by Leslie Meier
She took a bottle of milk from the refrigerator and poured some into my mug. She carried each one to the table, one at a time, because of her cane. “Come. Sit.” Then she sat.
I tore myself out of the basement door frame and forced my feet across the floor. I couldn’t take my eyes off the Yule log cake. “It’s awfully early in the m-morning for cake,” I stammered.
“Nonsense,” the old woman repeated.
I sat down across from her, my phone on the table next to me. “The cake is so beautiful. Perhaps I should take it home to my family.”
Mrs. St. Onge picked up a big carving knife. I tried not to flinch as she neatly cut off one end of the cake. “There,” she said. “An end cut. People always fight over those. They have the most icing.”
The icing! That has to be where the poison is.
She placed the slice on a pretty china plate, with the icing end up. She added a meringue mushroom and passed the plate across to me. “You must taste the cake. Otherwise, when you make your own for Christmas Eve, how will you know if it turned out right?”
If I live that long . . .
Suddenly it all came rushing at me. The dead friends and relatives, the acutely sick Woodwards, the missing Gwyneth and Bradley, Holly Hillyer pleading with me with tears in her eyes to find out what had happened to her daughter, the creepy Mr. Eames and the freshly raked dirt in the basement. My fork fell from my hand, clattering on the top of the old kitchen table. I darted out the back door without even stopping for my coat while Mrs. St. Onge called after me, “What’s wrong, dear? Come back!”
Once I was in the backyard, I didn’t know where to go or what to do. Dashing to my mother’s always-unlocked kitchen door was the obvious solution. But something held me back. I turned instead toward the garage.
The sea-foam-green BMW was still inside. I flung open its door.
The interior was unnaturally neat. I couldn’t see much in the dark of the garage, but Gwyn hadn’t been one to leave Dunkin’ Donuts cups on the seat or dry cleaning hanging in the back. Shivering from the cold and the adrenaline, I tugged at the glove box, which fell open with a bam. I stuck my hand in and pulled out the registration. Gwyneth Hillyer. Of course, it was. I had known that all along. But there was something else in the box. Something glossy and thin. I put my hand in again and pulled out a brochure for an all-inclusive resort in Aruba. Why on earth would Gwyneth Hillyer, daughter of the sheep-farming, solstice-celebrating Hillyers, have a brochure for such a place? And in her glove box.
And then it all fell into place. I had been an idiot.
I was still squinting at the brochure in the dim light of the garage when the door I’d come through burst open.
“Put that down!” Jamie commanded. “It could be evidence.”
“It is.” I kept ahold of the brochure. “But not evidence of a crime.”
As Jamie and I left the garage, I heard a car door slam on the street and then another. Holly Hillyer ran up the driveway, followed by Julia Woodward, her lips pulled back in a frantic look.
“Officer! Officer! What’s happened to our children?” Mrs. Hillyer shouted.
By that point I had reached Mrs. St. Onge’s back porch. “Come inside,” I said. “All of you.”
Jamie shot me a questioning look, but he nodded and we all went through the back door.
* * *
Mrs. St. Onge was exactly where I’d left her, sitting at the kitchen table. She’d finished half the coffee in her mug and had eaten her entire slice of cake. My untouched slice and full cup of coffee sat at the place across from her.
Holly Hillyer ran into the room. “Where is my daughter? What have you done with her?”
Mrs. Woodward clenched and unclenched a leather-gloved hand. “If anything has happened to my Bradley—”
I stood in the center of the room, grateful to be out of the cold. “Bradley is fine,” I said. “And Mrs. St. Onge knows where he is. Where both your children are.”
Mrs. St. Onge picked up her mug and took a slug of her coffee, apparently unconcerned about the appearance of a uniformed cop and two frantic mothers in her kitchen.
Jamie spoke up. “Mrs. St. Onge, if you can tell Mrs. Hillyer and Mrs. Woodward something that will reassure them about the location of their children, I would suggest you do that.”
The old woman returned her cup to the table. “I promised.” She crossed her arms defiantly.
I sat in my place across from her, then reached out and put my hand on her arm. “It’s okay to tell now,” I said. “There’s nothing anyone can do to change things.”
