The House on Primrose Pond

by Yona Zeldis McDonough

  ONE

  One year later

  They were driving on I-95 and had just crossed the state line into New Hampshire when the snow started falling. Hitting the windshield like cats’ paws, the fat white flakes seemed to outpace the wipers, which had a wonky, syncopated rhythm—click, click CLACK, click CLICK, clack. The sound was mildly alarming and Susannah knew she had better get them looked at—soon.

  The snow was pretty, picturesque even, the kind of snowfall that made her want to curl up under a blanket and get comfy with a cup of cocoa and a Jane Austen novel. Or a shot of bourbon and a rerun of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. But Susannah was not at home, where she could choose her opiates: chocolate or alcohol, nineteenth-century literature or twenty-first-century crime drama. No, it was New Year’s Day and she was on the road with her two fatherless children, heading toward Eastwood, New Hampshire, and a house she had not been to in more than twenty years. They had already been on the road for over four hours and had another hour to go. Which, with this weather, might very well turn out to be more.

  “Do you think it will be snowing when we get to Eastwood?” said Jack.

  “I’m not sure,” Susannah said. The small town where they were headed was midway between coastal Portsmouth and the state capital in Concord; she had not heard a local weather report.

  “I hope it snows, like, ten inches,” he said. “Then we can build a fort. Dad used to build the best forts . . .”

  “Well, Dad is dead.” This zinger was delivered by Cally, who at sixteen had cornered the market on snark.

  “I know Dad is dead,” Jack said. He turned to look out the window, where the snow kept falling from a numb gray sky. “Lavender is the state flower of New Hampshire,” he said. “The state bird is the purple finch. Of the thirteen original colonies, New Hampshire was the first to declare its independence from England—six months before the Declaration of Independence was signed.”

  “What are you talking about?” Cally asked.

  He showed her his phone. “I’m on the New Hampshire Fun Facts Web site. Want to hear more?”

  “There’s nothing fun about them,” said Cally. “Could you please stop?”

  “The first potato planted in the United States was at Londonderry Common Field in 1719. Alan Bartlett Shepard, Jr., the first American to travel in space, was from East Derry, New Hampshire. The New Hampshire state motto is Live free or die.”

  “I said stop!” Cally punched his arm and Jack fell silent.

  “Cally!” Susannah abruptly pulled over to the highway’s shoulder, causing a volley of honks from the cars behind her. “Are you okay?” she asked Jack.

  “I’m okay.” He rubbed the place where Cally had hit him.

  “I can’t believe you punched him,” Susannah said to her daughter.

  Cally was silent, but her expression—blazing, furious, accusatory—said it all. Looking at it, Susannah felt her anger drain away, leaving her utterly defeated.

  Cally really thought her mother was partially responsible for her father’s death and that their move to New Hampshire was something she had designed specifically as a way to ruin her life. Susannah understood her daughter’s need to lay blame. The alternative—that the world was an unpredictable place in which random and terrible things could and did happen—was too scary. “There’s no need to attack your brother,” she said more quietly.

  “Fine. Whatever.” Cally put in her earbuds and retreated to the cocoon of her iPhone.

  Susannah waited for a break in the stream of cars to get back to the road. “Go on—read me more fun facts about New Hampshire,” she said to Jack.

  “That’s okay. Maybe they’re not as much fun as I thought.”

  “Please?” she wheedled, but Jack didn’t respond. Sometimes that ever present affability of his could be a problem. Sometimes he was too easy, too willing to give in.

  Then Cally asked, for what might have been the tenth—or hundredth—time: “Why do we have to move up here in the middle of winter? Why couldn’t we have at least waited until school let out?”

  “Because the buyers for the house were offering all cash, Cally.” Susannah tried to keep her tone even; she’d explained this before. “Do you realize what that means? No waiting for a bank to approve a mortgage or not. Just all the money—ours. And in the bank for the future. Your future.”

  “My future in the woods,” muttered Cally. “Big whoop.”

