Embers

by Antoinette Stockenberg

  Liz's reaction was the dry laugh of a working-class townie with no illusions. "Not unless I attack this fence with cable-cutters." She turned and began walking back to her new little home, a cozy twenty feet away from where they stood.

  She added, "I just meant, with kids around, you're always celebrating something or other — baptisms, bar mitzvahs, birthdays, graduations, weddings. The kids could end up being my ticket to Bellevue Avenue. Besides," Liz said with a musing smile, "it'd be fun to do something for those two. They looked so sweet."

  ****

  Netta Simmons was on her hands and knees picking up pieces of a broken soup bowl when a plate of steamed vegetables went flying over her head, smashed up against the eighteenth-century inlaid sideboard, and came dribbling down the polished wood not far from where she knelt.

  That's it, the housekeeper decided, tossing the soup bowl pieces into a plastic pan. I quit. After thirty-eight years, to have to put up with this?

  Leaning on one knee for support, Netta got to her feet with a painful "oof" and turned to face her tormentor.

  "Caroline Stonebridge —" Netta began, her lips trembling in her jowly cheeks.

  "Caroline, sweetheart, that wasn't called for," said Cornelius Eastman from the head of the table. "You could have hurt Netta. Now, come — be a good girl and say you're sorry."

  The five-year-old blonde with the Shirley Temple curls turned her steel-blue gaze on Netta and said, "I'm sorry." Under her breath she muttered, "That I missed."

  Instinctively the housekeeper turned to Cornelius Eastman's son: handsome dark-haired Jack, him that she had practically raised from scratch, him that would've cut off his hand before he'd ever raise it to her in anger — with or without a plate in it.

  Jack Eastman stood up and threw his napkin on the table in disgust. "This is impossible, Dad!" he said angrily. "Send the brat to bed without supper — God knows she has no use for it."

  "Now, Jack —" his father began unhappily. "I know it's not easy for you. You couldn't have had this — situation — in mind when you took over East Gate. But what can we do? Caroline is a fact in my life, whether —"

  "I don't like broccoli," said little blond Caroline. "And Netta knows it."

  Netta saw Jack clench his jaw, a good sign. She folded her arms across her chest and waited with a kind of grim hope: maybe the son would overrule the father and lock the little monster in the carriage house for a year or two.

  But no. In a controlled voice Jack said to Caroline, "When and if we can bribe a new nanny to take care of you, you can go back to eating all the junk you want. Until then, you will eat whatever Netta prepares for the rest of us. If you ever throw one morsel of food again, you will eat in the kitchen, in a high chair, like your little brother. Now. Either finish your supper or go to your room."

  Caroline stuck out her lower lip and said, "You wouldn't talk to me like that if my mommy was here. When is she coming back? I want her here." The child began a wailing refrain of "I want my mom-mee ... mom-mee ... mom-mee ...," kicking her chair leg for emphasis.

  Netta sighed; the girl's lament was a routine event by now. Caroline's mommy was a thirty-year-old woman named Stacey Stonebridge who'd rocked the Eastman household when she showed up seven weeks earlier with a boy in her arms and a girl at her side. The girl, she'd announced blithely, belonged to the elder Eastman.

  No one much doubted the truth of Stacey's story; that was the sad thing. It hardly paid to bother with blood tests and DNA analysis. Stacey was pretty, leggy, and young, but most of all, blond — which is how Cornelius Eastman liked them a few years ago. Now that he was in his seventies, he seemed to have gone back to raven-haired beauties. But a few years ago? Oh, yes. Blondes couldn't miss.

  Mrs. Eastman had taken one look at Stacey, packed up her bags, and removed herself to Capri for the remainder of the summer. This time, Netta knew, the hurt went deep. It was possible that tall, blond Stacey was the last straw. Time would tell.

  Caroline's wailing continued. Cornelius Eastman rubbed his silver temples with manicured fingers and said fretfully, "Now, Caroline, we've been through all that. Please don't pound. Your mother is at the clinic. You want her to get well, don't you?"

  Stacey? Not a chance. She's much too fond of her pills and her bottle. She's not ready to get well. Netta knew it, Jack knew it, and so did the elder Eastman.

