Unclaimed Treasures (10 page)

“She is a patient,” said Old Pepper just as sternly. “And I am Dr. Pepper.” The nurse had stared at him for a moment, then left.

It was, finally, when Old Pepper began taking his pulse again that Willa burst into tears.

“Stop!” she cried. “Not you, too.”

And Old Pepper, bony and brown and wrinkled, took Willa into his arms as Horace held fast to her hand. And Bella-Marie, slipping her leash, wandered into the hall to pronounce each doctor to be Ted and each nurse Wanda. And the other way around.

Nicholas was pale and still. His lashes were dark against his cheeks.

“He is all right now,” said the nurse, ushering them into his room, “though we had some trouble with his breathing.” She eyed Bella-Marie, who eyed back.

“Nicholas,” whispered Willa.

“The fire,” said Nicholas, opening his eyes.

“Out,” said Horace, relieved to see that Nicholas was alive. He sat on the far side of the bed and took out his last apple.

“Everything is fine everything,” said Old Pepper.

“Mother?”

“Upstairs,” whispered Willa, taking Nicholas's hand. “The baby's not here yet.”

“Was she,” began Nicholas, closing his eyes again, “in the ambulance? I didn't know. I couldn't tell.”

“Yes,” said Willa. “You went together.”

Nicholas smiled. “I wondered. We held hands.” His eyes flew open. “Not to make you jealous,” he added, making Willa smile, because she had been jealous. Fiercely.

“Come back and tell me,” said Nicholas.

“I will.”

“I will,” said Bella-Marie, sitting solemly on the foot of the bed.

“You'll see her first,” he murmured just as the nurse came in.

“What? Who first?” asked Willa, leaning close.

“It's time to go, all of you, please. You too, Dr. Pepper.”

As they left they could hear Nicholas begin to laugh. “Dr. Pepper,” he said, laughing. “Dr. Pepper.” And it was only then that Willa realized that he had meant she would see the baby first. Her sister.
Their
sister.

“And then what?” asked Willa's mother, lying back on the white sheets.

“And then Father skidded down the hall and yelled, ‘It's a girl!' and we all got excited and then very bored because we knew it would be a girl. We'd forgotten.”

Her mother laughed. Her hair was caught back in one of Willa's ribbons. She looked as young as Willa, which made Willa frown a lot.

“And they said we could see the baby but not you right away because you were tired,” said Willa. “And everyone looked through the window at her. All except me because I didn't want to see her before Nicholas.” She looked over at Nicholas, who sat in a wheelchair, his great white leg up in front of him. “They said she looked red and wrinkled like a hot prune. And then we had to go because parrots made the nurse very nervous.”

“And then,” said Willa's mother, turning to look at Willa, “what about the show? Matthew's.”

Willa sighed.

“There were lots of people there who walked around trying to look smart and talk about paintings and colors and line and form.”

“That's good,” said Nicholas. “Talking of color and line and form.”

“And then,” Willa went on, “the Unclaimed Treasures played. But not just the two of them. There was another one. Another Unclaimed Treasure. Horace's mother, playing the violin.”

“Three in a trio,” said Nicholas, “after all.”

Willa's mother smiled.

“And then, all of a sudden, Matthew swept down the big stairs and took the violin from Winnie's hand, and put his arms around her and kissed her with everyone looking.” Willa looked at Nicholas. “For a long time he did that. Fifty-seven seconds. The Unclaimed Treasures, the other ones, kept on playing as if nothing had happened. Then Matthew bent down and whispered in Winnie's ear. And Winnie put her arms around him and rubbed his back.” Willa looked at her mother, then Nicholas. “You can do that,” she added. “Rub backs and kiss at the same time.”

There was a silence.

“And then,” said Willa, “Winnie came home. And Horace came over for dinner last night. Chicken pot pie.”

They laughed.

“And that's the end of the story,” said Willa softly.

“Did Matthew sell any paintings?” asked Nicholas. He sat up in the wheelchair, shifting carefully.

“Almost all,” said Willa. “All but one he wished to keep.”

The hospital room was filled. Filled with Unclaimed Treasures, thought Willa. All except for Winnie and Matthew, home cleaning up after the fire. Probably, she mused, engaging in long and meaningful looks. Eyeballing.

The nurse finally came, lingering a bit at the door, as if delivering the secret of fire.

“She should have been an actress,” whispered Horace to Willa.

“She is one,” whispered Nicholas, overhearing.

“Nicholas's ears, you can tell, were not damaged in the fall,” said Willa.

“So,” said the nurse, placing the baby on the bed. “What do you think?”

She unwrapped the baby. And Willa nearly cried out with happiness, with joy; the baby was that ugly.

“Her hair,” said Willa at last, “it is all in an uproar.”
I love you, you poor thing. You poor little sister
.

“It will sit down soon,” commented her father.

You are the most wonderful thing I have ever seen, thought Willa. So small, curled fingers, eyelids like rice paper.

Nicholas wheeled his chair close to the bed and reached out to touch a small hand.

