Chapter 23 Una
Una
Una stood on the threshold of the Bernsteins’ dining room, wondering what she could clean.
The room was a complete mess. Sample menus, music playlists, and color swatches were strewn over one end of the table. The
other end was covered in color printouts.
Una’s gaze swept over images of china patterns, balloon arches, floral centerpieces, and buffet items. She made it a point
never to look at people’s personal papers but was unable to avoid the photos of champagne fountains, ice sculptures, macaron
towers, and platters of chilled caviar.
When she saw the cost of some of these items, she gasped. Then she clapped her hand over her mouth.
You are here to clean, not to judge.
But what to clean?
Boxes of Atari game systems and Sports Walkmans were stacked on top of the sideboard next to a bowl filled with little blue
Tiffany boxes. The painting that once hung above the sideboard had been replaced by a bulletin board showing a seating chart
for Charles’s party.
The top shelf of the china cabinet had been emptied to make room for RSVP cards and invoices.
Dirty coffee mugs littered every surface. Una counted twelve in all.
“It’s chaos, I know,” Elaine said, stealing up behind Una. “The party’s in two weeks and I still have so much to do.”
The doorbell rang and Elaine frowned. “Oh, brother. I was just about to get to work.”
She marched to the front door and Una heard her exclaim, “Beth! Oh, my goodness! I feel like I haven’t seen you in ages. I was
just about to have a cup of coffee. Care to join me?”
“I came to drop off this raspberry-walnut rugelach I made for Charles, but I also wanted to see a friendly face.”
Elaine hesitated a beat too long before replying, “That’s so nice of you. Come in.”
Trailing Elaine into the kitchen, Beth spotted Una in the hall. “Morning, Una.”
Una was shocked by Beth’s appearance. She looked hollow, as if she hadn’t eaten for days. Her cheeks were gaunt and the thin
skin under her eyes was puffy and discolored.
The poor girl isn’t eating or sleeping.
She smiled warmly at Beth. “Good morning.”
Una vacuumed the dining room and waited until Elaine and Beth had relocated to the living room before carrying the dirty coffee
cups to the kitchen.
As she loaded them into the dishwasher, she heard Beth say, “The thing is, he’s been super sweet to me for the past few days.
He’s been complimenting my cooking and telling me I look beautiful. He took me out to dinner and held my hand under the table,
just like he did when we started dating.”
“You see! It’s just a rough patch. All couples have them.
As a matter of fact, Ben and I are in one right now.
He thinks my plans for Charles’s party are spiraling out of control.
He won’t let me spend another dime.” Elaine let out a dry laugh.
“I pretended I’d scale back to keep the peace, but I have money of my own, and I’ll empty my bank account if it means giving Charles what he wants. ”
“Don and I aren’t in a rough patch.” Beth’s voice sounded brittle, as if she might break down if she kept talking. “He feels
like a stranger. He’ll hug me or kiss me on the cheek like I was his mom or kid sister. He told me he wanted to take a break
from baby making—that we should just focus on the two of us right now. He wasn’t even looking at me when he said it. He was
gazing out the window. It’s like he’s not all there.”
Una ran the water in the sink even though there were no dishes to clean. She didn’t want to hear such intimate details about
the women’s marriages. Her brain was already overloaded from having spent the last few days poring over the papers and notebooks
belonging to Mrs. Stapleton’s father.
Jonathan Stapleton’s research on Cold Harbor dated back to the 1700s when the Matinecock Indians sold the land to a group
of white settlers in exchange for a cartload of household goods.
His notes on the settlement’s early history were reflected in his book, which Una had already read. After reading his notes,
however, she finally came across a reference to Eel’s Nest. In 1878, Captain Josiah Smith purchased fifty acres of land from
the village of Cold Harbor. According to property records, Smith planned to build a house on a twenty-acre parcel. He also
gifted thirty acres along the waterfront to be designated as a nature preserve.
Other than property records and tax payments, my search on Capt. Smith came up empty, Jonathan wrote. As he kept only a gardener and housekeeper on retainer, I suspect Eel’s Nest was not his primary residence. With no information
on his place of origin, the name of his ship, or records of his voyages, he might as well be a ghost.
