The Secret of Hailey's Comments

by Kristy Tate

  My mind raced for answers that didn’t involve the word trespassing. The steam billowed out of the bathroom. I tugged my towel up a fraction. I cleared my throat and settled on a cliché: Honesty is the best policy. “Looking for soap.”

  Her eyes traveled over my face and then down to my barely dry feet. My legs and arms were still pink from the warm water. She narrowed her eyes. “I thought Pastor Grayson had left you in LaRue’s library.”

  “Miss LaRue said the case had been dropped, and she let me go.”

  Downstairs, a door slammed. “Hello?” Ryan called.

  Dina poked her head out the bedroom door. “I’ll be right down.” Then her face turned hard and all friendliness left her voice. “Get dressed and get out before I call Grayson again,” she said over her shoulder as she headed down the stairs.

  “I actually have a date myself…for Sunday services,” I muttered after she’d left. I struggled to keep my arms pinned by my side so that the towel wouldn’t slip as I looked through my bag. I found a skirt I didn’t recognize. Curious, I pulled it out: bright flowers, Parisian scenes, and artists in berets on soft silk. I double-checked to make sure the bag belonged to me.

  “Hello?” Ryan called from the bottom of the stairs. “Hey-ho, what’s all this?”

  “Just a little celebration,” Dina twittered from the upstairs hall before she clumped down the stairs.

  I sat down on the bed, the silk skirt clutched in my hand. I searched my bag and pulled out a white eyelet lace blouse with a plunging neckline. A pink linen note card had been attached with a ribbon to a small gauze bag. “In hopes of starlit nights, and love of the splendor kind,” Grammy had written. I blinked when I opened the bag and poured a set of clear water pearl jewelry into my hand. I missed her, and I regretted my past anger and our argument. I ached for her sense of humor and practicality. I wondered what witticism she’d come up with if she knew I was wearing her finery on my date to church with a eighty-year-old hunchback spinster, while the first man I’d kissed in the past six months, the one she called “the dish,” was in the dining room with dastardly Dina, otter-world destroyer.

  I swiveled on the dressing table chair and put on the necklace. The pearls trailed down along the neckline of the blouse. I slipped on the earrings and pulled back my hair to admire the shine of the pearls. I twisted my hair up into a knot and a few tendrils escaped. I turned my head again to admire the pearls against my tan skin.

  With my bag slung over my shoulder and my black leather mules in my hand, I stepped out into the hall then ran to the back staircase. My feet thudded on the worn strip of tapestry runner that covered the oak floor. I tried to run silently. I didn’t want Ryan to know I was in the house, because my face would give away what I now knew. I didn’t want him brunching with Dina or anyone else but me. I wanted him, Spidey undies and all, for myself.

  I suppose it was inevitable, with my eyes so infrequently in front of me, that I’d bump into the wall. My shoulder slid against a framed piece of folk art and jostled the work off its hanger. I caught it has it slipped toward the floor. Momentarily the voices below hushed. I pressed against the wall, holding the folk art in front of my chest like a shield.

  I closed my eyes, concentrating on the movements and voices downstairs that seemed to be moving toward the front of the house. The front door squeaked open, and a breeze blew up the stairs. I inhaled, and smelled something smoky, with apple, cinnamon, and maybe bacon. My mouth began to water. Someone laughed, and I felt not only hunger, but also frustration and disappointment.

  I let my knees relax and leaning against the wall, I sunk to the floor, the picture still in my hands. It was the embroidered artwork from Cusco, Peru. I studied the bright threads, the children dancing, the straw huts. Despite the black cotton background, it was a picture of happy people in a simple time and place. But what had James said? “She’d almost died there, too.” Brazil nuts were actually more plentiful in Peru than Brazil.

  And just like that, once again I feared the worst.

  I thought about taking the art with me as some sort of proof, but the memory of my night locked in the lending library stopped me. Still, I couldn’t make myself hang it back on the wall. I clutched the burl wood frame so tightly that the edges pressed into the hands, and I debated on what to do with it. I headed down the back stairs, knowing that the mudroom had cupboards where I could stash the artwork. Maybe it wasn’t the best hiding spot, but spiders and mice wouldn’t tell on me.

