Seven

Faith shoved her fist against her mouth to keep the scream inside and let her body slide to the floor, her back resting against the bookcase.

“Honey, they need the phone,” Tom said. “I have to go. I’ll call you later. Love you.”

Pressing her head against the hard shelves, Faith took her hand from her mouth and managed to get some words out.

“Bye. Love you, too.”

Then she cried.

 

She wasn’t sure how much time had passed, but the first shock of grief had lessened. “The endin’ will be sad.” The line, the tune from the musical kept running through her thoughts. What had Richard been doing since she saw him last, that last lunch date? Her eyes filled with tears again. What had he uncovered that had gotten him killed? Drugs. It had to be drugs. A whole operation, something big. Had they figured out that he wasn’t who he appeared to be? Taken him for an undercover cop? Or for what he was—a reporter, a writer? In any case, someone who would inform on them? As she ran these possibilities through her mind, she kept coming back to the fact that she was the only one who knew who he was. She was the one who would have to get in touch with his family. She was still slumped against the bookcase. His family. That meant his sister. What was her name?

Faith closed her eyes. She was in F. A. O. Schwarz on Fifth Avenue. It was December 1989. Richard was teasing her about her preference for the original location, across the street but on the same side of Fifth. That was the “real” F. A. O. Schwarz, with its grand staircase curving up to the second floor, a staircase a beautiful fairy godmother might suddenly descend—gracefully, like Loretta Young, in yards and yards of chiffon. The new store, with its glass elevator next to a gigantic clock that was decorated with storybook characters and played the same tune endlessly, was crass in comparison.

They’d had fun picking out gifts for his niece and nephew; then they’d taken them to be wrapped and shipped. The harried salesperson had had to ask Richard to repeat the name and address. It floated before Faith’s eyes: Scarsdale, yes, definitely Scarsdale, and Mrs. Gordon P. Fletcher. The young clerk had spelled it back to them: “G as in good, o as in okay.” When she got to P, she’d said “P as in Ptolemy,” and Richard had asked her if she was majoring in ancient history. She wasn’t, but she did the New York Times crossword puzzle every day. The scene was so vivid—the brightly colored Christmas decorations, the sounds of overexcited children, even the dumb music—Faith didn’t want to open her eyes. But she did. She had to call Richard’s sister. That was the first thing she had to do. Then she’d call the shelter. Or go down there. Richard would have been taken away by now. But she wanted to be there. Tell them in person. The police were investigating, but when they found out who Richard really was, she knew they’d step up their efforts. His family would put pressure on them, so would his colleagues. It would be all over the papers.

Oh, Richard, why did you have to write this book? Why did you have to get yourself killed?

She went into the kitchen and made a strong cup of coffee, then sat down and called information, hoping that the family hadn’t moved. Toddlers then, the children were teenagers now, Richard had said. People didn’t move when their kids were in high school, especially from a town with a school district like Scarsdale’s.

They hadn’t. And the number wasn’t unlisted.

It was 11:00 A.M. If Richard’s sister worked outside the home, there would be no answer, since it was Monday, a workday. Should she leave a message or not? Faith debated. Not, she’d keep trying until she got either his sister or brother-in-law. It wasn’t the kind of news anyone should get on an answering machine.

She started to cry again, then pulled herself together and dialed the number.

A woman answered. “Hello?”

“May I speak to Mrs. Gordon Fletcher, please?”

“This is she.”

Faith took a deep breath, stood up, and braced herself against the kitchen counter.

“My name is Faith Fairchild, and I’m sorry to be giving you news like this over the phone, but I thought you needed to know immediately that—”

Her voice angry, terrified, Richard’s sister interrupted her. “Has something happened to Jessica or Ethan? Oh my God, it’s Gordon! He’s had another heart attack! Where is he?”

“No, I’m sorry, I should have said right away. It’s your brother, Rich—”

Again the woman interrupted, but now there was only anger in her voice. “Look, Faith whatever. I don’t have a brother. I had one once, but that was a long time ago. Has he borrowed money from you? You loaned him your car and it’s gone? Whatever it is, forget about it, kiss it good-bye, and don’t call me again.”

“Wait! Please don’t hang up! I don’t understand! I must have the wrong person. I’m talking about Richard Morgan, the reporter, the writer.”