Jonathan didn’t run across Smith’s name again until an 1882 article in The Long-Islander highlighted two Suffolk County homes built by Gilded Age architect Stanley Morris. One of those houses was Eel’s Nest.
Jonathan had a copy of the original article, which included the grainy photo of Mrs. Smith that Una had seen at the library.
She didn’t want to risk looking into the woman’s black eyes again, so she immediately covered it with a Post-it note and didn’t
breathe easy until Mrs. Smith’s smudged profile was hidden under the square of yellow paper.
In the article, Eel’s Nest was described as the summer residence of Mrs. M. Smith, widow of Capt. J. Smith. The writer focused
on the unusual architectural details of the Victorian home, including the layout of its garden and its large boathouse. When
asked why the octopus in the stained-glass windows had been crafted with nine limbs instead of eight, Mr. Morris stated that
the design had been his client’s idea.
“The creature is meant to remind us that we cannot know all of the ocean’s secrets,” said Morris.
The circumstances of Captain Smith’s passing weren’t mentioned in the article, and there wasn’t a single biographical detail
about Mrs. Smith other than her title as benefactress of the Young Oystermen Society. Jonathan’s notes indicated that the
organization was founded as a means of expanding the oyster industry by creating paid apprenticeships for children between
the ages of ten and fourteen.
There were two more articles tucked inside Jonathan’s notebook. The first of these was a short and mournful paragraph from
July 1882 listing the names of the nine boys who were “swept away by a sudden storm” near Port Washington, a town twenty-seven
miles west of Cold Harbor.
The boys were enrolled in the oyster apprenticeship program, Jonathan noted in the margin. I’ve found nothing to explain why they were together or why no other boats went missing in the storm.
Finally, there was a single paragraph in the August edition about the tragic death of Mrs. M. Smith in a fire that destroyed the boathouse at her Eel’s Nest property. The cause of the fire was cited as a lightning strike.
Jonathan’s notes revealed his frustration.
How were the remains identified as belonging to Mrs. Smith? What is her Christian name? Why no obituary? Estate bequeathed
to a cousin residing outside the country. Property records for Eel’s Nest show M. Smith as owner from 1878–present day. Was
the estate put in a trust? Billy Phelps says mail to Eel’s Nest has been addressed to Mrs. M. Smith for as long as he’s worked
at the post office. Current boathouse erected in 1968. Why not earlier? Attempts to contact new owner thwarted. No one picks
up the phone or answers the door, but I feel a presence inside the house. Interviews with neighbors unhelpful. No one has
seen or conversed with the resident. I’m determined to solve this mystery.
But Jonathan Stapleton hadn’t solved it. He’d finished his book and died shortly after its publication.
Una filled a bucket with warm water and vinegar and began to mop the floor in the dining room. She started in one corner and
mopped backward until she reached the next corner. As her mop made circular patterns on the wood floor, she thought about
the patterns in Jonathan Stapleton’s research.
The octopus in the window of Mrs. Smith’s house had nine limbs.
Nine boys had been lost in a storm.
For the past hundred years, the name on tax and property records and on every piece of mail delivered to the sinister gray
house had remained the same: M. Smith. No one had seen or spoken to the current M. Smith until recently.
What does the M stand for?
Girls’ names floated through Una’s mind. Mary, Maria, Margaret, Molly, Morgan, Mae, Matilda, Mildred.
She shook her head in dismissal. The woman who lived in that house—that creature with the bottomless eyes—was no Mildred.
A crash came from the living room followed by a cry from Beth. “Oh, no! Your rug!”
Una guessed that Beth had dropped a mug. It had shattered, spilling coffee on the white shag rug. She was already moving to
the pantry to grab some clean rags when Elaine shouted, “Una! Help!”
“Coming!”
Una dumped her bucket of mop water down the drain and refilled the bucket with a mix of vinegar, dish soap, and warm water.
