Secrets of Hallstead House (11 page)

“That wasn’t so bad, was it?” he asked, grabbing two large wooden boxes from the floor of the boat.

I grinned. “It was okay. I’m glad I wore it, even if it did make me look like a big orange marshmallow.” I picked up a small toolbox that Pete had placed on the dock and followed him up the stone steps, some of which were a little wobbly and unstable.

“I’m going to have to shore up some of these steps,” he remarked as we climbed. “These are worse now than they were in the spring when Alex moved back to Hallstead Island.”

I counted forty-two steps, turning this way and that up the hill and around boulders and trees. When we got to the top I was a little out of breath. Pete laughed good-naturedly. “Maybe you’ll want to use the car too, whenever Alex does.” I laughed with him and we continued walking to the front of the house.

Solstice was a very pretty Victorian house. It had a wide double front door of dark oak with a large brass door knocker on each side. Pete took a huge key out of his coat pocket and inserted it into one of the locks. It turned hesitantly, making metallic scraping sounds. He grimaced and noted, “I’ll need to oil these locks, too. It looks like I’m going to have to start making a list of the projects I’ll have to get done before everyone moves here for the winter.”

I was anxious to see the inside of the house. Pete opened the door and let me step in front of him into a small, rather dark foyer with several pieces of antique furniture. Pete told me he was going to the garage to start working on a couple of projects, and I started wandering around the rooms on the first floor. The first room I came to was a small but cozy and inviting living room decorated mostly in chocolate-brown leather furniture. On the walls, as in Summerplace, were drawings and paintings that appeared to all have been done by Alex. Next I came to a library, done in reds and browns and home to thousands of books.

Besides the living room and the library, I found the dining room, the kitchen, a small formal parlor, and a large suite of two rooms that I supposed to be Alex’s office and bedroom. She didn’t appear to have her own sitting room in this house, so she probably used the living room when she wanted to relax. The rooms on the first floor contained many obstacles to Alex’s easy movement, and as I walked through the rooms I noted on a pad what I would need to do to make the house safe for her.

After I had looked around downstairs, I took a look at the second-floor rooms, three bedrooms and a small sitting room. I took a peek in the bedrooms, one of which would be mine, and found that they were identical. The two extra bedrooms, I assumed, belonged to Will and Stephan.

I didn’t bother to look around the third floor, since Alex had told me that those rooms belonged to Vali and Leland and Pete.

I made my way back down to the first floor and started working in the living room. Several occasional tables had to be moved, and I eventually succeeded in moving one of the heavy sofas several inches as well. After rifling through some of the kitchen drawers to find tape, I secured all of the electrical cords that could potentially cause Alex any trouble. I needed double-sided tape to anchor the area rugs, but that would have to wait since I couldn’t find any in the house.

I continued through each room downstairs, systematically removing any obstacles to Alex’s easy movement through her house. I didn’t move any furniture or items upstairs, since Alex probably would not go there very often. If she wanted to, I could move that furniture quickly at a later date.

When I was finished I went in search of Pete. I found him in the garage, tapping on something with a small hammer. He looked up at me in surprise and glanced at his watch.

“Are you done already?”

“Yes. I was able to go through the rooms downstairs and finish what I needed to do.”

“Good. I didn’t realize it was getting so late. We’ll have to be heading back before too long.” He turned his attention back to the machine he was tapping and gave it two more quick whacks.

“There. That’s it for today. Are you hungry?”

“I guess so,” I answered.

“That’s good, because I’m starved. What do you say we grab a bite to eat at the only restaurant on this island and then hightail it back to Summerplace?”

“Sounds good to me.”

After making sure all the doors were locked and the lights off, we made our way down the stairs to the boat. Going down was easier than going up.

When we got in the boat, the first thing I did was don the life jacket. Pete chuckled. “We’re not going very far, you know. It’s just around the island.”

“I know,” I admitted sheepishly. “I just feel better with it on, that’s all.”

He steered the boat around Pine Island and put in at a small, rickety dock that looked like it hadn’t been painted in years.

“This restaurant is our island version of the haute cuisine you’re probably used to in the big city.” He smirked.

“I guess we’ll see if it measures up,” I replied good-naturedly.

He looked at me out of the corner of his eye and grinned.

I liked the restaurant immediately for its rustic interior. There were pine plank floors, and a big brass chandelier lit up the room. We sat down at one of the many vacant tables and looked at the menu, which was well used and stained.

We both ordered the trout, which came with a cheesy polenta and squash. When the waitress disappeared with our orders, Pete looked at me intently and said, “So. Tell me what you really think of Summerplace and its inhabitants so far.”

I thought about my answer before speaking up. “Well,” I began, “Alex is a wonderful lady. I hope that I can help her get to a point where she can walk without pain. I want her to be able to climb stairs and take a boat ride and do whatever else she wants to do. She certainly is determined to get back on track and heal herself.”

