Monday morning Jill dug through the mess in her mother’s sewing room, changed the bed, polished, and cleaned. She almost looked forward to Addie’s arrival tomorrow. It was time this house had some life, some people in it, other than tentative families and noisy workmen.
“You’d hate every minute of this, Mother,” she said as she took the bed pillows outside to air in the sun. But curiously, Jill no longer cared what her mother would think. Finally, she was beginning to see herself as her own person, undefined by Florence Randall, unrestricted by her mother’s expectations. It was while she was picking hydrangea blossoms to brighten Addie’s room that Jill realized the cloud of her mother had lifted, as though being with Rita had confirmed Jill’s sense of inner worth. With Rita’s no-nonsense attitude and free-spirited soul, her friend had the gift to make others feel special, to make them less troubled about themselves, about life. Whether Florence Randall had liked it or not, Rita was a good person. And so, for that matter, was Jill.
She went back into the house and found a vase for the flowers, feeling sad that she’d had a brother she would never know, feeling sad, somehow, for Florence, the woman who clearly blamed herself for his death. But was the death of one child any reason not to want another? And, once the second child had come, was that any reason to … to what? What had her mother thought of Jill? Had she never been able to love her, the way she’d loved Robbie?
She put the flowers in the guest room and decided she needed to know. Maybe now—when Jill was feeling good about herself—maybe now she had the strength to learn more.
She took a deep breath and went up the stairs, back to the widow’s walk, back to the past.
Sept. 14, 1953
My stomach is so huge I can hardly stand it. I don’t remember being this uncomfortable with Robbie. It’s so hot here on the island, so hot in our room upstairs. I can’t sleep at night. Sometimes I come outside and sit here on the lawn, and pray for this to be over soon, pray that I will have this baby and get it over with.
I’d prayed for a miscarriage, too. But that didn’t work either.
Jill bit her lip and wondered how Rita would react if she were sitting beside her now.
“Holy shit,” Rita would probably say. Imagining those words gave Jill the courage to read on.
Nov. 4, 1953
Well, I did it. I had a daughter last night. George is elated. He sat by my hospital bed and held my hand the whole time, though I’ve no idea why.
His parents are thrilled, too. As for me, I just want them all to leave me alone. I just want to sleep. I just want to sleep.
Mother Randall is a much better mother than me. She knows how to hold the baby so she won’t cry; she knows how to sing to her, how to rock her. I don’t know why I can’t do these things. I think I did them with Robbie. It’s so hard to remember now. It was all so long ago. He would have been eight years old this summer. I wonder what he would look like. I wonder what he would think of his baby sister.
We call her Jill. She is rather pretty, and I guess she’s a good baby. But every time I look at her I can only see Robbie. I am glad Mother Randall doesn’t feel the same way. She tells me I’ll feel better in the spring, when I can get out of the house and walk Jill in the carriage. But I don’t want to walk her in the carriage. I don’t want to ever leave the house with her, the two of us alone. I can’t be trusted to do that. Maybe Mother Randall will walk her, if I ask her nicely.
July 12, 1954
Today is Robbie’s birthday. No one seems to remember but me. Mother Randall took Jill to the church fair today, I’m glad she loves my baby so much.
George’s father died in April, and taking care of Jill gives Mother Randall something to do. It is best, for both of them, if I don’t interfere.
I think I will make chicken soup today. I wish the beach plums would hurry and ripen so I can get started on the jelly Mother Randall showed me how to make.
Jill shut the book and closed her eyes. Slowly, she rose and went to the windows overlooking the town. She tried to remember her grandmother. She did not. Looking off toward the white-steepled church, Jill only remembered being very young, standing in a church pew, with Mother on one side, Daddy on the other. She remembered holding Daddy’s hand. She remembered organ music and the strong scent of flowers and the dim lights and the sounds of crying. Somehow, Jill knew it was her grandmother’s funeral. But she had no recollection of the woman who had loved her so much, had cared for her when her own mother was unable.
She folded her arms and stared out over the town. Tears ran down her cheeks. Unable, she thought. Florence Randall had not loved her daughter because she had been unable.
But a woman had loved Jill. A woman had taken care of her; nurtured her, loved her. The grandmother who had gone too soon to have been more than a memory of death.
Jill sucked in her breath and wondered why no one had helped her mother, why no one had known she needed help. Why hadn’t her grandmother done something? Why hadn’t her father?
It was the 1950s, Rita would rationalize in her pragmatic way. It was the 1950s and no one knew about stuff like that.
