With a conscious effort, Abby dredged up a smile. “Yes, this is good too. You should tell Bill we tried this place.”
Somehow dinner ended. Abby was quiet on the way home, reliving pieces of her day. Brad led the way into the apartment, then locked the door behind her. For a moment, Abby’s eyes lingered on the envelope waiting for her. Something to look forward to—later. Brad came up behind her and slipped his arms around her waist, kissing her neck. “Hey, babe, we aren’t done celebrating yet.”
Abby would really have liked to curl into bed with a book—or one of the files she had brought home from work—and go to sleep early, but apparently Brad had other ideas. Oh, well, maybe the flowers deserved some reward. She turned within his arms. “What did you have in mind?” And followed him to the bedroom.
The rest of the week passed in a blur, albeit a happy one. For the first time in months, Abby felt useful and challenged. She had not realized how flat her life had become until it was suddenly filled with movement and purpose. In her spare moments, she tried to impose order on the mess that Marian had left on the shelves, but mostly she was learning the collections, reviewing the course outlines, getting to know the rest of the staff, trying to figure out the mechanics of contracting with schools and getting the money out of them before the bus arrived at the front door. She was happy, she realized. And she was going to solo on Monday, teaching her first class.
Whatever ghosts there were in Concord, they left her alone.
Friday after work she arrived home at six and didn’t feel like cooking. Or doing anything, for that matter. She poured herself a glass of wine and wandered into the living room. Sitting in “Brad’s” chair—the most comfortable one, of course—she put her feet up on a packing box and contemplated the shadowed ceiling. How did she feel? Happily tired. Drained. A little numb. Excited. Nervous. She smiled to herself in the growing darkness. Maybe she had made the decision to take this job on an impulse, but so far it had turned out better than she could have hoped. Maybe it had just been luck, or serendipity—but heck, wasn’t she due some? It had been a long dry spell. She sipped her wine and relaxed.
Ned. He popped into her head, unbidden. It was so strange, the way she had met him. She’d never had a dizzy spell in her life, and she’d been lucky to have her first without a crowd of witnesses. But Ned had been calm and solicitous, without overreacting. He’d made sure she was all right. Well, maybe he thought he had some sort of legal responsibility, as a tour leader, to see that she wasn’t about to sue the City of Waltham for negligence or something. But it hadn’t felt like that. He had been sincerely concerned.
And he had listened to her nutty story and he had believed her. She wasn’t sure she believed herself—believed that she wasn’t just hallucinating—but she was glad that he hadn’t laughed at her, or patted her on the head and told her to go home, take two aspirin and forget about it. He had taken what she said seriously, and had offered constructive suggestions instead of empty platitudes. That was nice.
She hadn’t had time to think about her “visions,” or whatever they were, since last weekend. Was that good or bad? She was pleased that they hadn’t upset her enough to interfere with her so-called normal life. As far as she could tell, she wasn’t a helpless hysteric. And, she had to admit, there had been nothing frightening or threatening in the visions themselves, just in the fact that they were happening, without warning or explanation, and she was never sure when the next one would happen. Somehow she really wasn’t worried that one would pop up in the middle of a lecture at the museum; that building was “safe,” or at least not haunted by . . . whatever it was that was haunting her.
So, now the weekend was here. She had some more reading to do, and she wanted to tweak the presentation she was going to make on Monday, but that still left plenty of time. And that meant she could get back to her personal research—starting with the contents of the envelope her mother had sent, which she had resisted opening all week.
She thought about her mother and wondered why she had always been so incurious about her own family. Abby knew her mother lived very much in the present. She was a high-energy, no-nonsense go-getter, the person a teacher always called when she needed a few dozen cookies or help with costumes; the person the local political committee called when they needed someone to coordinate poll activities or stuff a few thousand envelopes. She was a doer, not a thinker. Abby took after her father, who said little and thought much. If he had been a professor, he certainly would have been absentminded, and she had often wondered how he managed to function as an accountant, which she thought would have demanded much more focus than her father possessed. But he was kind, and sweet, and steady. Abby loved both her parents, but she felt closer to her father.
