It is still early in the day as Teresa winds her way back up the bluff to the Manor House. Her two canvas grocery bags are full of fresh supplies from Sainsbury’s. At the top of the rocky cliff, she stops again to look out at the sea. Even though the day is fair, the waves are still fierce, splashing white and high on the jagged, dark rocks just yards away from the beach. She stands, mesmerized, hearing the crash and swoosh clearly even from this distance.
Teresa’s thoughts return to Father Michael. He must be about the same age as she, sixty-ish, and he is in hearty good health. Moreover, he’s a decent-looking, vigorous man with a quick mind and cheerful demeanor. Although she has chosen to be single for many years, Teresa admits that there are still pleasures to be had in male company, pleasures she realizes she has missed.
After Giancarlo, Teresa was absorbed in her family’s concerns, and then, when Marco was born, all her energy focused on him. The doctors watched and waited until Marco was three years old. Then they began a series of operations and hormone treatments to make it possible for Marco to walk. The first surgery went well. During the second operation, Marco stopped breathing and was resuscitated. But in the recovery room, his leg threw a blood clot and her little boy quietly died while she slept by his hospital bed. All the wires and monitoring machines failed to alert the nurses’ station. There was an investigation, but it came to naught. No one was to blame. They had done their best.
With no child to care for and fill her days, Teresa went to work at Random House, in the Young Books division. The work was interesting and challenging enough to be satisfying. She met Aaron at a book-launching party, two years after Marco’s death. Aaron was a lawyer at Random House. All was well until Aaron decided he wanted to marry her and have children. That was territory Teresa refused to enter again. Unable to find a way to compromise, they split up. Teresa was thirty-one years old and single once again.
“And now I’m sixty-three and I’m fantasizing about a priest. Pathetic.” Teresa says this aloud. She slides back into the car. In less than a quarter of an hour, she is settled in front of her computer.
Teresa watches the sunrise through her bedroom window. The storm strewed leaves and twigs all over the garden. The greens of leaf and grass are so clean and intensely bright that they hurt her eyes. High cirrus clouds sail in a smashing blue sky. The day calls for an outing. But first she needs to see the church records once more.
Mrs. Allston is not happy to see Teresa in her office again. “Father Michael is visiting a sick parishioner,” she says. Her expression is one of slight disgust, as if she detects a foul odor.
“When will he return?” Teresa asks. She knows it is futile to ask Mrs. Allston to let her see the records without Father Michael’s permission.
“Don’t know,” Mrs. Allston says, turning away.
Teresa is incensed. “Look, Mrs. Allston. I may not have a letter of introduction, but I am a legitimate, published writer doing legitimate research for a book already under contract.” That last part stretches the truth a bit, but Teresa doesn’t care.
Mrs. Allston clears her throat and looks down at her notepad. Then she glares at Teresa. Teresa can almost hear the woman’s thoughts. “These American women! They are all the same, pushy and loud. This one thinks she can have her way, but she can’t. Not with me.”
Father Michael bustles in the door beaming and interrupts their staring contest. “Ah, Miss Salerno! What a pleasure! What can we do for you?” he says. “That was quite a storm last night, wasn’t it, ladies?”
Mrs. Allston taps her notepad of messages. “Father, you have two calls.”
“Yes, thank you, Mrs. Allston. I’ll take care of that shortly.” The priest has caught the icy silence between the two women.
“Come into my office,” he says to Teresa. When the door is closed, he whispers, “Do forgive Mrs. Allston. She’s a bit of a bulldog, I know, but she means well.” He sits in his creaky chair. “Now tell me. How is your research coming along? Did the records help?”
“Immensely,” Teresa says. “Father Michael, I’m Catholic and I don’t know much about Anglican priests. If I tell you something private, are you bound to hold it in confidence?”
“Yes, of course,” he says, his face solemn. “Unless you intend harm to yourself or another. Then I am required to contact the proper authorities.”
“Do you know Eddie Thomson?”
“Yes, I do. Has the old fellow been misbehaving?”
“No, not at all,” Teresa replies. “But last night he told me a family secret. At least he said it was a secret.” Teresa recounts an abbreviated version of Eddie’s tale to the priest. “I’d like to go back to the records to see if I can find Jonah Thomson.”
“Fascinating.” Father Michael stands up. “Let’s go.”
Moments later, the two of them are leaning over the records, squinting at the fine, spidery writing of the entries. Teresa can smell the priest’s aftershave. He is so close that she can feel the warmth of his arm next to hers. Her concentration is slipping away into forbidden realms. Honestly, Teresa, she says to herself, he’s a priest, for God’s sake. But it has been a long time, a very long time, since Teresa was close to a friendly, kind, attentive man. She lets herself enjoy it.
They come away triumphant, having traced Jonah Thomson’s line of descendants from Jonah’s marriage entry to Eddie Thomson’s name and birthdate in 1938.
“I’m curious, Father Michael,” Teresa says as they return to his office. “Would Eddie have any legal claim to the Manor House property?”
“I don’t know the intricacies of the law, but I suspect that George Braithewaite’s offspring would have an equal claim.”
“That’s what I thought,” Teresa says. “Thank you so much, Father Michael. Do you priests shake hands?” She offers hers.
He smiles and takes it, covering her hand with his own warm palm.
“You’re most welcome, Miss Salerno. Do come around and tell me of any more discoveries.”
The legal system dragged its way toward Alberto’s trial. By the time Cousin Alberto’s case finally made it to court, I was three months pregnant. I still felt tired, but I was no longer subject to morning sickness. Through some connections at Columbia, I found part-time work as an editor at a small publishing house. Angelina continued her blithely positive attitude toward all things regarding the baby. She was convinced it was a boy. He would be beautiful; we’d find a nanny for him so I could keep working in the mornings. She advised me not to tell Father about the pregnancy. I wore loose-fitting blouses and dresses, but it didn’t matter. Father was so absorbed in his own misery that he barely noticed me at all.