“Yes, and I’m talking about Richard Morgan the alcoholic, the gambling addict who broke his parents’ hearts and even stole from my children when he was last here. The Richard Morgan who did time for using stolen credit cards. The one I haven’t seen in seven years. That Richard Morgan.”

For a moment, Faith was speechless. Then slowly she said, “I knew him in 1989, then met him again in Boston recently at a homeless shelter. He told me he was doing research for a book.”

“That’s my brother—or rather, that’s Richard Morgan. A plausible story for every situation; plus, he could charm the birds from the trees—and did. I’m not surprised he’s hit bottom. It’s happened before. The first time, we were sure he would change. And for a while, he did. The second time, our hopes were still high, but by the fifth or sixth time, we’d given up. You must have met him during one of those periods. Nineteen eighty-nine. I remember he came for Christmas that year and wouldn’t even touch the plum pudding with hard sauce. It was the best gift he could have given us; unfortunately, he took it back. He’s a very talented man. He could have been a great writer.”

“He’s dead, Mrs. Fletcher.” Faith couldn’t think of any other way to put it. She was so stunned by this new view of Richard, she could barely think straight.

“The circumstances aren’t clear, but he died of a knife wound sometime last night or early this morning outside the shelter.”

His sister was silent, apparently absorbing the news. When she spoke, she sounded even more angry, more bitter.

“Look, I suppose you expect me to get all sentimental and rush up there to bring him here and lay him to rest, but Richard killed my mother and father. Someone stuck a knife in him, but he’d done that to them, not once, but over and over again. They bailed him out, paid his debts, until finally, the last time, they died instead. I told him never to get in touch with me, ever. If you had watched what he did to them, to us, you’d understand. I don’t want him near them, even in death.”

Faith did understand, although she didn’t want to.

His sister continued talking. “I don’t know what that shelter does in situations like this, but as far as I’m concerned, he has no next of kin, and I don’t want you telling them otherwise.”

“I won’t tell them about you, I promise. No one actually knows that I knew him. It was just by chance that I was volunteering the night he came in for a meal. I never saw him at the shelter again.”

“Then let it go. Are you married?”

“Yes, and we have two children, an eight-year-old and a five-year-old.”

A heavy sigh came over the phone. “Concentrate on your family. Forget about Richard. Let the authorities deal with it. I know I sound hard. Believe me, no sister ever loved her brother as much as I did. He was four years older and I thought he hung the moon. When he went off to Harvard and then began his writing career, we all thought he’d get a Pulitzer, make the best-seller list. And sweet, he was always sweet. The drinking started when he was in high school, but that’s what guys did, we thought. During college, he’d stay sober when he was home. We never knew what was going on until one of his friends called to tell us he’d been hospitalized with acute alcohol poisoning. The gambling—he was always a gambler, always took a dare. He told me once it was more exciting than sex, because the rush lasted longer—if you were on a winning streak. My Richard died a long time ago. He killed himself. Now, you go and take care of your husband and kids. Forget you ever heard of Richard Morgan. You were duped.”

“I’m sorry.” Faith started to try to say something more. It was so awful. All those years. All those broken promises. False hopes.

“I’m sorry, too. Hey, my name is Janice. Call me again if you need to. You sound in pretty bad shape. I would be, too, if I found out something like this about an old boyfriend. That’s what he was, right?”

“Sort of,” Faith said, struck by the oddity of the situation. She had imagined that she would be comforting Janice, not the other way around.

“Okay, then. I’ve had lots of therapy because of Richard, and someone else might as well benefit from it, too. Not all families are like the Waltons, although I suppose these days my kids, who are older than yours, would say the Osbournes.”

“Thank you, and I am sorry. Sorry for it all.”

“I know you are, Faith. Take care. Good-bye.”

“Good-bye.”

Faith hung the phone up, sat down again, and realized she had no idea what she was going to do next.