I paused, and Pete said nothing. He raised his eyebrows, obviously waiting for me to continue. I looked outside at the scenery and thought again how beautiful these surroundings were. Just then, the waitress brought our food.

“That was quick,” I observed.

“They probably had some ready. We’re the beginning of the dinner crowd, if you can call it that. There will be a few people trickling in while we’re here. In the summer, this place is jam-packed. But I don’t believe you were done discussing Summerplace and its residents. And part-time residents.”

“You don’t give up, do you?” I asked. “I wish Vali and Leland liked me better. They don’t seem to have gotten used to me being around.”

“And they won’t,” Pete put in.

“And as for Stephan and Will, I find Stephan to be a charming man and I find Will to be bored and dissatisfied with everything. He doesn’t act his age. They both seem to dote on Alex, though, which I think is wonderful. She needs that.”

“Bored and dissatisfied, huh? I never thought about Will that way.” Pete was quiet for a moment. “But you’re right that they both dote on Alex. And you’re right that she needs that.”

We ate the rest of our meal, which was delectable, in comfortable silence. We had to eat quickly because the sky was already starting to turn a pink-yellow color. It wouldn’t be long before the sun disappeared.

When the check came, I tried to take it, but Pete was too quick for me. “You can pay next time.”

We left hurriedly and got into the boat. Pete had already pulled away from the dock before I got my life jacket on, and the ride back was much quicker than the ride to Pine Island earlier in the day. In a way I was almost disappointed, despite my apprehension over being in the boat. I would have liked talking with Pete a little longer. He seemed pretty down-to-earth, and, despite our rocky start, he was the closest thing to a friend that I had around.

When I got back to Summerplace, I went in to check on Alex. I found her slowly pacing the floor of her office. She had been unable to work all afternoon, she told me. She was just as agitated as she had been when I had left her earlier, and my heart ached for her. Losing her child must have been an unbearable experience, and it was no wonder she was upset on the anniversary of her daughter’s death.

I went to the kitchen and made her a mug of warm milk with cinnamon and nutmeg to flavor it a bit. Back in her sitting room, where Leland had built a fire, she had taken off her shoes, and I massaged her feet and lower legs while she drank the milk. She also took a mild sedative that the doctor had left for her, and we talked, mostly about Diana. Alex seemed to need to talk about her daughter, and she was happy to have a willing and interested listener. She told me stories of Diana’s childhood and of her somewhat wilder and rebellious teen years. I got a glimpse of what it must have been like for Diana to grow up in a very affluent household where the parents had lots of love but not much time to give their child. I came away from the conversation feeling rather sorry for the girl, who had obviously tried so hard to get her parents’ attention.

After a while Alex began to get sleepy. I helped her into bed, knowing that she would sleep soundly through the night.

I wish
I
had. But I wasn’t to sleep again for a while.

T
he familiar nightmare came again just a few hours later, with its terrifying sounds and lights and images. I woke up with tears streaming down my cheeks, my pajamas clinging to me with cold sweat. I could take little comfort in the lessening frequency of the dream, because when I finally fell into a fitful sleep, I had yet another nightmare. In this one, I was caught in a swirling eddy of water, reaching out wildly to a hand that I couldn’t quite grasp as the water closed over my head again and again. I woke up this time gasping for breath, my heart pounding violently.

I didn’t sleep the rest of the night and got up in the morning feeling groggy and cross. I also had a throbbing headache.

I made myself a cup of coffee and sat down at the dining room table, grateful to be alone. But my solitude didn’t last, as after several minutes, Stephan came in, to my surprise. He explained that he had come back from New York very early that morning and Pete had picked him up in Cape Cartier.

Then I went to look in on Alex. I found her standing in her office holding a sheaf of papers, still as agitated as she had been the evening before. I was a little startled to see her in a velour exercise suit with her hair up in a braid, since she was always coiffed and dressed in business attire by the time I got to her rooms in the morning. She was pale.

“Alex, are you all right?” I asked with concern.

“I don’t know, Macy,” she replied shakily. “Here.”

She thrust the papers at me and I looked at her, bewildered. “What do you want me to do with these?”

“Read them.”

I looked at her warily as I opened the top folder. What help could I possibly be with the work that she did?

I leafed quickly through the first several pages, not understanding what I was reading. I was becoming confused, and my headache combined with the lack of sleep was beginning to make me a little irritated.

“This looks like a copy of a birth certificate. For a baby named Lily. Who’s Lily?”

Alex said nothing, and I read on.

That’s when I saw it.

Mother’s name: Diana Hallstead
.

“Diana had a baby.” It came out of my mouth as more of a statement than a question.

Alex nodded.

“How old was she when the baby was born?”