Gradually Father sank deeper into a dark sea of worry, shame, and depression. Angelina arranged a trip to Italy for him, thinking it would give him a fresh perspective and some comforting scenery. He came home early, having been shunned by most of the relatives except for Uncle Gio and Gio’s immediate family.
Early one afternoon I arrived home from work and found Father unconscious, lolling sideways in his recliner. An empty pill bottle sat on the coffee table next to what was left of a bottle of gin. After the paramedics wheeled him away to the ambulance, Angelina and I combed through the house, removing pills and hard liquor, anything we thought could abet suicide. When he came home from the hospital four days later, Father hardly spoke. He wouldn’t go to the office, no matter how Angelina badgered him. He refused to see a counselor or a psychiatrist.
Late at night, a few weeks after Father came home from the hospital, I woke up freezing. A chill breeze swirled around my room. I got up to check the thermostat in the foyer. The night was alive with sound, as it always is in New York City. I heard shouts and sirens and vaguely realized that the ruckus came from nearby. In the living room, the big window was wide open. Snow speckled the carpet. The drapes billowed like red damask sails. I knew then that Father had found a way out of his pain. I screamed for Angelina, and then I passed out.
When I came back to consciousness, there was a stethoscope on my chest and a gentle hand was pushing up my right eyelid. From where I lay prone on the sofa, I could see Angelina sitting in a chair across the room. I kept hearing a strange, moaning sound and finally I realized it was coming from Angelina. Another paramedic was giving her an injection.
The medic who was checking me sat back on her heels. “How are you feeling? Any pain?”
“My side hurts,” I said.
“May I look?” She lifted my pajama shirt and pulled my pants down below my waist. “That’s quite a bruise you have there. Why don’t you let us take you to the hospital? How far along are you? Twelve weeks?”
“Fourteen,” I said. “But please, can I wait until this afternoon, or even tomorrow? I need to stay with Angelina.”
When at last I did see my own obstetrician, he said everything looked fine, except for the multihued bruise above my hip. I’ll never know if it would have made a difference had I agreed to go to the hospital that night. The doctors and specialists could not agree on what caused the damage to Marco’s legs. He was born as perfect as any cherub from his hips to his head, but his legs never formed properly. The physicians tried to fix his poor little legs, and that is what caused his death.
Father’s funeral was well attended. Our family’s notoriety was now complete. We had legions of reporters hounding us wherever we tried to go. Debo and Dolly came home for three days. Both had just started their first year of college. Dolly was at Boston University. She planned to go straight through undergraduate and graduate school to obtain a Masters in Business Administration. As for Debo, after her graduation from New York Military Academy, she decided to become a police officer.
Sometimes I thought that Debo was trying to be another Junior for Father. It had pained me to watch her work so hard for his attention and approval just as I had, and with the same result. For Father, nothing we achieved changed our gender or the fact that Junior, his shining star, was dead.
After the funeral, Angelina arranged a buffet at Father’s favorite Italian restaurant. We all agreed that holding a brunch in the apartment carried a gruesome shadow.
“People will be staring out the window and looking down to see how far he fell,” Dolly said.
In fact, none of us felt comfortable in the living room. Angelina and the twins and I sat in the kitchen for meals and did all our conversing and planning there. At one of these sessions, Angelina said, “Girls, I’ve been thinking about the living room. The furniture gives me the creeps now. I was wondering if you’d mind—” she paused.
“What?” I thought she was going to sell the apartment. Then where would the baby and I live? But that’s not what she said.
“I was wondering if you’d mind having the living room redone,” she finished.
Debo, Dolly, and I burst out laughing.
“When in mourning, redecorate!” said Debo.
“It’s a good idea,” said Dolly. “Get new curtains, too.”
The apartment felt different with Father gone. I hated to admit, even to myself, that the atmosphere was lighter. Angelina plunged right into the renovation project. After the living room was finished, the dark clouds that had filled the rooms with their thick sadness were finally released. Don’t get me wrong. I grieved for my father. But without the heavy brown leather sofa set, the heavy red curtains, and the ever-present odor of cigar smoke, the whole apartment felt clean and fresh.
The night that the living room was completed, and all the paintings and knick-knacks were replaced, Father’s ghost appeared to me for the first time.
Teresa is too agitated to do any writing when she gets into her rooms behind the Manor House. She makes a cup of hot chocolate and some toast. Sitting at the kitchen table, she writes some notes, trying to piece together Eddie’s story with the rest of her information. Then, upstairs, she falls asleep listening to the rain pelting her window. And she dreams.
At first, she is playing with her son, Marco. They are in the apartment in New York City, and she is waltzing with him in his cheerfully decorated yellow bedroom. Then the room around her changes. The walls are whitewashed plaster; there is a cradle in place of the crib. Darkness moves in; she is no longer holding Marco. She can’t find him. She’s out in a storm, flailing against the driving rain. She calls his name, and the wind snatches her voice away. The wind wails and it sounds like her baby crying. It could be her baby. He needs her; she can’t find him. Crying, screaming his name, Teresa wakes herself up. But the name she screams and hears echoing in the room is “Lucas!”
“Oh, my God.” Teresa is shaking, sobbing. The window is open, swinging in the wind. She leaps out of bed to latch it, and hurries back under the covers. The room stays cold and damp. Margaret is there.
The clock blinks a glowing red 1:56. Lightning flashes. Teresa curls into a fetal shape and surrenders to the memory she keeps locked away. Marco, her boy. At one year of age, he had his father’s shiny, black curls. His little teeth were perfect as pearls, and his laugh was such a bubbling gurgle that, no matter how tired she was, Teresa always laughed too. She had him for two more years. And then she lost him. All the medical geniuses couldn’t save him. All the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put Marco together again. Teresa hugs her sides and lets the tears come. It’s been so many years–how many? —over forty—and the pain is just as fresh, just as deep.
A coldness trails across Teresa’s cheek. It makes her shiver. This is the touch of a ghostly hand. Margaret.
“At least your baby lived,” Teresa says. It is after two o’clock and Teresa knows she will get no more sleep tonight. She turns on both lamps and clicks on her laptop. To the chill air around her, Teresa says, “Please go away. I need to work.”