  They continued along I-95 without speaking for a while, the snow on the car piling up faster and faster and the road getting icier and icier. Susannah had to slow down; at this rate they wouldn’t be there until after dark, a panic-inducing thought since she did not know if she could find the house at night, even with the GPS. Then she noticed that the needle on the fuel gauge was low; she’d have to stop for gas. Another delay. As soon as she saw the Shell sign, she eased the minivan onto the exit ramp, pulled up to the gas pump—maybe someone could have a look at those wipers—and gave the kids each a ten-dollar bill to use at the convenience store.

  “Can I buy a Heineken?” Cally said.

  “You’d drink beer in the car? With Mom right there?” Jack was incredulous.

  “I was making a joke.” Cally’s contempt was obvious.

  “Go,” Susannah ordered. “Before I take back my offer.”

  The gas station attendant made some minor adjustments to the wipers—“I’d have those checked out when you get home, ma’am”—and filled the tank. Cally and Jack emerged from the store, and they were on the road again in minutes. Jack had bought an outsized bag of licorice and some chips; he was alternating between them. Cally had bought no food, only a couple of fashion magazines. She had already been plotting out a life as a hip, urban-inspired designer. But she was convinced her plan would be thwarted by a move to Eastwood, New Hampshire, a place, she took great care to inform Susannah, where there would be no street fashion, because there were no streets.

  The traffic thinned out and, to Susannah’s great relief, the snow began to taper off. As Cally pored over the glossy, bright pages, Jack settled into one of his marathon naps; he might sleep until they got there. Susannah actually shared Cally’s distaste for the Granite State; she had no desire to sell her Park Slope brownstone and move. But without Charlie, she had to concede that selling the house—whose value had increased astronomically in the years they’d lived there—made a lot of financial sense. Charlie’s ninety-year-old father lived in a retirement community in Florida; he could not be of much help. Her own parents had died, within a year of each other, when Jack was a baby, and they had left her the mortgage-free house in Eastwood. Apart from a single summer when she was a teenager, Susannah had never actually lived in it, though; it had always been rented out to a series of tenants.

  All that was about to change; the last tenants had moved out two weeks ago and Susannah and her children were about to move in. Living was much cheaper in New Hampshire and state taxes were nonexistent, which meant that Charlie’s modest pension and life insurance policy, along with her even more modest income as a writer of historical fiction for Out of the Past Press would go much further.

  It was almost five o’clock when they drove into town. Nothing looked familiar at first. She peered out the window, trying her best to make out the row of small brick buildings that made up the main street. A darkened storefront with a big window kindled a memory. That was the ice cream shop where she had gone with Trevor Bailey. Trevor had been her sort-of boyfriend the only summer she’d spent here. They would often drive into town and sit in front of that shop with their cones. He always ordered the same flavor—coffee—which used to irritate her; didn’t he ever want to try anything new?

  As she slowed the car, she saw the shop no longer sold ice cream, but frozen yogurt. Sign of the times. She kept driving. The drugstore where she’d bought Tampax and tubes of Bain de Soleil tanning lotion—with a mere SP
F 8 back then—was now some kind of exercise studio, and the office of the Eastwood Journal, the local paper where her mother had once worked, was now a store that appeared to sell healing crystals and scented candles. There was a pizza place, open, and she stopped in quickly to get a pie. The kids munched on their slices in the dark, but her own oily, congealed wedge sat untouched beside her.

  As Susannah turned off the main street, the road started to look more recognizable; there was a huge old oak tree she remembered, and soon she came to a three-story house, mint green clapboard, with black shutters and a sloping garden off to one side and a meadow with a barn on the other. Another landmark.

  The minivan rounded a curve and then there was a turn down a pocked and bumpy dirt road, now covered with packed snow and chunks of ice. The road had been plowed, but badly; she was glad she’d thought to have snow tires put on the minivan before the trip. At the very end of the road was the house on Primrose Pond.