Mrs. St. Onge put her hand to her chin, considering. “Okay. Why doesn’t everyone sit down? This is going to take a minute.”
The worried mothers collapsed into the other two kitchen chairs, while Jamie remained standing by the stove. I addressed our hostess directly. “To put everyone’s mind at ease, tell us first, are Gwyn and Bradley okay?”
“I believe they are better than okay. I believe they are excellent.”
Both mothers exhaled noisily.
“And why do you believe that?” As I asked the question, I laid the brochure for the resort on the table.
“Have they . . . run off together?” Mrs. Woodward’s voice was shaky.
“They have eloped,” Mrs. St. Onge said. “They are taking a long honeymoon.”
“What!” Both women jumped from their chairs as if pulled by puppet strings, staring at each other in disbelief.
“They’re married,” Mrs. St. Onge repeated.
“I never.” Mrs. Hillyer sank back into her seat.
Mrs. Woodward fished a handkerchief out of her coat pocket and dabbed her eyes. “I always pictured Bradley’s wedding day. I’d wear a blue silk suit and a corsage and stand in the church, bursting with pride as he said his vows.” She held the handkerchief to her nose. “All that’s gone now.”
“I have a million questions.” Mrs. Hillyer seemed to have recovered somewhat. “How did they meet? Were they even dating? Gwyneth never mentioned Bradley’s name. Until a few months ago, I thought she was going to marry someone else.”
“They met here,” Mrs. St. Onge said. “I arranged it. Gwyn would come in the morning to run my errands, take me to the hairdresser and such. Bradley often stopped by in the evening to check in on me and chat on his way home from work. They’re both such lovely people.” She fixed their mothers with a beneficent smile. “You’ve done very well with them.” She picked up the big knife off the table and cut three more slices off the Yule log cake. “Julia, will you fetch coffee for my guests? There’s plenty more in the pot. And plates and forks, please.”
I did as instructed, and refilled Mrs. St. Onge’s cup.
“My goodness, this cake is delicious,” Mrs. Hillyer said. Mrs. Woodward used her fork to divide her slice into bite-sized pieces, but she had yet to put one in her mouth.
Finally I picked up my own fork. Unless Mrs. St. Onge was planning a mass murder, I was safe. I took a big bite of the cake. The taste exploded on my tongue. My taste buds danced in happiness. The texture was perfection, the cake springy, the filling smooth and rich, the icing creamy and flavorful. All that work, all the worry, all the expense, every bit of it had been worthwhile.
“You were saying, about the kids.” Mrs. Hillyer returned us to the matter at hand.
“Ah, yes.” The old woman returned to her tale. “Seeing Gwyneth as frequently as I did, naturally we talked about this and that. One day she seemed down, so I asked what was going on. She told me she had to break up with the boyfriend she’d been with for years. She loved him like a brother, but there had never been any passion. The problem was, in addition to changing the habits of years together, her family loved him too. Loved him like a son already, and she hated to disappoint them.
“Every day when she arrived, I asked if she had ended things with the young man yet. It took about a month, but she finally did it. Afterward, she was like a different person, like a weight had been lifted from h
er shoulders.”
A single tear ran down Holly Hillyer’s cheek. “I had no idea.”
Mrs. St. Onge continued. “In the meantime I’d been seeing Bradley almost every day. What a fine man he is. But I could tell he was lonely. Busman’s Harbor is a small town and he was having trouble meeting his match.”
From across the room I heard Jamie let out a breath. He, too, was having trouble finding someone to share his life with.
“So one morning when Gwyneth took me to Hannaford, I left the case with my second pair of glasses under the seat in her car.” The old woman grinned at her cleverness. “I called Gwyn and asked her to stop by on her way home from work and drop them off. Of course, I still had my main pair, I can’t see a thing without them, but I didn’t tell her that.
“As I hoped, she arrived while Bradley was visiting and I invited her to stay for tea. They got to talking, you know the usual things, what do you do, where’d you go to school. After they left, I happened to peek out the window and they were still in my driveway, still talking.
“I’m not sure what happened after that, I assume some dinners, maybe other activities. The autumn is so beautiful in Busman’s Harbor, a wonderful time to fall in love. They never told me what was going on, but I noticed they both were much happier. Perhaps you noticed too?” Mrs. St. Onge looked at each of the mothers in turn.
