30
Sally decides to stay in the dorm that night because the students are having an end-of-term party. I’m grateful she feels ready to leave the safety of our cottage, even if the cottage feels lonelier without her. I will not be one of those mothers who cling to their children, I repeat to myself a dozen times as I make my solitary dinner, grade my students’ final essays, and watch the snow fall outside.
I’d asked them to write their own changeling stories and then examine what the changeling myth meant to them. I’m impressed with the variety of responses—there’s a a sci-fi story from Clyde Bollinger and a heart-wrenching story from a girl who’s barely spoken all term about her brother in drug rehab. (Sometimes I think he’s not the same brother who used to play Candyland with me … that he was snatched in the night and replaced by an alien.) The one I like the best, though, is Hannah Weiss’s.
She’d told me that when she asked her mother about the picture, her mother admitted that she hadn’t graduated from Vassar at all. She’d dropped out when she married Hannah’s father. She told Hannah that she had never told her because she didn’t want to be a bad example. And she’d hoped that Hannah going to private school in the East would give her a chance to do what her mother hadn’t. In her paper, Hannah writes:
What I like about the changeling stories we’ve read this semester is that the real child always comes back in the end. Your mother isn’t fooled. She knows who you really are. Sometimes you wish she didn’t. Sometimes you’d rather belong to another family—a family of fairies who live under a tree in the woods—but in the end your real family are the people who recognize who you really are.
I’d never thought of the changeling story as a story of belonging. It makes me wonder if that’s why my grandmother kept the book around. It always seemed like a weird choice of children’s story. When I take out the old dog-eared copy and run my hands over its worn pages I’m reminded of my grandmother’s soft, worn hands touching my forehead when I had a fever or brushing away my tears when I was hurt.
In the morning the snow has stopped, but the thruway is closed and the radio forecasts another big storm on the way. Sally arrives back at the cottage with Haruko around noon.
“Haruko’s parents can’t make it up here because of the snow. Can she stay here tonight?”
An hour or so later Chloe shows up with Clyde and Hannah Weiss in tow carrying her many suitcases. Clyde’s parents have been delayed by the snow and Hannah’s flight to Seattle has been cancelled.
“Hey,” Sally announces, “we have enough people to play Risk. My dad and I used to have marathon sessions. Mom, do we still have—”
I’ve got the game out before Sally can finish her sentence, grateful that the tattered board game (missing some infantry and half of Kamchatka) was spared in the tag sale purge. I saved the important things, she’d said yesterday. A sled, a game, some pots and pans—a few magic talismans as protection against the dark. How could you ever know what the important things would turn out to be? I leave the five of them sprawled out on the living room floor with enough cocoa, popcorn, and imperial ambitions to last the afternoon while I go into town to stock up on provisions before the next storm.
The thruway might be shut down, but the road into town is well plowed and the town itself is bustling. Trimmed in white, the faded Victorians and Greek Revivals look like they’ve acquired a new coat of paint. The shoveled sidewalks are full of pedestrians walking briskly between the grocery and hardware, stocking up on supplies for the coming storm. The windows of the Rip van Winkle Diner are steamy with the exhalations of locals filling up on Dymphna’s pies and hot coffee.
In the grocery store I buy the ingredients for lasagna and salad and garlic bread, figuring I might have all those kids staying for dinner. It’ll be nice, I think, to have a full house. I add an extra carton of milk and two pints of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream—Chunky Monkey for Sally, Karamel Sutra for me—and then pause, wondering if any of the kids have any food allergies I should know about.
I use the pay phone in the pharmacy to call home. When Sally picks up I hear laughter in the background and Haruko shouting, “I eat your country for breakfast!”
“Everything okay there?” I ask.
“Yeah,” Sally says, breathless, as though she’d been laughing, too. “I had no idea Haruko was so bent on world domination.”
I laugh. “It’s always the quiet ones. Hey, I thought I’d get dinner for everyone—are they all still there?”
“Just Chloe and Haruko. Clyde’s parents came and took Hannah, too. She’s going to stay with the Bollingers until she can get a flight to Seattle. Dean Drake was with them. I told her you were in town—” I miss whatever Sally says next because the operator comes on telling me I have to deposit another quarter for five more minutes. I feed in the change and hear Sally saying, “—so I got out our Yahrzeit candles, but I wanted to ask if it’s okay to use them?”
Dean Drake must have been checking that we had supplies in case of a blackout. I’d bought the Yahrzeit candles to light on the anniversary of Jude’s death and realize now with a guilty qualm that I’d forgotten. “Sure,” I say. “As your great-grandmother Miriam used to say, ‘It’s gotta be the anniversary of someone’s death.’” I make sure that neither Haruko nor Chloe are lactose intolerant (they’re not), find out their favorite ice cream flavors (Cherry Garcia for Chloe, Phish Food for Haruko), and tell Sally that I’ll be home soon.
