Her Loving Husband's Curse (9 page)

Maybe.

Back home she was just was as agitated as she was before she left. Looking for something to do, she wandered through the newly remodeled stainless steel kitchen with the modern marble island in the center, though everything was clean and there was nothing to keep her occupied. She saw the wood ladder so she climbed up to the open, loft-style attic. She sighed when she saw everything strewn about, old feather mattresses, silverware, cooking utensils, blue and white Delftware dishes, mugs, rolled up seventeenth century maps. She picked up a pile of moth-eaten linens so threadbare they disintegrated in her hands, but beneath them was a seventeenth century chest with the lock unlatched. She pushed open the top, looked inside, and gasped aloud.

“Hello.”

Sarah was startled to see James at the top of the ladder. She was so distracted she didn’t hear him come in. Normally, she heard him open the front door, the old-time wood frame creaking like an old man standing from a low chair.

“Hello yourself,” she said.

“What are you doing?”

“Keeping busy. It’s a mess up here, did you know that?”

“Everyone’s attic is a mess.”

He stepped onto the attic floor and held out his arms. Sarah pushed herself into him, squeezing him, closing her eyes, losing herself in him. When she stepped back he was intent, looking over her shoulder at the brown material she pulled out of the trunk.

“I didn’t know you kept my clothes,” she said.

“I kept everything. This whole house was a tribute to you. I left, sometimes for decades, but I always came back. I thought I should sell everything and move on, but I could never bring myself to let go.”

Sarah held the dress out, inspecting the stitching, running her hand over the fabric. “It’s a little worn,” she said, “but it isn’t too bad. Maybe I could bring it to someone to restore it.”

James took the dress into his hands and held it close to his face, dwelling on the details, intent the way he was when he was reading or taking notes, or the way he looked at her.

“Whenever I missed you, I took this out and held it in my arms as if I were holding you again.” His mellow voice cracked. “I’d cradle it, bury my nose in the folds of fabric, aching for any sense of you. It didn’t bring back your dark curls or your full lips, but it was something I could hold.”

He shook his head as though pressing the sadness away. “I haven’t pulled it out for nearly a year now. I don’t need it any more.” He nodded at the brown Pilgrim-style dress. “You haven’t seen this before tonight?”

“I haven’t been up here since I moved in.”

James nudged her, a playful smile on his lips. “You should put it on. You know, like old times.”

“You always hated all the laces and straps.”

“I’ve changed my mind.”

Sarah skipped away, then took a book from the chest and handed it to him. “I found this too,” she said. “Don’t you recognize it?”

James turned the tattered volume over in his hands. The binding was torn and a few pages fell loose. “It’s our family Bible,” he said. “This was one of the few belongings my father brought with us on our journey from England. I remember how, when we were packing for our trip, my father wouldn’t leave without it.”

“Tell me,” Sarah said.

James smiled as he always did when talking about his father. “I remember standing in our home when he gestured at the fashionable furnishings in our fashionable house in a fashionable part of London. ‘Most of this, ‘tis not necessary, James,’ he said, his hand sweeping across the room. ‘The chairs, the tables, even the expensive dishware your mother loved so. They’re only things, and when we die we cannot take them with us. Our Lord has no need for them. They shan’t come with us to the colonies, either. We’ll find new things, whatever things we’ll need, right there wherever we are.’

“Then, when he thought I wasn’t looking, he slipped this Bible into his bag. When he saw me watching he laughed.

“‘‘Tis that not merely a thing?’ I asked.

“‘This,’ he said, taking the book from his bag, ‘‘tis not merely a thing, James. ‘Tis our memories. Your mother is in here. Your grandparents, maternal and paternal, and their parents, maternal and paternal. We’re fortunate to have such records since most families do not keep them.’

“Already by 1690, the book was old and worn. My father placed a few wayward pages back between the covers and slipped the book into the bottom of his bag. ‘We must keep our memories, Son, because as we move on through this life, what else have we?’”

Sarah took the book and flipped the pages, careful because she didn’t want the binding to disintegrate in her hands. She saw the listing of James’s family back to the year 1579. Some entries were complete, with birthdate and death date, who they married, when they married, and the birthdates of various offspring. Some entries had birthdates but no death dates. Others had death dates but no birthdates. Others were merely an imprint of a long-forgotten name. She saw the date of James’s mother’s birth, 12 August 1642, and the date of her death, 30 October 1689. His father, John William Wentworth, was listed as born 27 May 1630, and there was John’s father’s name and birthdate, too blurred by time and ink to make out clearly, and John’s mother’s too, though all Sarah could make out was an R at the beginning of her name. Sarah found James’s listing, his details written in his father’s perfectly curled seventeenth century calligraphy—James John Wentworth, son of John and Emily Wentworth, born 19 April 1662. Where the date of his death should have been recorded was, also in John’s hand, the word “Dead?”

“Should the night I was turned be listed as the date of my death?” James asked. “After all these years I still can’t decide.”

“You’re still here,” Sarah said. “You haven’t died.”

“A doctor might disagree with you.”

“When you’re no longer animate, no longer conscious, that’s when you die.”

“Then I’ll never have a death date.”

“Is that a bad thing?”

“I would like to have a death date.”

“James…” Sarah turned away. “Don’t say that.”

He sighed, then pointed to the open page in her hands. “My father added you the day we were married.”

There she was, Elizabeth Wentworth nee Jones, born 27 November 1669. And there was the date of her death, 13 August 1692. Then the shock of the other name, Grace Wentworth, died 13 August 1692. Their baby. Sarah felt a surge of love for her father-in-law. He always had the warmest, most loving heart of anyone she had ever known, except, of course, for James. She always knew where James’s kindness came from. And here was proof, over three hundred years later, that John hadn’t forgotten the baby. James brushed her tears away with his fingertips.

