Embers

by Antoinette Stockenberg

  So. Wrong on two counts. Well, one of them was an honest mistake. Peaches Bartholemew looked and acted like the mistress of a mansion. She was beautifully dressed in a calf-length skirt of fine-spun wool and a sweater that had a lot more cashmere in it than poor Becky's. The apricot color highlighted the delicate flush of her Meryl Streep cheekbones; it was easy to see how she'd got the name Peaches.

  A poor and distant relation was Helen's first, old- fashioned thought as the two women made their way down the soaring hall, lit by a wonderful chandelier, to one of the reception rooms. Helen stole a glance at the nanny in profile and realized how striking her beauty was: straight nose, high cheekbones, delicate brows and lashes, makeup artfully applied. Her auburn hair was pulled back in a French braid, more elegant, somehow, than the cleverest cut.

  Helen responded to the woman's pleasantry about spring being just around the corner, but she was thinking, I wonder if I would've had the confidence to hire a nanny this pretty.

  They entered a room of lofty proportions which clearly served as a music room. A grand piano was strategically placed beside full-length windows that opened to a view of the garden; a deep, well-thumbed assortment of sheet music was scattered across the top of an obviously valuable Federal sideboard with a serpentine table-edge.

  "Katie, come see who's here," Peaches called gaily. She had a beautiful voice, rich and musical. No doubt she accompanied the pianist in the family, whoever that was.

  "Katherine?" Peaches said again in apparent confusion. It was obvious that a game was being played. "For goodness' sakes ... I thought she was in here."

  Suddenly a brown-haired moppet in Oshkosh overalls popped out from behind a Queen Anne armchair and shouted, "Boo!"

  The child broke into a fit of giggles as Peaches reached down and wrapped her arms around her, half-tickling, half-turning her to face Helen. "Do you know who this is?" said Peaches to the child.

  Without looking up, Katie giggled again and said, "Yes. Mrs. Evett. She teaches preschool," the child added, in case there was any doubt.

  Helen crouched to the little girl's level and said, "Hi, Katie. I'm glad to meet you. Your mommy said that you're a very smart little girl."

  Katie fixed her bright blue eyes on Helen's gray ones. "I know my ABCs, and I can count to twenty," she said. This she proceeded to do on the spot, except for seventeen, eighteen, and nineteen.

  When she was done, Peaches tucked one of her curls back and said, "We've been practicing a lot, haven't we, honey?"

  "Uh-huh. And I know how to draw. Want me to show you?"

  Helen said yes and Katie ran to the other end of the room where she'd been coloring at a low table, then fell to her knees and began sorting through her pile in search of her best pieces.

  "She's determined to make a good impression on you," Peaches whispered to Helen. "I'm not sure what Linda told her, but Katie seems to think she may not get into the class."

  "Oh ... no, I wouldn't say that," Helen said vaguely. It was awkward to be put on the spot that way, which is why Helen preferred to do the interviews at school.

  The reference to "Linda" rather than to "Mrs. Byrne" did not escape Helen. Over the years she'd met hundreds of nannies picking up their charges at the end of the day. Very few of them referred to their employers by their first names. Maybe Peaches was a relation after all.

  To fill the void while they waited for the child to make up her mind, Helen said softly, "Does Katie have many friends to play with?"

  Peaches pursed her lips thoughtfully, cocked her head in the little girl's direction, and sighed. "I wish I could say yes. But all the children in the neighborhood are in preschools, getting ready for Harvard and Yale. Linda was determined to hold out, but the pressure got to be too much.

  "Oh, good, Katie," said Peaches to the girl as she came skipping back with a crayon-drawing in her hand, "that was my favorite, too."

  Without a word the child handed the sheet to Helen, apparently preferring to let her work speak for itself.

  Helen didn't have a clue what the brown and red scribbles were supposed to be. Nonetheless, she was impressed with the little girl's command of shapes. "Oh my," she said enthusiastically. "You must come sit next to me and tell me everything that's in it."

  Helen took the girl by the hand and led her to a small camelback sofa opposite the piano, glancing at the entrance to the room as they passed it.