  Dark brown, two finished stories with an open attic room under the shingled roof. There was a screened-in porch on the pond side, not visible from the road. God, it looked so small. Dreary too. Why had she ever thought it would be a good idea to come up here in the dead of winter? That all-cash offer had blinded her to every other consideration. But she couldn’t share any of this with her kids; she felt compelled to be a cheerleader for the new life she’d dragged them into. She pulled up, and Cally jumped out of the car even before Susannah had switched off the ignition.

  “Where are you going?” Cally ignored her and kept walking. As Susannah and Jack unloaded the minivan, Cally rapidly circled the house once, twice, a third time. Susannah, digging in her purse for the keys, let it go. The lights downstairs were off and she silently upbraided Mabel Dunfee, who’d been hired to clean after the tenants left, for not remembering to leave them on as she’d asked.

  The door creaked slightly; it would need to be oiled. Or something. Susannah and Jack went inside with their bags; the movers would be here with the rest of their things tomorrow. Cally, who had reappeared, followed behind. Susannah didn’t even realize how uncomfortable her daughter’s pacing had made her until she’d stopped.

  “The kitchen is so big,” Jack said. “Bigger than our kitchen in Brooklyn.”

  “But it’s a dump.” Cally looked around with palpable distaste. “No dishwasher. That fridge—it’s ancient. And look at the sink—does it even have running water?”

  “Of course there’s running water.” Susannah walked over and turned on the tap. After a gurgle and some spurting sounds, some brownish liquid trickled out. Linnie Ashcroft, the Realtor who had been in charge of renting the place, hadn’t mentioned this. Neither had Mabel Dunfee. Yet another thing Susannah would have to deal with. Jack walked over to the fridge and opened the door. Even though he was just thirteen, that legendary teenage-boy appetite had started to kick in. “Look—there’s food. Where did it come from?”

  “Mrs. Dunfee, I suppose.” Susannah walked over to inspect. A dozen eggs, a stick of butter, milk, bacon, orange juice, and a loaf of bread. She closed the refrigerator door, making a mental note to reimburse Mabel when she saw her next.

  “Mom, I’m still hungry,” said Jack.

  “There’s not a whole lot here, but I can make some toast.” She looked over at Cally. “You too?” Cally shook her head and wandered off, presumably to inspect the rest of the house. Susannah moved around the kitchen. As Jack had pointed out, it was certainly big. But she didn’t like the table, and the chairs were even worse. Well, her own things would be arriving soon and the room would look better then.

  She took out the bread and butter, then rooted around the cupboards until she found a bottle of cinnamon sugar. Decidedly crusty around the rim, but still serviceable. She’d make the kids a snack and they would feel better. And if they felt better, she would feel better too. What was the line? A Jewish mother was only as happy as her least happy child. And despite the name that obscured her origins, Susannah was a Jewish mother.

  The toaster had four slots; she adjusted the dial and filled them all. But just as she pressed the lever down, the kitchen—and all the rest of the rooms on that floor—went suddenly, totally black.

  TWO

  “Mom?” Jack’s panicked voice cut through the darkness. “What happened?”

  “I must have blown a fuse; maybe it was the toaster.” Susannah fumbled around with the cord and managed to unplug the damn thing.

  “What’s going on?” Cally had come into the kitchen, her irritation obvious.

  “Mom blew a fuse,” Jack reported.

  “Oh, great,” said Cally.

  “It’s not a big deal.” But Susannah did not know where the circuit breakers were, and finding them was not going to be fun.

  “Maybe there’s a flashlight,” Jack said.

  “Flashlight! Of course!” Susannah smiled in the dark. That was Jack all over. Don’t bitch about the problem; find a solution. She began opening cupboards and drawers, her eyes gradually adjusting. And under the sink was a high-powered flashlight; to her relief, its batteries were intact. “Now we’re cooking!” she said. Then, looking at the unplugged toaster, she added, “Well, not exactly cooking . . .” Using the beam of the flashlight, she managed to butter several slices of bread and sprinkle them with cinnamon sugar. Standing in the darkened room, she crammed a slice into her mouth; she had not eaten any of the pizza and was now ravenous.

