Family Tree Page 6

  “Well, we don’t.”

  He shot her a glance. “We will. If you talk to anyone who might have information on your father, even the slightest idea of where he was from, I’ll get Lakey on it. Will you ask? This is important, Dana. It isn’t idle curiosity. Promise me you will?”

  Dana felt a stab of resentment. “I’m not blind. I see how important this is to you.”

  “It should be just as important to you,” he shot back. “We wouldn’t be in this situation if you’d tracked your father down when you were young.”

  “And if I had found him and learned he was even the slightest bit black, would you have married me? Is there a racial limit to your love?”

  “No. There is not. I love this child.”

  “Love is a word, Hugh. But do you feel it? I need to know, both for Lizzie and for me.”

  “I can’t believe you’re asking me this.”

  “I can’t believe it either,” Dana said. She could see him closing up before her eyes. Suddenly, he was a Clarke to the core.

  “You’re tired,” he said coolly and headed for the door. “So am I.”

  She might have called him back, might have apologized, might have begged. Her sense of loss was larger than ever.

  Desperate to blunt it, she took her knitting from the bedside table and sank her fingers into the wool—a blend of alpaca and silk, actually. It was a deep teal color with a thread of turquoise, just enough to lend movement without muting the cables, popcorns, and vines she would incorporate into the piece.

  She began working stitches from one needle to the next, doing row after row, cables and all, with the kind of steadiness that had kept her afloat for longer than she could recall. She couldn’t have said what size needle she was using, whether it was time for a popcorn, or if she was achieving the desired drape. She simply inserted the needle into a stitch, wrapped yarn around it, and pulled it through, again and again and again.

  She needed to sleep, but she needed this more. Knitting restored her balance. She wished she was home, but not in the house overlooking the ocean. She wanted to take her baby to the one overlooking the orchard. It was at the end of a tree-lined lane, a stone path away from the yarn shop. Cradling Lizzie, she would sit with her feet up on the wicker lounger on Ellie Jo’s back porch, drinking fresh-squeezed limeade, eating warm-from-the-oven brownies, patting Veronica, Ellie Jo’s cat. Then she would take the baby down that short stone path—and, oh, the need was intense. Dana was desperate to sit at the long wood table with its bowl of apples in the middle. She longed to hear the whirr of the ceiling fan, the rhythmic tap-tap of needles, the soft conversation of friends.

  If she had any history at all—any place where she was loved unconditionally—that was it.

  Chapter 6

  The arrival of new yarn at The Stitchery was always an event. New colors from Manos, textures from Filatura di Crosa, blends from Debbie Bliss and Berroco—once a box was open, word spread through the knitting community with astonishing speed, bringing the mildly curious, the seriously interested, the addicted. In the days following shipments, particularly as a new season approached, Ellie Jo knew to expect an increase in visitors. She also knew who would like what, who would buy what, and who would admire a new arrival but buy an older favorite.

  Ellie Jo was as eager for new yarn as any of her customers. Rarely did she put skeins in a bin without holding one out. Her excuse, a perfectly legitimate one, was the need to swatch a sample to tack to the bin, so that customers could see how the yarn would look knit up. What that did, of course, was to let Ellie Jo sample the yarn, herself. If she liked the feel of it as she knit and the way it came out, she ordered skeins for herself.

  Today, as she returned from visiting Dana and the baby, she wanted to stop at her house first. But the UPS truck was parking in front of The Stitchery, and, with the store still ten minutes shy of opening, someone had to let the man in.

  So she stopped beside him in the small pebbled lot, unlocked the door, and showed him where to put the boxes. He had barely left when her manager, Olivia McGinn, arrived wanting to know all about Dana, again distracting Ellie Jo from her chores at the house. Other customers arrived, and the shop was abuzz.

  There was excited talk about the baby, excited talk about Dana, excited talk about the boxes. Ellie Jo wasn’t sure she would have been able to concentrate enough to actually sell yarn. Fortunately, Olivia could do that. Indeed, at that very moment, she was waiting on a mother and her twentysomething daughter who were just learning to knit and wanted novelty yarns for fall scarves.