Abby thought about standing up and retrieving her mother’s envelope, but she was too comfortable right where she was. Better to start fresh in the morning, with a clear eye. Unless, of course, Brad had made plans. Abby’s mind drifted to Brad and their time together. They’d met at a party, she couldn’t even remember whose. She had watched him covertly for a while before they were introduced. He had the kind of easy camaraderie that she envied, and he had seemed somehow a little larger than life. He had attracted a cluster of both men and women, and he didn’t seem to be posturing for any of them. He’d just been having a good time. It was so unlike her usual party behavior that she had actually been jealous.
And then a friend had pulled them together, and he had spent time talking to her. And had seemed interested in her. Maybe she had seemed like a strange foreign specimen to him; maybe he’d mistaken her silences and awkwardness for subtlety and depth. She still didn’t know. They’d been a couple for over two years, and had lived together for over half of that, and she still didn’t really understand what he saw in her, what he wanted from her. She gave a snort: part of that answer was easy. At the moment he wanted someone to pick up his laundry, clean the bathroom, cook him meals, and go to bed with him, when and if he wanted to. How much of that was going to change, now that she had a job again and would be commuting, and would probably have weekend and evening commitments now and then? My God, was he going to have to find the washing machine in the basement all by himself? Abby chuckled at the image of Brad, laden with a monstrous sack holding weeks of accumulated laundry, armed with a flashlight, searching the bowels of the building, seeking the elusive machine . . .
She was still enjoying her fantasy when he walked in.
“Hey there. What’re you doing, sitting in the dark?” He began turning on lights.
“Relaxing. It’s been a busy week.”
“What’s happening with dinner?”
“At the moment, not a whole lot. You have any ideas?”
He looked momentarily disgruntled. “Pizza, maybe?”
“Fine with me. Why don’t you call?”
He gave her an enigmatic look, then went to the kitchen to find the menu for the pizza shop. Abby didn’t move. She was not going to feel guilty about not making dinner. Let him sort things out—he was a big boy. He even had an MBA. Surely he could commandeer a pizza. Abby giggled, and then noticed that her wineglass was empty.
Brad came back, holding a bottle of beer. He looked momentarily nonplused that she was sitting in “his” seat, but he crossed the room and sat in the other armchair, signaling his displeasure as he squirmed to make himself comfortable. Abby watched him with little sympathy, waiting for whatever pronouncement he was going to make.
“I’ve got to go in to the office tomorrow, at least for a few hours. We’ve got a big IPO coming and the boss wants us all to be up to speed on the details.”
“That’s fine,” Abby said airily.
“And there’s football again on Sunday . . .” He looked at her with a challenging expression, as if daring her to object.
“Don’t worry about me. I’ve got to prepare for Monday, and I’ve got some other things I want to do. Just let me know if you’ll be home for dinner.”
Was she
imagining it, or did a flicker of disappointment cross Brad’s face? What had he expected—a scene? Tearful protests? An abject Abby, pleading with him not to leave her all alone with no one to keep her company? She laughed.
“What’s so funny?”
Oh, that had been out loud? “Nothing, sweetie. Just something I was thinking. So, how was your day?”
15
Saturday Brad was out of the house by the time Abby woke up. She stretched luxuriously, enjoying having the whole bed to herself. Brad took up far more than his share, and he thrashed a lot.
And it was Saturday, and she had things to look forward to. She did the necessary errands—groceries, dry cleaning, gas for the car, liquor store—and all the while that mystery envelope from her mother remained in the back of her mind. She came home, dutifully put away her purchases, and made herself a light lunch. Finally, at twelve thirty, she was ready to delve into her ancestors. She sat down at the desk and, opening the envelope, pulled out a pile of mismatched papers. On top of the pile was a scrawled note in her mother’s hand: “Sorry there’s not more—don’t know where it went. I’ll keep looking. Hope this is what you wanted. Talk soon! Love, Mom.” Typical.