A knock at the door pulls Teresa out of her past. She saves the chapter and shuts down the laptop before thumping downstairs. Lord Braithewaite, dressed in a well-tailored suit, is standing on the doorstep. He holds a monogrammed leather briefcase in one hand, and with the other he removes a bowler hat from his head. Teresa imagines for a wild moment that she has stepped into the bank scene from the movie Mary Poppins.
“May I come in?” he asks.
“Of course.” Teresa gestures him inside, then rushes to clear a space on the sofa. She sits in a chair opposite him.
“I hope I haven’t disturbed your work,” he begins.
“Not at all. It was time for a break.”
“Miss Salerno, I cannot tell you how important the document and the jewelry are to my family. My curator friend in London confirmed the authenticity of the contents of the packet. He is keeping the confession to see if he can discern the missing parts using all that fancy technology he has in his laboratory.” He clears his throat and adjusts his shirt collar.
Teresa opens her mouth to speak, then shuts it. Lord Braithewaite is about to give a prepared speech.
“Miss Salerno, my family and I wish to express our gratitude for your honesty and goodwill by offering you free lodging at the Manor for as long as you choose to stay. I’ve spoken to Miss Micklewhite already.”
“Why, Lord Braithewaite, that is most generous of you.” Teresa hesitates, then says, “I do have a request, though. When your friend completes his work with the confession, may I see the results?”
“Well, hmmm, I don’t see why not. I’m off to Kent to visit my nephew’s family, but I’ll give you a ring when I hear anything. How is that?”
“That’s fine. Thank you.”
At the door, Lord Braithewaite replaces his hat and walks away with a brisk, purposeful stride. Teresa shakes her head and smiles at his transformation from the grubby gardener in a smashed hat to this ever-so-proper aristocrat.
Teresa spends the afternoon touring a miniature pony farm near Exmoor. She takes photographs of the shaggy, dog-sized horses and their shy foals. Part of her feels appalled that humans take pride in distorting the majestic horse in this way. She is almost ashamed to be so charmed by the tiny ponies.
Visiting the farm with Teresa is a busload of nursing home residents. Some are being pushed around in wheelchairs; some struggle over the uneven ground with walkers. Teresa sees their wrinkled faces beaming as goats nuzzle their hands for treats. One old woman in a wheelchair shrieks with laughter because a goat is chewing on her shoelaces.
A sign proclaiming “Carriage Museum–this way” points to a huge barn. Inside, Teresa finds a display of carriages and carts. She saunters along in the dim shafts of light sprinkled with dust motes, peering at the cards in plastic frames that describe each vehicle. In front of a heavy cart made of thick planks, she stops with a sharp drawing in of her breath. Fumbling in her backpack for her camera, Teresa photographs the words:
Wagon–Circa 1790
Smugglers carried goods away from wrecked ships using sturdy carts like the one displayed here.
–donated by Lord Morris Braithewaite, Manor House, Mantecombe, Devonshire
By the time Teresa returns to Mantecombe, it is almost seven o’clock. The sky is still light as she enters the White Horse pub, but there is a brooding line of roiling clouds at the edge of the horizon and the wind is gusting. Teresa orders a glass of dark ale and fish and chips. The stained corner table where she sits exudes the odors of years of beer and smoke. When the barman brings over her basket of steaming fried cod and potatoes, Teresa says, “Is Eddie Thomson here?”
“That old grunion?” The barman glances around at the handful of men seated in the pub. “Not here yet. I’ll give you the nod when he comes in.”
Teresa looks at her meal, grins, and shakes her head. She can’t believe she’s eating this food. Unhealthy it may be, but she loves the greasy, crisp fries, especially doused in vinegar. Teresa does not need the barman’s wave to know Eddie Thomson when the fellow rolls into the pub. He’s a crab of a man, hunched and grizzled. With white hair and a scraggly, tobacco-stained beard, he’s dressed in an indefinable garment of an indefinable age and color. Teresa rises and taps him on the shoulder.
“Mr. Thomson?”
“Oh, Mr. Thomson, is it? And what can Mr. Thomson do for you?” he says, grinning to show teeth like black and yellow piano keys. His breath sends Teresa back two steps.
“I’d like to ask you about local history. Wreckers, actually.”
“Wreckers, is it?” He fixes her with watery, pale blue eyes. “Buy me a pint and give me a minute, see, to collect me thoughts.”
Teresa signals to the barman who pulls a pint of ale and hands the glass to Eddie. Eddie drags a chair over to Teresa’s table and straddles it backward.
“Are you hungry, Mr. Thomson? Would you like some dinner?” she asks.
“This here’s me dinner,” says Eddie, draining half the glass.
Teresa explains to Eddie that she is researching local history, and that she is staying at the Manor House. At the mention of the Manor House, Eddie draws back and cuts his eyes aside with a grimace. “Aye, that there’s a history, all right,” he says after a long pause.
“What can you tell me about wreckers?” Teresa asks as Eddie tips up the last of his ale.
“For that telling, I’ll need another pint,” Eddie grins. He wipes drops from his mustache.
When he is settled in with his new glass, Eddie begins. “Now the coastal folks hereabouts have made a good commerce from the tales of wreckers and smugglers and pirates and all. That Daffy Du Maurie and her Jamaica Inn and all. It’s good for the tourist trade. But I can’t say the locals were great wreckers. Nay, I would say there never was deliberate wrecking. As for the false lights, there’s no evidence that such criminality ever took place here.” Teresa senses she’s being hustled; that this is the image the locals prefer to offer to outsiders.
“Then the story of George Braithewaite putting out false lights and wrecking the ship his daughter was on—you think it is a fabrication?” Teresa is surprised. Obviously, Eddie hasn’t heard of the discovery of George’s confession.
“Braithewaite? Now that one’s a bird of a different color,” Eddie frowns, then gives her a wink and adds, “I’ll need another glass for that tale.”