  The nanny took the hint. "I'm sorry for the delay," she said at once. "I'll just go see—"

  She never got to finish the sentence. A man's voice— loud and urgent and somehow ghastly—cried out from a floor above them, "Peaches! For God's sake, up here!"

  Chapter 2

  The nanny threw down the words "Excuse me" like a discarded tissue and rushed from the music room, leaving Helen alone with the child.

  Whatever had happened wasn't good, but Helen knew better than to let a child see that she was upset. In her calmest, friendliest voice she said, "Now. I was wondering what ... hmmm ... this is," she said, pointing to one of several brown cigars. She was surprised to see that her hand was shaking as she did it.

  Katherine, unhooking her forefinger from her lower lip, gestured in a squiggly circle that took in all the cigars at once and said, "That's Daddy's plane. And this is his other plane," she said, pointing to a blue scribble in one corner. "Only I coulddent fit it."

  "And this?"

  "This is fog. Daddy doesn't like fog because he can't fly his plane. But I like it," she added in a hushed voice. "Because, well, I like it." It seemed reason enough.

  "And this?"

  The child's blue eyes crinkled above a smile. "That's Polly Panda," she said, slapping the heels of her hands on the edge of the sofa cushion. "Daddy bringed Polly Panda on the plane. She sat in a seat. Mommy was mad."

  Helen decided not to follow up on that one, so she asked Katie to show her some more of her work.

  It was a hard slog. Katie, true to the artist's temperament, had no desire to explain every last smudge, especially in the more abstract pieces. She began to fidget and demanded to know where Peaches was.

  Good question, thought Helen. Really, it was shaping up to be an extraordinary interview, with one odd surprise after another. From the owl to the real Peaches to the elusive Linda Byrne, Helen had been kept continuously off balance. She didn't like it at all.

  She'd managed to get Katie working on another creation—though it was clear that the muse had flown—when Peaches suddenly reappeared.

  The woman's face was as white as a new porcelain sink. Her eyes were red-rimmed, her nose still runny; clearly she'd been crying. She forced a pale echo of her earlier smile and said, "I really am sorry ... but something's come up. I'm afraid we'll have to end the interview here. I'm—"

  She looked around the room blankly. "Did you bring a coat?" she asked in a dazed voice.

  It was Helen's turn to sound blank. "I left it in my car," she said automatically.

  "Oh ... of course. Well. I—someone will be in touch, then. Thank you so much for coming."

  And that was it. Helen was given the bum's rush out the door.

  She stood beside her car, keys in hand, staring at the imposing brick house with its shuttered air of disdain, and thought, What the hell was going on in there?

  A car or two passed on the street. Bankers and lawyers were coming home to their suppers. Helen roused herself and stuck the key in the lock of her door, all too aware that her kids would be clamoring for their own meal. A light snow was beginning to fall. More snow, more March, more waiting.

  Somehow the interview seemed to fit right in.

  ****

  By the time Peaches hurried back from seeing Helen to the door, Katie had climbed halfway up the unbarred stairs. The nanny raced to intercept her.

  "I wanna go by Mommy," the child said, trying to wriggle out of her nanny's grasp.

  "You can't right now, honey," said Peaches, carrying her quickly up the rest of the stairs. The stairs wound another
flight to the nursery around the massive center hall, itself highlighted by a large crystal chandelier that hung from the third floor ceiling. Peaches made sure the child's face was to the wall, away from the open hall—the heart of the house onto which all the rooms opened. "You know how it is when Mommy has a headache."

  "I don't know," Katherine said, frustrated and impatient. "I don't I don't I don't. I want to see her now."

  In the distance Peaches heard the sound of sirens. Her heart lurched in her breast; by sheer force of her will, she made it return to a steady, untroubled beat.

  "You can't see her now, Katie," she said evenly. Not now. Not ever.

  ****

  Helen ended up waiting a week for the call. More than once, she'd considered calling Linda Byrne herself; but after all her assurances that there was no urgency, she couldn't quite justify picking up the phone.

  Besides, it had been a godawful week: A nasty strain of flu was making the rounds, and kids and staff were dropping like flies. Helen had been one of the few left standing, despite a brutal week-long sinus headache.

