Time's Convert

“I would have used a disguising spell, obviously.” I lifted Philip into his booster seat and delivered the beets and beef to him. He tucked into his dinner with enthusiasm. Becca wanted only blood and water, so I let her have it in a sippy cup on the floor. She sat next to Ardwinna to drink it, watching the dog chew her bone.

“Obviously.” Chris grinned.

“I’ll have you know Apollo makes a convincing Labrador retriever,” I said. “He’s been a good boy in the dog park, when we’ve taken him with Ardwinna.”

Chris choked on his beer, then quickly recovered.

“I imagine he’s got good hang time, what with his wingspan. He might like a game of Frisbee.” As usual, Chris took the idiosyncracies of our family in stride. “I’d be happy to play with him, if you’re too busy.”

Matthew took a platter of steaks out of the fridge. He kissed me as he passed by, this time on the nape of my neck. “I’m headed outside to grill these. How do you like your steak, Chris?”

“Just walk it through a warm room, my friend,” Chris replied.

“Good man,” Matthew said. “My sentiments exactly.”

“Walk a bit more slowly through that warm room with mine,” I reminded him.

“Savage.” Matthew grinned.

“So Phoebe and Marcus made it to the big day,” Chris said.

“Their official reunion was three days ago,” I said. “Though of course they had already seen each other.”

“Sounds like things got a bit complicated for a while, what with her father’s illness,” Chris commented.

“We were all sure it would work out,” I replied.

“You two seem good,” Chris said, gesturing with his beer in Matthew’s direction.

“On balance, it was a lovely summer,” I said, thinking back over all that had happened. “No work got done, of course.”

“No, it never does,” Chris said with a laugh.

“But otherwise, it was perfect.” To my surprise, I meant it.

“And you’re happy,” Chris observed. “Which makes me happy.”

“Yeah,” I said, looking around me at the chaos of unpacked boxes and pureed beets, children and animals, stacks of unopened mail that had been collecting all summer, books and laptops, toys that squeaked and toys that didn’t. “I really am.”

That evening, after Chris left and the children were put to bed, Matthew and I sat out on the wide porch that wrapped around the corner of the house and overlooked the fenced garden. The sky was filled with stars, and the night air held a welcome note of coolness to balance out the heat of the day.

“It feels so protected here,” I said, glancing over the yard. “Our own private paradise, hidden away from the world, where nothing bad can happen.”

The slanting moonlight glanced off Matthew’s features, silvering his hair and adding lines and shadows to his face. For a moment—just one moment—I imagined him an old man, and me an old woman, holding hands on a late summer evening and remembering when our children slept safely inside and love filled every corner of our lives.

“I know it can’t stay this way,” I said, thinking back over the events of the past summer. “We can’t stay in the garden forever.”

“No. And the only true fence against the world and all its dangers is a thorough knowledge of it,” Matthew said as we rocked in silence, together.

38

One Hundred

20 AUGUST

Marcus drove through the center of Hadley, along the village green that preserved the town’s colonial layout. Stately houses with carved doorways clustered around the leafy space with an attitude of determined persistence.

He swung the car onto a road that led west. Marcus slowed slightly as they passed a graveyard, then pulled up in front of a small, wooden house. It was far more modest than those in the center of town, with no extensions or additions to alter the original footprint: two rooms downstairs and two rooms upstairs arranged around a central chimney made of brick. The house’s façade sparkled with casement windows on the ground and first floor, and Phoebe adjusted her glasses to lessen their glare. There was a single stone step leading up to the door. Outside, a small garden in the front was filled with sunflowers that stood out against the white painted clapboards like polka dots. Like the house, the white picket fence had been freshly painted, and the wood was in surprisingly good condition. An old-fashioned, sprawling rosebush filled the space under the windows on one side of the door, and a tall shrub with dark green, heart-shaped leaves was on the other. Fields surrounded the house in every direction, and two ramshackle barns added a romantic note.

“It’s beautiful.” Phoebe turned to Marcus. “Is it how you remember?”

“The fence wasn’t that sturdy when we lived here, that’s for sure.” Marcus put the car in park and turned off the ignition. He looked uncertain and vulnerable. “Matthew’s been busy.”

Phoebe reached over and took her mate’s hand.

“Do you want to get out?” Phoebe asked quietly. “If not, we can always keep driving, and stay somewhere else.”

It wouldn’t be surprising if Marcus wanted to wait a bit longer. Returning to the home of his childhood was a major step.

“It’s time.” Marcus opened his door and came around to open hers. Phoebe fished around in her purse and found her mobile. She took a picture of the house and sent it to Diana, as she had promised.

Phoebe held tight to Marcus’s hand as they walked through the garden gate. Marcus closed it securely behind them. Phoebe frowned.

“Habit,” Marcus explained with a smile. “To keep the Kelloggs’ hog out of Ma’s garden.”

Phoebe caught him in her arms when he returned. She kissed him. They stood, arms locked around each other, noses touching. Marcus took a deep breath.

“Show me our house,” Phoebe said, kissing him again.

Marcus led her down the short, gravel path to the stone threshold. It was rough-hewn and uneven, a massive piece of rock that was weatherworn and had a dip in the center from the tread of hundreds of feet. The door had a split in the top panel, and its dark red paint was peeling. Phoebe scratched at it, and the paint underneath was the same color, as was the paint beneath that.

“It’s as though time stood still, and everything is just as I left it,” Marcus commented. “Except the lock, of course. Mr. Security strikes again.”

When they turned the modern brass key in the substantial mechanism and pushed the door open, the air that met them smelled old and stale. There was a touch of damp, too, and a slight scent of mold.

Phoebe searched for a light switch. To her surprise, she couldn’t find one.

“I don’t think there’s any electric,” Marcus said. “Matthew refused to wire Pickering Place until about twenty years ago.”

Phoebe’s eyes adjusted to the dim light coming through the ancient casement windows. Slowly, the house’s interior came into focus.

There was dust everywhere—on the wide pine floorboards, on the chamfered summer beam that spanned the width of the house, on the shallow sills that held the diamond panes on the casement windows, on the round newel post that punctuated the end of the banister.

“Christ.” Marcus sounded shaky. “I half expect my mother came out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron, to see if I was hungry.”

They walked together through the four rooms of Marcus’s childhood. First the kitchen, with thickly boarded walls that ran horizontally around the room. They were painted with a mustardy yellow paint that had turned black around the fireplace where Catherine Chauncey had cooked meals for her family. A long hook was all that remained of the iron equipment that once would have filled the brick enclosure—the trivets and griddles and deep pots. The beams that held up the rooms above were exposed, and cobwebs clung to the corners. There were a few pegs driven into the walls, and a rickety chair sat in the corner. A brighter yellow patch on the wall indicated where there had once stood a cupboard.

They crossed the entrance hall and into the parlor, where another fireplace shared the same wall with the one in the kitchen. This room was grander, with rough plastered walls that had been whitewashed. Bits of plaster had fallen off here and there, and the dust was visible in the air thanks to the slanting rays of the afternoon sun. A long table sat in the center of the room, its dark wooden surface cracked and split. Pulled up to it was a small chair with holes in the back slat.