Teresa has never intentionally gotten someone drunk, but it is obvious to her that she is playing a game whose price is dark ale. She signals to Tommy, the barman, and fetches Eddie his pint.
“Me great-great–I don’t know how many greats–grandfather was Frederick Thomson. He was with that Braithewaite fellow on the night the ship hit the rocks. Some say George Braithewaite put out a false light, but as I heard the story, it was a storm that fetched the Maeve onto the rocks.” Eddie stops for a swallow of ale. His eyes are clouding; his nose is red and his words are blurring at the edges.
“The tale gets gruesome now. Are you sure you want to hear it?” he asks with a leer.
“Quite sure.”
“Frederick found that maid, Margaret, between rocks on the shore. Her face was battered and bruised beyond recognition. He thought surely she was dead. She sported some few jewels, but her fingers were curled up so cold and stiff that Frederick couldn’t get them off. George came over, took out his knife so as to cut off her hand to get at the bracelet and rings. When he made the first cut across her wrist, she gave out a moan. There was George, all affrighted, wrapping up her wrist in his kerchief, and her bleeding out her life, if she wasn’t to have lost it already. He and Frederick carried her up to the cart and laid her amongst the casks. They thought they might have a reward from her people if she lived. If not, they’d give her back to the sea.”
Eddie pauses to drink. The pub is filling up with the evening crowd. Three musicians are setting up their instruments on a platform in the back. Teresa waits, hoping to hear Eddie out before the music begins.
“George took himself off away to the Manor with his cart, but Frederick, my great-great, he went back to the beach for more wreck. That’s when he heard the crying and he found the babe.”
“Lucas? Margaret’s baby boy?” Teresa was aghast. Could this be true?
“Aye, the poor laddie’s legs was crushed. He was alive, but barely.”
“And? What happened then?” Teresa feels her own eyes must be wide as salad plates. Eddie shoves himself backward out of his chair.
“I’m off to the loo,” he says. He sways across the pub floor to the men’s room. Teresa can barely restrain herself from following him. She bites at a hangnail and tears it down until her finger bleeds. At last, Eddie lurches out of the men’s room door, but then he leans on the bar to chat with another regular. He appears to have forgotten Teresa. After several minutes, she gets up and coaxes him back to the table with another pint and a bowl of peanuts.
“Now where was I?” Eddie says. He tries to crack open a peanut shell but his fingers are rubbery.
“Frederick Thomson found the baby and he was alive.” Teresa takes a peanut and opens it for him. She shells peanuts and hands them over as he continues.
“So me great-great what-all granddad takes the boy to his mam, who’s a baby-catcher and a bit of a healer for the locals.” He crunches on some peanuts while Teresa resists shaking his shoulders to make the story come out faster.
“The babe lived, only his legs never healed up proper. They was bent like two sickles. Even so, you’d think that George Braithewaite would have been grateful. You’d think he’d have taken his grandson in. But he shunned the boy, refused to raise him. Said he’d already killed his own daughter, and how could he face her son with such a great sin on his head.”
“It does seem rather heartless, considering how he loved Margaret,” Teresa says, almost to herself. She remembers the vivid dreams of the loving father with the pony.
“Aye, he loved her, all right, but George Braithewaite was an odd one. Me mam once told me she heard say that he had two families, a wife at the Manor, and another in Dorset. The one wife died young and he brought in the other, smooth as glass. Neighbors were gobsmacked, and gave them Braithewaites a wide berth.”
“But what about the boy, Lucas?”
“Ah, that’s the great family secret. What happened to the boy?” He leans forward and his breath is so foul that Teresa blinks several times. “If I tell you the truth, you’ll not breathe a word?”
“I can’t–” She is about to say she can’t promise silence, she’s a writer, but he interrupts.
“The Thomsons, Frederick and his wife, took the babe in, bandy legs and all, and they raised him as their own. Named him Jonah, since he survived the sea, you know. He turned out a fine, clever fellow, too. And me very own so many greats granddad. Me granddad!”
Eddie’s brows lower and he scowls. “Aye, and I’m the rightful heir, you see. The rightful heir to the Manor House.” He sits up and slams his palm on the table. Teresa jumps back and some others glance over at Eddie.
Eddie points a gnarled finger at Teresa. “If it weren’t for that lily-livered, slithery eel of a two-timing bigamist, George Braithewaite, I’d be living in comfort in me old age!” Eddie pushes himself to his feet, stumbling sideways so he has to catch on to the chair. “Mine! It shoulda been mine!” he yells.
One of the men at the bar stands and comes over to Eddie. “‘S’allright, now, Eddie, me boy. You’ve had enough for this evening. Let’s get you home.”
Teresa sinks down into the dark corner while the man helps Eddie out of the pub. Her head is aching with the fright of his outburst and the thoughts that are swirling in disjointed words in her mind. So Lucas lived. And George Braithewaite did have two wives! Slowly Teresa gets to her feet. She pays the bill and drives back toward the Manor House.
At the top of the hill, before turning into the drive, Teresa stops the car and crosses over to the edge of the bluff. She can see the lights of the town, but a bank of billowing inky clouds obscures the moon and stars. The wind swirls and buffets her. She can just make out bursts of white water as the rising waves smash against the jagged rocks near the shore. As the rain begins, Teresa scuttles back to her car. This will be a wild storm tonight, she thinks. I wonder if the cradle in Margaret’s room will move.
Cousin Alberto’s undoing was set in motion by a part-time dockworker named Juan Alvarez. He came to the shipping office one morning when Angelina was looking over the accounts.
“Senor Alberto owes me money,” he said.
“He does?” said Angelina. “Well, let’s have a look. What day would that have been?”
“September eighteenth. We loaded three trucks to go to the Jersey factory and then we put the special crate onto his truck.”
“Special crate?”
“Si, you know. The one that goes to the warehouse in Brooklyn.”
“The warehouse in Brooklyn?”
“Pero si, senora. Sometimes I drive the truck myself,” said Juan.
