But he had to ask, “What did you know?"
His father did not hesitate in his answer. “I know I was glad to hear from her mother that she was on the pill, that's what I knew. I knew a broken arm wasn't going to keep you two apart."
The broken arm had actually done the trick. Leona made it her job to nurse him through the following weeks.
Henry said, “Jesus. I wonder why we thought it was such a secret."
"It was a different time, my boy. It was your secret. It was something special just between the two of you. It's not the way they do it today. They just do it in the street today...."
He had never spoken with his father about sex. Or, more to the point, his father had never spoken to him. The frankness of his father's words after all these years was another surprise. It made him wish momentarily that they had been able to talk openly long ago.
"What did she say when she called?"
"Nothin’ much. I gave her my condolences. I wasn't really wanting to be talking with her about her mother. Then she asked about you, and I gave her your number."
Henry said, “No."
The old man answered back quickly. “Yes. I did. I'm sorry. She asked, and I did. I couldn't say I didn't know your number, now, could I?"
The conversation ended the way most of his talks with the old man always did, somewhere in the timeless air of the past.
Henry resorted the Gardner titles in the best condition to sell them individually while he listened to a recording of the Sibelius Second Symphony he had picked up at a yard sale the day before. The record was pristine and probably never played before. His job was done by the time the doorbell rang.
Uncle Jack stood on the brick of the sidewalk at the bottom of the stone steps, reluctant to come up. A cigarette burned between his fingers in the dark. Jack's eyes shifted to the light in Mrs. Prowder's window. “My back is bothering me."
Henry looked for odd fears in his uncle's face. “Her daughter's here. Come on up. Let me show you some books."
His uncle shook his head with emphasis and exhaled a cloud around him. “I gotta get going."
Henry half turned and waved him up with a hand. “I've got some Perry Masons. You liked Perry Mason, didn't you?"
Jack squinted. “The lawyer? You're remembering me coming over to watch that old television show when you were a kid. That was just to get a taste of the desserts your mother used to make. I don't like lawyers."
Henry relented and closed the front door behind himself, stepping down far enough on the stoop to sit with his feet planted on the brick.
"Why are you both so contrary? Where did that come from?"
Jack knew he was being compared to his brother.
"Family trait. Your sister has it. You don't. Runs like that in families. Like green eyes.... Did you get the money for me?"
Henry pulled the small fold of hundred-dollar bills from his pocket and passed them to his uncle's hand. They disappeared inside the coat with a single pass.
Henry said, “Mom wasn't contrary."
"Your mom was an angel. She was lucky Matt found her first. I would have broken my back again to marry a girl like your mom."
Henry smiled at the statement of fact, and believed it. “Was it Grandpa, then? Was he the one?"
Jack waved the thought away. “No. He was a good egg. Steady. Worked himself to death. It was your Nana. She was always at the end of something. She pushed until she got her way. She pulled until the string broke. One eye was always a little wider than the other."
Henry laughed. “She always had mints. I remember the mints."
Jack smiled enough to break his lips apart. “'You always get more with candy,’ she'd say. But that wasn't really her way.... Your father isn't so contrary. More like Dad. More like you. It's just that way between dads and sons. He just wants the best for you.... Thanks for the money. Toodle."
It was almost an hour later when Leona called. Henry had begun reading one of the Perry Mason novels, The Case of the Lucky Legs. It had surprised him. It was much more lean and hard-boiled than he had imagined it would be, although the prose was still not as alive as the work of Hammett or Chandler. And Leona's voice was huskier than he remembered. He knew she smoked, because she had started him doing it. He wondered what she looked like now. Having seen her brother, he wondered if she had gained weight in the same way. With his mind pulled from the world of crime and detection, he immediately thought of Lauren Bacall in the movie The Big Sleep. He knew that Leona looked nothing like Bacall, but the mellow sound of her voice was close.
"I'm sorry I missed you at the house. How long has it been?"
"Maybe twenty years."
"More than maybe. You know, I've thought about you a few times. What are you up to?"
She sounded cheerful.
He said, “Still selling books."
"But your dad says you work for yourself."
"I have a kind of catalogue. I sell on the internet. I sell to other dealers, mostly."
"Does it pay well?"
"Not particularly. I get by."
There was a brief silence. He figured it was his turn.
"What are you doing these days?"
She said, “Real estate. It's what housewives with time on their hands do—real estate."
"I thought you were divorced."
"Well, yes. But I'm still the official guardian of two kids in high school. Ed doesn't do anything he doesn't have to."
Henry said the name aloud. “Ed Quinn."
She said, “You remember Ed? Sure you do."
Henry remembered Ed. He had always imagined that Leona's pill supply had unfortunately run out at the wrong time.
"Yeah. A dentist. Right?"
"Yeah. He got the army to send him to dental school after we got married. It was a good thing."
The story Henry vaguely remembered now was that Leona's mother had cared for the first child while Leona worked and Ed finished his obligations to the army.
He said, “I'm sorry that didn't work out for you."
