Again

by Sharon Cullars

  “I don’t pick up auras,” Jennifer said, “but I felt something when I touched the tie clip you gave me. It was strange.”

  “What?” Mrs. Carvelli leaned forward, a mother’s worry and a psychic’s curiosity playing on her face. She hadn’t asked before, maybe not ready to know then. Now she was.

  Jennifer stared into her cup, not wanting to meet the fervor in those brown eyes. The coffee was black the way she liked. Dark enough to reflect her face up at her. The reflection looked fifteen all over again, but she hadn’t been that age for a long time.

  “Jen, stop stalling. Tell me.” Jennifer was used to the commands. Mrs. Carvelli—Jen could never seem to call the woman by her given name, Carmen—didn’t like people who dawdled.

  The young woman looked up. “I see your son, but it’s not his face I’m envisioning. Not like he looks in the picture in the living room. Or rather, when I look at the picture, it’s another face superimposed over his. Yet it’s him. I’m sure of it.”

  Mrs. Carvelli leaned back, her expression unreadable, and Jennifer wondered if she had said too much.

  “I know that sounds strange…” she started.

  The older woman quickly shook her head, her eyes fixed in concentration as though trying to catch something fleeting through her mind. She got up from the chair, scraping it along the linoleum, opened a drawer at the counter and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. She reached for the matches, lit the cigarette, and drew in a long pull before she finally spoke.

  “No, Jen, it doesn’t sound strange. As a matter of fact, it sounds just about right…just about right.”

  Feeler and seer both looked out the window at the same time, peering at the sickly elm, their thoughts running along the same disturbing line.

  New York—June 1879

  Standing in the parlor, Joseph Luce stared at the painting of his mother that hung to the right of his own above the fireplace. His father’s portrait took space on the left. Below, lining the gilded mantel, sat various curios his father had collected on his many excursions around the world. Three silver monkeys, posed to see, speak, and hear no evil, sat next to an African mask made of rich ebony. This abutted a bronze statue of Buddha that hailed from the Orient. On the other end was a Navajo peace pipe. Center place among the assortment was the cherished miniature replica of Windsor Castle made entirely of gold, presented last year to his father by Queen Victoria during his tenure as honorary emissary for President Hayes. William Luce prided himself on acquiring things, including the woman who later became his wife, the beautiful and winsome debutante, Anne Spaulding, granddaughter of a shipping magnate. She had been displayed, as were his father’s other collectibles, as a testament to his extraordinariness.

  The triad of gilt-edged paintings hung also as a statement—of power, elegance, and privilege—his father and mother embodying the former, he, the latter. In her portrait, his mother holds her hands solemnly in her lap, her expression one she probably thought at the time was demure and noble. But the painter had caught a steel in her eyes, a hardness that Joseph had similarly observed occasionally in the eyes of felons just released back into the populace, a determination never to be confined again. Gone was the young girl whose vivacity had been dulled and whittled away by the time Joseph was born into this world.

  That his mother had enjoyed her life of splendor and luxury Joseph had ignorantly assumed. Yet, given the comforts that even her peers silently begrudged her, being tethered to a man who did not love her must have felt like a prison she could only escape through death. Ten years had passed this very day, ten years since he and his father had found her lying in her bed, the evidence of her departure an empty bottle of laudanum sitting on the bedstand beside her.

  The years of his mother’s barely expressed disappointments and frustrations sometimes came back to him in snatches, reminiscences that he quickly forced away. He and his father had entered their conspiracy of silence long ago, mentioning her only with reservation, and only when necessary. As for the rest of the world, thanks to his father’s station in society (as well as a few tactically greased palms), his mother’s death had been ruled a bad heart simply giving out. The word “suicide” would never be paired with her name.

  As horrible as finding her body had been, Joseph could not forget the look of peace on her face nor that small smile that had played at her lips. An escapee finally fleeing her prison—and its warden.