Angelina masked her astonishment. Later she told me that this was the moment she knew that Alberto was carrying on some sort of illegal business. To Juan she said, “Yes, of course, the warehouse in Brooklyn. What is the address again? So I don’t have to look it up?” She flipped through the ledger as if searching for a page. Juan told her. Angelina paid him what he claimed he was owed, in cash, and watched him leave. Then she called the police.
The next morning, Salerno Enterprises made the headlines of every newspaper:
Busted! Salerno Enterprises Traffics in Drugs
In the warehouse, the police found hundreds of containers of olive oil. Inside each container, plastic bags of heroin floated in our famous extra virgin cold-pressed olive oil. When all the bags were collected, the police estimated their street value at over three million dollars. Under the headline, Cousin Alberto’s mug shot accompanied a photograph of the officers opening the containers. After Cousin Alberto was handcuffed and driven away, the police arrested Father as well. He was released on bail the same afternoon. Alberto was not allowed to post bail; the police were afraid his partners would kill him before the case ever got to court.
When the cab from the airport dropped me in front of our apartment building, I pushed my way through a cluster of reporters. I made it into the elevator before any of them realized who I was. The atmosphere inside the apartment was thicker and heavier than it was after Junior died. Angelina was at the office. Father hunched in his reclining chair in the living room, an unlit cigar between his fingers.
“Oh,” he said when he saw me, “you’re home. Did you hear? Your cousin has ruined us. The Salerno name is mud. No, worse than mud. It’s slime. It’s shit.”
I’d had a long flight from Italy, with a five-hour layover in London. I was bleary-eyed and feeling nauseous. All I could reply was, “Yes, Father. I’m sorry.”
He didn’t seem to need more words than that. He gave a grumbling cough, then turned his gaze to the wide window with the view of Central Park. I dragged my suitcase down the hall to my old bedroom. Without taking time to unpack, I lay down on the bed, pulled up the quilt and fell asleep.
Angelina woke me in the late afternoon. She’d been at the office all day, doing damage control.
“How bad is it?” I asked, sitting up slowly. Sometimes I could trick my stomach into remaining calm if I leaned back at an angle with pillows behind me.
Angelina shook her head. “It’s bad. Gristedes and some other high-end stores have canceled their orders. They’re saying that Portuguese olive oil is cheaper.”
“Are we going under?”
“No. It will be tough for a while, but I think the car dealerships and the rental properties will keep the business in the black until this blows over.” Angelina patted my belly. “But you, Teresa. How are you?”
“I’m OK.”
“A little sick, maybe? Tired all the time?” She smiled.
“Like I could sleep half the day and stare at the wall for the other half.”
“So tell me,” she said, “who is the father?”
I told Angelina about Giancarlo, how we met at an art gallery opening. I showed her the only picture I had of him, leaning against a fountain with his curly hair rumpled, his head thrown back, his sensuous mouth laughing. His arms were outstretched wide, as if he were embracing the world.
“Mmmm, he’s very good-looking,” Angelina murmured. “You will have a beautiful baby.” She gazed at the photograph for another long moment, then handed it back to me. “Actually, Teresa, I’m more worried about Anthony than the business. The business has a good foundation. It will survive. But your father—he is so depressed. No one in Italy will talk to him except Uncle Gio. Gio says that if the state of New York doesn’t execute Alberto, he’ll fly over to New York and do it himself.”
The memory of that difficult time is enough to interrupt Teresa at her writing desk. She goes downstairs, saying aloud, “Hey, Margaret, I think I’ll see if the church records show anything about your mother Eliza, or that wrecker F. Thomson.”
Teresa smiles to realize she now accepts Margaret’s presence. She can even tell when the ghost is in the same room by the damp chill that accompanies her.
Stepping out of her door, Teresa catches a glimpse of a reporter interviewing Miss Micklewhite. Avoiding the main path to the car park, Teresa goes through the garden around the rear of the cottages. She encounters Trish carrying a bundle of dirty linens to the laundry room.
“Well, you’ve surely put us on the map!” Trish says, grinning.
“Not me. It was Margaret who spilled the tea into the drawer.”
“You didn’t tell us that,” Trish says.
“I couldn’t, not with all those reporters around. Who would believe that a ghost showed me where to find George Braithewaite’s confession?”
Trish laughs. “Anyone who’s ever worked here wouldn’t have a problem.”
“Say, Trish, which church is old enough to have records of the 1700s?”
“That would be St. Nicholas by the war memorial. You can’t miss it.”
“Thanks. Wish me luck.”
Trish nods. “Sure, ta.”
Teresa waves goodbye. She manages to slip away in her car without being spotted by Miss Micklewhite or the reporter. Miss Micklewhite is having a fine time with the press. She has more stamina than I do, Teresa thinks.
Teresa finds the church easily, but parking the car is a challenge. Despite the cool, cloudy weather, the town is crowded with people on summer holiday. She ends up walking most of Main Street from Sainsbury’s small car park. The tall, weathered wooden doors to the church are locked. Under a plastic frame, the hours of services are posted on a small card. Teresa walks around the side. She discovers a newer building, an addition with a low roof. Light shines through the slatted blinds of the window. Teresa knocks, then opens the door and steps in.
A stern-looking middle-aged woman sits at the reception desk, working on an ancient computer. “Yes?” she says. She taps a few more keys before turning around.
“Hello. I’m Teresa Salerno. I’m staying up at the Manor House. I’m doing some research for a story about the Manor. I was hoping you might have church records dating back to 1700.”
The woman straightens up her shoulders. She looks at Teresa over her bifocals with a slight frown. “Do you have a letter of introduction?”
“A letter of introduction?” Teresa repeats.
“Yes, from your sponsoring institution?”
“Well, no. I’m a freelance writer,” Teresa says. The woman resembles Teresa’s tenth grade social studies teacher, a battle-ax named Sister Mary Agnes.
The two women are staring at each other when the noise of a scraping chair breaks the confrontation. Behind the secretary, a door opens. Out steps a broad-shouldered, balding man in a clerical collar. He looks to be in his sixties. His cheeks are ruddy; he wears gold-rimmed glasses, and he is smiling.
