Autumn's Child

by Kathleen Gilles Seidel

  Would a second chance be like that? More rich and glowing because it wasn’t new?

  As a first course, Leilah served a smoked fish mousse with toast points, the sort of dish that had been elegant when Grannor was first married.

  “How is the inventory going?” Amanda asked Ben.

  “Surprisingly well,” he answered. “We’re halfway through with what I now know to call hollowware. Then we are on to the flatware—the knives and the forks—which are apparently all a jumble. The art stored upstairs shouldn’t take long. My father had the movers take pictures before they crated it. I don’t know about the carpets.”

  “They are rugs, Ben dear, not carpets,” Grannor reproved. “And you can’t blame me for the flatware mess. I used the Burchell family sterling—we had Francis I—and I kept my grandmother’s separate from my mother’s. My husband’s aunts put all that Whiting Lily in the same chest. You’re going to have to look at the monograms to get it all straight.”

  “Is that how it works?” Amanda asked. “That a family has one silver pattern, and a bride doesn’t get to pick her own?”

  “It is a very good system. When I got married, my great-aunt was no longer giving large dinners, so she gave me six place settings. They were enough for a few years, as I could always borrow from my mother. Then, just when I really did need more, I got my grandmother’s and the rest of my great-aunt’s, and no one ever had to buy anything new.” She said the word “new” as if it had an odor. “But it’s not like that anymore. Colleen’s sisters-in-law, Patricia and Elizabeth, chose their own patterns.”

  “Why do you have your husband’s family’s silver?” Amanda asked. “Didn’t his aunts have their own children?”

  “None that survived. Between couples who didn’t have children and the only sons who got themselves killed in the wars, it’s one spindly family tree on both sides. So girls would marry, get their own hollowware, take some of the family pieces, but when they died without heirs, it would all come back. And their jewelry too. I’ve got a little tin box with three diamond engagement rings. There used to be a piece of paper somewhere that says whom they belonged to. I suppose my grandsons William and Jeffrey should each get one if they ever get around to finding the right girl…although since they live in California, who knows what they will bring home?”

  Colleen decided not to speculate about who was being slurred by that reference to California. But why had Grannor only mentioned giving the rings to Will and Jeff? Sean and Finn had bought Patty’s and Liz’s rings themselves. Grannor had been the one to tell the two brides to select new flatware patterns; she had given each of them twelve place settings of sterling. It had been an exceptionally generous gift, but Colleen imagined that Patty and Liz both would have been happier with new kitchen appliances.

  Why hadn’t Grannor given them some of the family silver? God knows there was enough to go around. Why make this distinction between her cousins and her brothers? Grannor hardly ever saw Will and Jeff, while she had seen Colleen and her brothers for a week each spring and for two weeks in the summer. Furthermore, once Sean and Finn had gotten serious about Patty and Liz, they had each dragged their future fiancées down to Georgia for a painful weekend at the old family mansion. They weren’t as attentive as Colleen, but they were certainly much more so than the other three grandchildren.

  So, what was the reason? Maybe it was that Grannor saw so little of Will and Jeff that she had nothing to disapprove of. The only other reason Grannor could be saving the family diamonds for Will and Jeff—and this made no sense; it was flat-out crazy—was because Colleen and her brothers were adopted.

  When Ned and Mary Pat, Colleen’s parents, had finally acknowledged that they needed to adopt if they were going to have children, they had registered with agencies whose waiting lists were discouragingly long. Mary Pat’s mother, Colleen’s Grammy O’Connell, hating to see her daughter so unhappy, had prayed for her every day…and had called parish after parish after parish and then each one again until she found the Bannings, a nearby family with a daughter “in trouble.” The family had had two conditions for a privately arranged adoption, that the child be raised Catholic and that there be some contact. That child became Sean, Colleen’s older brother.

  Then a year and a half later, the Bannings had called Ned and Mary Pat. Their second daughter had not learned from her older sister’s mistake. There would be another baby; did Mary Pat and Ned want that one? Of course they did. So biologically Colleen’s brothers were first cousins. With open adoptions, they had their birth parents’ medical histories; they knew their much younger biological half-siblings. Whenever Mary Pat took her children to see her family in St. Paul, they also visited the Bannings.

  The Bannings were Irish-American, just as the O’Connells. Even though neither Sean nor Finn had facial features resembling Mary Pat’s, they looked as if they could be her offspring. She was Irish; they were Irish. They were from the same gene pool.

  When the Bannings called about the baby who would become Finn, Ned and Mary Pat had already made contact with a lawyer. He was representing another family whose daughter was due to deliver in a few weeks, six months before the Banning girl. Ned and Mary Pat decided to take both babies. That was why Colleen was only six months older than her younger brother, why they called each other “almost twins.”

  But the adoptions were different. Colleen’s was as closed as possible. All she knew was that she had been born “somewhere in the South,” that her parents had gone to Georgia to pick her up, and that a priest had brought her to them at her grandparents’ house. The one condition her birth family had placed on her adoption had been that no one ever attempt to make contact. Ever.

