Chapter 30
I’M CRAWLING ON MY HANDS AND KNEES. MY HEART IS SLAMMING against my ribs. Maybe I’m wrong. It can’t be her. I pick up the photo, rock back on my knees. But it is.
She’s standing in the Spencer front room, next to the fireplace.
How can that be? She looks very young. Did she track Alex down here to tell him about her pregnancy?
Maybe he did leave her before he knew, or before she even knew.
But why not tell me she went looking for him?
And why did Alex lie? She wouldn’t have shown up here and not told him about me. What would be the point?
I lean back against the sofa and close my eyes, picture my mother in this house, in this room where I now sit. Maybe she did tell Alex and he rebuffed her, sent her on her way, thus her hatred for him, and she didn’t tell me because she didn’t want me to end up here looking for him.
But Mary took her picture. Why? And why wouldn’t Mary have developed the film?
She wouldn’t have died for several more years if I’ve got the dates right.
Maybe she left it in a drawer and forgot about it.
I grab the photo of Mary. She does look young here.
She died at twenty-one, a few years after I was born.
Is she just a teenager here? It’s hard to tell.
But in any case, I need to confront Alex. That makes my blood run cold. What can he say that will do anything but have me packing my bags?
I can’t sleep. The picture of Mary and the one of my mother sit on my nightstand.
I’ll deal with this tomorrow. But after tossing and turning for an hour, I get up, turn on the lamp, and study the picture of my mother.
She stands next to the fireplace, next to the creepy inscription.
She’s wearing a sleeveless white blouse that looks greenish from the old film.
Her hair is long and is pushed back over her shoulder.
She’s sideways as if she’s talking to someone out of the frame. Alex?
I go downstairs and I’m pretty much up the rest of the night, dozing fitfully on the sofa in the front room. I want to call Alex, but it’s too early.
I startle awake with the sun hitting me in my eyes. I head to the shower and let the water run as hot as I can stand it. I’ll get cleaned up and go talk to Ruth.
“Was my mother ever here at Cheshire Lake, years ago?”
“What do you mean, dear?” Ruth pours coffee into two mugs. She’s still in her robe, her eyes sleepy.
“I’ve just been thinking about her.” I don’t want to tell Ruth about the photo, that I found an old disposable camera in a sealed box that belonged to Mary and had the film developed. “And I wondered if you ever met her or saw her here.”
Ruth sits, sips her coffee. “Well, it’s possible she was here, I suppose. But wasn’t she from somewhere out west?”
“Yes. California. But we ended up on the east coast. She could’ve been here.”
Ruth sighs. “From what Alex told me, he met your mother right after college, and they dated for a short time. Then he came home. He didn’t know your mother was expecting.” She squeezes my hand. “But it’s all worked out in the end, hasn’t it? We’ve got you here now.”
The staircase creaks with footfalls. Larry? I really don’t want to talk about this in front of him.
“Ruth, are you sure you don’t remember my mother being here years ago?” I ask in a plaintive whisper.
She shakes her head. “No, dear. I don’t recall that I’ve ever seen her.”
Could I be mistaken? Maybe the woman in the photo is just someone who looked like my mother. But I don’t believe that. I can’t. I know it’s her. Just because Ruth didn’t see her or doesn’t remember her, doesn’t mean she wasn’t here.
Larry stands in the kitchen doorway. “Hey, Emma. You’re over bright and early.”
“I woke up early.” I glance at the tea kettle–shaped clock above the stove. “I guess I didn’t realize how early.”
We turn at the sound of a car out front. Larry walks out and calls from the foyer. “Detective Bellman. Jesus, I’m glad I got dressed already.”
He ushers the detective into the kitchen.
“Tom, would you like coffee?” Ruth offers.
“No, thanks. I just wanted to stop by and let you know that we completed the lake search.”
“Did you find anything?”
“Nothing that we can connect to Carol Lawson.”
Ruth clears her throat. “No remains?”
“Not that we’ve found.”
This makes me feel somewhat better. The idea of a young woman lying dead in the lake for thirty years is unnerving to say the least and I hope, like Alex and Ruth have speculated, that Carol survived.
“Is that all?” Larry asks. “The state and everybody done and gone?”
“Well, the state people are gone. But that’s not all.” The detective leans against the doorframe and pulls a small notebook from his pocket. “We found several objects that we’re testing that might’ve been used in Simon’s murder.”
Ruth covers her mouth with her hand, lets go a muffled cry.
Detective Bellman’s gaze fastens on mine as if I’m his number-one suspect. Then he glances at his notebook and shrugs. “Might just be junk, but we need to be sure.” His eyes peep over at Ruth. “You mind if I take a look around the cottage?”
“Is that necessary, Tom? You can’t possibly think that Jeffrey had anything to do with … what happened to Simon.”
“I know how you feel about Jeffrey, Ruth, but we’ve got to be thorough.” He clears his throat. “And you know as well as I do what Jeffrey might’ve done before.”
I sink back in the hard wooden chair. What could Jeffrey have possibly done? I think again how little I know about these people.
“That was an accident. You know that,” Ruth says, her voice stern.
“Well, I think it would be prudent to take a look at the cottage anyway.”
Ruth wrings her hands. “Okay then. I guess it would be all right. Let me go down there with you. I don’t want Jeffrey to get upset. Let me get dressed, Tom. I’ll meet you out front.”
The detective heads for the foyer. I fade into the background as Ruth and Larry huddle in the middle of the kitchen as if drawing themselves into a little world of their own.
“You want me to go with you, Auntie?” Larry asks.
“Yes.” She pats his shoulder absently. “Please. I don’t like this,” she whispers. Ruth seems to realize that I’m still sitting at her kitchen table. She glances in my direction.
