by Sarah Jio
I tugged at my sweater self-consciously, but she didn’t seem to notice. “Look who’s here,” she said to a man sitting at a table to our right. “A big New York City author!” She was practically squealing with delight, and I hated to spoil her fun, but a reading wasn’t what I had in mind. And frankly, I didn’t feel like Emily Wilson, the author of Calling Ali Larson—not anymore. My time on Bainbridge Island had changed all that. Writing that book was no longer the apex of my career. There were bigger things ahead; I felt it.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I really appreciate that, but this isn’t a good time for me. I really need to get a jump on this research. Perhaps another time?”
She smiled. “Of course, I totally understand. Let me show you where the computers are.”
She walked me down an old staircase to the bottom floor. The walls were covered in wood paneling, and the air changed a bit from smells-like-books to smells-like-books-mixed-with-mildew. She pointed to a computer station and showed me how to navigate through the database where I could do my searching.
“Thank you,” I said.
“Let me know if you need any help.”
I looked over my shoulder twice, and my hands almost trembled with eagerness as I typed in Elliot’s name. I wanted to cheer when six matches came back. The first, from the Bainbridge Island Sun, was a story about his winning touchdown at a Bainbridge Island High football game. There was even a photo accompanying the story, of Elliot in his football gear, surrounded by his teammates and one cheerleader who gazed adoringly at him. He was handsome, just as Esther had described—this was apparent even through the grainy newspaper photo.
I clicked on the next story, which was just a brief notice about his graduation from the University of Washington, and the next: his name embedded in a long list of GIs returning home from war.
There was one more story to click on. Let this be it, I said to myself. Let this be the clue that I need.
It was a clue, all right: a marriage announcement, dated June 2, 1949. “Elliot Hartley wed Lillian Appleton in a small ceremony in Seattle with friends and family. The bride, the daughter of Susan and Theodore Appleton, is a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College. The groom is the son of Adam and Suzanne Hartley, and is a graduate of the University of Washington and an employee of the investment firm Hadley, Banks, and Morgan. The couple makes their home in Seattle.”
What? None of this makes sense. How could he marry someone else? This isn’t supposed to be how it ended. It’s all wrong. How could he have married anyone other than Esther? And what happened to Esther? Her fate was starting to look cloudy. I looked back to the wedding date, 1949, and cringed. What happened in those six years after Esther wrote her story? Did he wait for her? And if so, where did she go?
Hoping to find something—anything—on record for Esther, I did a search for “Esther Littleton,” but nothing came back. Did she have a different name than the one in the story? And if so, why was Elliot’s name real and Esther’s fictional? I ran my fingers through my hair, the way I do when I’m nervous or stuck on a sentence, which in my recent writing life was every few minutes.
Then it hit me. I remembered the photo of Elliot at the football game. There was that cheerleader, that adoring cheerleader. Could she be Esther? Is there a caption next to the photo?
I searched for Elliot’s name again, and clicked on the football article. The caption read, “From left to right: Members of the football team Bobby McFarland, Billy Hinson, Elliot Hartley, and cheerleader Esther Johnson.”
My hair stood on end. Esther. It has to be her. And as I stared into that grainy photo, I knew in my heart I was looking at the author of the story in the red velvet diary.
But who was she?
I did a new search for “Esther Johnson,” and at least two dozen articles came back: BAINBRIDGE WOMAN GOES MISSING. POLICE SEARCH HOUSE, CAR, FIND NOTHING. HUSBAND QUESTIONED IN MISSING WOMAN CASE. MEMORIAL SERVICE PLANNED FOR MISSING WOMAN.
I read them all. Every word. Esther had vanished, mysteriously, on the night of March 30, 1943. Her car was found wrecked in a park on the island, with a suitcase inside. There were no eyewitnesses, no clues, and her body had never been found.