  In sixth grade, Colleen started to learn French, and she had instantly been sure that she must be French. The language came so easily to her; it felt so natural in her mouth. But a year later her mother got a new cleaning lady whose first language was Spanish, and Colleen discovered that she could learn Spanish just as easily. When the high school foreign-exchange program sent her to Norway, she picked up Norwegian even though her host family spoke excellent English. She was good at learning languages. Once she heard a sound, she could repeat it perfectly and then never forgot it.

  There was nothing about her that suggested a definite ethic origin. She didn’t have the broad planes of a Scandinavian face nor the sturdy build of one of the Germanic tribes. She didn’t have the etched cheekbones of the Slavs nor the olive skin tones of Mediterranean people. Her hair was between honey blond and golden brown, her eyes were hazel, her features were even. She was melting-pot American.

  Whenever the willowy, ginger-haired Mary Pat was out with her two tall redheaded sons and her petite light-haired daughter, people would exclaim that Colleen must look like her father’s side of the family. “Colleen looks exactly like herself,” Mary Pat would always say, “and we wouldn’t want it any other way.”

  It didn’t matter that she was adopted. Or if it did matter, it only made her and her brothers more special. Grammy O’Connell had always said that the three of them were a gift from God. Grannor would never use that language, but surely she had to see that Colleen and her brothers were far more attentive grandchildren than Will, Jeff, or Kim.

  Chapter 4

  Ben was one of the few professional snowboarders to have a college degree, having cobbled together the credits from online courses and summer classes. When the other guys had grimaced at his books, he would blame his parents, saying it was important to them that all their kids had degrees. That was true, but he had really gotten his education for himself. He liked learning new things and was glad not to be completely clueless about differential calculus and the Boer War.

  It didn’t take a bachelor’s degree, however, to see what Mrs. Ridge’s game was. By Sunday noon it was clear that she was trying to fix him and Colleen up. What a shame. If the old lady cared about anyone, it would be Colleen, and
here she was trying to arrange for a lifetime of frustration and disappointment.

  We tried it, ma’am. We’re too different. It won’t work.

  At least Colleen was awake to the scheme and able to outmaneuver her grandmother.

  “Why, Grannor,” she had said when Mrs. Ridge had suggested that the two of them go down to the lower level of the boathouse and check the boat before the dock was put in, “Jason grew up in Annapolis. He’s been around boats his whole life. He’ll know lots more than Ben or me.”

  Then Mrs. Ridge had asked Ben to take her winter coats upstairs. Colleen would show him where the cedar closet was. “Are you really suggesting,” Colleen had said with a laugh in her voice, “that I can’t carry three coats up one flight of stairs?”

  Sometimes the old lady’s moves weren’t worth countering. On Monday he and Colleen worked quietly side by side, counting all the cards in each deck of aging playing cards, making sure that each one had fifty-two cards and two jokers. She had a pale-pink natural-looking polish on her fingernails. Four years ago she hadn’t worn nail polish.

  Mrs. Ridge asked them to take some old prints out of the frames. The frames were dusty. Colleen happened to touch her hand to her face. There was a smudge on her cheek. He wanted to wipe it off, but he didn’t.

  After a while it did seem pointless to pretend that they didn’t both know exactly what was going on.

  “Why is your grandmother doing this?” he asked as they were doing yet another invented chore. “You must be able to get your own boyfriends.” Surely all she would have to do would be to walk into a bar and smile.

  “I manage,” she admitted. “But apparently my grandmother thinks that at twenty-seven, I am over the hill. She was married at nineteen.”

  “But guys must have proposed.”

  “Actually, no. Whenever I sense anything close to that might be on the horizon, I head them off. I don’t want to make someone hear a no.”

  Who were they? He suddenly wanted to know. Were they good enough for you? Could they have made you happy?

  But was that any of his business? He had already declared himself not good enough for her, unable to make her happy. He needed to shut up and count cards and dust picture frames.

  * * * *

  Although it took a day longer than they had hoped, Colleen and Amanda had conquered Mount Grademore by Monday evening. They would have been finished by noon, but once the dock was in, they took long breaks to go out and check their email and texts.

  After lunch on Tuesday, Grannor decided that Jason and Colleen should take her out in the boat. The afternoon was warmer than they had expected, and Grannor asked Colleen to run back into the house and get her a lighter jacket.

  “Why didn’t she just unbutton the one she was wearing?” Amanda asked as she helped Colleen look through the front hall closet.

  “Because she doesn’t have to.” Colleen had decided that because she was resisting her grandmother on her matchmaking schemes, she would give in on the other requests, no matter how irrational.

  “Maybe she wants to talk to Jason behind your back.”

  “No doubt,” Colleen agreed. “But if he tells you anything, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.” She did enough for her grandmother. She wasn’t going to be bullied into changing her shirt, her nail polish, her accent, her manners, or whatever else Grannor was disapproving of today.

  She draped the coat over her arm and paused to look in the dining room. Ben was alone, sitting at one end of the table, a large piece of green felt unrolled in front of him. It was covered with little stacks of silver flatware. A gooseneck reading lamp was plugged into an extension cord, and he had tilted the brass apothecary shade so the light pooled on the green felt. He was looking through a magnifying glass at the handle of a cake fork.