Walking toward my car on Maple Street, I notice that there’s smoke coming from the chimney of the blue Queen Anne that Callum Reade was renovating. There are curtains in the window and an evergreen wreath on the door. Some couple from the city must have bought it. I’m happy that Callum’s turned a profit on it, but I feel a little pang that someone else is living the cozy familial dream I’d briefly entertained when I passed the house last summer.
Great, now I’m sentimental not only over my past with Jude but over an imagined future. The sight of Beatrice Rhodes’s little bungalow lifts my spirits, though. Here is a woman who’s made a happy life for herself on her own. She also has a wreath on her door—holly, not pine—but the smoke is coming not from the cottage chimney, but from the studio chimney out back. She must have gotten to work early this morning. The scene is so inviting that I decide to drop my groceries in the car and then pay Beatrice Rhodes a visit—maybe do a little Christmas shopping while I’m at it.
I follow a narrow track—one shovel’s width—around to the studio. Thick white smoke is pouring out of the studio’s chimney. Despite the cold, the door is propped open by a ceramic urn.
“Miss Rhodes?” I call as I step through the doorway. I don’t want to startle the woman. “Beatrice?”
“In back,” a reedy but strong voice calls from the back room.
I go around the counter and enter the workroom. Beatrice Rhodes is bent over the door of the kiln, silhouetted against the orange glow. She’s removing a tray of blue glazed bowls, each one glowing like a Chinese lantern. When she sets down the tray on a wire shelf, she straightens up, sees me, and gives me a wide smile that creases cheeks pink with the heat of the kiln.
“Miss Rosenthal, I was just thinking about you.”
“You were?”
“Yes, I thought of something you might find interesting.” She peels off her heavy leather gloves and takes my hand in hers. I’m struck once again by how soft her hand is, like an old flannel nightgown. She makes me sit down on one of the two Morris chairs in front of the kiln and then rummages through the pigeonholes of an old secretary desk. “It’s here somewhere,” she says. “This business about Ivy’s death brought it back to me, but then all the Christmas orders came in and I haven’t had a moment to breathe. Help yourself to a cup of tea while I look.”
There’s an earthenware teapot glazed in celadon green and two matching cups on the little table between the two chairs, as if she’d been expecting me. There’s also today’s New York Times folded to the crossword puzzle, which has been completed in ink. Not bad for Saturday’s puzzle, I think. Beatrice Rhodes must be pretty sharp even if she’s not making much sense right now.
“It started at Ivy’s funeral. That pin she was wearing reminded me of something, but I wasn’t sure what, but I know it’s here somewhere in this desk because that’s where I hid it.”
“What’s in the desk?” I ask, unable to hold my tongue any longer. “What are you looking for?”
Beatrice turns and straightens to look at me. “The pin, of course. Didn’t I say? Ivy’s pin.” She turns back to the desk as if she’d explained everything, but I’m more confused than ever. I think I know what pin she’s talking about—the silver brooch surrounded by ivy leaves that Ivy always wore—but I clearly remember seeing it pinned to Ivy’s collar in her casket.
“Ivy’s pin? But she was buried with it, Miss Rhodes. It can’t be in your desk, too.”
“Well, of course I know that…. Aha! Here it is!”
Beatrice turns to me, unwrapping something from old, yellowed paper, and then holds out her hand. She’s holding a silver pin that’s identical to the one Ivy St. Clare wore—the same two saints, mother and daughter, borne aloft on a cloud—only without the wreath of ivy leaves around it.
“Where did you get this?”
“From Fleur Sheldon,” she tells me, sitting down in the other chair. “I’d forgotten all about it until I saw the one Ivy had on at the funeral. Fleur left it here the day Lily died.”
“She came here? But why?”
“I’m not sure she knew! She seemed very confused. I was sitting right there”—Beatrice points to a window with a deep ledge hidden behind heavy drapes, a place where a child would hide—“watching the snow fall, and I saw her coming down the path. She looked … I don’t know … wild somehow. Her hair had come down and was covered in snow and she was weaving back and forth on the path as though she were drunk, just as I’d seen my father walk when he came home from the bars. It scared me. I’d seen people do awful things when they were drunk.”
Her voice flutters and her hand, still cradling the pin, is trembling. I pour out a cup of tea for her and insist that she drink some before going on. As eager as I am to hear her story, I see that its recollection has affected her deeply. After she’s taken a sip, though, she goes on. Throughout, she holds the pin cradled in her hand, close to her chest.