 

Duped. Janice said Faith had been duped. Richard had hidden part of his life—most of his life—from her, but had she been duped? He’d never asked her for money or anything else that would indicate he had a gambling problem. He liked to go to the track, he’d told her once, enjoyed playing the ponies. But he’d been so caught up in The New Yorker profile he was working on when they met, fascinated by the political climate of the late 1980s as reflected in the career of Michael Stanstead, and equally excited about the book he was working on, she couldn’t imagine when he would have found the time to gamble. Was it all a lie? She didn’t think so. A functioning alcoholic, functioning at a high level, at least in those days. He had been at Tiananmen Square, interviewed Salman Rushdie when he was in hiding, covered Malcolm Forbes’s $2 million Moroccan birthday bash. She’d seen the articles. He did drink more than she did. Pictures she’d suppressed popped up—two bottles of wine after a few martinis to start. She’d have a glass or two; he’d drink the rest, always finishing with a large snifter of brandy. And this time, at the Copley, the Ritz, Radius, all the places they’d been recently, he’d always ordered a drink as soon as they sat down—and greeted it, she realized, like an old friend. She had been duped, but, unlike Janice, she could feel only sorrow. Faith hadn’t witnessed the other Richard. He was the Richard he perhaps wanted to be when he was with Faith, and he was the Richard she wanted, too, she admitted to herself. Handsome, witty, highly intelligent, and caring. That couldn’t have been an act—the way he felt about the street people he’d met. One of whom had killed him. It was probably a fight over a bottle after all.

And the way he felt about her—that couldn’t have been an act.

Faith’s head ached. She couldn’t tell anyone at Oak Street about Richard without involving Janice. Besides having promised, Faith couldn’t add to the pain that family had already suffered. It was up to them. Perhaps when Janice talked to her husband, Gordon, she would decide to get in touch with the shelter. Bury her brother. But it wasn’t up to Faith. Richard wasn’t anything to her except an old friend she’d run into again recently.

Even as she told herself this half-truth, she was planning what to do. If she told Tom, he’d want to tell someone at the shelter—and he’d be right. But there was one person who could help her think things out. One person who knew Richard and knew the street. One person who might also know who had killed him. The Monk. The man from Dover who had found peace. The weather was getting warmer. It shouldn’t be hard to find him, and she knew exactly where to start. Every Friday, he went to the Arlington Street Church for supper. Like Richard, he liked the meat loaf. She’d go there, and in the meantime, she’d drive up to Maine and visit Dora’s friend, Josephine Royce. It was something to do and something that seemed more important than ever now with Richard’s death. She could control at least that much of her life.

She could find out what had happened to Dora.

 

“I have a big favor to ask you,” Pix Miller said. They were out at the catering kitchen. She was taking inventory and Faith was trying out a recipe for something she’d decided to name Cambridge Tea Cake.

“Shoot—and you know whatever it is, I’ll do it.”

“Maybe not.” Pix laughed. “I want you to cater a birthday party for Millicent. A surprise party at Mother’s house.”

“Do you think that’s wise? She’s been in her sixties for so long that any hint we all know she’s not could really backfire.”

“In fact, she’s turning eighty-five, but you know Mother. She has this idea that no one ever does anything for Millicent, and she’s done so much for Aleford. No mention will be made of age. Just a few candles scattered across the cake.”

If Ursula Lyman Rowe, Pix’s redoubtable octogenarian mother, had decided to give a party for Millicent, then Faith might as well get out her cake pans and be done with it. It wasn’t that Ursula was tough. She simply managed to get you to think that what she wanted you to do was what you wanted, too. Millicent, on the other hand, was tough and seldom employed tact. Faith and she had gotten off to a bad start when Faith had rung the bell in Aleford’s old belfry—a bell cast by a distant cousin of Paul Revere’s, a man who also happened to be Millicent’s great-great-great-grandfather. The bell was tolled only for the death of presidents and descendants of those fallen on that “famous day and year,” and as the call to arms each Patriots’ Day during the reenactment of the battle. Faith had had a very good reason for pulling the rope. Baby Benjamin was strapped to her chest in his Snugli and she had just discovered the still-warm corpse of a member of First Parish’s congregation. It was highly possible that the murderer was still lurking in the bushes. Millicent Revere McKinley hadn’t seen it that way. There were all sorts of other alternatives—her favorite being for Faith to run down Belfry Hill screaming. Being a New Yorker, Millicent had proclaimed, Faith should be good at running and screaming. Then over the course of some years, Millicent had saved Faith’s life—twice. Faith had been trying to think of ways to even the score ever since, entertaining visions of throwing Millicent onto the rails of the commuter line, then pulling her back to safety just before the train roared by, or snatching a previously doctored scone from her lips before she took a bite. Maybe catering the party would be a start, although she doubted it. A party was a party, a drop in the punch bowl compared to Millicent’s actions.