“No,” Mrs. Woodward admitted. “Bradley seemed the same to me. Even though he lives with us, he works so hard, we barely see him. He was late at the office so many evenings this fall. Oh—” She stopped, realizing Bradley hadn’t been at his office, at least not every night.
“I thought Gwyneth was unhappy this fall,” Holly Hillyer said. “Still suffering from the fallout from Tree breaking up with her. That’s why I wasn’t surprised when she said she wanted to get away for a while.”
“The unhappiness came later,” Mrs. St. Onge said. “Things progressed rapidly. The young people were deeply in love. They wanted to make a future together. But they were afraid. Afraid of disappointing you. They feared you and your husbands would never approve of the match.”
“Of course, we would!” Mrs. Hillyer declared.
“Why wouldn’t we?” Mrs. Woodward demanded.
“There are perhaps some differences in values, goals, religions?” the old woman suggested.
The mothers continued to protest.
“Two nights ago your husbands were rolling around in the dirt, slugging each other,” she reminded them.
“Well, maybe,” Holly Hillyer admitted. “Maybe we wouldn’t like to have our daughter marry a man in a gray flannel suit.”
“Men like my Bradley made this country great.” Mrs. Woodward’s voice rose to a squeak at the end of the sentence. “Bradley is a fine man and will be a wonderful provider. Any family should be grateful to have him as a member.”
“Men like your Bradley grind people up and leave them like trash by the wayside, like Mrs. St. Onge, here.”
“Well, I wouldn’t say—” Mrs. St. Onge protested, glancing around the dated but cozy kitchen.
Mrs. Hillyer didn’t let her finish. “My Gwyn is a caring nurturer. A person who puts other people’s needs before her own. I hope your striver son doesn’t take advantage of that.”
Mrs. Woodward jumped out of her chair. “My son is a perfect gentleman!”
“My daughter is a paragon of virtue, a beacon to those in need.” Mrs. Hillyer was out of her seat as well. I glanced at Jamie, wondering if he would intervene, but he seemed to be focused on not laughing out loud.
Mrs. St. Onge rose too. “This is the point!” She moved between the women, stomping her cane harder than necessary with each step. “This is what they were afraid of. Can you imagine trying to plan a wedding with you two? And your husbands are worse.” She waited. Both women had the good grace to look embarrassed. “So I urged them to elope.”
“You what?” Holly Hillyer cried.
“How could you?” Julia Woodward wailed.
“Sit down,” Mrs. St. Onge directed. They did, and so did she. “I was young once. I was young and in love. With a man who was perfect. The right age. The right job. He was even Catholic. But he wasn’t French. He was Irish, or his parents were. My father forbade me to see him.” She took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes, remembering that long-ago time. “I argued some, but I gave in, like the obedient daughter I was. Later my father introduced me to Al, who was a miserable human being, but he was French, from my father’s hometown in Quebec Province. We married, to both our great regret. I have spent my whole life wondering what would have happened if I’d stood up to my parents. What if I’d had the courage of my own convictions?” She paused. “Gwyn and Bradley worried so much about how they would introduce their families, how they would plan a wedding. I told them to skip past all that. Get married, I said. Take the longest honeymoon you can and spend time together, just the two of you. Deal with the rest of it when you get back.”
Mrs. Woodward looked away, blinking tears from her eyes. Holly Hillyer stared at her empty cake plate. “Did my Gwynnie really believe we wouldn’t love her, no matter what?” Her voice broke. Behind her, Mrs. Woodward stifled a sob.
“And all those relatives who died after eating your Yule log cake?” I asked.
“Three. Three people,” she corrected. “Each of them old with serious medical conditions. Many people die around the holidays.”
Just as Chris had said. “And Mr. and Mrs. Woodward getting sick after your last Christmas together?”
“The oyster stuffing!” Mrs. St. Onge gasped. “I was so sick myself.”
“You think it was the stuffing?” Julia Woodward’s eyebrows rose in surprise. She still hadn’t touched her cake.