  A chair in the dining room scratched across the wood floor. I heard Ryan say, “No, let me.”

  Laughter and approaching footsteps followed. I ducked behind a door and pulled it closed. A ring of light surrounded the doorjamb, below me the dark basement. My heart sped as the footsteps approached, because I had a good idea of exactly what Dina was letting Ryan do.

  Chapter Sixteen

  As a child, the basement of Grammy Hailey’s house had always frightened me. I hadn’t ever admitted that to anyone. If pressed to retrieve something from the basement, I’d always managed to take along Howie, our bulldog. I realized that motivating fat Howie into the basement had been an accomplishment I should have taken more pride in as I picked my way down the dark rickety stairs.

  The cold cement floor sloped toward a center drain. The mildewy smell told me that the basement probably flooded during rains. A small window near the ceiling let in a diffused greenish light. Green, yellow, and brown mold streamed down the wall beneath the window. The top half of the wall was made of cement. The bottom half of the wall was hewn stone.

  “No lights?” Ryan called from the top of the stairs.

  “Be brave,” I heard Dina call back. “I think the switch is at the bottom of the stairs.” I spotted the switch and moved away from the wine cellar to my right. Shelves filled with bottles lined the dark space. If Ryan was looking for wine I didn’t want to be what he found.

  I scouted around for a hiding place to my left. I turned a corner behind a row of shelves supporting cardboard boxes, an old trunk, fishing gear, and a pair of skis. A fine layer of mold covered everything. A wooden door stood in a dark corner. The plaster wall had been painted a lime green, and bits of plaster had been punctured in places creating polka dots. The heavy oak door with its wrought iron handle looked out of place in the green-cast room. At first the door handle refused to budge. As quietly as I possible, I jiggled the handle and it fell apart in my hand. I set the broken thumb press on the cement floor.

  “Hello?” Ryan called out. I heard him to my right, any minute he’d find the light switch. I pushed the door open and gasped. An intense looking woman stared back at me. It was like looking in a mirror.

  She must have had the room to herself for years. Her portrait, nearly life-sized and framed in rough-hewn oak, sat propped against a stack of boxes. She wore a white gauze dress that sat low across her shoulders and tied at her waist. The skirt fell in folds to her knees. Standing against a backdrop of woods and ferns, I saw a cluster of seven-year lilies at her feet.

  They say everyone has a twin out there in the world. That there’s another person, wholly unrelated to you that wears your face. I’d never found mine. Until now.

  “Wow,” Ryan spoke beside me making me jump.

  “A doppelgänger,” I said.

  “A what?”

  “A doppelgänger,” I repeated. “An Irish fetch. In Norse mythology, a vardogr. It’s a ghostly double of an unrelated living person.” I didn’t tell him that according to legend, the sighting of a doppelgänger was an omen of death. I inhaled, turned to face him, and saw doubt all over his face. “It’s not me. I don’t know who she is.”

  I moved closer to the painting. My wide green eyes, dark blonde hair, and my generous lips painted were painted on the canvas with stunning accuracy. My heart stopped when I caught the bold signature in the bottom corner, Emmaline, Self Portrait, 1989. I sat down on a box and stared at the portrait, willing her to speak, to share her secrets.

  “Your
face and your name,” Ryan placed his hand on my shoulder. “It’s more than a coincidence. I don’t believe in doppelwhatevers.” He lifted his hand from my shoulder and his voice turned hard.

  “I had always dreamed of finding my mother,” I said in a soft voice, “but not like this.”

  Ryan’s gaze flashed between the portrait and my face. “If you honestly expect me to believe that you just happened to visit Lister and discover your relationship with the Dunsmuirs just days after your Helen’s death, then you must think I’m a very stupid person.”

  I turned to stare at him. He stood in the murky light, his face filled with shadows, his eyes dark, unreadable. I caught his understanding.

  “And no one else is going to believe it, either.”

  “My mother’s name was Mally Dunn.”

  “Where was she from?”

  “San Francisco. My dad said she didn’t have a family.”