  Caroline pushed her plate away with a morose look. She was getting ready for the next phase of her tantrum: self-pity.

  Cornelius turned to his son and said, "Where's the damned breeder, anyway? Didn't you say he'd be here at six?"

  Jack glanced at his watch. "That's what he said. Well, have fun. I can't wait any longer. I'm off to the shipyard —"

  Caroline began to sniffle. "I just didn't want broccoli, because it's my birthday. I shouldn't have to eat broccoli if I'm being five years old." Tears began rolling freely. "And I don't even have a cake." She turned to the senior Eastman with big, glazed blue eyes. "Dada? Do I?"

  Oooh, she's good, thought Netta. That Dada-thing that she'd come up with: it always made Mr. Eastman melt visibly.

  He was doing it now. "Of course we have a cake for you, darling," the old man said, his face creasing into a hundred lines of happiness. "Would we forget you on your birthday?"

  "She knows we have a cake," Netta snapped. "She's already dug a trench through the frosting."

  "Forget it, Netta," said Jack tiredly. "It's not worth it." They were interrupted by the ring of the doorbell. Caroline stopped sniffling at once. Cornelius Eastman grinned broadly. Jack shook his head with wary resignation. And in the adjacent new kitchen, installed expressly so that Netta wouldn't have to fuss with the dumbwaiter and the old basement cook-area anymore, Caroline's little brother Bradley let out a welcoming shriek.

  The puppy was here.

  Cornelius Eastman himself went to get the door, with Caroline right behind him. Jack got up to leave.

  "Jack Eastman, where do you think you're going?" said Netta.

  The next sound they heard was a high and relentless arf-arf-arf-arf!

  "Oh, lord," murmured Netta, "your father really has gone and done it."

  A white ball of fluff came cannonballing through the dining room, hardly stopping long enough to pause and sniff Netta's skirt, then Jack's trousers, before racing to the nearest table leg, lifting its leg, and peeing.

  Caroline, who was in hot pursuit, stopped short with a scandalized look. "He's a boy puppy! I thought I was getting a girl puppy!" She dropped to all fours and began crawling under the table after the dog.

  Arf arf arf! Arf arf arf!

  "I'm sorry, honey, that's all they had," said her amused and silver-haired father, lifting the damask tablecloth.

  Arf arf arf!

  Netta thought that Cornelius Eastman didn't look sorry as much as glad to be done with the week-long hunt for a female Maltese. And nobody seemed sorry about the wet stain on the Oriental rug.

  "But I had a girl's name all picked out," Caroline lamented as she lurched in vain after the bouncing white mop.

  At that point Netta had to dash into the kitchen to fetch Bradley, who'd cleared his own tray of food with one sweep of his arm and was screaming incoherently. It was his way of saying, "I've finished dinner, thank you so much, and now I think perhaps I'd like to join the others."

  Arf arf arf! Arf arf arf arf!

  The elder Eastman was chuckling at Caroline's distress over the puppy's gender. "What name did you have in mind, sweetheart?"

  "Snowball," said Caroline in a pout.

  Bradley, on the loose now, went charging after the puppy and succeeded in coming away with two clumps of long white hair, which clung like angora mittens to his still-sticky hands.

  Arf. Arf arf. Arf arf arf arf arf arf arf!

  Jack, a bachelor who had never in his life been surrounded by this kind of chaos, said in a loud voice, "Will somebody please get that animal under control?"

  Netta wasn't sure which animal he meant. Sh
e grabbed the one closest to her — Bradley — and began cleaning his hands with a wet washcloth as the boy squirmed and screamed to be let down.

  Arf. Arf arf. Arf arf arf.

  "You can still name him Snowball, honey," said Cornelius Eastman over the ongoing din. "Snowball is for either."

  "Well, I guess ... but ... well, all right." Caroline sighed, then gave them all a sweeping look of wide-eyed innocence. "Can we have my party now, then?" she asked. "And my presents?"

  Arf.

  There was a pause. Even Snowball paused. Finally Cornelius Eastman said, with a sheepish expression, "You said if you got a puppy that you didn't want a party, honey."

  Caroline managed to lasso Snowball with her arms and squish him onto her lap. "No, I didn't," she murmured, studying the dog's moppy face intently. "I said a puppy and a party."