She looked through the high window, the sky fully black, the wind whispering memories through the shadow branches on the crooked oak outside.

“What else is in that old thing?” James asked.

Sarah reached into the open chest and removed two more dresses and three white caps, her underpetticoats and half-boned stays. She found more wool, only this wasn’t a dress but a garnet-colored coat, breeches, and waistcoat.

“You’re right,” James said. “Seventeenth century clothing was hideous. Put those away before I start screaming.”

Sarah held her dress in one hand and James’s old clothes in the other. “I’ll put this on,” she said, holding out the dress, “if you put this on.” She held out the garnet-colored clothing and smiled.

“Never.”

She folded the old clothes, laid them into the trunk, then straightened up the books, the maps, and the kitchen utensils, making neat piles along the wall under the window. She coughed from the three-centuries-old dust.

“Why don’t you do that another time?” James asked.

“I need to clean up here before the social worker comes for the inspection.” Sarah stopped straightening and turned to James. “What do you know,” she said. “We were talking about the seventeenth century and you’re all right. And so am I. I even walked by the Old Burying Point tonight.”

“What were you doing there by yourself, Sarah? You know I don’t like you going out at night alone. I can’t help you if I’m not there.”

Sarah kissed her husband, loving his tender concern for her, as though she were the most valuable thing in the world and only he could protect her. She let her lips linger, but he pulled away.

“What is it, Sarah? You only go for walks when something is troubling you.”

She touched his cheek, running her fingers down his neck and passed the open collar of his button-down shirt to his chest. She knew he saw the slightest change in her expression, heard the tiniest halt in her voice. He knew her so well.

“Are you sure about adopting a baby?” she asked. “You’re not going to change your mind?”

“I won’t change my mind, Sarah. It feels right to me now, as it has to you all along.”

Sarah nodded. “Good,” she said. “You’ll be a great father, James. I know you will.” She looked at the seventeenth century memories piled along the walls. “We’ll clean that up tomorrow,” she said.

James smiled at the closed trunk. “I’ll give you one more chance to put on your old clothes,” he said. “It might be fun reliving some of those memories.”

“Some things are better in the twenty-first century.”

James pulled her toward him and pressed his lips into hers. When she opened her mouth he grabbed her by the waist and pulled her toward him, untucking her blouse, unbuttoning her from the top down, kissing her everywhere her flesh was exposed, pulling her clothes away. She dropped her pants and stepped out of them. James stepped back, admiring her.

“I was right the first time,” he said. “It’s easier undressing you now.”

Sarah reached for James. “What are you doing all the way over there? Come here.”

James grasped her, clutching her, kissing her. She pulled his button-down shirt off his arms and his gray t-shirt over his head. She ran her hands over his cool blue skin, outlining the contours of his muscles from his neck down his chest to his stomach to the top of his jeans. No matter how many times she saw him, his dead-pale complexion over his sinewy frame, his flat-black eyes glistening, his gold hair stubbornly in his eyes, his smile, she was amazed by him. “I love you more than anything in this world,” he whispered in her ear.

“I love you more,” she said.

And she closed her eyes and let him take her away.

CHAPTER 7

In November Halloween was gone, ghosts and ghouls replaced by stoic Native Americans holding pies and smiling, buckle-hatted turkeys unaware of their fate. And pumpkins. The trees were bare now, the burst of temporary color gone, leaving their sugar and crimson behind, the leaves raked away. The branches, now naked and spindly, shivered in the poking, colder air. Storm after storm wet Salem, riding out to the ocean on the crashing waves of the bay. Heavier coats were found, scarves and mittens pulled from their summer hideaways, and people walked closer together, huddled in preparation for the real cold to come. It was calmer in Salem after the summer tourists and the Halloween partiers cleared away, and the locals stretched their legs and walked the quiet streets in peace.

Sarah paced the wooden gabled house two steps at a time, rearranging the autumn harvest centerpiece on the table near the hearth, straightening the Happy Thanksgiving banner on the wall. She paced again, now three steps at a time, down to the end of the great room and back, dusting the bookshelves again and back, checking the baking cookies in the stainless steel oven and back. When she heard the squeak of the front door, she sighed with relief. She ran to James and pressed herself into his arms.

“She’s not here yet,” Sarah said.

“I told you I’d be back in time.”

She pushed herself away and paced again.

“Maybe I should have put out some Pilgrims,” she said. “What if she notices there aren’t any Pilgrims? Everyone has Pilgrim decorations at Thanksgiving time. What if she thinks we’re not good Americans? What if she thinks we won’t know what to do with a child because kids love Pilgrims at Thanksgiving time?”

“First of all, those Thanksgiving harvest plays the kids do aren’t factually correct. If she wants to know why we don’t have Pilgrims in our house, I’ll explain it to her.” He pulled Sarah back into his arms and kissed her forehead. “We are Pilgrims.”

“We didn’t come over on the Mayflower.”

“No, but we were here when Massachusetts was a colony. We’ll bring down our old clothes from the attic and show her.”

“That’s not funny.”

Sarah walked back to the oven, checked the cookies with a spatula, decided they were brown enough, and pulled them out, placing them onto an autumn orange cake platter with green and yellow leaves.

“Cookies?” James asked.

“Chocolate chip cookies.”

“They smell sweet.”

“That’s why people love them.” She pulled one apart, then licked the melted chocolate dribbling down her fingers. “Do you want to try one?”

“I’d love to, but I can’t.”

“You can’t eat at all?”

“Honey, I haven’t eaten solid food in three hundred and nineteen years.”

“That’s too bad. Life isn’t worth living without chocolate chip cookies.”