She answered quickly, as if the thought had been considered a thousand times. “It did. It really did. We had some good years out of it. Ed just couldn't keep his zipper up. I guess looking down the cleavage of all those young girls who didn't floss regularly was too much for him. He started taking other forms of payment for his root canals ... He's already remarried."
Henry's only clear memory of Ed Quinn was a missed foul shot in a basketball game with Brookline High School's great nemesis, Newton North, during their senior year.
He thought he heard some humor in Leona's voice. “You seem to be taking the reversals of life pretty well."
"Yeah. Well. That's me. I roll with the punches. So, why aren't you married?"
Right to the meat of the matter.
He tried to keep the answer light. “Haven't found the right girl."
She came back quickly. “Have you looked?"
"Yes."
There was a brief pause before she answered. “Well, I was right there for you."
He knew he should not hesitate now. Saying the right thing would matter.
"You were there. But you weren't the right girl, Leona."
She said, “I guess you'll never know."
He said, “I knew."
It would not be wise to leave any opening at this point.
She said, “Why were you so sure? I never understood why you were so sure."
He remembered that tone in her voice. The implied criticism of it. He thought of half a dozen reasons, but said, “Because you liked to watch Charlie's Angels."
There were several seconds of silence before Leona spoke. The first word exploded from the phone. “What...? Because what? What was wrong with Charlie's Angels? Everybody liked that show."
"I didn't. I couldn't stand it."
"You changed our whole lives because of a television show?"
The tone of her voice had hardened.
That was another sound he remembered
too well.
"No. It's just that I wasn't going to change my life so that I could watch something like that. Don't you remember, Leona? The argument..."
The silence was short.
"Yes! Now I do! I remember you wanted me to read that stupid book, and I said I didn't have time because that TV show was coming on—Charlie's Angels was coming on. I remember. You went crazy. What was that stupid book?"
"I just wanted you to read the beginning. I was excited. I was filled with the buzz of it. I wanted to share it with someone. And you couldn't take the time."
She repeated, “What was the stupid book?"
"The Right Stuff. Tom Wolfe's The Right Stuff. I still think the first sixty pages are the best sixty pages I ever read."
There was another long silence. He waited. He had nothing more that he wanted to say.
She said, “You know, you're right! I remember now. You made me cry my eyes out, but you were right. I wasn't the right girl, was I? Your damn books were more important."
He let that go.
"But you were close."
He said it as some kind of conciliation, but it sounded weak. Leona took an extra breath. He had to give her that. She had grown some patience over the years.
She said, “Yeah ... I remember. So, how's your arm?"
Her voice had changed, the tone softened again.
He said, “Fine. Works fine."
She had lit a cigarette, and he could hear her inhale and then almost see the words wrapped in smoke. “I do remember. Do you still have that microbus you bought from that old hippie?"
He had never missed it. He had hated the lack of power from the engine and the enervating hesitation every time he tried to enter traffic on a thruway. But then again he remembered their trips out to the Cape. It was a good vehicle in the sand. He especially remembered one evening out on Duxbury Beach.
"No. Traded it for something else. I have an old Ford van now. Better for hauling books around."
"Do you ever sleep in the back, like we used to?"
"No. Never have."
"I remember that."
"I do, too."
As they spoke, he had kept the image of Lauren Bacall in his head. It seemed better that way.
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Chapter Four
Albert's voice on the phone was husky with dust. He had awakened Henry from a difficult dream.
"You ought to come over here and take a look at this. I think you'll like it."
Henry could only manage, “What?"
Albert's voice held no patience. “Just come on over. Take my word."
And Albert was not given to pranks.
Henry showered to wash the sleep and sweat away, dressed in the same jeans and shirt he had worn the day before, and dropped down the stairs two at a time in his rush, half expecting to see a scowl on Mrs. Prowder's face for making too much noise as he passed her door. Only when he saw the door closed did he realize he was really just half awake.
He prolonged his breakfast at the Paramount Cafe on Charles Street by drinking an extra cup of coffee. He had not slept well, and the bits and pieces of dreams still floated around his head. Before cutting across the Public Garden to catch a D car at the Arlington subway stop, he had to pause briefly to watch a gathering of children, herded by half a dozen young mothers, around the brass statues of the ducklings along the walkway in the Garden. A regular sight on sunny days, but something that always entertained him. The transit in the trolley was made more brief by the scraps of memories stirred up over the last few days.
Behind his father's house in Brookline, some birds had scattered their droppings over the windshield of the van, and he broke the hose loose from the side of the house to wash it down. He arrived at his destination in Dedham, despite the traffic on Route 1, less than two hours after he had rolled out of bed.
Henry liked Precinct One in Dedham. With all the newer building which had crowded around it over the years, and the Norfolk County Courthouse looming at one side, it still managed to keep some feeling of the New England village it had been since before the American Revolution. The house Henry stood in front of, however, was a white Gothic cottage from about 1850. A steep-pitched slate roof projected in four gables in each direction, diminishing the simple white box of the structure beneath. The house itself was made elegant by tall windows which arched at the top, giving it all the appearance of an enlarged dollhouse. What remained of the original property was cramped by post-World War One neo-colonials. Enormous oaks, still holding on to their leaves late into the season, towered over the house to each side and showered the black slate roof with acorns which popped apart and rolled off onto a trampled garden.