  "You said a puppy or a party, dammit!" snapped Jack.

  "'And,'" said Caroline, still studying the dog's face.

  The two men — seventy and forty— exchanged looks. Netta watched them, mesmerized by the family resemblance. Eastman genes ran true to type: the hawkish nose, the fierce blue eyes, the thick brown hair. Oh, gravity had taken its toll on the father and softened the once-square line of his jaw. But he was still a good-looking man. Paul Newman could take lessons.

  Jack began to reason with the girl in a calm, carefully controlled voice. "You don't really know anyone here, Caroline. Who would we invite? Maybe when your mother gets out of the clinic and you all go back to Aspen — maybe then would be a good time for a birthday party."

  Caroline looked up at the older of the two men. "Dada?" she whispered as a tear rolled down her cheek. "Can I?"

  "Of course you can have a party," Cornelius said gruffly. "You're only five once. By all means. Arrange one for Caroline, Jack."

  "You must be kidding. You know I'm flat out at the shipyard —"

  "Yes, I suppose you're right," Cornelius Eastman said, annoyed. He looked at his housekeeper. "Netta? Would —? No, no, you have more than enough to do already," he said quickly, withering beneath her baleful look.

  He turned back to his son. "Well, Jack, I guess you're the only one with the resources. Have Cynthia at the shipyard look into it and make the arrangements."

  "Dad, that's absurd," Jack said sharply. "She has her hands full, especially this week. We're revamping our billing system —"

  Netta leaned closer to Jack's ear and said, "If I could have a word with you, sir. I think I can help you out." She picked up her basket of broken crockery and led the thoroughly irritated son into the relative quiet of the kitchen.

  It distressed Netta to see the household in such chaos. It used to be such a quiet, well-ordered place. Too quiet, perhaps; but at least Jack could bring his work home every night as he struggled to keep the family shipyard afloat. Now, he hardly ever bothered coming home before they were all asleep.

  Could anyone blame him? His own mother had fled from East Gate, even though she and Cornelius had lived there every summer of their long marriage. Could anyone blame her? To have her husband's illegitimate daughter under her own roof, over her own objections. Well. It was all scandalous, it really was.

  Not that Netta hadn't longed for the sound of children under the old slate roof. But they were supposed to be Jack's children, happy children, nice children, and Mrs. Eastman was supposed to cherish them, the way a proper grandmother should. But she wasn't the proper grandmother! And in any case, she was in Capri. It was all such a mess.

  Netta closed the door on the barks and shouts and turned to her adored Jack. He did look bad: tired, and worn, and used up with worry over the failing shipyard and his mother's hurt. As for Cornelius Eastman, well, he was obviously slipping into dotage, insisting that Caroline and Bradley stay at East Gate.

  But that wasn't today's problem.

  "What is it, Netta?" Jack said irritatedly. "Have you found the perfect nanny for our little Caroline?"

  Netta snorted. "That machine hasn't been invented yet. No, but I do know someone who can take this birthday party off your hands. You know the little cottage to the west? It's been sold to a nice young lady named Liz Coppersmith. She designs — I think that's how she described it — events for people."

  "This is a birthday party, darlin'," Jack said, helping himself to a mug of coffee. "Not a wedding. I'm not inclined to waste money on frivolity just now."

  "You never are, Jack," said his housekeeper with a dry look. "Not if you can pour it into the shipyard instead. But you heard your father. He wants a party for his dau ... for Caroline."

  "Yeah, well, he also wants the shipyard to stay solvent," Jack said with a black look.

  "He's on the fence about that, and you know it," Netta said flatly. "You want to keep it. But your father — he's tired of the struggle, and he'd maybe like to sell. So don't go using that as an excuse, my boy."

  Netta had no need to mince words with Jack. It was one of the perks of having basically raised him. His own mother, though she loved her son, would not have felt so free to scold.

  Jack took a sip of the just-brewed coffee, burned his tongue, swore, slammed down the mug, and said, "Fine. We'll have the damned party!"

  "It's only a little thing," Netta said, wrapping her ample arm around Jack's waist and giving him two quick squeezes. "It won't make the difference between bankruptcy or not."