But as disturbing as these details were, one fact, perhaps the most chilling of all, hit me the hardest. Esther’s husband, I read in one of the articles, was Robert Hanson, which happened to be the name of . . . my grandfather.
I ran outside, both to get some fresh air and to keep myself from having some sort of outburst in the library. I also needed to talk to someone. I dialed Annabelle.
The phone rang several times. Please pick up; please pick up. It went to voice mail.
I called again. Annabelle, answer. Please answer. We both abided by the two-call rule: If we called back, it was important. She answered, just like I knew she would.
“Hi,” she said. “What’s going on?”
“I’m so sorry, but I had to talk,” I said, out of breath. “Are you in the middle of something?”
She hushed her voice a bit before saying, “I’m with Evan.”
“Oh, sorry, Annie. It’s just that, I think I just stumbled upon my family’s deep, dark secret.”
“Whoa, slow down, honey. What are you talking about?”
“My grandfather,” I said, “he was married to someone else before he married my grandma Jane, and I . . .” Oh God . . . could Jane be . . . Janice?
I had to stop and catch my breath, remembering Esther’s next-door neighbor and allowing my mind to wander a bit. “And I think it might have been my mother’s real mother. And, oh God, oh God, Annie, I think she may have been killed.”
“Emily, are you sure? What makes you think something like that?”
It all was making sense to me now. Grandma Jane wasn’t my real grandmother; Esther was. And that thing that Bee had told my mother so long ago—could she have told her that Grandma Jane wasn’t her real mother? And had she gone so far as to implicate my grandfather in her murder? Was that the reason they left the island so many years ago?
“Well,” I said, still gasping a little, “you know the book I found in the guest bedroom, the one I told you about?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, I think I just found out who wrote it.”
“Who?”
“My grandmother, the one I never knew.”
“Em, this is nuts.”
“I know.”
“What are you going to do?”
I told her about the book, as best I could, and the clues I’d pieced together—the woman at the municipal building and the newspaper articles.
“What about this Elliot character?” she asked. “Could there have been foul play?”
“No, no,” I said. “There’s no way. He loved her so much. And she was carrying his child.” But then I remembered an important detail: He didn’t know Esther was carrying his child.
“This is a mess,” I said, sitting down on the grass in front of the library, unaware that the lawn was wet—and even if I had been, at that moment I wouldn’t have cared. “What am I supposed to do?”
She cleared her throat. “You’re going to do what you came there to do,” she said.
I ran my fingers through my hair. “I can’t even remember why I came here again.”
“To heal, Em.”
I nodded. “But what about all of this? Maybe I’m prying into things that shouldn’t be tampered with. Maybe I should let all this be.”
Annabelle was silent for a few moments. “Is that what your heart is telling you to do?”
I shook my head and thought about the fortune-teller in the story, the woman who had warned Esther that her writing would have significance in the future. “No,” I said. “And the thing is, Annie, for the first time in a long time, I know what my heart is telling me to do.”
I had never been so eager to talk to Bee. Now that I had the raw facts, I craved the details to pull it all together. Evelyn had cautioned me about talking to Bee about the book u
ntil the time was right, and I decided that the time was now.
I caught a cab back to Bee’s, and after paying the fare, I practically sprinted to the door, which Bee never locked.
“Bee?” My voice was loud, determined.
I looked in the kitchen but didn’t find her there, or in the living room, either. I walked down the hall to her bedroom and knocked, but there was no answer, so I cracked the door open and glanced in. She wasn’t in her room.
“Bee,” I called out again, this time louder, hoping she was in the lanai.
When she didn’t respond, I noticed a note on the breakfast table:
Dear Emily,
An old friend of mine, also one of Evelyn’s dearest friends, called and invited me to stay with her in Seattle for the night. We thought we’d reminisce over photos and catch up. I tried calling your cell, but you must not be getting reception. I wanted you to join me, but it didn’t work out in time. I hope you don’t mind staying by yourself tonight. The fridge is stocked. I’ll be home tomorrow afternoon.