Sadly, Jill knew that Rita would be right.
She brushed away her tears, knowing she had read all she could read for one day, feeling her strength diminished, her good mood deflated. Setting the diary back in the trunk, she stared at it a moment, then rose and crossed to the stairs, leaving the widow’s walk behind.
At the foot of the steps, voices came from Amy’s room.
“Trust me, Amy,” Jill heard Carrie say. “The photo shoot will be great. I’ve done a million of them.”
Jill paused, hung her head, and resolved to be a better mother to Amy, to let her daughter know that she was truly loved. She never wanted her daughter to wonder why she had been born, or who she could turn to in a moment of need.
Rounding the corner, she walked down the stairs. All she wanted now was some fresh air and some peace. She’d give anything to get back to work.
It had been awkward as hell working with Kyle today and not telling him about Carrie’s visit last night and that maybe Kyle should consider dating a girl a little less … friendly. Rather than have to keep facing the kid, Ben had sent Kyle over to Menemsha House to pick up a couple gallons of the wood sealant he was storing there.
Standing in the backyard at Jill’s house now, eyeing samples of windowsills, he wondered why the hell he felt guilty. He hadn’t, after all, succumbed to Carrie. Exciting as it might have been, he would have had to face himself in the mirror in the morning when he shaved.
He picked up a sill with a deeper ledge and decided it would be best for Jill’s house. The authentic ones were nothing more than a casing, and people today liked to have a place to put white candles in their windows at Christmas. He could save the real thing for Menemsha House, if it ever happened. And when Kyle returned, he could send him off again—this time to buy the rest of the sills.
He chuckled to himself as he set down the casing, took out his notebook, and calculated the number that needed replacing, wondering how many errands it would take before he could look at Kyle eye-to-eye again. Hopefully, after the zoning board meeting tonight, Ben’s thoughts would be pleasantly diverted, despite Carrie’s come-on, despite Carrie’s warning.
The sound of the screen door closing made him turn his head. Jill stood on the back step, looking past him, looking deep in thought. She was dressed like an islander today—denim shorts that made her long, lean legs glow in the sunlight, a pale yellow T-shirt that showed the outline of a lacy bra underneath. Ben felt a slow heat rise in his loins. He quickly turned his gaze back to his notebook.
“No sawing today?” Jill’s voice called out.
“Trying to find a stopping place so we’ll leave you alone for a couple of days.” God, he thought, he must be losing his mind. It wasn’t hard to remember that was what happened when your dick started ruling your brain.
She moved off the steps and walked toward him. “I’m really sorry for the inconvenience.”
He tried to smile. “You’re the boss.”
She peeked down at his notebook. “How did you get into this? Restoring old houses?”
His eyes caught the look of those soft, smooth hands. He gripped his pen. “Twenty questions again?” His nostrils filled with a light, refreshing scent, as though she’d bathed in something called “Spring Mist” or “Morning Dew.”
“Sorry. It is curious, though. There are so many home remodelers and contractors, but I get the feeling that what you do is different.”
“I restore. Authentically. For the most part.”
“For the most part?”
Ben stood. “Take these windowsills of yours.” He breathed deeply to clear his head, then quickly explained why he’d chosen the more up-to-date version.
“I suppose it makes sense. So what I’m getting is a Ben Niles watered-down version.”
Staring at the sills, Ben wondered why he’d forgotten that women could be so … infuriating. “What you’re getting is Ben Niles for the nineties,” he answered sharply, not bothering to add that the work would still have the Ben Niles imprint; that it would still mean something, totally authentic or not. He shoved his notebook into his pocket. “As soon as we’re done here, there’s a place on Nantucket we’ll be doing—everything authentic, from the nails we’ll be hammering to the tools we’ll be using. Hand-wrought adzes. Wood chisels. That sort of thing.”
“No power saws?”
“Nope. Not a one.”
She brushed back her hair. A thin line of perspiration lined her brow. “It’s too bad I can’t do a story on you,” she said.
Ben laughed. “I get enough publicity, thanks.”
“I could have before, but I guess we’re changing our format a little.”
He had no idea what she was talking about. Nor did he care. He only wished she would leave.
“Of course,” she added with a grin, “if you were to shoot someone, our producers might reconsider.”
He laughed again. “I think I’ll pass.”
“If you change your mind, let me know. But right now, I guess I’d better let you get back to work. I’ll see you Thursday, right?”