  William Luce stared down from his portrait, much like Zeus in an eternal frieze of displeasure. The cruelty in his face was unequivocal, the glint in his eyes reproof against a world that fell short of his measure—a world that included his own wife and son. Especially a son whom he considered a profligate unworthy of the family name.

  Joseph walked over to the liquor cabinet, reached for the decanter of brandy. He poured a full snifter, emptied it in three long swigs, refilled it to the brim. It was all of ten o’clock in the morning, too early for drink. Had his father been home, he would have lambasted his son for his self-indulgence. But his father was on a trip to New Jersey to settle some matter with one of his steel refineries. Always business.

  Joseph was free to enjoy his father’s supply of liquor and cigars, the only pleasures the man allowed himself. As far as he knew, his father had never even taken a mistress, an arrangement that was more common than not in their circle. Maybe life would have been better for his mother had he done so, had his father indulged himself even just a bit, allowing imperfection to nick his self-defined veneer. Joseph knew his father’s fidelity was due more to his tight thriftiness and self-image as a man of temperance than any real regard for his wife or vows. Women, mistresses, cost money, money that could be better spent being reinvested in his numerous financial enterprises.

  Joseph sat on the divan in front of the fireplace, concentrating on the woman who had not only escaped a husband but who had abandoned her son, as well. He knew one day that he would take a wife. It was his duty as heir. Also, his father wanted to make sure there would be a generation born who would be worthier of his money and name than the present successor. But as Joseph stared at Anne Luce’s set gaze, he knew that he could never marry a woman he held in such disregard as his father had held his mother. Theirs had been a marriage with rarely an exchange of kind words. Anne’s attempts at intimate conversations and loving embraces had been met only with dark silences that delivered more pain than any physical blow ever could. Even as a young boy, he had picked up this tacit hostility and had wondered about it, thinking then that this was what marriage was about.

  Looking up at his mother, Joseph vowed that he would only marry for love and not merely for duty—or to acquire a possession to display on his arm. He would love his wife, dearly, madly, completely. He would adore her, worship her so that she would never leave him. The one who finally won his heart would be his forever. Even death would not part them.

  Chapter 5

  S itting in the Newberry Library, Rhea Simmons paused at one of the records listed on page 134 of the African-American Freedmen’s Sourcebook. She’d been leafing through the book all afternoon and the names and text were beginning to blur. She took off her glasses, rubbed her eyes, put the glasses back on. Yes. There it was, the name she had been searching for, for nearly an hour. The listing leapt from a page of the Register of Signatures of Depositors of the Freedmen’s Saving and Trust Company, New York 1865–1876.

  Record No. 1013 Record for Rachel Chase

  Date: Feb. 20, 1876

  Where born: New York

  Where brought up: New York

  Residence: 358 W. 15th St.

  Age: 24 Complexion: Brown

  Occupation: Teacher

  Works for: Colored School #1

  Wife or Husband: George (Attorney)

  Children: None

  Father: Lawrence Simmons, died on Thompson St., 1873

  Mother: Gertrude Olmsted of NY.

  Brothers and sisters: Lawrence, Jr. of NY.

  Remarks:

&nbs
p; This was a start. She would have to research the collections some other day for more information. The research would take a lot of time and effort, but ever since her grandmother had handed her the bundle of letters, her curiosity had been piqued about the woman who’d written them.

  Rhea copied the information into her lined notebook, then double-checked to make sure she had written everything correctly. With a sigh, she closed the heavy vellum-bound book, put her pen down and sat back in the chair. In the hour since she’d first arrived, the room had partially filled with people. College students like her, mostly. There were a few older patrons, browsing through large tomes, probably researching their family genealogies. The librarian had told her that the second floor of the Newberry Library held an extensive collection of urban histories, census reports as well as 17,000 genealogies. Here was the place to come to research the past, to find information about somebody who lived and died over a century ago.