She hurried into the living room to find Beth kneeling on the floor, collecting pieces of broken crockery.
“Let me do it. You might cut yourself,” she told Beth.
As she blotted the spill, she noticed that Elaine’s face was in her hands and her shoulders were shaking. Without a word to
Una or Beth, she got up and fled to her bedroom.
Una looked at Beth. “I can get the stain out. She’ll never know it happened.”
Beth pressed her fingertips to her temple. “It’s not the spill. She’s upset because I asked her if Charles really wanted this
party. He’s such a shy kid, you know? I just wondered if she’d asked him if it was okay to plan all these over-the-top things.
They just don’t sound like him at all.”
Una wasn’t about to get in the middle of an argument between two clients, so she kept quiet and continued blotting the rug.
“I shouldn’t have said it,” Beth went on. “I know how important this party is to her.”
Una made a sympathetic noise. In truth, she agreed with Beth. This party was right up Elaine’s alley. Charles would probably
prefer a quiet celebration at home. Instead, he would have to stand under a spotlight, surrounded by hundreds of people.
Having soaked up the excess coffee, Una began to dab the rug with a rag soaked in the dish soap, vinegar, water mixture. She heard tiny granules of porcelain crunching under her palm, which made her think of the cut on Jill’s hand.
Beth got up to toss the pieces she’d collected into the can under the kitchen sink. Leaning against the doorway, she said,
“Una? I’m going to go. If you see Charles, can you tell him I made his favorite rugelach?”
“Of course. I know he’ll love it.”
Fifteen minutes later, Una walked into Charles’s room, the vacuum trailing behind her. She was surprised to see the boy lying
on his bed. His eyes were closed, and a pair of yellow headphones flattened his curly orange hair. His fingers tapped out
a rhythm on his chest.
Una knocked on his open door. He slitted his eyes and then bolted upright in surprise. “Hi! Sorry. I didn’t know you were
here.”
Una grinned. “I didn’t know you were here, either.”
Charles reddened. “I’m supposed to be studying—like, memorizing stuff for my bar mitzvah.”
“My son always listens to music when he studies. He says it helps things soak into his brain.”
Charles nodded. “Same here.”
They smiled at each other, enjoying this small moment of kinship.
“Mrs. Pulaski made you a treat.”
“Cookies?” he asked hopefully.
“Rugelach.”
His face fell. “I like her Polish cookies the best. The ones with the jam.”
“I like them, too.”
“My mom says she wants to start her own business. She totally should. She’s the best baker on Long Island.”
Una sprayed Endust onto a rag, while surreptitiously studying Charles.
Despite what he’d seen at the regatta, he looked well. And even though she couldn’t linger, chatting about music and cookies,
she wanted the boy to know that she was in his corner. She wanted to tell him that she’d also seen something horrible when
she was close to his age. She’d survived it, and he would, too.
Before she could raise the subject, Charles crossed the room and put a hand on the stack of books on his desk. “Me and Jill
have been trying to figure out what I saw. She told me how you drove her home from the library—and that you knew why she took
out so many mythology books. She said that . . . we could tell you things. Even if they sounded crazy.”
Very softly, Una said, “Yes, you can.”
Charles opened one of the books and took out a piece of paper from between the pages. It was filled with letters written in
black ink. The language was unfamiliar to Una, but she thought the letters were beautiful. “Is this what you’re studying?”
she asked.
“It’s Hebrew, but it’s not what I’m supposed to be memorizing.” He traced the letters with his fingers, coming to a pause
on what Una assumed was a particular word. “This line is about a demon called Lamia. It was written a really long time ago.”
He paused for so long that Una didn’t think he’d continue. She noticed that his hands had begun to tremble.
“It’s okay” she said. “You can trust me.”
Shoving his hands under his armpits, he curled inward, like a pill bug. “I don’t think we’re safe. Me, Jill, J.J., Justin—none
of us are safe.”
“Because you think Lamia’s real?”
Charles pointed at his window and whispered, “Yeah. And I think she’s in that house.”
Not anymore, thought Una, her skin prickling with fear. She’s come out.