“When does Ursula want to throw this bash? Because of course I’ll do it.”

“Sunday afternoon. Sorry for the short notice. Mother only found out that this is Millicent’s actual birthday yesterday, and she decided the nonsense about pretending not to get any older had to stop. She was at Town Hall, paying her water bill, when she decided to have a look at some of the town records.”

Faith knew that Ursula and other Alefordians routinely mined Town Hall for light reading, in much the same way that others perused the new books shelf at the library or the displays at Sundial Books.

“She says she doesn’t know why it didn’t occur to her before, but better late than never. And Millicent has done a lot for the town. All that research. Keeper of the flame. You know what I mean.”

Indeed Faith did. Millicent was still lobbying at Town Meeting to get the town to change its name from Aleford to Haleford. She averred that the H had been inadvertently dropped and obscured by the mists of time. She had copious documentation that proved to her satisfaction that the town was named for the Hales, one of its illustrious first families, and not because it was the site of a well-known and well-frequented tavern near one of the best fords of the Concord River. Millicent, or “Thoroughly Militant Millie,” as she was known each spring during Town Meeting, was a lifelong teetotaler, and any suggestion that the town she would literally die for had been named for an alcoholic beverage was anathema.

“We’ll do a red-white-and-blue cake. She’ll like that. And how about a high tea—or maybe Ursula might want to change it to a luncheon? I’d be happy to do a full meal. The party we’re doing Saturday night is just a pretheater cocktails fund-raiser for the American Repertory Theatre, so I have time.”

“She specifically said afternoon and commented on how difficult it was to have any sort of ecumenical luncheon, what with the Congregationalists starting church at ten, the Episcopalians at eleven, and the Unitarians at ten-thirty, but running over until God knows when.”

“And He does,” Faith said solemnly. They both burst out laughing. “Tea it is, then, but a substantial sit-down one. I know these old ladies. This way, they’ll get something that will stick to their ribs a little better than a poached egg, melba toast, and tea for supper. When Niki comes back, she can start thinking about the cake.”

Increasingly, pastry had become Niki’s department. She was one of the best pastry chefs in the Boston area and had had many toothsome offers to leave the catering firm for top restaurants. Each time, Faith conscientiously urged her to go, but Niki liked the flexibility she had. She’d worked in restaurant kitchens and knew what the pressure was like. Today, for example, she had headed off for the ski slopes. She was hoping to run into a gorgeous European ski instructor—Norwegian, or maybe French—who would tempt her away from the commitment she was close to making. She hadn’t made her list of Phil’s good and bad points yet, but she had set up a series of tests for herself, all of which seemed to involve highly pleasurable activities. Saturday night, she’d gone clubbing with her girlfriends instead of with Phil. Today, she was skiing, and she was planning a trip to New York City next weekend. She’d spend time in SoHo, the East Village, and Barneys—all prime pickup sites. Faith and Pix had been watching in amusement. It was all so transparent. In December, or sooner, Niki would be walking down the aisle with her oh-so-perfect mate.

“We’ll fill your mother’s living and dining rooms with spring flowers—some potted for people to take home. The winter’s been so long, so cold, so snowy, everyone needs to believe that spring is officially only a little more than a week away,” Faith said.

“I know Mark Twain would be upset with me, but it seems all I can talk about or think about is weather. You know, that introduction to The American Claimant he wrote: ‘No weather will be found in this book.’ And he put it all in an appendix for the people who wanted to read about what he considered filler. But this is the coldest winter I can remember, and that’s saying a lot.”

All New England winters were the coldest Faith could ever remember, but this one had broken several records. She had even been forced to wear a hat—cap hair be damned.

“Barring a blizzard, they’ll all come,” Faith said, figuring on an even dozen, unless Ursula wanted to put one of the leaves in her dining room table. “Before we sit down, we’ll give them an assortment of hot hors d’oeuvres, then soup and quiche, or a frittata, and afterward, the cake. No ice cream. Too cold. Maybe crème brûlée. It may be old hat in the big city, but it’s still a novelty in Aleford.”