“My, my, what a pleasure! You are the American who found George Braithewaite’s papers!” He shakes Teresa’s hand while turning to the secretary. “Don’t you remember, Mrs. Allston? We saw it on the telly this morning. Quite remarkable! Come in, come in.” He gestures her into his office. Mrs. Allston gives an audible sniff as she returns to her computer.
Once they are seated, Teresa in a capacious chair of brown, cracked leather, and the man in a creaking swivel chair behind a battered desk, he says, “Now, I’m Father Michael. What can I do for you, Miss—–?”
“Salerno. Teresa Salerno. I was wondering if there are records dating from the 1700s to the present. I’m doing some research—“
“Yes, yes, we have the registers for the parish going back to 1710 or so. You’re writing about the Manor House?”
“Not yet, but I hope to,” Teresa replies. “I’m sorry, I don’t have a letter of introduction. I suppose I could get my editor—“
“No matter, no matter,” Father Michael interrupts. He bounds out of his chair.
He’s pretty spry for a senior, Teresa thinks, then remembers her own age with a grimace.
“Follow me,” the priest says. Teresa has to quicken her steps to keep up with Father Michael.
On the return drive from St. Nicholas to the Manor House, Teresa feels her head spinning with dates and questions. Beside her on the car seat rest xeroxed copies of several pages of the church register. Mrs. Allston was far from happy that Father Michael permitted Teresa to copy the fragile pages.
The first surprise she found was that there was no record of the death of Eliza Braithewaite, Margaret’s mother. Her birthdate was there, the tenth of August, 1746. So was Margaret’s birth on the twenty-fourth of April, 1767. In her mind, Teresa’s logic wages war against her conviction that the dreams were authentic windows into Margaret’s past. If Teresa’s dreams are to be believed, Eliza and her infant son died in 1777. The death of a Mary Braithewaite is entered as the fourteenth of January, 1787. Teresa also found an entry for a Josiah Braithewaite, son of George and Mary, who died in 1851. She can’t wait to get back to the Manor and work up a timeline.
Teresa negotiates a hairpin curve in the road and finds herself enveloped in fog. She can barely see the road. The mist is white and thick. With the wipers on high speed, Teresa still feels blind. Her heart is beating double-time; her hands are clammy. Even on a clear night, the road from the town is full of tight curves with steep drops and no guardrail. A deep booming sound vibrates the car. Teresa stifles a scream. She realizes that it is the foghorn. The car’s headlights show her a shadow moving forward in front of her on the road. It appears to be an animal. Teresa peers at the shape, leaning so far forward over the steering wheel that her nose almost touches the windshield. It is a horse, a small one, and there is a man walking beside it. The man waves his arm, a gesture that seems to mean Teresa should follow. She does, being careful to stay close enough to keep the horse in sight, but not so close as to frighten it.
After creeping along behind for what seems to be hours, Teresa recognizes the barn that comes before the Manor House drive. She exhales in a rush of relief. The fog clears slightly as she makes the turn onto the gravel. She glimpses a tan pony and a man wearing knee breeches and a tricorn hat. Then the fog closes in again. Teresa can no longer see the horse or the man; they have faded into the fog. But she has recognized Maggie’s father, the man from her dreams. Even the tan pony is familiar. Teresa is overtaken by a shiver so violent that she has to stop the car.
“That’s it!” she says, once her breath is returns to normal. “I’m leaving tomorrow!”
She puts the car back into gear and soon the dim lights of the Manor House car park glow up ahead. Once safely indoors with a cup of tea, Teresa feels steady again. She spreads out her papers on the kitchen table. Taking a clean piece of paper, she plots out the family tree of a man named Frederick Thomson whose dates correspond to Margaret’s time period. He could be the F. Thomson who was mentioned in George Braithewaite’s confession. She notes with excitement that a descendant named Edward Thomson is alive. Teresa gathers up her papers and goes to find Miss Micklewhite.
Miss Micklewhite is in the Manor House office, taking a reservation for a large tour group. She waves her fingers at Teresa and continues to converse on the telephone. Teresa decides to wait outside in the courtyard. The fog has lifted as quickly as it came. Now sunlight is beaming down in shafts between scudding clouds. Ted is opening the tearoom, so Teresa walks over.
“Hi, Ted.”
“Morning.” He nods as he raises the metal shutter of the service window.
“Ted, do you by any chance know of a gentleman named Edward Thomson?”
“Eddie Thomson? Sure, he’s an old timer, been in Mantecoombe all his life.”
“Do you know where he lives? I’d like to ask him some questions about local history.”
“Don’t know where he lives,” Ted says, latching the shutters with sturdy metal hooks.
“Oh,” Teresa’s shoulders droop.
“But you can find him at the White Horse.”
Teresa has seen the pub’s sign on Main Street. “Would he be there now?”
“Are you joking?” Ted snorts out a laugh. “He’ll be sleeping off last night’s beer until sundown. Best to look him up around seven or eight of the evening, before he gets too muddled.”
“Thanks, Ted.” Teresa smiles to herself. He’s a gruff one, Ted is, but helpful if you can endure the prickles.
After a quick lunch, Teresa returns to her writing desk. It is becoming harder to focus on her own memoir; she is so wrapped up in the detective work of Margaret’s story. On entering the bedroom, Teresa feels the wet chill that indicates Margaret is near.
“Oh, Margaret!” Teresa sighs, sinking into the chair. “I wish you could just tell me what happened. Why was your mother buried without a church record? Where did Mary come from? And that was your father out there on the road today, wasn’t it? How many ghosts are at the Manor, anyway? Do you guys have parties?”
Teresa turns on her laptop, rereads her last chapter, and says to the chill air, “OK, I have to work. I can’t start your story until this is done. Could you maybe go haunt the parlor for a while? You’re making it cold in here.” Surprisingly, a few minutes later, the room has filled with the warmth of the afternoon sun.