“I’d only been here a few days, you see. My mother had died in October and my father wasn’t coping very well. When Aunt Ada sent for me to come for Christmas, I knew there was talk of me staying on, but I had the idea it was only if Ada’s friend Dora liked me well enough. To tell the truth, I didn’t know whether I wanted her to like me or not. I loved my father, but he scared me when he drank … but I was also afraid of what might happen to him if I wasn’t there to look after him. So I didn’t know whether I wanted Aunt Ada and Dora to take me. One minute I acted like an angel, the next I was the devil himself. That morning, the day after Christmas, I’d broken all the ornaments on the tree and was in disgrace. So I was hiding in the window seat behind the drapes when Fleur came. She was soaking wet from the snow so the aunts sat her in front of the kiln—right where you’re sitting.” Beatrice points at my chair. “They made tea for her. When her teeth stopped chattering enough for her to speak, Fleur took this pin, wrapped in this paper, out of her pocket.” Beatrice holds her hand open to show me the pin again. “‘Do you know what this is?’ Fleur asked in a queer voice. Dora took the pin from her and examined it and then passed it to Ada. They looked at each other in that way they had of communicating without words, and then Ada said, ‘It’s a St. Lucy’s medal. The Catholics think she protects orphaned babies so they pin this to the swaddling of a baby when it’s sent out to be adopted. Where did you get it, Fleur?’ But Fleur only began to cry.”
Beatrice looks up from the pin in her hand and I see that she, too, has begun to cry. “It scared me—her crying and the aunts talking about an orphanage. For the first time it occurred to me that if my father couldn’t keep me and my aunt didn’t want me I would end up in an orphanage. I was sorry then that I’d been so bad.”
Beatrice stops and takes another sip of tea. Her hand is shaking as she lifts the cup. No wonder she’d blocked out the painful memory of this scene. I lean forward and put my hand over hers, the velvety, clay-worn softness of it speaking of all the years that have passed, but her eyes are the eyes of a child afraid to be left in the world alone. “Some people came into the shop then and Ada went to wait on them while Dora minded the kiln. I stayed behind the drapes and prayed that I wouldn’t be sent to an orphanage. I promised God I would be good.” She laughs and wipes her eyes. “Oh my, I believe I promised all manner of improbable things. And the whole time I was afraid that if the aunts found me hiding in the window seat they’d be angry. They thought I was up in my bedroom. So when Ada called Dora to come up front into the shop I decided to make my escape. I didn’t think that girl would even notice me she was so distraught. But when I slid down from behind the curtain, the girl looked up like I’d caught her doing something bad. She was holding something in her lap—a green book.”
“A green book? Did it have a design on the cover?”
She nods. “I was too young to know what the design was, but now I know it was a fleur-de-lis. That was Lily’s sign.”
“You think the book Fleur had with her was Lily’s journal?”
“Yes! That must have been why Ivy St. Clare thought the aunts had it. She must have known that Fleur took it and came here.” She shakes her head sadly. “And to think all that time Ivy was accusing the aunts of taking Lily’s journal, I could have told them Fleur had it. But honestly I didn’t know it was the same book!”
“Fleur took it with her when she left?”
“Yes. When she saw me she shoved it back in her pocket and ran out, but she didn’t take the pin back, or the paper it had been wrapped in. She left those here on the table. I heard the aunts running after Fleur, and I went to the table and picked up the pin.” Beatrice opens her hand and looks down at the pin. She’s been holding it so tight that there’s an imprint in the soft flesh of her palm. “I thought the mother on it looked kind. I’d heard Ada say that she protected orphans. So I prayed to her. I prayed first for her to take care of my father, but then I asked to please let me stay here with Dora and Ada. That was when I knew that I wanted to stay with them.”
Beatrice looks up from the medal to me. Her face is wet with tears but she’s smiling now. “And then I wrapped the pin back in this piece of paper and hid it in the desk. I had some idea that in order for my prayer to be answered I had to hide the medal. No one else could touch it. And there it’s been all these years. I’d clean forgotten all about it until I saw it on Ivy. Why do you suppose Ivy had one?”
“Because Ivy grew up at St. Lucy’s,” I tell her. “But I can’t imagine why Fleur Sheldon would have one.”
“I think,” Beatrice says, handing me the crumpled piece of paper, “that the answer is here.”
I look down at the yellowed paper. It’s an adoption certificate for a baby dated January 15, 1929. My heart flutters at the date—it’s only a few weeks after Ivy’s birth. And when I look down I see that, yes, the birth mother is listed as Lily Eberhardt. I read further and see that the names of the adopting parents are Gertrude and Bennett Sheldon.
“But if this is right Fleur Bennett was Lily’s child, not Ivy. And if Fleur was Lily’s child, then Shelley Drake is Lily’s granddaughter—”
I stand up, knocking against the table in my haste. The teacups chime like bells tolling the hour. “I have to go, Miss Rhodes. I want to thank you for telling me all this. I know it wasn’t easy to dredge up those old memories.”
Beatrice waves her hand in front of her face. “It’s done me good to remember how scared I was when I first came here. It’s reminded me to be grateful for what I was given. My poor father drank himself to death. I could have wound up lost and abandoned; instead I had two loving mothers to make up for the one I lost. Here.” She takes my hand in hers. I feel something hard press from her soft palm to mine. When I open my hand I’m holding the St. Lucy’s medal.
“But don’t you want to keep it?” I ask.
“What for?” she asks. “It’s answered my prayers already. Maybe now it will answer yours.”