“Thursday,” he confirmed. “Have a good photo shoot.”
She turned and headed for the water. As Ben watched her leave, watched the easy gait of her steps, the slight sway of her back, he couldn’t stop himself from wondering what he would have done if instead of Carrie at his door last night, it had been Jill.
He bundled up the plans along with his proposal for the school buses and checked the clock over the refrigerator. Eight-fifteen. Forty-five minutes to kill until the zoning board would begin hearing proposals.
Ben let out a sigh and decided to go out to the workshop and putter around until it was time to leave. He’d never been one for sitting still, especially when there was something to be nervous about. As he went out the back door into the dusk, he wondered if Carol Ann would show up at the meeting. He hadn’t told her he was going back: no doubt, however, she’d seen his name on the agenda. If they’d bothered to add it to the list.
In the dimness of the workshop, Ben picked up the antique wood chisel, feeling the coolness against his palm, the smooth curve of the wood handle, the familiarity of the tool that had most likely spent more time in his hand than in its original nineteenth-century owner’s. Running his finger along the tip, he felt its dullness, then walked to the sharpening table.
The late-summer sun cast a comfortable dimness across the small room. Slowly, Ben drew the tip along the bench stone, the way it had once been done, the way he still did it. Early tools, early methods. It was what he loved most, what made him an artisan instead of a builder. He half wished Jill McPhearson wasn’t leaving the island: he might have been able to convince her to do a story after all—not on Ben Niles, but on Menemsha House.
Apparently, though, in order to get that he’d have to shoot someone. Dave Ashenbach.
“No problem,” he said with a grin, and realized how pathetic the media had become.
Menemsha House would be genuinely newsworthy: young people studying the craft of their ancestors, learning that the best of everything did not necessarily come from an electrical outlet and was accomplished in record time. It was something Kyle was only now beginning to realize: Ben could see it in the boy’s sensitivity and in his dependable performance.
He turned the tip of the chisel over, drew it several times against the stone, and wished, once again, that Kyle had been his son, that he and Louise had had more children. In Baltimore, there hadn’t been time. With his long hours of training, Louise’s teaching schedule, and Carol Ann to take care of, the weeks, months, and years had too quickly slipped by.
When they settled on the Vineyard, Carol Ann was already six, nearly seven. By the time Ben’s business was under way, Carol Ann was almost ten, an age, they’d decided, that was too late to bring another child into the family. Louise, Ben suspected, had regretted it, too. But at the time she was trying to please him, and in truth, at the time, it was his work that pleased him most. His freedom to do what was so right for him, his opportunity to fine-tune his talents.
So there had been no other children besides Carol Ann. And she was a good daughter, despite the fact they didn’t always agree.
Ben smiled as he gently touched the tip of the now razor-sharp chisel and realized that sometimes he just liked to get Carol Ann going, liked to watch her cheeks turn pink, her muscles tense. It was the one time he could see himself in her, the one time that besides her looks, he was assured she was his child, too, not just Louise’s.
Just as Ben moved to replace the chisel in his wooden tool box, the door to the workshop creaked opened. He turned quickly, half expecting to see Carol Ann. Instead, a dark figure loomed in the shadow of dusk. A dark figure, wearing a ski mask.
“What the hell …” Ben muttered.
The figure thrust its arm toward Ben and locked around his throat. Ben jerked; the wood chisel slipped from his hand. He jabbed his elbow into the figure’s stomach. The figure groaned, spun Ben around, and shoved him against the workbench. Ben snapped up his knee and nailed him in the groin. They fell to the floor, pulling the Menemsha House plans down with them. Ben landed on his arm. Pain shot through him. Wood shavings stung into his eyes.
Know your enemies, came Noepe’s words. Ben struggled to raise his hand, fought to pull at the ski mask. Just then he saw the figure grab for the chisel. Ben rolled onto his side as another pain shot through him, this time through his shoulder. He reached up and felt the warm, sticky blood. His blood. Next to the blood was the chisel, sticking straight up from his flesh. He tried to rip it out; the figure quickly rose and ran from the workshop, the door slapped shut.
Ben lay on the floor, unable to move. The pain crept through his neck, up to his head, down his arm.
“Jesus Christ,” he said quietly, as finally the chisel let go and clattered to the floor. Another pain shot through Ben’s arm. He closed his eyes and tried to catch his breath. Wood shavings touched his tongue. “Jesus Christ,” he muttered again.
The last thing he saw before everything went dark were the plans for Menemsha House, coated with his blood.