“Since it’s Millicent’s party, no booze,” Pix warned.

“Not even sherry, but mother thought some of that sparkling cider would be festive.”

Faith could hear Ursula’s very words: “festive” and “booze.” Knowing Ursula, though, she’d stash a bottle of Amontillado in the pantry and fill a teacup or two. Faith hoped so. It brought much prettier roses to their cheeks than the round circles of rouge Aleford women of a certain age went in for when dressing up.

Pix left and Faith locked up. A party for Millicent. Tom would be amused—and she was happy to have something else to think about. It had been two days since she had heard of Richard’s death, and she was still trying to get used to the ache in her heart. When he’d come home that night, Tom had had little to add to what he’d said on the phone, other than reporting there were no leads and a great deal of tension within the Oak Street community.

She drove down Route 2, steering her mind resolutely to a party menu fit for a Millicent. And tomorrow, she was planning to go to Maine.

April 7, 1946

Phelps dares not come too often, although the pine is at the corner of the house, which is set far back from the street, and it would be hard for anyone to see him. Still, he takes great care to be sure there are no passersby and carries clippers with him to make it seem as if he is pruning branches should someone with eagle’s eyes look up and spy him.

I am afraid to tell him everything that has happened, for surely he would kill my husband, and then where would we be? As it is, what little he knows enrages him. Instead, we talk about ourselves. And I have teased him about his name. It is a family name and we have come up with a private one of our own. I was right. He is at Harvard on a scholarship. His family was wealthy, but they lost everything in the Crash. They had always gone to Harvard, so he supposed Harvard took pity on him for the sake of all those Harvard men in his family. He feels quite indebted to the college and has vowed to repay the tuition. That is the kind of man he is. He is a city boy, born and raised in Boston. He’s never been to Maine. I wish I could take him to the top of Mount Cadillac and show him the way the rounded pine-covered islands seem to rise up from the sea like pincushions. Then we’d go into town for chowder and lobster and blueberry pie.

We talk of escaping to Canada or Europe and starting a new life far, far away. I would go anywhere with him. I will take his name and we will live together as man and wife. I could never get a divorce from my husband, especially in this state, and in any case, he would see me dead before he would grant one. I cannot believe that the Lord would look upon our union as a sin. The union I am in is the one that is sinful. When the time comes, Phelps will leave several weeks ahead of me, if he is still working here. The two of us going at the same time would arouse his suspicion and he’d search for us both. I know he would leave no stone unturned, hiring private detectives and even splashing it all over the newspapers. Phelps plans to hide me somewhere and be available in case my husband calls upon him for information of my whereabouts. When I disappear, my husband will not connect me with Phelps, and, indeed, why should he? As far as he knows, we have met only once, that first day. I will leave in the night through the nursery window, which Phelps will have left open. He will hang a small bag with a hammer and the nails in the tree so I can secure it again. When my husband awakes, he will have no idea how I escaped. I will have to be quick. He sleeps soundly most nights, but I cannot take any chances. I wish I could drug him, but I have gone over everything in the kitchen cabinets and the medicine chest in the bathroom, with no luck. Perhaps Phelps could leave something hidden for me, but if it was found, the whole plan would be destroyed. I have spent hours working the whole thing out and have convinced Phelps it is the only way.

I love to go over all this in my mind, testing each detail. Some days, it is the only way I can keep sane.

April 12, 1946

Phelps brings me the newspaper to read while he’s here and has tried to catch me up on everything that’s happened in the outside world. I knew that meat and butter rationing had ended, only sugar now, although there always seems to be plenty—my husband would never let anything get in the way of what he wants. Everything else is off rationing, not that it does me any good. Even if I could buy shoes, I couldn’t wear them. But I will someday. Someday I’ll have a closetful of the highest heels I can find. Phelps has been telling me about the trials in Nuremberg. We knew the Nazis were evil, but I never imagined anything like what he’s been telling me. A year ago, no less—if you had asked me what I thought of human nature, I would have said we were all basically decent children of the Lord. Some of us may have strayed onto the wrong path, but there was still good there deep down. I know now this isn’t true. There was no decency anywhere in Hitler or those other Nazis. There is no good or decency in my husband.