Abby pulled the pile toward her and began sorting it. There was no particular rhyme or reason to the items—crumbling newspaper clippings, faded notes in old-fashioned writing, a short and sketchy hand-drawn family tree, and a few copies of legal documents. Abby decided to start with the documents, thinking that someone must have thought they were important if they’d kept copies. There were only a few: a marriage license for Ruth Pendleton and one Samuel Ellinwood, from 1921, in Rhode Island. Good heavens—Ruth had been only seventeen! So Samuel was the mystery great-grandfather that nobody ever talked about. Another appeared to be her great-grandmother’s birth certificate: Ruth Pendleton was born in 1904, in Connecticut. Of course the form listed Ruth’s parents: Samuel Pendleton, and . . . Olivia Flagg.
Abby felt the bottom fall out of her stomach. She stared at the faded document in front of her, incredulous. So Olivia Flagg was her great-great-grandmother? Olivia, daughter of William and Elizabeth? Olivia, from Waltham? Olivia, who had been bouncing the baby in that fateful first vision? Abby sat gazing blankly at the paper, thoughts whirling around her head. Slowly they began to settle. Her first concrete idea was to call Ned. No, she couldn’t call Ned all the time with her little finds. But this is a big find, Abby. Yes, but . . . had he suspected something like this? He was the one who had told her to check into her family background. Had he wondered if she had some connection to the places and people around here?
She needed more information. She pawed impatiently through the remaining papers. There was another paper, folded, tearing along the folds: the death certificate for Samuel Pendleton dated 1953, of pneumonia, in Montana. There was a short newspaper clipping attached to it with a rusting paper clip, describing the death of a transient identified as Samuel Pendleton, no known kin. Abby wondered how her great-grandmother had ever come by it. Had she known where Samuel was after he vanished? When was that? And why? The more answers she found, the more questions she had.
Abby laid the documents on the desk in front of her, neatly squaring the corners. She thought hard: what else did she want to know, and where was she going to find it? An irreverent thought popped into her head: just go to the cemetery, Abby, and talk to Elizabeth. No, that was silly—and unlikely. Elizabeth wasn’t really there, only her remains were. She was dead. She wasn’t about to sit down with Abby and explain everything. Abby would just have to work it out for herself.
Which meant what? All right, she had proof of her great-grandmother’s birth and marriage. Ruth had taken her maiden name of Pendleton back, and Abby wondered what the legalities were for that. She’d given that surname to her daughter as well—had that created problems? She had proof of Ruth’s mysterious missing husband’s death, at least. Would it be worth her time trying to find his parents? Not right now. Abby had a feeling that whatever was happening went back further, to the Flaggs. After all, it was the Flaggs she had seen at the house, Elizabeth Flagg at the cemetery, and the chair had belonged to Olivia Flagg’s daughter Ruth. But whose children had she “seen” when she sat in Ruth’s chair? What had happened to Olivia and her husband? Had they stayed in Massachusetts? How had Olivia felt about the sudden appearance of Isabel in her family? Abby could only guess, but it was clear that Isabel had stayed in Waltham and had maintained a relationship with the Flaggs, up until her death and burial next to them.
And where did the Reeds fit in this tree? Because Abby was pretty sure they had to be part of the same line. Why else would she be “seeing” them?
She needed more and the library seemed the easiest place to start: the library would have city directories and other local files for Waltham, and maybe she could trace Elizabeth Flagg back further. She checked her watch—if she left now, she could still get in a few hours at the library before it closed.
* * *
At five o’clock, as the library was closing, Abby emerged, dazed and bewildered. She stood on the front steps of the building and shivered in the October wind. Half of her mind was still lodged in an earlier century and she was trying hard to fit all the fragments together in some coherent way. She wavered, uncertain about what to do next. And then she knew: the cemetery. Would the gates still be open? She might as well find out. She got into the car and drove slowly through town, looking at it with new eyes. Which buildings had been there in 1900? In 1920? She reached the cemetery, where the sign said vaguely that the gates were closed at sunset.