  “Everybody has a family. No one spontaneously springs from the earth.”

  “Do you honestly think she could be my mother?” Conflicted feelings rose in my chest.

  “Emma, stop. The gig is up. She has your name and your face.” He blocked the doorway, his large frame a frightening adversary. “How could you have not known?”

  I shook my head. “I didn’t know.”

  “Tell me about the Brazil nut oil again.”

  My heart raced. I clenched my hands, my fingernails cutting into my palms. “What are you trying to say?”

  “Your theory is that Helen was killed by chocolate laced with Brazil nut oil. How sad that the only person you got to buy it was me.”

  “Ryan?” Dina called from the dining room, her voice full of laughter. “Did you get lost?”

  “Nearly,” he called to Dina. “I think I’m seeing things more clearly now,” he said to me.

  #

  After Ryan left, I closed the door and leaned it against it, breathing heavily. The timing, the likeness, and even the name was too coincidental. Of course, anyone would be suspicious. Ryan just vocalized what everyone who had known Emmaline must be thinking.

  James could be my brother. My heart sped up. I felt a flicker of hope, a swell of emotion I couldn’t define, but it quickly died when I remembered that James might have murdered Helen. No one, of course, would believe me. They, like Ryan, would think I’d planted the Brazil nut oil. It was, after all, an incredible theory and coincidence.

  I looked back at the portrait. “It’s nice to meet you, Mally Dunn. Who ever you are.” I heard the twitter of Dina’s laugh and Ryan’s low replies. I sat on a box, feeling lost, wondering what Ryan must think about me. Wondering what he would do, who he would tell and maybe more importantly—what was I to do?

  If Emmaline was my mother, and I’d been told about her to begin with, I would never have been in this situation. I would know who my family was, dead or alive.

  A thought that had never struck me before did so now: I needed my dad.

  #

  The resonating church bells carried over the valleys and hills, accompanied my walk back to the village. I thought of Emmaline Dunsmuir and how many times she must have traveled this same road.

  An engine gunned up the hill. I turned to watch Jeff and his golf cart race toward me. I took a brave stand in the middle of the path and flagged him down. He pulled over sharply. “I’m late,” he said. “My mom hates it when I’m late.”

  I threw my luggage in the back and hopped in. I laid my hand on his arm and said, “I need you to take me to Edmonds.” He watched my lips and nodded, then swerved sharply as we bounced off the path and into the grass.

  “Sorry,” I yelled. He didn’t hear me this time, and I didn’t distract him.

  “How’s three?” he asked.

  I gave him a thumbs-up sign, wondering how I’d spend the next five hours.

  The bells stopped ringing and I realized services must have started. We hurried toward the church, passing Miss LaRue’s library. An unfamiliar red flag hung above her door. When Jeff cut the engine and parked the cart beside the church, I pointed out the flag to him.

  “A prisoner,” he said. “Phil Henderson.”

  An angry shout came from inside the library. I heard the words “rights,” “coot,” and “lunatic” as we passed. I followed Jeff up the church steps. “Did I get a red flag, too?”

  He answered with a grin.

  “Do you think my things will be okay in the cart?” I looked at the tube that held my painting and felt protective and somewhat defeated. It was the only thing there that really mattered to me, and I had to question its importance. The painting I really wanted was the one of Emmaline in the Dunsmuir’s moldy basement.

  “Except for Phil,” Jeff nodded at Miss LaRue’s, “everyone here is church-going and pretty honest.” Jeff stepped through the door and boldly walked up the aisle to the front pew to join his parents, but I slipped into the back pew and mouthed the words to the hymn. “Jesus Savior, pilot me, over life tempestuous seas. Unknown waves before me roll; Hiding rocks and treacherous shoal.”

  Treacherous shoal. That sounded familiar, but I couldn’t say why.

  I looked at the back of the heads of the parishioners and remembered the first time I’d entered the chapel, how I’d felt conspicuous and out of place. I’d felt as if people were staring at me. I now realized that they probably were. Most of the islanders had undoubtedly known Emmaline Dunsmuir, so I probably seemed like a ghost to them.