But Phelps is decent all the way through. I can’t believe how much we have in common. I never thought such a human being existed. He loves books as much as I do—and movies, too, especially those with Bogart and Bacall, Tracy and Hepburn. He says he’s a sucker for romance, and I told him I think that’s swell. He wishes he could put wings on us both and fly out to the Totem Pole Ballroom in Norumbega Park in Newton, a town not far from Cambridge. All the big bands play there—the Dorseys, Artie Shaw. Sometimes he hums a tune and we dance. I feel sad when I think that he’ll have to leave this area. He loves it so much. When I told him this, he laughed and said yes, he figured it must be true love if he would leave the Boston Braves for a woman. But I was not to worry, because there were radios everywhere; plus, he was predicting that in a few years from now every house in America will have a television. That sounds like science fiction to me, but he’s sure he’s right. Today, he showed me the new dime with Roosevelt on it. Phelps says people are spending money like crazy now that the war’s over—and not just dimes. I’m glad Roosevelt is on a dime. He was the best president we ever had, and the day he died, April twelfth of last year—I’ll never forget the date—we all cried our eyes out. Just a year ago today.

There have been many strikes all over the country and a bad influenza epidemic in December. When I heard that I couldn’t help but wish it had hit this house, for maybe I could have gotten to the doctor and convinced him I wasn’t insane. Maybe, Lord forgive me, it would have set me free.

We talk a lot about the garden. It’s going to look good for a first-year planting, and Phelps agrees with me that the star magnolia will be perfect. We’ll never see it in its full glory, but we’ll have another beautiful garden with all sorts of trees, flowers, and shrubs to tend together. I want to plant a garden just for herbs in memory of mother.

Phelps’s hair is growing out and gets brighter and brighter. When he was a kid, the other kids called him “Carrot top” or “Red.” My nickname was “Shrimp,” so together we would have made quite a pair then. He says we do now, too.

I’ve never been so happy in my entire life. I can bear anything now.

“Our” song is “People Will Say We’re in Love.”

April 16, 1946

I want to know everything about him, and he doesn’t hold back a thing. He has a sister, twelve years older, who lives in Virginia with her husband and son and daughter. After his sister was born, his parents thought they were done; then Phelps showed up, much to everyone’s surprise. Both his parents have passed away. He has happy memories of them, and although the family did not have much money, he never felt poor. The photo album with pictures of the way his parents had lived before and how they had been brought up seemed like fiction to him, a kind of fairy tale. Both of them died his first year at Harvard. His father was quite a bit older than his mother and his death was not unexpected. But his mother’s was a shock. Like my poor mother, it was cancer, but it was swift. I don’t know which is better—to lose a loved one suddenly or to have them with you longer. You still don’t get used to what will happen, but those months with Ma were precious, except at the end, when she was in so much pain. I think sudden is better for that reason.

He enlisted as soon as war was declared, leaving college, and he says although he misses his parents, he’s glad they never had to worry about his being overseas. He likes to think of them in some kind of heaven, assuming his life went along the path they knew he’d set out on. They were terribly excited about Harvard, especially his father, who lived to see his son in the same house he had been in during his time there.

Phelps doesn’t like to talk about the war, and I don’t ask him. His roommate and best friend was killed on Omaha Beach. Phelps was part of the invasion, too. I know what he must have seen, and I’ll spend my whole life trying to erase those memories for him.

It’s funny. Now that Phelps is with me—for even when he’s not by my side, he’s in my heart—I don’t feel the need to write much. I keep looking out the window, hoping he’ll come, and when he doesn’t, I keep thinking about the times he has. I guess every girl thinks no one has ever been as much in love as she has, but I know no one ever has as much as this girl right here.

It was after midnight, but Faith hadn’t been able to sleep. She’d gone downstairs, made a cup of cocoa, and retrieved the diary from the drawer where she’d left it. As she read, she thought about Margaret Ward. She and her husband had been off dancing in Norumbega Park at this time, living the life Dora and Phelps dreamed about. Again, Faith found herself trying to think of a scheme for them, something foolproof, but, like them, she concluded there was no other way but to wait. She was overwhelmed at the thought of this woman sacrificing her freedom and well-being for the man she loved. But Dora had gotten her star magnolia. Faith hoped she’d gotten much more.