Albert scowled down from an opening at the end of the gable above the narrow porch, where a dark green shutter was broken free.
"What took you so long? I've got guys on wages here."
He was not going to be defensive about getting up so early without explanation. “I stopped to eat. I like to chew my food carefully. That's just the way I am."
Albert was not forgiving. “You ought to get up earlier. I've been up since it was still dark. You can't catch any fish if you get up with the damn sun. Now, come on up here."
The house was cool inside. The rooms on the first floor, already nearly empty, echoed with his steps. Two of Albert's men greeted him as they passed, coming from a small kitchen, their arms loaded with trash.
The echo of Albert's unhappy voice wafted from above.
"Where the hell are you! Come up the stairs."
Behind a broad hearth with several openings, obviously once used for cooking in a distant time, Henry found the stairs, narrow and walled at both sides. At the top of the stairs, through open doors, he could see three rooms beneath the gables, all of them empty. The reverse shadows of missing furniture left patches of bright wallpaper and the odd outlining contrast of stains from long use. Albert's voice beckoned him again. Around to the front of the chimney, wood and plaster had been broken away and a man-sized hole made. Henry peeked through. There was Albert's large figure, beside a half-shuttered window opened now to daylight, sitting in a chair too small for him. The whole room, little more than eight feet across and perhaps ten feet long, was greatly cut down in size by the slant of the roof as it filled the area beneath the fourth gable overlooking the front porch. Next to the window at Albert's knee was a desk, neatly arranged with writing paper and envelopes, ready to use.
An electric light with a frosted glass shade hung by a cord from the highest point of the ceiling at the center. Low shelves, no more than four feet high, rose to the slant of the plaster wall which sealed the angle of the roof beams.
Albert's lap was full of papers. He did not rise in the cramped space, but he did smile.
"I wanted you to see this before we packed it up. I've already taken pictures. I ran out of film taking pictures. I've got to get me one of your digital cameras. I can't afford the film anymore."
Henry climbed through the broken opening and stood upright, his head close to the slant of the wall. The shadows cast by the glowing filament within the clear glass of the light bulb were weakened by the sun glare from the window.
"Holy moley."
He used the old expression just to compliment Albert's obvious satisfaction with his discovery and then stooped again automatically to better see the titles of the books, trying to avoid his own shadow against the spines. Most were popular authors like Alice Hegan Rice, Ellen Glasgow, and J. M. Barrie. He counted six Gilbert Parker novels together. John Fox and Kate Douglas Wiggin were mixed randomly with Mrs. Humphrey Ward and George Barr McCutcheon and Robert Chambers. A run of dark blue Henry van Dyke volumes filled half a section. These were the popular novels of another era, just after the turn of the twentieth century, all gathered together in the random order of a small library in use.
There was little order among the titles because none was needed. The books had the appearance of being read once and then popped on th
e shelf. None were especially valuable that he knew of, because all had been best sellers. What made them dear was the condition—read once and put away. Many had dust jackets, a rare thing to find now on books published before the First World War.
The entire room looked as if it had been left one day a hundred years before and never touched again.
"She was an itty-bitty thing.” Albert said. “I don't think she was more than five feet tall, or else she would have bumped her head at every turn."
Henry knelt, his knees pressing through his jeans to the coarse weave of the Indian rug spread from side to side over the wide yellow pine boards on the floor. On the opposite side of the room the shelves were filled with the limp leather of Roycrofter volumes, many of these laid sideways. Above this was a cigar box missing its lid, and partially filled with never-used postcards, collected from xGreece and Italy, France and Spain. A separate gathering of English scenes rested beside the box.
Henry finally asked, “What was her name?"
Albert answered with a tone he reserved for his elders. “Helen Mawson. Quite a traveler. The grand tour. She saw it all."
Henry nodded. “She loved to read. She loved books."
"And looky here.” Albert handed him a sheaf of papers from his lap. “These were in the desk drawer. Letters from people she visited. Dozens of them. She wrote everybody she met. She must have been a good writer, too. Listen to this."
Albert pulled a pale sheet from the pile in his lap.
"'Oh, my dear, we have missed you since you have gone. Your letters have made us wonder how we might have wasted precious time when we had you here. I read your description of the little town of Rye to Sophie, and she cried. Please write again soon, and let's plan another visit for the coming year if you are free.'” Albert looked up. “That was from 1911. But all the letters are like that. They all praise her own letters to them. I wish we had one of hers to see what the fuss was about."
Henry said, “I'd like to see her picture."
What did women wear in 1911? Were they still wearing corsets then? Beneath their skirts they wore something called a chemise, he had read. He had always wondered what that might have looked like. And they wore drawers, not panties. And her hair would be long, of course.
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