when I reminded her of Beth’s unentitled and extremely unhappy childhood as the awkward, overweight only daughter of my always perfectly turned-out Aunt Rhoda, Gram would have none of it. “Beth doesn’t think the rules apply to her,” Gram would tell me. “A job wouldn’t hurt.”
I knelt down across from Beth and pulled a small metal object from the carton closest to me. I dumped it into her hand. “What do you think this could be?” It was cone shaped, plated in mother-of-pearl and about the size of a child’s fist.
Beth put the small end to her lips and blew out. “Not a megaphone,” she said.
Gram laughed and held out her hand. Another impressive thing about Gram was that she didn’t hold a grudge. “I think that must have belonged to one of the great Harden philatelists. It’s a magnifier for studying stamps.”
“I thought they were abolitionists, not philatelists,” Beth said with a grin. She doesn’t hold a grudge either.
“The Colonel was actually both.” Gram pressed the magnifier between her hands, a faraway look in her eye. “The Colonel’s grandson, Ulysses Harden, collected stamps too, and so did his son, Elijah, my father. Your Uncle Joe has the collection.” Uncle Joe was Gram’s brother.
“Must be worth a fortune,” Beth said.
Gram raised an eyebrow at me.
I crossed my legs and leaned back against the rounded arm of the arched sofa. I rubbed the dark velvet with my knuckle, as I had loved to do as a child; the touch of the soft fabric and the smell of the old dust filled me with longing for times that could never be again. “Did you ever hear anything about another safe room in the cellar?” I asked Gram.
“You mean the tunnel you climbed into today?”
“Could it have been? Or maybe some kind of underground escape route?”
“I suppose it’s possible,” Gram said, “but I doubt it. My guess is some ancestor started to make the root closet into a real root cellar, but never finished.”
“That was Michael’s guess.”
“That Michael’s a smart young man.”
I ignored her comment. “So if Ulysses Harden was the Colonel’s grandson, then—”
“Don’t think we didn’t notice the change of subject,” Beth interrupted.
“—who was Ulysses’ father?” I continued.
“Sarah was his mother,” Gram said slowly. “The Colonel’s daughter. And I think the story was something about her going out to Ohio with her husband and then moving back to Massachusetts when the husband died. Ulysses must have been just a boy.”
“But then why was his name Harden?” I asked. “Wouldn’t he have had his father’s last name?”
“The husband must have been a cousin,” Gram said. “They often did that then. If I hadn’t been so damn quick to give those cartons to Nancy, maybe we’d be able to find out his name.”
“What cartons?”
Gram waved her hand impatiently. “Oh, my friend Nancy Winsten—you remember her? She works at the library?—well, anyway, she was all hot to trot over some old letters and receipt books I found in the attic, and she begged me to donate them to the library’s Lexington Room collection. She was very persuasive, said that they’d have their own shelf or something. ‘The Harden Papers.’ I didn’t have time to go through it all, and there didn’t seem to be anything all that sexy in there, so I gave in. Now, of course, with Tubman Park and all, I wish I hadn’t. Do you suppose I could ask for them back?”
Beth was still on the previous topic. “Maybe Sarah’s husband wasn’t a cousin,” she said. “Maybe his death was such a devastating blow to her that she couldn’t bear to even hear his name, so when she came back home, she changed their last name back to Harden so she wouldn’t be reminded of her lost love.”
Although Beth’s theory was, once again, a bit over the top, it too had its appeal. “Sarah never married again?” I asked Gram. “She didn’t have any other children?”
“I’ve never heard about anyone in that generation except for Ulysses, although Sarah did have a younger brother, Caleb.” Gram stood. “You know, there’s a picture of Sarah around here somewhere.” She went into the east parlor and returned with a small framed daguerreotype. She handed it to me. Beth press
ed close. “I’d guess she was probably in her mid-twenties in that picture,” Gram told us. “Pretty little thing.”
“She looks like she’s forty,” Beth said.
I didn’t say anything; I was staring at Sarah, lost in the softness of her large, intelligent eyes. It was impossible to tell from the picture what color they had been, but it was obvious, even from this stiff portrait, that they held compassion, perhaps touched with a bit of pain.
“She looks like you, Lee,” Beth said.