She’d told Tom she was driving up to the Maine outlets tomorrow, and he’d insisted she take her time. He’d pick up Amy and be home for Ben. She knew he assumed she was going with Niki, Pix, or another friend. Or perhaps he didn’t. He’d looked a little worried when she told him; she could read his face like a map—each line stood for something, and the tiny one that snaked across from eyebrow to eyebrow meant anxiety. Since Monday, she had been trying to appear as if nothing had happened, but she may not have been as successful as she’d thought.

When she got back into bed, Tom rolled over and pulled her close. The warmth of his body enveloped her and after awhile, she fell asleep.

 

Faith had never seen anyone use an ear trumpet, but Josephine—“Call me Josie”—Marshall née Royce did. And used the accessory with such flair that Faith wondered why more people didn’t adopt the custom. Everyone she knew with hearing aids was always complaining they were too loud or didn’t fit properly. Her aunt Chat’s were apt to break into a high-pitched tune, unheard by the wearer, but definitely disconcerting to others. Faith assumed that now that most of the boomers had passed through presbyopia—which had spurred optical laser surgery to new heights—they’d be moving on to hearing loss. One little card in the mail offering a free auditory test with an accompanying photo of the devices available was all it would take to galvanize the generation. By the time she needed amplification, they’d be the size of the head of a pin. But there was a certain chic to Josie’s trumpet. Greeting Faith, she’d held it to her ear with a flourish, announcing it worked far better than anything else and didn’t get lost.

Faith quickly introduced herself and presented a pot of fragrant hyacinths and one of her Cambridge tea cakes, and now they were getting down to business. She could tell that Josie, while happy for the company and the largesse, was eyeing her in that Down East way Faith knew well from her summers on Sanpere Island. Not a full faced stare, but a sideways glance. Mrs. Marshall wouldn’t come out and ask Faith what she was doing there. She didn’t have to—it was all in that look. Faith answered the question.

“I’ve been going through some old written material”—she felt protective of the diary, protective of Dora—

“and have come across some references to a relation”—she did feel a strong sense of kinship with her—“whom no one seems to know much about.”

Josie nodded and encouraged; Faith continued. “She worked at one of the inns in Bar Harbor in the mid-nineteen forties and mentions her friend Josephine Royce. Her first name is Dora. She married a man from Cambridge, Massachusetts, and moved there. That’s the last I know.”

The old woman put her ear trumpet in her lap and closed her eyes for so long that Faith thought she might have dozed off. Josephine was tall and had led the way to the sitting room with a firm stride. Unlike many of the other residents, she wasn’t wearing pastel pants with an elastic waist and matching sweatshirt, but a dark blue corduroy skirt, a floral-print blouse, and a hand-knit cardigan that picked up the soft yellow in the print. Her straight white hair, still thick, framed her face like Buster Brown’s. When Faith had given Josie the gifts, her mouth had curved in a generous smile and her blue eyes, without the milky film of so many of those her age, had sparkled. Josephine Royce must have been a knockout, Faith decided.

“Dora—Theodora was her full name, but only her mother called her that,” she said. “It meant ‘gift of God’—her mother read a lot. She told us that, too. Picked the name from some book. Dora Thibodeau. Her father’s family came down from Canada to farm, but they never made a go of it. They all went back, but he stayed and married a local girl. They only had Dora, and a few years after her mother died, she left the farm as fast as she could. I never heard her say anything against her father, but we all got the idea he wasn’t much good. I’d been at the inn a few years and was waiting tables. Got room, board, and my wages, and the tips were good. It was hard work, but she had it harder—cleaning the rooms, working in the laundry. If she’d had my job, maybe she wouldn’t have accepted the first man to come along.”

“Do you remember his name? Remember anything about him?”

“I wish I could help you out, but it’s gone now. I suppose I must have known it then. She was such a kid, writing her new name out on every blank sheet of paper she could find. He was some big muckety-muck from Boston—Cambridge, as you said. It was the first time he’d come to the inn. To tell the truth, he gave me the creeps and I switched so I wouldn’t have to have his table. He was that particular. Sent the food back and back until it was exactly the way he wanted it. He was much older than Dora. Not bad-looking—a big man, dark hair, thick beard, which wasn’t the fashion then.”