  But Friday had come at last, and Helen was able, finally, to collapse on the sofa with an ice pack on her head. She was dressed in comforting sweat clothes, gazing listlessly through the wood blinds at the last of a bloodred sky and wondering whether she should close the school for a few days, when the phone rang.

  "Russ, answer that, would you?" she begged.

  She heard his grudging "H'lo" on the hall phone, followed by an assortment of monosyllables: "Yeah ... no ... 'kay ... no ... I'll tell her ... bye."

  Russ hung up and came into the family room, which was identical in size to the sitting room on the opposite side of the hall but upholstered in more rugged fabrics. He was buried under fourteen layers of plaid, dressed to go out.

  "So? Who was it?"

  "Some woman with a weird name," he answered. "She said some kid won't be signing up for preschool that you thought was going to."

  "I don't suppose you'd happen to remember the child's name either," Helen said dryly.

  "Yeah ... that one wasn't weird. Katherine, that's it!" Russ said, lighting up in the kind of endearing grin that Helen so rarely saw anymore.

  "Oh-h ... Katherine Byrne. So it must've been Peaches Bartholemew who called? Well, that's too bad. Katherine's a sweetie." The sadness lingered in Helen's voice as she said to her son, "Going out?"

  "Yeah. Over to Mickey's house. Him and Scott and me were thinking of going to a movie. Um ... could I have ten dollars?"

  "He and Scott and I. You spent your allowance?"

  "Yeah."

  It wasn't all that easy to do, since Russ had had to stay home the previous weekend. Because of the grounding— not despite it—Helen decided to give him the money. "Hand me my purse," she said, sighing.

  She fished out a bill from her wallet and gave it to him. "I want you home by nine-fifteen."

  "Ma-a!"

  "Nine. Fifteen."

  "That doesn't even leave time for a Coke!"

  "The fridge is full of Coke. Have your friends over after the show. I'll be glad to drive them home."

  He shrugged, which under the circumstances meant, "Naturally you must be insane," and took off.

  Broke again. Russ was always out of money, which was a good-news, bad-news thing for a worrier like Helen. The good news was, he couldn't be dealing drugs. The bad news was, she couldn't be sure he wasn't using them.

  Don't be dumb. You know the telltale signs; you've memorized them from the public-service ads. Russell Evett is not on drugs. He wouldn't betray his father's memory that way.

  Before she could run through the litany of symptoms again, she heard the front door slam. Russell had come back.

  He poked his head into the family room. "I forgot. She said someone died."

  Helen whipped the ice bag from her head and bolted up. "Died? Who?"

  Russ frowned in concentration. "I forget."

  "Not—" But she knew the answer would be yes before she said the name. "Not Linda Byrne," she said softly.

  "Yeah. That was it. Bye." He pivoted on one Nike.

  "Hold it. Miss Bartholemew didn't say anything more than that? What exactly did she say? Think."

  This was an utterly pointless demand, similar to many Helen had made of her son. He shrugged and said, "I dunno," with a hapless look. "She died. That's all. Or maybe she didn't say 'died.' Maybe she said 'death.' I'm not sure."

  Russ left his mother in a state of shock. Helen began pacing the room in her stockinged feet, wondering whether there was anything she could or should do at this point. Acting on her first impulse, she ran to the phone and dialed the number of the Byrne mansion. She got an answering machine, which she hadn't expected; like a fool, she hung up.

  Who should receive her condolences? Poor little Katie? Obviously not. But Helen didn't know the husband. For that matter, she hardly knew Peaches—and anyway, there was something irreverent about offering one's condolences to someone named Peaches.

  Besides, the fact that Peaches had given the message directly to the first person to pick up the phone suggested that the call had been the merest courtesy rather than a social event.

  Okay, so that was that. Helen Evett and Linda Byrne were simply two ships that had passed in the night. It was sad but hardly extraordinary. Helen picked up her ice bag from the floor and lay back down on the sofa. The pacing had made a horrendous headache worse.

  Inevitably, her thoughts focused on her conversation with Linda Byrne. Helen regretted not having been able to satisfy the woman's last request. Not that it was Helen's fault, really. After all, she'd gone to see Linda Byrne the first chance she got. She'd been prepared to accept Katherine into the class. There was nothing more she could have done.