“I don’t think so,” I said, studying the sepia-tone in my hand. Sarah was beautiful, with high cheekbones and a small perfect mouth. And even though it was only a head shot, it was apparent that she had been much more petite than I. “Not even close.”
“Look, Gram,” Beth persisted, “doesn’t Lee look like Sarah? Around the eyes?”
Gram took the daguerreotype and scrutinized it. “I suppose,” she said dubiously. “Maybe a little.” Then she returned it to its place in the parlor.
When she came back into the kitchen, I asked, “So all the Hardens are descended from Sarah?”
“I’m sure there are lots of others, but we’ve lost touch. Sarah’s our direct ancestor—or the direct ancestor of all the Hardens we know. The eldest child of the eldest child, heir to Harden House.”
I rested my chin on my knees and ran my knuckle over the velvet. “Politically correct from day one.” Although Harden House was inherited by the eldest child (to keep it intact and in the family), it was passed down without regard to sex—and that was very forward-thinking in the nineteenth century. Most of the twentieth too. “Sometimes I feel closer to who we were than who we are.”
“You mean like to all those old crazy ladies?” Beth asked. “To what’s-her-name? Dotty Aunt Hortense?”
“I’m sure that’s not what Lee’s referring to,” Gram said.
I gave Beth the cross-fingered “shut up” signal from our childhood; she loved to bait Gram, who was a real sweetie but didn’t have much of a sense of humor. “No,” I said, “I mean the abolitionists and feminists and civil rights advocates. Sometimes I feel like I’m out on a limb by myself politically. No one seems to think like me anymore—even Kiah Wilkinson thinks I’m too liberal.”
“And who would know better?” Beth asked.
Beth and her husband were active in the local Republican party, and Russ would tell anyone who would listen—when he wasn’t glued to his computer buying and selling his stocks and bonds—that Ronald Reagan was the best president we’d ever had.
“You’re not alone,” Gram assured me. “I think like you.”
I patted her arm. “Kiah thinks you’re too liberal, too.”
It was true that I often felt more connected to the past than to the present: to Gram, who as a young girl worked to promote the use of birth control; to her mother, Elizabeth Bigelow, one of the first suffragettes, and her father Elijah Harden, who served three terms in the House of Representatives; to Ulysses, a state senator who helped settle thousands of freed slaves in Massachusetts; to Colonel Stanton Harden, a Civil War hero and a moving force among Boston abolitionists.
“Sarah Harden was very involved in liberal causes,” Gram said. “If I remember correctly, she was instrumental in starting the first Negro college in Massachusetts. And helping black orphanages.”
“Hey,” Beth said. “It’s the new millennium. Tempus fugit. No point in mooning over all the unfair things that went on in the dark ages.”
“What about the unfair things that go on today?” Gram asked.
“There’re lots more opportunities than there used to be,” Beth said.
“Not as many as you might think,” I said.
“Look at your friend Trina,” Beth said. “She’s a perfect example. After all that awful stuff—being so addicted and killing her baby and all that publicity—with the help of our tax dollars, she’s had the opportunity to get herself off drugs, she’s working and now she’s got a chance to change.”
“Yeah, Trina’s had lots of opportunity,” I grumbled. “Being born into poverty, shunted from one foster home to another, abused, never knowing how long she’d stay, how she’d be treated.” It annoyed me to hear Beth use Trina’s success to substantiate her hard-hearted views. “Trina’s always wanted to be a singer. Did you know that?” I asked. “Did you know that she has a beautiful voice, that she used to sneak into clubs when she was a little kid? She once told me that after she sang, everyone would clap, and that that was the only time anyone ever noticed she was there.”
Gram put her hand on my knee, both to silence and console me. “Trina didn’t kill her baby,” she told Beth. “That’s why the charges were dropped—even the judge knew it wasn’t right to put the blame on her like that.”
The truth was that the charges hadn’t been dropped; Trina had accepted a plea bargain which reduced the indictment from second-degree murder to involuntary manslaughter. But I didn’t bother to correct Gram. The exact details of the situation didn’t matter. What mattered was that Trina had been a multiple victim: a victim of an over-zealous DA up for reelection, of a local news media focused on a crack war that erupted the same week Hendrika was born, of some very bad decisions and of even worse luck. Sure, she shouldered some of the responsibility, some of the blame, but there was so much she had had no ability to control.