Apparently the sun hadn’t set, since the gates were still open. Abby pulled up outside the wall, then walked slowly to the Flagg stone. She approached cautiously, unsure of what she would find. The wind whistled through the branches, sending down a shower of vivid gold leaves. Even the squirrels had retreated.
Abby walked around the stone until she was facing the inscribed side. Was she supposed to say something? Invoke the spirits of the dead? This was foolish. She was cold and confused, and here she was standing in a cemetery at dusk trying to talk to her three times great-grandparents. She took off her glove and reached out a tentative hand and touched the headstone.
Fragments, flashes. She saw Elizabeth again, and for the first time, a younger woman she had to assume was Isabel, standing with her. William’s burial? Or visiting his grave? But she knew she recognized them, only that didn’t move her forward. And through whose eyes was she seeing?
The spell was shattered by a shout. “Ma’am? I’m closing up now—you gotta leave.”
Abby looked around her. Nothing had changed, except that it had grown darker. There was no one else there, corporeal or not. She waved at the man standing impatiently by the gate. “Sorry, I lost track of time. I’m leaving.” She passed through the stone piers, and the iron gates clanged shut behind her.
She drove home in an abstracted mood. If she wanted any peace tonight, she’d better make something for dinner to avoid an argument. What she really wanted to do was to set down what she had learned, to fill in some of the blanks in her computer program, to fix the faces in her mind.
And she needed to talk to Ned. Tomorrow, while Brad was out watching football with the guys. She needed to talk to someone who could help her make sense of what was happening, and she couldn’t think of anyone else who would fit the bill. So it had to be Ned.
Abby was throwing together an uninspired dinner when Brad walked in. “Where were you this afternoon?” He sounded annoyed.
“When?” Abby said absently, chopping onions.
“About two.”
“Oh, I went to the library for a couple of hours. Why?”
“Bill and Nancy were talking about going to a play tonight, and they wondered if we wanted to come along. But then I couldn’t get hold of you.” Clearly he felt he was the injured party. “What was so important at the library?”
“I was looking up some more local history and I guess my cell was
off. Oh, guess what! It looks as though I may have had ancestors who lived in Waltham. Isn’t that an amazing coincidence?”
“Yeah, sure. Listen, I can still call Bill, and we could meet them somewhere.”
Abby thought about that. Dinner wasn’t anywhere near ready; she’d have to shower and get dressed; and she just didn’t feel like going out again. “I’m not really up for it tonight. We’ve already been out twice this week.”
“C’mon, it’d be fun. You ought to get to know them better.”
“I’d love to, just not tonight. Maybe we could plan something for next weekend.” Abby scraped the chopped onions into a sauté pan.
Brad gave her a long look then stormed out of the kitchen, muttering. Maybe he’d had a bad day. Maybe IPOs were difficult beasts to master. Abby realized she didn’t really care. She had tried to share what she was doing and he’d brushed her off like a mosquito. Okay, maybe her dead relatives weren’t exactly fascinating to an up-and-coming young banking wizard, but couldn’t he at least pretend to care? For a minute, anyway? She had certainly spent plenty of time listening to him go on and on about things she knew nothing about, and she had smiled and cooed and stroked . . . It was her turn now. She wanted equal time. Well, maybe 40:60. Or even 35:65. But she wanted to know that he was listening to her, at least part of the time.
Brad’s mood did not improve over dinner. He started on a second beer as they sat down, and when he went back for another midway through the meal, he was annoyed that there were no more.
“Damn it, Abby, I told you we were running out of beer. Couldn’t you have managed to remember that much?”
Abby considered. Had she forgotten? No, she was good at remembering little things like that, besides which she wrote down errands on the magnetized pad on the refrigerator. “No, I don’t think you told me.”
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