Love,
Bee
I turned on the TV. I listened to music. I caught up on e-mail. But nothing silenced the thoughts that filled my mind. They were like a song on repeat. A very bad song.
It was an awful night to be alone. So when the sun set and the house started creaking, the way old houses do when it’s dark and windy and you’re alone, I picked up the phone and called Jack.
I didn’t expect him to be there. I remembered him saying he’d be busy today. But he was—well, she was. The woman who picked up the phone. Before I heard her voice, I heard a man’s laughter in the background—Jack’s laughter. And there was music, too, something soft and romantic.
“Hello, Jack’s residence,” the woman said. She sounded sure of herself, as if she’d answered the phone there before. I looked at the clock: 9:47 P.M. What was she doing there at 9:47 P.M.?
“Oh, I’m sorry,” I said awkwardly. “I was calling for Jack.”
She giggled. “Well, he’s kind of busy right now. Can I take a message?”
“No,” I said. “That’s OK. Everything’s OK. I’m OK.”
In that moment, I felt all the rage that Esther had for Elliot, and for that matter, the rage that Jane had felt for Andre in Years of Grace. I knew then why Esther had thrown the ring. I knew why she had married someone else. Anger churned in my heart like the stormy waves outside the window. I didn’t want to end up like Esther, but I’d be damned if I stood back and watched as another man deceived me.
Chapter 16
March 16
I woke up early that morning, much earlier than I should have, given that I stayed up half the night wondering if there was a ghost in the house. When the phone rang shortly after eight a.m., it nearly induced a heart attack.
“Hello?” I said.
“Hello, who is this?” It was a man, with a deep and somewhat gravelly voice—a mature voice, one I didn’t recognize.
“Who is this?” I said back. I have always found it unnerving when a caller asks who you are before they tell you their name. Well, not so much unnerving as just plain rude.
“I’m trying to reach a Ms. Emily Wilson,” he said.
“You’re speaking to her,” I said. “And you are?”
He cleared his throat. “Elliot Hartley.”
I nearly dropped the phone. But I clutched the receiver, clutched it for dear life, afraid that if I didn’t he’d disappear back into the pages of the book, where he’d forever stay. “Yes,” I said, “this is Emily.”
“I hope I’m not bothering you, but—”
“No, no,” I said, cutting him off. “You’re not bothering me at all.”
“Good,” he said. “I’m calling to ask if we could meet. I’d like to talk to you in person.”
How did he find me? And where is he? And is Esther still alive? And does he somehow know I was reading her book? Did Evelyn tell him?
It seemed wrong to quiz him about these things over the phone. “That would be fine,” I said. “I mean, that would be great. I was hoping our paths would cross.”
“Any chance you’d like to come by for a visit today?” he asked. “There are some things I’d really like to discuss with you.”
“Yes,” I said quickly.
He gave me his address, which was in Seattle.
“I’ll catch the next ferry,” I said.
“Emily, wait,” he said. “You know who I am, right?”
“Yes, Elliot, I do. You’re the man my grandmother loved.”
A cab dropped me off at the ferry terminal, and it wasn’t until I arrived at the ferry dock that I realized I hadn’t let Jack know that I wouldn’t be joining him today to visit his grandfather. But after what I’d heard on the phone the night before, it didn’t seem to matter.
On the ferry, I thought a lot about Esther. Did she simply run away? If so, where is she? And if not, if her death—I gulped—was foul play, why hasn’t anyone found the body?
I ran through the list of people in Esther’s life. My grandfather certainly had a motive: anger, revenge, jealousy, maybe. But no matter how I assembled the clues, I decided there was no way he could have gone through with it. And what about the baby—presumably my mother? Did he leave her alone while he ran off to chase down Esther? It didn’t seem probable, but it was possible.
Frances and Rose were out of the question, or maybe not. There was something concerning about Esther’s relationship with Frances toward the end, and on that last night, when Esther saw Frances with Elliot—maybe something horrible happened there in the moonlight. Did Frances snap? I wondered.