“Why did he give you the creeps?” asked Faith, directing her question into the trumpet.

Josie paused again, but not for as long. “It sounds crazy now, but I had the idea he was looking us over, measuring us for something. Now, I’ve had men give me the eye”—she laughed—“but this was different. It was like he was interested but not interested. Shopping around the way you’d buy a car. Maybe his wife had died or he’d decided it was time to get married. But why would he go to an inn in Maine to pick out a wife? You’d think he’d take one of his own kind. Not some girl off the farm. It didn’t take him long to settle on Dora. She was the prettiest of us, prettiest girl I ever saw. We all thought she should be in the movies, but she never believed her looks, never believed how smart she was, either, because she’d had to leave school. She was the nicest, too. Some of the girls would have it in for somebody—there was never enough help for all the work—and they’d start about so-and-so not doing her job or thinking she was too good for it. The kind of things that happen when you’re tired and on edge. Most of us had men overseas—fathers, brothers, boyfriends. But Dora just did her job, and often someone else’s, too, without complaining. She loved the gardens, I remember, and made friends with the man who worked them. That’s where she’d be whenever she had a free moment, and we always had fresh flowers on our dressers. She said it was to remind us we were alive. I remember that. Those were her exact words.

“Anyway, once he made it plain that it was Dora he wanted, he seemed to warm up a little. You’d see them walking in the gardens hand in hand—we weren’t supposed to talk to the guests except to ask them how they wanted something done, let alone get up to something like that. But Mrs. Patterson—she was the housekeeper—turned a blind eye. Maybe he’d slipped her some money. That had to have been it, because otherwise she’d have been on Dora like a gull dives for a fish.”

Faith remembered that Josie had married a lobster-man, and the image was a familiar one to her, too—the gulls rocketing straight down into the sea. Mrs. Patterson must have been something.

“He gave her a diamond ring that was bigger than anything we’d ever seen and the girls teased her about it weighing her hand down. She quit working, of course, and he took a room for her. It was like a fairy tale, like Cinderella, where one minute you’re scrubbing toilets and the next somebody else is doing yours. He took her to Bangor and fitted her out with new clothes. She looked so smart. He’d gotten a license and they were getting married in Augusta on their way back to Massachusetts. Dora would have liked a church wedding, I think—she was religious, been raised in the church—but whatever he said was fine with her. She didn’t have anyone except her father. I don’t know if he was there or not. I always thought it was a little sad that she didn’t have anyone to stand up with her, but we’d gotten used to all kinds of weddings in the war, so we didn’t think about it much. Mine was a time, though. We waited until December—a Christmas wedding. My husband was in the air force and brought home enough of that silk parachute cloth for me and, later, his sister when she got married. Our daughters wore those dresses and maybe our granddaughters will.”

“Did you hear from Dora after she left?”

“No, I didn’t, and that surprised me, because she said to all of us she’d write, and since we had shared a room, we were especially close. They were going out to California for their honeymoon, and we thought at least we’d get a postcard. I was afraid I’d made her mad, because the night before she left to go to Augusta, I told her I wasn’t sure she was doing the right thing. That she ought to wait awhile. I never had a sister and I guess I’d started thinking of her as my little one. So I wrote to her at the Cambridge address she’d given us, apologizing. I’ve always been known to speak my mind. She even teased me about it, but I decided to say I was sorry just in case she took offense, although Dora was the last person who ever would. The letter came back and I tried twice more, but they all came back. I thought they must have settled someplace else, so I called her father, but he didn’t have much to say. Just that she was busy with her new life. I couldn’t figure out where she was.”

Josie took the trumpet from her ear and placed it in her lap again. Outside the window, there was still snow on the ground in what Faith hoped was a garden. The place wasn’t bad—clean and bright, but it still wasn’t home.

“I wish I could tell you more. I’m sorry you came all this way for nothing.”

“It hasn’t been for nothing. Please don’t think that.” Faith slipped the photograph from her purse and put it in Josie’s hand. “I just had this picture, but you’ve made her real.”

After staring at it, Josie gave the picture back without a word and stood up. They walked toward the door together.

“If you find out what happened to her, will you let me know?” She put her hand on Faith’s arm. “I’ve been worried about Dora for fifty-seven years.”