  Customers like these were good for sales; novelty yarn was expensive and quickly worked, which meant that if the customer enjoyed herself, she would soon be back for more. One scarf could lead to a hat, then a throw, then a sweater. If that sweater was cashmere at upwards of forty dollars a skein, with eight or more skeins needed, depending on size and style, the sale could be hefty. Moreover, a year from now, this mother or her daughter might be one of those to rush to the shop when there was word new yarns had arrived.

  That was how business worked. Ellie Jo had learned through trial and error, after her initial resistance to selling these same pricey items. Natural fibers remained her favorites, but if novelty yarns brought in trend-seekers who subsidized the shop’s more organic tastes, who was she to complain? In recent years, she had developed the utmost respect for innovation.

  That was why, putting off her return to the house a bit longer, she took a box-cutter and opened the first of the new boxes. This was no novelty yarn. A blend of cashmere and wool, the skeins included the golds, oranges, deep rusts, and dark browns that would be big for fall. The line was a new one for The Stitchery, but from Ellie Jo’s first view of it at the knitting show in April, she had known it would sell.

  The front door dinged yet again, and Gillian Kline excitedly called her name. Gillian taught English at the nearby community college, an occupation whose hours were flexible enough to allow for frequent visits to the shop. She was fifty-six, of modest height and a weight that had her forever dieting, but her most marked feature was a head of red waves that had neither faded in color nor thinned with age.

  Now, with that hair caught up in a fuchsia clasp that only Gillian would dare wear, and a bouquet of pink roses in her hand, she went straight to Ellie Jo and gave her a long hug. Gillian had been one of Elizabeth’s closest friends, and in the years since her death had been a surrogate daughter. Neither gave voice to the fact that Elizabeth should have been here to welcome her granddaughter.

  “For you, Great-Gram Ellie,” said Gillian. “Your Lizzie is perfect.”

  Ellie Jo lit up. “You’ve seen her?” She took the flowers, which were taken from her seconds later and put in water.

  “Just now,” Gillian said and rummaged in the satchel that hung from her shoulder. “Hours old, and I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.” In no time, she had a picture of Dana and the baby on the monitor of her digital camera, for the other women to admire.

  Ellie Jo was relieved. Dana looked tired but happy and totally comfortable holding the baby. It was hard to see if Lizzie looked any different from expected; Dana was so washed out that, by comparison, any child would look dark—not that the coloring bothered Ellie Jo one whit. She just wasn’t up for questions.

  “She’s so sweet!” cried one.

  “She has Hugh’s mouth,” decided another.

  “Zoom it in,” ordered a third, and Gillian complied.

  Juliette Irving, a friend of Dana’s and herself a young mother, with year-old twins asleep in a stroller by the door, remarked, “Look at her! Is that Dana’s nose? When will they be home?”

  “Tomorrow,” Gillian said.

  “Elizabeth Ames Clarke,” announced Nancy Russell, clearly touched by the name. A florist whose latest passion was knitting flowers, felting them, and sewing them on shawls, sweaters, and purses, she was a contemporary of Gillian’s, another childhood friend of the first Elizabeth.

 
“It’s a long one,” Gillian warned. “Can we do it overnight?”

  “It” was a hand-knit quilt, with the baby’s full name and date of birth worked into designated squares. The women had already made squares in yellow, white, and pale green. Now, with the sex of the child known, the remaining squares would incorporate pink. Each piece would be eight inches square, in a fiber and shade of the knitter’s choosing, with those closest to Dana and Ellie Jo doing the lettered squares.

  “We’ll need them by noon tomorrow, so that we can stitch them together,” Nancy advised. “Juliette, can you call Jamie and Tara? I’ll call Trudy. Gillian, want to call Joan, Saundra, and Lydia?”

  One of the women, Corinne James, had taken the camera from Gillian and was viewing the picture close up. Corinne James was Dana’s age. Tall and slim, she had stylish shoulder-length hair, wore fine linen pants, an equally fine camisole top, and a diamond-studded wedding band. Although her friendship with the knitters hadn’t spread beyond the shop, she was there often.