“Maybe it wasn’t technically her fault,” Beth argued, “but you’ve got to admit, she had a hand in it—or an arm, as the case may be.”
Trina’s daughter, Hendrika, had died because the placenta she needed for nourishment was damaged by her mother’s heroin use. She was born two months premature and very sick; she lived one week. That one week with her dying child had been enough to break Trina’s heart—and to turn her around. Trina was filled with remorse and was doing all that she could to create a new life for herself—and not just because her plea bargain stipulated that failure at SafeHaven meant a prison term. She was doing it because she had been changed by all she had lost. “I’m gonna have another little girl someday,” Trina had told me. “And I’m gonna name her Hendrika too, but she’s gonna be healthy and strong and go to college.”
“It’s not as simple as you make it sound,” I snapped at Beth.
Beth raised an eyebrow. “Maybe it is.”
Gram cleared her throat, indicating that this conversation was over. “I’m glad to hear that you’re not enamored of history, Beth.”
“You are?”
“It’s good to live in the present, to appreciate the moment. To be here, now, not to spend too much time dwelling on what was,” Gram said.
Beth and I both looked at her warily. “True,” I said slowly, “but somehow that doesn’t sound like you.”
“I have something to tell you girls—actually to ask you.” Gram sat up straight and looked us each in the eye for a long moment. “Although this affects Beth most directly, I think it might upset Lee more.”
“Are you all right?” I demanded. “Are you sick?”
“No, dear,” she said, giving my shoulder a squeeze. “Not to worry. I’m just fine. This isn’t about me, it’s about the house.”
“Harden House?” Beth asked. She was the eldest child of the eldest child and expected to inherit it. Her mother had died five years ago.
I held my breath, afraid I knew what was coming, although I couldn’t understand why I would be upset about Gram leaving the house to me.
Gram placed her hands in her lap. “I’m thinking of breaking with family tradition.”
Beth’s eyes filled with tears. “You’re going to give the house to Lee?” she wailed. “Is this because I’m a Republican?”
“This doesn’t have anything to do with politics,” Gram said, smiling, “and I’m not giving the house to Lee. I’m going to give it, and all the furnishings, to the Lexington Historical Society. I’ve been talking with them about the process.”
We were both speechless.
“I know it isn’t necessary, but I wanted
to discuss this with you girls before anything’s finalized.” Gram turned to me. “How do you feel about this? What do you think?”
“I, ah, I guess it’s just hard to imagine Harden House not being in the family, not being there for the grandchildren like it was for all of us …” I said slowly.
“But now it will be there for the grandchildren,” Gram explained. “This is the way to make sure it always will.”
“You think I’d sell it?” Beth cried. “Why do you always—”
“It’s not just you, Beth,” Gram said. “That’s why I’m not leaving it to any of the grandchildren. The house is a big burden, a big expense, and someone’s going to need to, or want to, sell it someday.”
Beth and I looked at each other. There didn’t seem to be much more to say.
“It’s your house, Gram,” Beth finally said, tears streaming down her cheeks. “You should do what you want with it.”
I nodded and rubbed my knuckle against the soft velvet of the sofa, wondering where all my memories would live.
Trina went right upstairs after Michael dropped her off. She sat on her cot in the dorm. The dorm was one large room that had been made by taking the walls out between three smaller rooms. Some of the inside boards still showed through on one side. It was ugly and was stuffed with way too many beds that a bunch of white ladies had decided they didn’t want anymore. It was neat as an army barracks except for the few “personal items” you were allowed to keep on your table. Most of the tables were full of Bibles and baby pictures and chipped china Virgin Marys.
But Trina’s table was empty. The only picture she had of Hendrika was one that was in the newspaper, and it showed Hendrika all tiny and limp and hooked up to a shitload of machines that were way bigger than she was. Trina didn’t like to look at the picture, but she couldn’t throw it away either.
No one but Trina was up there in the middle of the day because she was a senior and had special privileges no one else had. There were four steps at SafeHaven: freshman, sophomore, junior and senior. But nobody thought they were in school. You got promoted if you didn’t screw up for an entire month, but there were so many rules hardly anyone could do that so most sisters stayed freshmen ’til they’d done their time or the insurance ran out. Then they’d go back and try again. But there was no going back for Trina. If she fucked up, there was only prison.
The Safe Room Page 6