Teresa takes her hands off the keyboard of her laptop and lets them fall heavily in her lap. While Cousin Alberto was being arrested and charged, Teresa was in Italy. She remembers when Debo called her in Florence with the news.
“Father is taking it really hard,” Debo told Teresa. “Maybe you should come home.”
The trip to Italy was Teresa’s graduation present from Angelina and Father. Teresa had obtained her master’s degree in May. She had sublet her apartment for three months and signed up for courses in Italian and Renaissance art in Florence.
After she said goodbye to Debo, and hung up the phone, Teresa went to the balcony of her pensione and leaned on the railing. She felt guilty about the noncommittal reply she gave to Debo. The thought of returning home to New York made her feel sick with fear, almost as nauseated as she felt each morning, for Teresa was pregnant.
The father of the child she carried was Giancarlo, a friend of her cousin, Amalia. At the news of her pregnancy, Giancarlo had put up his long-fingered artist’s hands as if he were warding off evil. “No baby,” he said in English. Teresa wept; he kissed her on both cheeks, went to his studio and didn’t answer his phone. He never responded to another one of her calls. Two days later, Teresa finally was able to contact her cousin.
“But didn’t he tell you?” Amalia said. “Giancarlo went to Poitiers. He’s working in a sculpture studio. Some famous sculptor I’ve never heard of.”
Looking out of her window at the Manor House, Teresa can almost see the street in Florence. She recalls the scent of lemon blossoms on the tree in the courtyard of the pensione. Depending on the weather, the fragrance of lemon traded places with the odor from the outdoor toilet. Beyond the courtyard wall was a winding cobbled street lined with narrow houses of tan and golden stonework. Every house had a balcony, and most were festooned with hanging baskets of flowers: pink geraniums, trailing purple petunias, blue lobelia, and fuchsias like ballerinas in white and magenta tutus.
Teresa spent several days in an agony of indecision. Finally the fear of giving birth alone in a foreign country was greater than the fear of facing her family. She called Angelina.
“Oh, my darling Teresa!” Angelina said. “Of course you must come home. We’ll make Debo’s old room into a nursery. How soon can you get a flight? Oh, Maria madre di Dio, I’m going to have a grandchild!”
“Should I tell Father?”
“Don’t say anything yet. Let me think about it first,” Angelina said. “Maybe it’s best to wait until you start to show.”
“God bless Angelina,” Teresa says out loud. She was right to conceal Teresa’s condition. King Olive was embroiled in the scandal whirling around Cousin Alberto and Salerno Enterprises. In the end, he died before Teresa began wearing maternity clothes.
Angelina gracefully assumed the management of the household. She started in the kitchen. Once we were addicted to her antipasto and lasagna, she began to refit the kitchen with new appliances. She moved on to the living room, tossing out the dark, dreary curtains. She sent the couches out to be recovered. Debo was given carte blanche to redecorate her bedroom. The apartment began to lose its air of stagnation. Nothing Angelina did, however, could rid the rooms of Father’s cigar smoke.
One day she asked me if I would prefer to be living in my own place. I almost wept with relief and gratitude. It was as if the door to a dark jail cell was unlocked, and the light poured in. So began a new phase of my life. Angelina helped me find a small studio in the East Village. I was in my second year of graduate school at Columbia, getting my master’s degree in English. Walking into my little studio was like stepping into Heaven for me. It was not quiet; New York City is never quiet; but it was a peaceful and happy place, and my very own.
Once Angelina had put the household in order, she began accompanying Father to the office. At this time, Cousin Alberto oversaw all the shipping. Though in his mid-thirties, Cousin Alberto was as yet unmarried. He was considered a most eligible bachelor, whose photograph appeared occasionally in New York magazine. Our paths rarely crossed once I’d moved out, but Angelina saw more and more of Cousin Alberto as she began to learn the administration of Salerno Enterprises. In her open friendly way, Angelina asked intelligent questions and came up with thoughtful comments and solutions. Things began to run more smoothly. The office staff adored her.
One day I happened to stop in to say hello. Angelina had her own desk; she was talking on the telephone, but she waved to me and put up a finger to let me know she’d be only a minute. I found Father in his office.
“Father, the whole office seems to be better. Even Mrs. Romano smiled at me, and she’s never done that before. Is this all Angelina’s doing?”
“Sure it is,” he said. “The woman has an MBA.” He tapped his temple and winked. “Your father is not a stupid.”
It was Angelina who first noticed the discrepancies in the accounts. After the whole mess came to light, and Cousin Alberto was in prison, we who were left realized that Angelina had suspected Cousin Alberto all along. When I asked her what tipped her off, she laughed and tapped her temple just like Father.
“Alberto was living far too well, even for the generous salary your father paid him.”
Looking back now, I’d like to say that I sensed something dishonest in Cousin Alberto, revealed in a sly expression, or an edginess of manner, but it would not be true. Cousin Alberto was twenty years old when he came to New York to work with Father. To my seven-year-old eyes, my uncle was a tall man with gold necklaces, a white teeth smile, a big laugh, and lots of dark curly hair, even on his chest. He treated us children as if we were household pets. He greeted us, patted us on the head, and then ignored us. For me, he was only another member of my parents’ social circle, just a more frequent visitor because he was family.
The social sections of the newspapers showed Cousin Alberto in nightclubs with celebrities, or escorting a famous model to the opening of a Broadway show. He always looked the same, smiling his wide, confident smile, waving agreeably to his audience. He truly believed he was untouchable, too smart to get caught. He didn’t reckon with Angelina. She was smarter, and in her way, more devious than Cousin Alberto.
Later, I asked Angelina to tell me about Cousin Alberto’s arrest.
“Two policemen came to the office early one morning. Alberto was lounging at his desk, you know how he does.” She leaned back in her chair, exuding arrogance, just like Alberto. I had to laugh. “He was smoking a cigar and talking on the telephone, loud, in Italian. One of the cops stepped up and said, “Alberto Salerno? I have a warrant for your arrest.” Just like in the movies. You should have seen Alberto’s face. His eyebrows lifted up like this. He was really surprised. He said, “What did I do? This is a mistake.”