  “What an interesting-looking baby,” she observed. “Her skin is dark.”

  “Not dark,” argued another, “tan.”

  “Who in the family has that coloring, Ellie Jo?” Corinne asked.

  Ellie Jo was suddenly warm.

  “We’re trying to figure that out,” Gillian answered for her and caught Nancy’s eye. “What do we know of Jack Jones?”

  “Not much,” replied Nancy.

  “Jack Jones?” Corinne echoed.

  “Dana’s father.”

  “Does he live around here?”

  “Lord, no. He was never here. Elizabeth knew him in Wisconsin. She went to college there.”

  “Were they married?”

  “No.”

  “Was he South American?”

  “No.”

  “Is ‘Jack Jones’ his real name?”

  Ellie Jo fanned herself with the invoice from the yarn box. “Why wouldn’t it be?” she asked Corinne, not that she was surprised by the question. Corinne James had a curious mind and, surprising for a woman her age, something to say on most every topic.

  The younger woman smiled calmly. “‘Jones’ is a good alias.”

  “Like ‘James’?” Gillian asked pointedly. “No, Corinne. ‘Jack Jones’ is his real name. Or was. We have no idea if he’s still alive.”

  “Doesn’t Dana know?”

  “No. They’re not in touch.”

  “So where is the dark skin from?” Corinne persisted, as though involved in a great intellectual dilemma. “Hugh’s side?”

  Gillian chuckled. “Hardly. Hugh’s family is your basic white-bread America.”

  “Then your husband, Ellie Jo?”

  Ellie gave a quick headshake.

  “Earl Joseph was ruddy-cheeked,” Gillian told Corinne, “and the kindest man you’d ever want to meet. He was a legend around here. Everyone knew him.”

  “He was soft-spoken and considerate,” added Nancy, “and he adored Ellie Jo. And Dana. He would have been beside himself with excitement about the baby.”

  “How long has he been gone?” Corinne asked.

  Gillian turned to Ellie Jo. “How long has it been?”

  “Twenty-five years,” Ellie Jo answered, fingering the new wool. Yarn was warmth and homespun goodness. It was color when days were bleak and softness when times were hard. It was always there, a cushion in the finest sense.

  Kindly, Corinne asked, “How did he die?”

  Ellie Jo felt Gillian’s look, but the accident was no secret. “He was away on business when he fell in his hotel room and hit his head. He suffered severe brain trauma. By the time help arrived, he was dead.”

  “Oh my. I’m so sorry. That must have been difficult for you. Something like that happened to my dad—a freak accident.”

  “Your dad?” Ellie Jo asked.

  “Yes. He was the head of an investment company that he started with a group of friends from business school. He was on the corporate jet with two of his partners when it went down. My brother and I were in our twenties. We still think it was sabotage.”

  “Sabotage?” Juliette asked.

  “We were skeptical, too,” Corinne confessed intelligently, “until things got weird. The company didn’t want an investigation. They said it would hurt business, and sure enough, the FAA investigated, blamed the accident on faulty maintenance, and the business tanked. My dad was made out to be responsible. And then—”

  Ellie Jo had heard enough. She raised a hand. “While Corinne tells her story, I have to run to the house. I’ll be right back, Olivia,” she called, heading for the door just as the bell dinged.

  Jaclyn Chace, who worked part-time at the shop, came in, eyes alight. “Congratulations on the baby, Ellie Jo! Have you seen her?”

  “I have,” Ellie Jo said as she passed. “There’s another new box on the table. Open it for me, like a good girl?”

  With the door closing behind her, she went down the stone path to the house. Over one hundred years old, it had dove gray shutters and a veranda front to back. Now, climbing two wood steps, she crossed the back porch and entered the kitchen. Her tabby, Veronica, was sprawled on a sill in the sun. Ellie Jo went on into the front hall and up the stairs, through the rising heat, to her bedroom.

  The windows were open here, too, sheer curtains letting in only the slightest movement of air. Ellie Jo ignored the heat. Taking a scrapbook from a shelf in the rolltop desk, she opened it and looked at the faded black-and-white snapshots. There was Earl, in a shot taken soon after they met. He had been a Fuller Brush salesman, shown up at her door intent on charming her into a sale, and, yes, she did buy several brushes. She smiled at the memory of those happy days. Her smile faded when she turned to the loose papers tucked behind the photos. She took out several.