  The sun shone through the stain glass windows and broke into rays of yellows, golds, and blues. The end of the hymn circled in the rafters of the chapel, and as the organist and music director returned to their seats, a reverent hush filled the building. Pastor Grayson took his place behind the podium.

  “Turn with me to Saint Luke,” he said. The parishioners obediently turned the pages of their bibles. Pastor Grayson’s eyes traveled the room and landed on me. He frowned into his scriptures. “Let us read together the Lord’s parable of the rich fool taken from Luke 12:16-21. ‘The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully: And he thought within himself, What shall I do, because I have no room where to bestow my fruits?” And he said, “This will I do: I will pull down my barns, and build greater; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods.”

  A stained-glass window depicted the Good Shepherd and a following of His sheep. Beyond the glass I could make out the recently turned earth of the cemetery. Somewhere in there lay Helen, probably Henry and maybe Emmaline. I wished I’d known them. Yes, just like the certain rich man, I had abundance, but I lacked family.

  “The Lord tells us our days are numbered. The Lord knows our numbers and we do not. If we pass through this life in merriment there will surely come a time when sacred matters, once ignored and procrastinated, will confront us.” Pastor Grayson paused, our eyes met and held. Looking only at me he said, “For death comes to all of us.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  The simple granite gravestone at my feet read Emmaline Dunsmuir Hopper, 1954–1978. She must have been born late in her parents’ lives. I considered the pain of outliving a child.

  “Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting: The soul that rises with us, our life’s star,” Pastor Grayson said.

  I turned to face him. He was backlit by the sun, his face full of shadows and his eyes dark.

  “But trailing clouds of glory do we come/From God, who is our home,’” I added.

  “Ah, you know Wordsworth,” he said, placing his hands in his pockets. He’d removed his robe and wore his usual black shirt and white collar. He nodded at the gravestone. “You’ve found your mother’s grave, I see.”

  I started. Looking into the woods that bordered the cemetery, I blinked and shook my head. “I didn’t know she was my mother.”

  Pastor Grayson didn’t say he didn’t believe me, but I read the questions in his eyes.

  “Did you know Emmaline?” I asked. “I know nothing about her. My dad told me my mother was Mally Dunn.” I
watched the sun filter through pine tree branches while I waited for his answer.

  Pastor Grayson looked at his feet before replying. “She was an artist, like you.” He cleared his throat. “I must warn you, Emma. Your claims of her maternity will be difficult to substantiate.” He motioned for me to sit down on the low, stone wall that circled the cemetery then he sat down beside me. “I’m not sure what you hoped to accomplish by your intrusion at this delicate time.”

  Stunned, I stared at him. “I didn’t mean to intrude…I had never heard of Emmaline Dunsmuir until this morning.”

  Pastor Grayson studied my face, and then said, “Then maybe you wouldn’t mind quietly returning to your home and letting the good islanders forget a brief and painful chapter of Lister’s history.”

  “I’m not sure I can do that. How can I?” I wanted to learn everything I could of my mother and her family. I wanted to understand what had happened, and even if I never could, I wanted to try.

  Pastor Grayson stood. His small frame blocked out the late morning sun. “Jeff tells me you’re leaving today at three.”

  I nodded.

  “Good. That’s good.” He stood a little too close. I had to crane my neck to look into his face. I still couldn’t read his dark eyes.

  “Just because I’m leaving doesn’t mean I won’t come back.”

  “It would be best if you didn’t.”

  I stood, bringing myself to Pastor Grayson’s height. “If the Dunsmuirs are my family, I want to know them.”

  Pastor Grayson shook his head. “There are some things and some people better left unknown…and how well can you really ever know another? Let it go, Emma.”

  “If James is my brother,” I shook my head, “I can’t do that.”

  Pastor Grayson reached out and grabbed my wrist. “Leave and do not come back,” he said, his voice urgent and low. “Don’t endanger yourself.” He glanced around, dropped my wrist, and lifted his hand in greeting to an elderly woman at the gate. His forbidding countenance slid into a pleasant congeniality as he turned to one of his parishioners. As he made his way out of the churchyard, he turned back to me, his expression menacing.