  “Are you having to do that for every piece?” she asked.

  “Yes, but don’t ask me why.” He had set down the fork as he spoke, and as if he was suddenly noticing that the room had grown warm, he unbuttoned the cuff of his left sleeve, turning it back over and over on itself until it was up to his elbow. The light from the reading lamp reflected against the narrow gold lines on the case of his watch.

  She had not seen this watch before. It was elegant, having a black alligator strap and a gold case; the face was white with slim black Roman numerals. A gold second hand swept around a small circle inset near the “VI.” Snowboarders didn’t wear watches like this. She couldn’t imagine Ben buying such a watch for himself even though he had plenty of money. And it didn’t look new. The strap was, but the gold had a rich matte patina that comes with age and use.

  “That’s a nice watch,” she said.

  He had been rolling up his other sleeve. He stopped and glanced down at his left wrist. “It belonged to Judge Rutherford. I was named after him. I inherited it when he died.”

  “Judge Benjamin Rutherford?”

  “Yes. I use ‘Ben’ on everything because marketing people said that ‘Benjamin R.’ sounded too stodgy for the cool dude I was supposed to be, but the judge was one of my grandfather’s oldest friends.”

  “He signed my adoption papers.”

  “The judge did? I didn’t know that.” Ben picked up another fork. “It makes sense. If my grandfather or father helped with the paperwork, they would have taken it to Judge Rutherford.”

  He tilted the handle of the fork to the light to see the monogram, going back to work as if there was no big deal.

  But it was. He had been named after the man who had signed the papers making her herself, Colleen Marie Ridge. In fact, when the judge had signed the papers, he might have been wearing the very watch Ben was wearing right now.

  She knew that she could be sentimental, but she loved the idea that this was a sign that they were supposed to be together. This watch was on its second owner; it was having its second chance. Why couldn’t they?

  The door to the kitchen swung open, spreading natural light into the room. Leilah came in, carrying a stack of photographs. Colleen knew that there was no printer in the house. Leilah must have gone out to the boathouse to use her own.

  “Your grandmother was wondering where you were,” she said to Colleen and then put the pictures in front of Ben, leaning so close to him that her breast almost brushed his shoulder.

  Colleen froze. Leilah? Leilah and Ben?

  There was something compelling, even erotic, about Leilah’s controlled elegance. When she moved, her clothes floated with liquid grace; when she was still, they draped about her in a marble statue’s graceful folds. She carried herself with self-possession and mystery, elegance and control. She was the White Goddess, alluring and dangerous.

  She was a force out of Jungian myth, and she made Colleen feel trivial, a force out of Pat the Bunny.

  * * * *

  The deep sleep that had embraced her each night in this luxurious room had abandoned her. She was restless, turning off her light when she thought she was ready to sleep, then having to turn it back on ten minutes later. At 4 a.m. she woke up with her light on and her book open on the pillow. She turned off the light, but then couldn’t go back to sleep. With the light still off, she got up and went out on the balcony.

  Charcoal clouds hung low in the night sky, and the dank-smelling fog was heavy. Even the light at the end of their dock was blurred, and those across the lake were nothing more than yellow smudges against the single black mass that the lake and trees had become.

  A light came on in the second floor of the boathouse. Colleen was surprised. Leilah did not come over to the main house until six. Why would she get up so early? A few minutes later a figure emerged. It wasn’t Leilah.

  It was Ben. His broad shoulders, his easy walk…Ben.

  Colleen jerked back, pressing herself against the cedar shingles. No, no. Ben and Leilah together…in the dark, in bed…her hair spread across a p
illow, his hands on either side of her naked body…the two of them together.

  The wall was hard against the back of her head, the shingles rough against her arms. She couldn’t move.

  What we had mattered. He had said that. Didn’t it matter anymore?

  Had Leilah laced her fingers through his thick hair to guide him, to show him what she wanted?

  Air sat heavily in the base of her lungs, strangling her. The fog from the lake must have surged up to the balcony in some kind of nightmare wave. It was a heavy, choking, poisonous fog; she couldn’t see, she couldn’t breathe.

  Had they undressed each other? Colleen remembered watching his long fingers working the buttons of her blouse. What of his would she have taken off first? His shirt?

  Or the watch. Leilah would have taken his hand and turned it over, slipping her fingers under the wide band and tugging at the strap, freeing it from the prong. Colleen was imagining herself doing that.

  I wanted us to have a second chance. But he must not have. This hurt. It hurt so much.

  What about all the connections? Judge Rutherford’s watch, their mothers wanting her to marry a Healy…didn’t that mean something?

  If it did, it wasn’t something that he wanted. He hadn’t wanted it four years ago; he didn’t want it now.

  Why, Ben, why?

  * * * *

  Leilah had smiled that little smile of hers and brushed his hand away. She was not going to let him take her nightgown off. He could ease the delicate strap off her shoulder, exposing her breast. He could run his hands up her thighs, the silk of the gown riding up along his forearms. But the nightgown stayed on.

  “I won’t lock the boathouse door,” she had said to him Sunday afternoon. She was mysterious and seductive, but not coy.