“Fifteen.”

“What happened to the baby?”

“She was given up for adoption.”

I kept reading, but there wasn’t much I understood. There were copies of tests that had been taken at the time of the baby’s birth, showing that everything was normal. There were short notes from Diana to her mother, written, it appeared, during the several months leading up to the birth of the baby.

“Weren’t you with Diana when she was pregnant?” I asked.

“No. She went to stay with family in Canada.”

“Why didn’t she stay here?”

“I didn’t want a pregnant teenager in my home,” Alex answered simply.

Then there were other pages of correspondence and legalese between an attorney and the Hallstead family.

I almost missed what I was supposed to see. I had quickly scanned one page and turned to the next one when I saw a name I recognized out of the corner of my eye. I flipped back nervously and sent papers scattering to the floor. I focused in like a laser on the sheet I had been reading and snatched it up, leaving the rest of the papers jumbled on the floor. This time I examined the words more carefully, and suddenly I understood. It felt like someone had punched me in the gut.

Child’s adoptive parents: Fred and Marianne Stoddard
. My parents.

Slowly I looked up at Alex. She was staring at me with a pallid face and thin white lips. She swallowed hard and I heard her grind her teeth.

“What is this?” I heard myself say.

“Macy, dear, I—”

“Please don’t call me dear,” I interrupted her.

“Macy, I’m sorry. I needed you to know. I need to explain everything to you.”

“Don’t explain anything. Don’t say a word. Just leave me alone.” I gathered up the papers I had dropped and put them under my arm. Then I turned on my heel and walked out without looking at her again.

I don’t remember how I got my feet to move. I needed to get as far away from Alex as I could. I was feeling sick to my stomach and my head was pounding like a jackhammer.

I found myself sitting at the base of the leaning tree.

The place where the ashes of my biological mother—and my grandfather—were scattered.

I didn’t know what to feel. I had always known I was adopted as an infant. I had even tried looking for my biological family once, but I’d gotten nowhere.

I’d never expected
them
to find
me
.

So many emotions were reeling inside my head. I felt angry, confused, sad, and deceived. How could I have been duped like this? I sat dumbly staring at the water, at its ceaseless undulations, my overwhelmed thoughts taking no particular direction.

What to do now? Go back to New York? Stick it out here until my job with Alex was completed? Should I go somewhere else? Where? I supposed I could move in with Simone. I had two elderly aunts in Connecticut, but I didn’t want to move in with them. There was no one else. No other family. I wished I could talk to my parents. My
real
parents, the ones I grew up with, Fred and Marianne Stoddard. Even talking to Alan would be better than bearing this alone.

I don’t know how long I sat at the leaning tree before I looked up and saw Stephan standing beside me. Lost in my own gloomy thoughts, I hadn’t even heard him approach.

“Can we talk a minute?” he asked quietly.

“What do you want to talk about?”

“I think you know.”

I swept my arm toward the ground, indicating that he was welcome to sit down. He looked around, picked out a large stone, and sat on it. He said nothing, and I merely waited for him to speak. I certainly didn’t intend to say anything.

But he just sat there, looking at me. Finally, in spite of myself, I asked in exasperation, “Did Alex send you to look for me?”

“No. She didn’t have to.”

I stared at him in stony silence.

“Macy,” he began, “I can’t imagine how you must be feeling right now.”

My expression remained unyielding.

“I spoke to Alex shortly after she spoke to you this morning. She’s very upset.”

“
She’s
upset?” I asked a little too hysterically.

“Yes, she is. I suppose some of this is my fault. I mean, I am the one that facilitated this entire saga.”

That got my attention. “What are you talking about?”

“You can’t picture the . . . how shall I say this? . . . the unpleasantness around this place when Diana announced that she was pregnant. Alex and Forrest were devastated, as most parents would be. The histrionics and drama were constant and exhausting. From all three of them.

“Diana had spent her young life longing for attention from her parents, and they had spent her young life trying to make up for all the time they had to spend away from her,” he continued. “It was a situation that was bound to explode at some point.

“When she became pregnant, they sent her away. Far away. She went to stay with extended family in Nova Scotia, which is quite secluded and which they knew would be like a prison for her.”

“So what happened when the baby—when I—was born?”

“There was never any question that the baby would be given up for adoption. Diana certainly wasn’t mature enough to raise a baby, and—”

“What about the father?” I interrupted.

He waved his hand in the air in a gesture of dismissal. “No one ever even knew who he was. Including Diana.”

“Go on,” I directed him.

“As I was saying, Diana couldn’t have kept the baby. And Alex and Forrest had careers that prevented them from raising the child. Not only that, but they had social reasons for not keeping the baby. The fact that Diana had a baby as a young teenager would have been in all the social papers in New York, and the family had to keep up appearances. They had no choice but to send her away and hide her pregnancy.”