  Jack laughed softly and swung his own arm around his portly housekeeper's shoulder. He turned to her with a brooding, troubled look in his deep blue eyes and said, "You understand, Nettie, that the birthday party will in effect be a coming-out party. We can't keep this charade about my 'cousin' Caroline going much longer. Especially now that everyone's up from Palm Beach for the season."

  Netta gave him a sympathetic smile. "Well, if the governor of Rhode Island can come clean about his past," Netta said softly, "I guess your father can, too. I only wish your mother wasn't taking it so hard."

  Jack's look turned bitter. "Yeah. After all, she knew she was marrying an Eastman. She was bound to have to share him with another woman sooner or later."

  "Don't be fresh!" Netta said sharply. "That's your father you're talking about."

  "My father; my grandfather; his father before that," said Jack in an even tone. "As we know, the tradition goes way back."

  Which is why you've never married, my dear, thought Netta. You're looking for the perfect wife, mother, and mistress all rolled up into one. You want to be the first in your family. Ah, you dreamer, you.

  She shook her head and sighed.

  Jack mistook her sigh and said with his old roguish smile, "I'm too old to stick in a corner, Nettie. So now what?"

  She spun him around and faced him toward the door. "I'm going to send you back to the table and stuff you with birthday cake, that's what. Maybe sugar will help."

  The swing-door opened just then, and Jack's father poked his head through it. "Netta, Netta," he said in a harried voice, "I need you out here. The kids are — the dog is — help me, Netta," he begged.

  Netta shooed both men out ahead of her and thought wearily, They're hopeless. Where are the women? Who's going to organize this foundering kingdom?

  Chapter 2

  Why can't I stay in the house, Mommy? I just got here."

  "I know; I know," said Liz, running a brush quickly over her daughter's sleek brown hair. "But it's too wet outside to play, and Mommy's going to make a big, big mess breaking through the ceiling to get into the attic. So you go on to the restaurant with Aunty Tori, and by the time you get back from lunch, I'll have the plaster all cleaned up outside your room, and you can come and go wherever you want."

  "Because I've hardly been in my own house so far, you know," Susy said, clearly feeling shunted around.

  "We've only owned it for three days, honey," Liz reminded her. "Got your money?"

  Susy opened her plastic purse and pulled out a neatly folded five-dollar bill, then put it back inside. "Yes."

  "Good." Liz turned to Vict
oria and said, "Thanks a bunch, Tori. I didn't expect to have to have the attic ready for the roofers so soon. But if they're really willing to reshingle the dormers this week—"

  "—they need to inspect the rafters before then. No problem. We don't want rain dripping on our Susabella, do we?" Victoria said, pinching Susy's nose lightly.

  Off they went. Liz made one last pass around the second floor, searching for some sign of an old covered-up entry to the attic. Nope, nothing: the entire ceiling was plastered smooth.

  For the life of her, Liz could not understand why there was no access hatch. Granted, the attic was no more than a crawl space, but it could provide at least a little extra storage—something the cottage had in short supply.

  The most logical place to cut the hole was over the landing in the hall between the two bedrooms. Liz wrapped a red bandanna around her hair, slipped a pair of goggles over her eyes, and did some preliminary drilling here and there to figure out where the gap between the joists was. Then she picked up the jigsaw and attacked the ceiling.

  The sawing left a thick cloud of dust and a shocking mess of plaster, lath, and horsehair on the plastic-covered floor of the upstairs hall. But as the opening began to take shape, Liz could practically hear the attic sucking in deep breaths of fresh air.

  She set up a stepladder under the new opening and popped her head into the space above. The smell of damp wood dashed her spirits; damp wood meant rotten wood. Fearing the worst, she aimed a flashlight into the recesses of the long- forgotten attic.

  Not too bad, she decided after a quick scan of the timbers. No rot, no bats, no bees. There was a little dampness along a rafter where she knew she had a leak, but that was all. Good little house, she found herself thinking affectionately. She was about to climb back down the ladder when the beam of her flashlight fell on something rectangular straddling two joists at the far end.

  It was a small, canvas-covered, metal-strapped trunk, the kind people used to haul around on steamers when they plied the Atlantic. Sealed away, who knew for how long? Here, in the tiny attic of her tiny house. A buried treasure.