“You are Alberto Giovanni Salerno?” the other cop said. Then he read Alberto his Miranda rights. When the first cop pulled out handcuffs, Alberto went a little pale. “Are these necessary?” he said. “Put out your hands,” the cop said. Before he got into the elevator, Alberto yelled at Norma his secretary to call his lawyer. And then he was gone. In jail. And good riddance.” Angelina clapped her hands as if she were brushing away dirt.
All through breakfast, Teresa thinks about the conflicting stories. Was Margaret’s mother Mary or Eliza? If the newborn boy died with Eliza, whose child moved with Margaret and George to Somerset? Teresa finds one of her legal pads in her computer case. She starts making notes. The chronology is getting complicated; she needs to record the information. She writes:
–Margaret’s room discovered in 1865
-Margaret died and room was closed up in 1790
-Margaret died in her early 20s
– born around 1765 (?)
-Mother (Mary? Eliza?) died approx. 1775 (?) Margaret about 10 years old
-family moved to Ireland, Margaret approx. 15 years (?) in 1780
-George returned home to Manor
-shipwreck 1790
Questions:
-name of ship she was on
-names of other wreckers who worked with George? John?
-descendants who would know family history?
-ship’s log?
-birth/death records in church?
Teresa puts down her pen. The pull of this new writing project is like a strong magnet, separating her from her father’s story and its deadline. She realizes she must focus on the autobiography, or it will fizzle away like a match burning out. Already, last night, Teresa emailed her editor, Janine, with the proposal for Margaret’s story. Janine always replies within twenty-four hours. Teresa is sure Janine will be interested, even excited, about such a departure from Teresa’s usual work.
When she walks into the bedroom to begin writing, Teresa sees the open drawer. She is reminded of the spilled tea and peers into the drawer with some apprehension. Sure enough, the damage is bad. The wooden bottom of the drawer has warped and bowed upward. There is a wide crack along the arch of the wood. She pushes down the warped board gingerly, but rather than flattening out as she hopes, it cracks open further. Teresa can now see something dark and shiny showing through the gap.
“Curiouser and curiouser,” Teresa murmurs.
She tries sliding her fingers in the slit but she can only touch the object. It feels smooth and slightly slick to her fingertips. Determined now, Teresa hurries down to the kitchen for a knife. The drawer bottom is wedged into a groove at each end. It won’t slide forward or back. If she raises one edge with the knife, she can just manage to pry up the wood high enough to see in. Visible now is a packet of some sort, tied with a cord.
Tossing all caution aside, Teresa uses the knife to break open one side of the false drawer bottom. She lifts out the packet. It is made of oiled cloth, the eighteenth century’s version of a Ziploc plastic bag. Teresa sits down in the chair. Her hands are trembling. The cord crumbles in her fingers. She brushes the pieces aside. She unfolds the flap. Inside is a folded paper, brittle to the touch. When she slips it out and tries to unfold it, the yellowed paper cracks into thirds. Teresa lines up the pieces on the desk. The writing is faint, in a hand that appears labored, with ill-formed letters, as if the writer used the skill infrequently. It is dated: 12th September, 1790. Some parts are washed out and illegible.
Teresa reads:
Herein lies the full and true acc——- the activities of George Lyon Braithewaite —–anor House, Mantecoombe, De——-ire.———— night of September 9th ——-fellow wreckers F———- Thomson and Andrew ——-
—–ster put a false fire ——rrow’s Point. ———– ————- great storm ——— ship the ————–ve came in on the rocks. ——— 11 barrels of brandy and ——–es of tea. Frederick cal—– me ——- body of a young woman, face ba————- swollen. ——–valuables ——-alive —-to the house——–her——- pstairs bedchamber.
——-morning ——constable came with the shipping co——- list——-ssengers. ——-my own de—– daugh—– Margaret ——-instrument of her untimely death—–grandson Lucas, a babe of ———- liv——— M——t —-sealed——-tomb. ——unspeakable loss —- eternal remorse —–life —————living hell.
This ———sworn statement signed this 12th day of Sep———–he year of our Lord, 1790.
Geor——-Ly——–raithewaite.
Teresa lets her breath out in a long exhale.
“Holy Mary, Mother of God,” she says, reverting to the most awe-inspired exclamation from her Catholic upbringing.
With her mind racing, Teresa lifts the packet and shakes it out over the desk. Two rings, a pair of earrings, and a bracelet fall out in a thin stream of sand. They land on the desk surface with a gentle chink. One ring is a plain gold band; the other has a small garnet in a beveled setting. The earrings are garnets as well, and match the style of the ring. The bracelet is made of three bands of thin gold woven into the claddagh symbol of Ireland, with the crown for loyalty, the clasped hands for friendship, and the heart for love.
The air in the bedroom is cold and damp. Teresa shivers, whether from cold or emotion, she couldn’t say. Margaret’s jewelry catches the morning sunlight. Teresa’s first urge is to go to Miss MIcklewhite or Mr. Braithewaite with her discovery. She has the oilcloth bag repacked and is ready to run downstairs when she pauses. Once the treasures are in other hands, she’ll never have them to herself again. Teresa retraces her steps. Getting her digital camera, she takes careful, clear photographs of the jewelry and each section of George’s confession.
Almost four hours and much excitement later, Teresa returns to her bedroom. The antique desk, site of the discovery, is gone, replaced by a newer, less elegant one. Mr. Braithewaite, who, it turns out, is really Lord Braithewaite, has taken the packet to the Victoria and Albert Museum, where a curator friend of his waits to examine the find. Trish text-messaged her sister in town with the news, and it was all that was needed to spread the word. The local press has come and gone. Teresa told her part of the story so many times that her throat feels scratchy. It is two in the afternoon. and she feels worn out.
Teresa makes herself a strong cup of tea before sitting down in front of her laptop. With all the brouhaha, Teresa feels distanced from her own tale, yet she must finish it, and soon. She boots up the story, rereads the last chapter, and begins.
Tangled Magic 