I made a scoffing sound. “Keep up appearances?” I asked incredulously.

“Things were different then, Macy. It was scandalous when a teenage girl became pregnant. It reflected badly on her parents. It’s still not exactly accepted, but it’s a lot more common.

“Alex had a reputation to uphold. She represented, and still does, a successful international company. She didn’t need negative publicity. She didn’t need attention focused on her family.”

“So I was given up because Alex had a reputation to keep.”

Stephan sighed. “I knew this wasn’t going to be an easy conversation. But, Macy, please try to understand. Alex feels differently now. Hindsight is twenty-twenty, and I know she would keep the baby if she had to do it all over again. She’s an old woman, Macy. She’s trying to correct some of the mistakes she’s made during her long life.”

“Too bad one of those mistakes was a human being.” I knew I was being petulant now, but I couldn’t help it.

Stephan ignored my tone. “As Alex has gotten older she’s become less and less interested in what other people think. She’s come to realize the importance of having family. She took it for granted for too long, and now that both Diana and Forrest are gone, she has had to face the consequences of her decision not to raise Diana’s baby. She’s alone and she regrets that decision.”

“It’s a little late for her regrets.”

“I agree, but I’m not in her position. I think she was beginning to feel desperate.”

“So why the elaborate plot to get me to come here under false pretenses? That wasn’t fair.”

“Well, in Alex’s defense, I wouldn’t say they were false pretenses. She really did break her hip and she really did need a nurse.”

“But why the big plot?” I demanded again.

Stephan rubbed his chin and thought for a moment before answering. “I don’t necessarily agree with the method that Alex used to get you here, Macy. But while her intentions may have been selfish, they weren’t malicious. You’ll have to agree with that.” He waited for some sign of agreement from me, but I said nothing.

“I wish I could make you understand how badly Alex needs to feel a connection with someone in her family. How badly she needs to feel a connection with Diana. She suffers a lot of guilt over not having been a more attentive mother to Diana. And now Forrest is gone too, so the rock she used to lean on is no longer there. Sure, she leans on me, but I’m just her friend. I’m not family.”

“What about Will?” I asked.

“Alex is fond of Will, but he’s not her son. You are Alex’s only living blood relative. Oh, Will is her nephew, but he is related on Forrest’s side. You are the bridge to Diana that no one else can be.”

“How do you know so much about this?”

“I know Alex. I’m her closest confidant and friend. I know that she wanted to tell you all these things herself, but I doubt you would have listened. Am I right?” He smiled for the first time.

“Yes, I suppose you are right,” I acknowledged.

“As I started to say earlier, I guess I’m partly responsible for this whole situation. You see, I’m the one who arranged your adoption by Fred and Marianne Stoddard.”

“You knew them?”

“No. But the attorney who set up the adoption for the Stoddards was a friend of mine, and I managed to stay in the background of the entire process. At the request of Alex and Forrest, I checked references and did a lot of digging of my own to find out all I could about the Stoddards. They were practically perfect, and Alex and Forrest wanted to be sure that you were going to a wonderful home.”

He paused. “Over the years, I’ve kept tabs on you. The Stoddards never knew anything about it. Nor did Diana. But we knew when you graduated from high school and when you graduated from nursing school. And when your parents passed away. If you look through some of the papers that Alex gave you this morning, you’ll find some of the information we kept about you throughout your lifetime. Macy, when you think about it, you had two families looking out for you. Alex has always loved you. Forrest did too. They’ve been very proud of you.”

“So what’s next? Am I supposed to stay here?”

“That’s entirely up to you. Alex obviously can’t make you stay, but I think she’d be thrilled if you did.”

“But I don’t know what to say to her or how to act around her or anything.”

“Well, you’re Alex’s nurse. I think that for now your primary role has to be one of caregiver. I don’t think she can expect more than that from you right now.”

I nodded soundlessly.

Stephan got up to leave. “I know this is a lot for you to digest. But take some time to think about the things I’ve said. I hope you’re able to forgive Alex for doing this to you.”

He turned to leave, but I had one more question for him.

“Stephan, who else knows about this?”

“Just you and Alex and I. We’ve always been careful to keep the situation confidential.”

After he left, I remained at the leaning tree for a little while longer, reflecting on his words. But eventually my headache became so bad that I needed to go back to my room to lie down. Quietly, so no one would know I was back in the house, I let myself in the front door. On the foyer floor near the door I found an envelope with my name scrawled across it in Alex’s spidery handwriting. I didn’t really want to open it, but my curiosity got the best of me and I opened it slowly. A short note and a key fell into my palm. Glancing at the note, I read Alex’s words:

I still needed to lie down. Maybe I could rest up there on the couch. Maybe nobody would find me if I went up there for a while.