“It must have been. I didn’t eat any cake that day. I was sick for days afterward. I didn’t tell you because we never spoke again after that Christmas.” Her voice was thin and hurt.
“No, we didn’t,” Mrs. Woodward agreed. “But we should have.”
“What happened to your husband?” I asked Mrs. St. Onge.
“Left me. Left me for another woman up in Rockland. And I say good riddance. We never were happy.”
“And the men’s clothes hanging next to Gwyn’s overcoat upstairs?”
“I do Mr. Eames’s laundry in exchange for help around the house.” She blushed and I wondered if their relationship was merely a simple exchange of labor.
“And the depressions and the freshly raked dirt in the coal cellar?”
“Mr. Eames is going to finally pour me a concrete floor and add insulation. The cold comes up from there something terrible in the winter. He’s been trying to even it out to get ready, but he’s had a devil of a time. Some old clay pipes have collapsed under there, and it keeps leaving ruts. It’s giving him fits. That’s why I asked you not to go in there. I didn’t want you to walk around on it and make it worse.”
“And you’re the one who called elder services and gave Gwyneth’s notice,” I said.
“She wanted to take a little leave in addition to the vacation she was due, in order to spend the longest possible time with Bradley before tax season began. They wouldn’t let her take the time off, so she left rather than have a major confrontation on the eve of her wedding. She and Bradley met here, and she left her winter clothes and car. After they were gone, I called elder services to tell them she’d quit.”
“She’ll find another job,” Mrs. Woodward assured her son’s new mother-in-law.
“I’m not sure she’ll look for anything,” Mrs. St. Onge said. “Bradley makes a good living. Gwyneth wants to volunteer at the senior center, and they plan to get started on a family right away.”
The mothers stared into one another’s eyes. “We’re going to be grandmothers!” they cried, and fell into a hug.
Jamie drained his coffee. “I don’t see anything criminal happening here. Congratulations to you both.”
Chapter Eleven
Christmas Eve dinner was a triumph, wit
h a first course of Chris’s unforgettable spaghetti with lobster sauce, followed by Livvie’s baked haddock, with more side dishes than we could possibly consume. The dining-room table, extended by all three of its leaves, groaned under the many platters. Gus and Mrs. Gus joined us, as well as our across-the-street neighbors and honorary great-aunts, Viola and Fiona Snugg. Sonny’s father and brother were with us, as they had been since our families were joined together. New at the table was Chris’s family, including his brother and his niece, Vanessa. Page and Vanessa were best friends, and I could tell Page was relieved to have another kid in the mix after ten years as the only one. It was Jack’s first Christmas with us as well, and he sat in a high chair wedged in at a corner of the table.
The other new person attending was Mrs. St. Onge. Bradley and Gwyneth had dropped by during cocktail hour, and given everyone their best. They were living next door while they waited for the lease on the apartment over Gleason’s Hardware to start on January 1. They were to spend Christmas Eve with Bradley’s family, after spending the Solstice with Gwyn’s. There had been initial enthusiasm about the families spending part of the holidays together, but negotiations had broken down over menus and timing, and mandatory precelebration worship attendance.
Gwyn told me all this with a sigh. “It’s not as bad as I feared,” she said. “It’ll all work out.” She looked around Mom’s crowded house. “But I wish we could be together, like your family.”
I didn’t tell her that Chris hadn’t spoken to his family for over a decade, or that Sonny’s brother had been in rehab for a drug habit, or that when Livvie had gotten pregnant with Page, while still in high school, it had devastated my parents. Life was complicated, but she already knew that. Better to savor the good times.
At dinner the wine flowed and we all ate too much. The grown-ups talked and talked. Finally the kids could stand it no longer, and Page asked if they could be excused.
She and Vanessa went into the living room, where they engaged in shaking the presents under the tree, speculating about the contents. There were only a few more hours to go, and they could barely stand it. Freed from the high chair, Jack tagged along, crawling rapidly toward the tree. When he was three feet away, he pushed to standing, something he was getting quite adept at. One by one, the adults fell silent as we watched. He was so taken by the sparkling lights and beautiful ornaments, he seemed to forget he couldn’t walk, and took one step forward and then another and another. I turned and saw a tear track down Livvie’s cheek.