  Rhea peered around at the bronze-grilled oak cases holding thousands of volumes, the tapered ceiling, the paintings of old Chicago hanging along the wall. The quiet elegance of the room, accented with large windows, marble-and-steel tables, and teak chairs, pulled her into its deliberate illusion of another time, some bygone era where privileged gentlemen sat down to brandied wine and cigars while poring over the news of the day. The plush carpeting muted footsteps, insulating its patrons in a cocoon of studious quiet. The whole room was meant to close out time. Or shut it in.

  Rhea looked down again at the information written in her notebook. It was brief, yet it told much. For instance, her grandmother had long ago enlightened her about the early practice of distinguishing status in the colored community by skin tones. Never mind that all were designated “Negro” and were subject to the same discrimination by the majority society. To be too dark among one’s own was sometimes an immutable shortcoming, even if one had scads of money. An old adage her grandmother once told her about came to mind: “If you’re white, just right; brown, stick around; black, get back.” Unfortunately, the sentiment still survived to a degree. Rhea, medium-complected, still knew what it felt like to be the only black in a class, a room. To not be light enough in some situations, or not dark enough in others. Here in the log the entrant’s complexion was a matter of record. Rhea wondered whether it had been used as an identifier or for some discriminatory purpose. Designation “brown.” As opposed to what? “Yellow?” “Pearly white?” “Charcoal black?” Was “brown” here a plus or minus?

  Rachel Chase had been twenty-four years old in 1876. The earliest letter Rhea held in her possession was dated September 1879, and was addressed to Rhea’s great-great-grandmother Sarah Parkins. According to at least one of the letters, Rachel’s husband, George, had died in a fire in early 1878. So who was the unnamed “gentleman” mentioned in the letters? Rhea pulled the folded pages of the first missive from her satchel, stared at the browned pages, the partially decipherable words. Some of the words had faded with time, but parts were still legible. It was this particular letter that had started Rhea’s quest, that had stayed on her mind, then began to prey on it.

  At first glance, it held nothing out of the ordinary. Most of the content was everyday filler that might be found in letters of that time, a lot of chatter about weather, health, and expected travel plans. It was near the end of the letter, two paragraphs in particular, that caught Rhea’s eye after the first reading. At the time, she had barely wondered about the allusion to the mysterious gentleman, someone who was obviously Rachel’s lover. That Rachel refused to name him began to nag at Rhea. But searching among the subsequent letters, she found no clue as to the man who had brought the young widow so much pain and anguish. Rhea read the words again; she had lost count of the many times she had reread them:

  I wrote to the gentleman (I need not divulge his name here to you where prying eyes might find it) just as you suggested. I impressed upon him my desire to cease this madness that has come over both of us. To never again let prior events occur. It is much too dangerous for both of us, given our place in society. Sarah, I implore you not to think less of me for my lapse in judgment and integrity, and hope you do not judge me too harshly. Loneliness for George and a need I cannot understand temporarily did away with my propriety and good sense.

  I know there is no future for us. Especially not here, for it was only a few years ago that the whites burned down the colored orphanage on 51st Street, almost killing those precious children. I remember Father had to move us out of the city after the riot because for a long time it was not safe for colored folks to live in New York. Then there were the draft riots years later. And even though the years have passed, the hatred has not. I tremble to think what would happen to us if anyone were to discover our prior assignations. Worse yet, divulge them. Yes, I must find the strength to end that which should never have begun in the first place.

  Rhea carefully folded the pages together and returned them to her satchel. What was she chasing? A piece of history? Or a satisfaction to her fervid curiosity? What was the soap-opera fascination that made her read and reread the letters, and now go through stacks of books looking for anything that might bring Rachel forth in her mind as more than a phantom long dead?

  She wished she understood what was driving her, but she didn’t. What she did know was that she would continue searching until she found out who the “gentleman” was and what had happened to him and Rachel, something not found in any of the letters. The last letter was written in November 1879. Had Sarah moved away? Or had Rachel and her great-great-grandmother ceased communication for other reasons?