  So where's all this damn guilt coming from?

  "Oh, God ... this hurts," she said, interrupting her own reverie. She remembered that Hank had once had a sinus infection that had leveled him for two or three days—and Hank had been as big, as strong, and as stoic as they came.

  Yeah, but this one's lasted all week, a voice kept prodding.

  It was the headache, she decided, that was making her feel such deep remorse; before it, she hadn't felt nearly enough sympathy for Linda Byrne. All that was different now.

  She tried to siphon off some of the pain with a low, prolonged sound deep in her throat. It was neither moan nor whimper, but a kind of pleading pant—as if she were begging for mercy. After a moment, the sound came out again.

  But this time it wasn't coming from her.

  Instantly Helen held her breath, listening. There it was again: a soft pant, with something like a shiver underlying it. Someone crying? But no one else was in the house.

  She sat up on the denim-covered sofa, trying to track the source of the sound. It seemed to evolve into another, sharper noise—as if someone were trying to jiggle a locked door.

  Helen turned off the light, tiptoed to the big bay window, and peeked through the lace curtain on the side window nearest the front stone steps. The night was inky black: a streetlight had gone out the day before, leaving the house in a big black hole. She thought of flipping on the porch light, but it was obvious that no one was jimmying the lock of her front door. Unsure now whether she'd dreamed the whole thing, Helen lay back down on the sofa. And listened.

  Again the panting ... again the jiggling.

  She sat back up. Someone was in the house. God in heaven. Someone was in the house.

  "Helen? Dear? Are you home?"

  Ah. "In here, Aunt Mary," Helen said, relieved. Of course someone was in the house. When you give your key to a kindly old aunt who lives in the apartment in the back bumpout, you can reasonably expect the aunt, sooner or later, to be in the house.

  With soup. Into the room walked Helen's seventy-three-year-old relation, a gentle, gray-haired bundle of quirks and good intentions. "How're you feeling, dear?" the old woman asked, sitting next to Helen and patting her hand with her own veiny, wrinkle
d one. "I brought you something to clear your sinuses. It's on the stove, on low. You want me to bring you a bowl, dear?"

  The soup fumes—aroma seemed too kind a word—were turning the corner just about then. "Gee, Aunt Mary, I don't know ... ," Helen said feebly. "What's in it?"

  "This and that. Sauerkraut ... pigs' feet ... I fiddled with the recipe your Uncle Tadeusz taught me."

  Tadeusz Grzybylek, a member of Salem's spirited Polish community, had wooed Helen's spinster aunt late in her life. No kids, but plenty of amazing food, had come out of the union.

  Helen smiled wanly. "Only a taste. It doesn't have the blood of anything in it, does it?"

  Her aunt gave her a little laughing pinch and said, "No, no, you're thinking of czarnina—duck soup. You just lie there, dear. I'll be right back."

  With a mixture of affection and dread, Helen watched the elderly woman scurry out of the room for a bowl of her brew. Aunt Mary had given up a life of her own to raise Helen after Helen's mother—Aunt Mary's sister—had died; Helen owed her everything. Now that Uncle Tadeusz was gone, it gave Helen great pleasure to give her aunt the back apartment and let her have the run of the house.

  Nonetheless, she could do without the soup.

  Helen sighed. It came out in a shudder, and that reminded her of the deeply distressing sound of panting that she thought she'd heard. The jiggling—okay, that was because Aunt Mary's cataracts made the back-door keyhole hard for her to find. But the sound of panting—that, Helen couldn't explain.

  Ironically, the panting could just as easily have been of someone in the throes of passion as someone in the throes of distress. Helen ought to know. In bed with Hank, she used to make the sound regularly. And yet. . . no. This sound had been too full of pain. Something deep inside Helen had responded the way a mother would ....

  Becky! Had something happened to Becky? Helen jumped up, terrified that she'd had some kind of premonition. At that instant the phone rang.

  It was Becky, calling to ask whether her mother was interested in a set of Liz Claiborne sweats at seventy-five off.

  "Thanks, no, I'm all set," said Helen, buckling with relief onto the sofa. "And, Becky? Please drive carefully. You know how intense you get when you're yakking with your pals."