  Closing the scrapbook, she put it back on the shelf. Holding to her heart what she had removed, she went down the hall to Elizabeth’s old room. It still held the bed, dresser, and nightstand Elizabeth had used. The closet was another story. The clothes were long gone. The closet now held yarn.

  Sliding the center stack of boxes out of the way, Ellie Jo pulled on the cord to unfold the attic ladder. Grasping its frame, she climbed up. The air was still, the heat intense. Little here was worth noting—a carton filled with chipped china from the earliest days of her marriage to Earl, a hatbox holding her short wedding veil, the old steamer chair that Earl had loved. Of Elizabeth’s things, there was a single box of books from her last semester of college.

  Should Dana come looking up here, she wouldn’t stay long. Given the heat in summer, the chill in winter, and the absense of anything useful, she wouldn’t think to bend over and go to the very edge of the eave, as Ellie Jo did now, or to remove a section of the pink insulation that had been added only a handful of years before in a futile effort to modulate heat and cold. Fitting the papers between two joists, Ellie Jo replaced the insulation, went slowly back down the ladder, refolded it, and closed the hatch.

  She had read these papers often, and she still could, but no one else would see them. They would remain under the eaves until either fire, a wrecker’s ball, or sheer age consumed the house, at which point there would be no one left who had known Earl, no one to think less of him for what he had done. He would forever be a good man in the eyes of the town, which was how it should be.

  The Eaton Clarkes lived in a seaside community forty minutes south of Boston. Their elegant Georgian Colonial stood amid other similarly elegant brick homes, on a tree-lined street that was the envy of the town. Sightseers were few, inevitably choosing to drive along the water, and that suited the residents of Old Burgess Way perfectly. They liked their privacy. They liked the fact that their groundskeepers could easily spot a car that didn’t belong.

  Spread in a graceful arc on a ridge, Old Burgess stood higher than even the seaside homes on the bluff. Indeed, had it not been for dense maples, oaks, and pines, and lavish clusters of ornamental shrubs, its residents might have had a vie
w of the ocean, not a bad thing in and of itself. Unfortunately, though, that would have meant also seeing the overly large houses that new money had built at the expense of the more quaint summer cottages, now mostly gone. The residents of Old Burgess had no use for the nouveaux riches, hence the cultivation of their leafy shield.

  They were dignified people. Most had either lived long enough in their homes to have raised a generation of children, or were that second generation themselves, raising the third. When they held parties, loud music ended at eleven.

  Eaton and Dorothy had lived on Old Burgess Way for thirty-five years. Their brick home had white columns and shutters, black doors and wrought-iron detail, five bedrooms, six bathrooms, and a saltwater pool. Though there were times in recent years when the place echoed, they wouldn’t have dreamed of selling.

  Eaton liked being with those who shared his values. He wasn’t the richest or most prominent on the street, but he didn’t have to be. A historian and best-selling author, he much preferred to blend in. Book signings were difficult for him in that regard, comprised as they were of total strangers. The class he taught at the university was another matter. Here were serious, talented students, mostly seniors as intent on gaining behind-the-scene tips on writing about history as they were into history itself. Blessed with a love of the past and a faultless memory, Eaton could talk spontaneously about most any time period in American life.

  As for the behind-the-scene tips, this was easy, too. It was his life. Granted, connections opened doors, and he had them, as most of these students did not. His forebears had played a role at every stage of American history. Indeed, each of his books included the cameo appearance of at least one of them. That was the single common element in his body of work, eight books to date. And the ninth, due out in five short weeks? In it, Clarkes played the lead. One Man’s Line traced the history of the family as it wove among luminaries, gaining in prominence and wealth with each successive generation. The focus was history. This was, after all, what Eaton was known for. But the time span was greater than that, say, of his book on the demise of the League of Nations. And the personal element was strong, offering intimate details of the lives of his early ancestors.