I stumble to my feet. “I’ll get on my way,” I say. “Let me know if you need anything, Ruth.”
The neighborhood is quiet. No cop vehicles in sight after Detective Bellman, with Ruth and Larry in his back seat, drives off down the road.
The wind sends ripples across the dark lake.
I feel alone and restless. I miss being able to talk to Noah, but I just don’t know that I trust him anymore.
He obviously had some connection with Aubrey that he hasn’t wanted to talk about.
Were they seeing each other? He did say that Dale and Aubrey argued occasionally.
How would he know that unless he was closer to Aubrey than he’s let on?
I feel adrift with this new information about my mother, and I can’t help but be angry at both of my parents for lying to me. I grew up not expecting much from them, but at least they could’ve told me the truth about my origins.
I walk through the house unable to settle and wonder what, if anything, they’ll find at Jeffrey’s place. I wonder what they were alluding to from the past. Noah had warned me to stay away from Jeffrey, and I want to go over to Noah’s and ask, but I won’t.
I work on my novel the rest of the day, the picture of my mother nearby.
I’m surprised that I can concentrate, but I do and end up writing nearly three thousand words.
When evening starts to darken the house, I get up from the little desk in Mary’s room and stretch.
My back is tight, and I wonder if there’s a yoga studio in town. I’ve missed my weekly classes.
I start down the hall, heading for the kitchen, and pause in front of Alex’s bedroom door. I try the knob and at first it seems locked, but I jiggle the knob and the door opens. Hmm. I shouldn’t snoop, but then, he shouldn’t have lied to me either.
I flick on the overhead light. The smell of mothballs hangs in the air.
A huge four-poster bed rests in the middle of the room.
Heavy brocade bed curtains are tied back like a bed from the distant past. The whole room looks like it belongs in a museum.
Something that would fit squarely in the nineteenth century.
My father’s love of history is readily apparent.
The dressers are neat but covered with cut-glass vases and old decorative bottles, a collection of sorts.
A silver toilet set adorns a vanity with a round mirror over it.
I pick up a brush. There are initials engraved on the back in a fanciful cursive: AB.
My father must’ve picked up the set at an antiques sale.
And now some long-dead woman’s things rest on the vanity in his bedroom.
I turn the brush over in my hand, half expecting to find strands of long hair still attached to the bristles.
I shudder and replace it next to a silver comb.
I turn and see a door in the corner. A closet?
But if I’ve got the orientation right, the turret room should lie beyond it.
I cross the floor, try the knob. The door opens to darkness, chilly air, and a musty scent.
I stand still. I hear a car out front. I close the turret room door and start to head to the window to check but pull back quickly.
Turn off the light and shut the bedroom door behind me.
I’m standing at the top of the stairs when Alex walks into the foyer.
My heart is hammering. Did he see the light on in his bedroom window?
He slides out of his coat. Alex’s gaze meets mine, a crease between his brows.
“Hey, Emma. I would’ve let you know I was coming, but the day got away from me.”
I continue down the stairs, clear my throat, and try to relax.
I don’t want Alex to know that I’d been in his room, that I’d discovered my mother was here at Spencer House.
Not yet. “Everything all right? I thought you were staying in Boston.” I follow him into the dining room, where he reaches for the brandy bottle.
He raises his eyebrows and I nod. He pours us each a glass.
“Yeah. Fine on the home front. But Ruth called me.” He strides into the front room, talking over his shoulder. “They took Jeffrey down to the police station and Ruth was beside herself.”
Alex sets his glass on an end table and loads wood into the fireplace. “Cold as a bitch tonight.”
I sit on the sofa and watch while Alex works, crouched at the hearth. Soon bright flames catch and flicker. He sits in the armchair and takes a big sip of his drink.
“Did they arrest him?” I ask.
“No. They don’t have anything. Tom is just getting antsy, fishing, I think. But Ruth is upset.”
“Do you think Jeffrey …”
“I don’t know, Emma. It’s possible, I suppose. He hasn’t bothered you again, has he?”
“No. Ruth said she talked to him and took his key.”
“Good.” Alex nods and sips his drink.
I want to ask him about my mother, but he seems preoccupied, his thoughts whirling in another place.
I want his full attention when I bring her up.
I sit back with my brandy and picture her as she stood in the photo, next to the fireplace.
It must’ve been warm weather based on the sleeveless blouse she was wearing.
If they met in June, it could’ve been July or August that she discovered she was pregnant and went looking for him.
But somehow the questions stick in my throat, and I cast around for something else to talk about.
“Did Ruth tell you that the state finished searching the lake?” I say.
“Yes. She filled me in. It’s a relief. I was hoping that they wouldn’t find anything.
Carol was a survivor, and if anyone was able to get out of a sinking car, it was her.
” Alex drains his glass, his eyes dart around the room.
“Well, I guess I’ll stay here a couple of days. Make sure that Ruth is okay.”
“Everything’s good with the baby then?”
“Yes. Fine. Nothing but a waiting game now.”
I want to confront Alex about the photo, but something has me holding back. Here in the dark of night, with the flames crackling in the fireplace illuminating the inscription.
Time flies. Remember death.
I feel a chill. Not now, not tonight. Maybe in the morning, in the sunlight, I’ll have the courage to confront him.
“So, what have you been up to, Emma?”
I feel heat rise to my face. I think about the photos, my snooping in his room. “Just writing.”
He nods, a faraway look in his eyes. “Good. Keep going. Another drink?” Alex asks, standing.
“No, thank you. I think I’ll head up to bed.”
He watches me out of the corners of his eyes. They look dark beneath his heavy brows. “Good night then. I think I’ll have a nightcap and sit by the fire awhile.”