  Chapter 6

  D avid took a sip from his Manhattan and watched over the rim as Rick tried to engage their waitress with some stupid comment and an even stupider grin. The woman didn’t look in the mood to be bothered. She barely broke a smile as she set down the teeming plates of buffalo wings, fries and sour cream in front of them, then rushed away.

  After she had gone, Rick looked at David, winked. “I’m wearing her down. I’ll give it another two, three weeks before she finally comes around and agrees to have at least one drink with me.” He took a gulp from his glass of beer.

  David shook his head in mock pity. “Man, you need to give it up. Not gonna happen. At least, not with Ms. Chill over there.” He nodded in her direction where the waitress was taking the order at a nearby table. “Look, back to business. I have to tell you I think we really fucked up going in to see Kershner without Clarence. The man barely heard us out and hardly glanced at the plans. After all, this was supposed to be Clarence’s deal, and Kershner obviously was expecting him to be there.”

  Clarence Debbs was their third partner in Gaines, Carvelli and Debbs, the architectural firm they formed three years ago. Lately though, Clarence had been showing signs of wanting to pull out. David suspected their partner was secretly taking on outside projects, a violation of their agreement. That he hadn’t shown up for this meeting was a not-so-subtle indication of his lack of interest in the business.

  “We have to talk about Clarence, where he stands with the firm, because if he pulls out now—”

  “OK, I’ll talk with him,” Rick said too quickly.

  David realized Rick was holding on to a blind loyalty established from years of friendship. David had no such illusions. He hadn’t gone to private school, then Yale, with Clarence as Rick had. Rick actually was the one to introduce Clarence to David nearly five years earlier, and David had followed both men’s careers as a friendly competitor. Then a couple of years later, Rick suggested the two of them partner up. David agreed to the venture and then had said yes later to bringing Clarence on board, solely on Rick’s word. But he was starting to worry that Rick’s friendship was coloring his judgment. David had too much invested in the business to just sit and watch it flounder because of Clarence’s ambivalence.

  “You better do more than talk with him. If he wants out, we should just let him walk. We’ll buy out his third…”

  “
No, no, man. I promise, he’s not going to walk. He’s got a vested interest in our success.”

  “Does he? Because it looks to me like he’s out to fill his own pockets at our expense.”

  Rick’s earlier jovial mood seemed markedly dampened. He poured off the rest of his bottled beer into the glass and gulped it down. “I’ll talk to him. I promise. He’s not going to screw me—us.”

  “We’ll see.” David dipped a buffalo wing in the sour cream, trying to get his appetite back. He had said what he had to, and he would just wait to see what Rick would do. Or more importantly, what Clarence would do. If Rick didn’t follow through, then he would.

  For the rest of dinner, Rick tried to lighten the mood with his usual stories about his girlfriends. Actually there were two, Melinda and Amy, both of whom David had met a couple of times. Rick rotated them in shifts. Rick scheduled Melinda for sports outings, picnics, day activities. The sultrier Amy was for evenings at upscale restaurants and parties. Rick considered himself a player, but David knew that if Melinda ever showed the slightest interest in getting serious, Rick would be down at the jewelers picking out a ring. As for Amy, Rick used her for show and as a backup in case Melinda walked.

  “Heard from Karen lately?” Rick’s question came between bites of fries.

  The question took David off guard. He didn’t want to talk about Karen. After two months, he was still sensitive about how it had ended. A picture popped in his mind, crystalline blue eyes brimming with tears. She had been especially beautiful that night, wearing the lavender dress that clung nicely to her sylphlike figure, her auburn hair elegantly swept up in a bun. She’d brought over dishes of cavatelli venezziana and tiramisu from Rosalina’s, his favorite Italian restaurant. After dessert, she smiled and pulled out a small, black velvet box. Inside was a solid gold ring. An engagement ring for him that had caught him by surprise. It would have been a lovely evening except that he’d had to admit to her—and himself—that he didn’t love her.