The ferry pulled into Seattle, and I joined the crowd of passengers lining up to disembark. And as I stepped off the boat, I felt butterflies in my stomach, knowing I was one step closer to Elliot.
I hailed a cab and told the driver the address. Elliot had said that the Queen Anne Retirement Home wasn’t far from downtown, and he was right. Less than five minutes later I paid my fare and stood in front of the building. It was in a neighborhood not far from where Greg used to take me sometimes in the summers. He bought me my first latte at a café a block away.
“I’m here to see a Mr. Elliot Hartley,” I told a man seated at a reception desk in the lobby.
He leaned over a clipboard and looked at me with a confused face. “I’m sorry, ma’am, there’s no one by that name here.”
I felt my palms moisten and my heart start beating faster. “What do you mean? There must be some mistake. I just spoke to him, and he said he lived here, in”—I paused to look at the room number I’d written on a scrap of paper—“room 308.”
The man just shrugged. “I wish I could help you,” he said. “But his name is not on the list.”
Is someone playing a cruel joke on me? I wondered.
“Wait,” I said, not wanting to give in just yet. “Can you check it again?”
And just then a woman walked out from behind a cubicle wall. “Ed,” she said, “is there a problem here?”
He shrugged again. “She’s asking for a resident who doesn’t live here.”
She walked over to the counter and gave me a quizzical look. “Who are you looking for, honey?”
“His name is Elliot Hartley,” I said.
“All right, let me check.” She pulled the clipboard from Ed’s hands and looked it over for a few seconds before looking up again with a frown on her face. “Oh,” she said, “that’s the problem—someone has been into my Excel file again. They’ve sorted this incorrectly. And the last page is missing. It must still be on the printer.”
I sighed, feeling relief that there was still hope. “Thanks for checking,” I said.
She returned a few seconds later with a paper in her hand and a grin on her face. “Yes, he’s here,” she said. “Room 308. Ed is new here, so he doesn’t know the residents by name yet. But Mr. Hartley didn’t register with me, either, probably because most everyone here just calls him Bud.”
“Bud?” I
said.
“One of the nurses here nicknamed him that, and it stuck,” the woman said.
“I can show you to his apartment if you like,” Ed said, I think because he felt bad for the mistake.
“That would be great,” I said.
We walked down a long hallway, and at the end was an elevator. Ed pressed the “3” button and the old elevator barreled up to the third floor. When the door opened, he walked out, but I just stood there.
“Ma’am,” he said, “this is your floor.”
“I know,” I said. “I guess I’m just a little nervous.”
He seemed confused. “Why would you be nervous to see your grandfather?”
I shook my head, stepping out onto the third floor cautiously, as though there could be danger ahead. The hallway smelled like library books and overcooked pot roast. “He’s not my grandfather, but I suppose he almost was.”
Ed shrugged again, the way he had downstairs. I figured he thought I was nuts. Heck, I kind of thought I was nuts. “Three-oh-eight,” he said pointing to the door. “Good luck.”
I stood in front of apartment 308 for some time, unable to knock on the door. All I could think about was that I was here, on Elliot Hartley’s doorstep. What will he look like? I closed my eyes for a moment and saw Jack’s face, and it occurred to me that this whole time reading the diary, I’d imagined Jack’s face when I pictured Elliot. I shuddered a little and raised my hand to knock on the door.
I could hear rustling around inside, and someone coming closer. The door opened slowly, and a man appeared. He was handsome—not just handsome for eighty, but handsome, plain and simple, even with thinning gray hair and wrinkly skin. “I’m so glad you came,” he said.
He leaned against the doorway just looking at me, with warm, dark eyes, in the way he might have looked at my grandmother. “I knew when I saw you at the cemetery that you were her granddaughter,” he said. “Jack didn’t have to tell me who you were. I knew.”