  Once she was sated, Susannah could focus on the circuit breakers. Maybe she and Jack could look for them. He was hunkered down in the living room, gobbling a slice of bread in front of the fireplace. The fireplace! Of course. Why hadn’t she thought of it sooner? There were logs stacked neatly on the hearth, and another trip to the kitchen yielded a box of matches. Pretty soon she had a decent little blaze going, and the primal warmth exerted by the dancing flames lured even supercilious Cally back into the circle. For the next few minutes, they all sat gazing at the popping logs as they polished off the rest of the bread.

  “That was delicious.” Jack burped. “Sorry!”

  “I hope we’re not going to have to live in the dark all winter. It’s like the Stone Ages in here.” Cally, who had not eaten any of the bread, was pressing her fingertips to the sugar-dusted plate and licking them.

  “Of course not.” Susannah’s tone sounded sharper than she’d intended. But things were difficult enough, and Cally’s unending bad attitude only made them worse. “Why don’t you get your jackets?” she said in a gentler tone. “I want to show you something.” There was still that circuit breaker she had to find, but she needed to do this first.

  They tossed their balled-up napkins into the fire, got their jackets, and followed her out onto the screened-in porch. She knew that beyond the winter storm window was the silent, black expanse of Primrose Pond. “What are we looking at?” asked Cally. “I don’t see anything.”

  “Primrose Pond,” Susannah said. She had good memories of this pond, but Cally was right: it was barely visible. It would be different in the summer. She had to keep telling herself that. Though, at this moment, the summer seemed a long way off. “Once it gets warm enough, we can swim,” she said. “And boat too—there’s a rowboat and a canoe on the property.”

  “Can we water-ski?” Jack asked.

  “If we meet someone with a motorboat,” Susannah said. Jack seemed satisfied and Cally didn’t have any other negative comments to make, which in Susannah’s view constituted a small miracle. They went back inside to the glowing embers of the fire. Susannah added another log and watched the flames leap up again. It felt so strange being back here; she hadn’t anticipated that.

  “Are there, like, snakes or eels in there? What about leeches? Aidan Shenk went to a camp on a lake and he said it was crawling with leeches.” Jack abhorred all creatures slippery or slithery.

  “No snakes, no eels,” Susannah said firmly. “And no leeches.”


  “Good. If there are leeches, I’m not going in.”

  “You’re not going in now anyway,” Cally pointed out. “It’s January.” And then, more quietly, “Moron.”

  Jack looked whipped. Susannah could only guess what he was feeling. Those two had been so close for so long; now they seemed to be spinning in wholly different orbits. Instead of bringing them closer, their father’s death seemed to have splintered the bond.

  “Your sister is tired and cranky,” she said. “She doesn’t want to be here and she’s taking it out on you. It’s not fair and it’s not nice and I am counting on her to cut it out right now.” She was looking at Jack but speaking to Cally. And it seemed to have an effect—sort of.

  “Sorry.” She stood there with her fists clenched, firelight playing across her sullen face.

  “It’s okay. I know you didn’t mean it.” Too-easy Jack, always the peacemaker, never the grudge holder.

  Susannah stood up. “I’m going to try to find the circuit breakers. Anyone want to help?” Cally remained by the fire, but Jack, eager puppy that he was, followed along. They bumped and bumbled in the dark, the flashlight illuminating a bright but narrow path through the living and dining rooms. Susannah shone the beam into the kitchen, and there, near the side door, was a metal panel with a ring in its center. When she pulled the ring, the panel opened to reveal the circuit breakers, all their switches in a row—except one. She was just about to flip it so that it would be in line with the others when Jack put his hand on her wrist. “Don’t!”

  “Why not?”

  “You have to flip it down first. Then back up.” In the flashlight’s bright pool, he demonstrated. Immediately, the lights returned.