“She grunts,” announced Willa.
The small sounds, the whimperings of the first day
.

The baby opened her eyes, and her mouth formed an O.

Willa caught her breath.

“Willa and I love her,” said Nicholas after a silence. “Though at this moment I think Willa loves her more.”

Willa's mother smiled.

“I don't know if I can take all this joy,” she said.

Willa's father smiled, too.

Old Pepper felt his pulse.

“Look!” cried Aunt Crystal at the window. “A great blue heron!”

“Ah,” said Aunt Lulu, tripping over them all, pulling her binoculars out of her mammoth bag. “Right out the window!”

“Good-bye, Wanda, good-bye, Ted,” said Bella-Marie, perched in front of the mirror, gazing at herself.

“Hello, Jane,” said Willa clearly, her voice cutting through the gentle havoc of the room. Willa's mother and Horace smiled at each other. Willa put her lips on the baby's smooth dry skin. “Hello, you Unclaimed Treasure,” she whispered.

 

“An extraordinary summer,” said the man. “Apples and treasures and true loves.”

“Ordinary, extraordinary,” said Willa, waving her hand. “Who can tell?”

Nicholas sat in the chair opposite Willa's, stretching out his leg so that his foot touched hers
.

“You still limp a little,” said Willa. “Does your leg hurt often?”

“Sometimes,” said Nicholas, “but as Old Pepper once said, ‘I don't mind.'”

“Old Pepper,” said Willa, remembering. She looked at Nicholas, her eyebrows raised
.

“Yes.” He nodded. “I still have Bella-Marie. She keeps me company in the studio. She has,” he added, “never forgotten Ted and Wanda. She keeps a good many visitors from my door.”

Willa laughed. “You cannot imagine what joy”
—
they both smiled at the word
—
“I felt when I walked by a gallery in the city and happened to look in the window and see myself upside-down there on canvas. In Papa's study
. Wise Willa,
you called it.” Willa touched Nicholas's foot. “I stared and stared. I can still remember rain falling. A man came to stand next to me. ‘That's me,' I told him. ‘Me!' I read the reviews. ‘An extraordinary painter!'”

“Extraordinary, ordinary,” Nicholas echoed Willa's words. “I did what I did. Like you.” And he held out his hand with the torn slip of paper, the words still there
. ILLA.
He leaned back and looked around the room
.

“You in this house,” he said, shaking his head. “Remember the first time?”

Willa nodded. “The funeral, the undertakers, the Treasures. And the kitchen floor just fine for hopscotch. Do you know that not a day passes that I don't hopscotch through the kitchen?”

Nicholas smiled. “How long will you be here?”

“A year,” said Willa, shifting in her chair. “A year, while Horace researches apples in the university orchard.”

Nicholas grinned
.

“A year,” she went on, “while Matthew and Winnie are off in the desert, Winnie still seeking her fortune
. With
Matthew.”

“Matthew happily painting sky and cactus and sand,” said Nicholas
.

“
Still painting
Winnie,”
added Willa. “Some good things don't change.”

Nicholas looked up at the painting over the fireplace
.

“There will be apples again soon.”

Willa reached over and raised the window. The faint sound of music came to them
.

Nicholas leaned forward
.

“The Treasures? Playing by the garden?”

Willa nodded
.

“Beethoven will always make me think of the smell of grass and apples,” said Nicholas. “And of cats. The cats, Willa?”

“Gone, all of them,” she said. “But there are new ones now.”

Suddenly Willa sat up, brushing her hair back with her wrist
.

“I think . . .” she began, her face thoughtful. “Do you have a second hand on your watch, Nicholas?”

“Time?”

Willa nodded, and Nicholas handed her his watch. He went over to the window
.

“Jane,” he called. Then urgently, “Get out of that tree, Jane! Find Horace!” He turned around and looked at Willa, and they began to laugh
.

“The tree,” said Willa, laughing. “The untrustworthy tree.”

They were still laughing when Horace came, looking tall and solemn, Jane behind him. Jane's hair, Willa noticed, was sleek against her head. Willa smiled at her, caught up in an old dream. Remembering
.

“What is it?” asked Horace, polishing an apple on his shirt
.

“True love,” murmured Nicholas, watching Willa
.

Which caused more laughter
.

Jane, twelve and wise, looked closely at Willa. She saw the watch in Willa's hand
.

“I'll call Mother,” she said, and went to the kitchen
.

Horace stood very still
.

“Do you mean the baby?”

Willa nodded and leaned back, feeling that she could stay in the big chair in the wonderful house, by the shining piano, looking at the painting, forever
.

Horace came over and put his lips on Willa's forehead, where her hair began
.

I should, thought Willa, and I would if I weren't so weary all of a sudden, reach up and rub Horace's back
.

“I'll drive,” said Nicholas
.

“A key I think is necessary,” said Horace, talking into Willa's hair. And the three of them looked at each other, remembering the last time they had gone to the hospital together. And separately
.

“Mother's at dance class,” announced Jane in the doorway. “Papa's teaching his writing class.”

She was irked, it was clear, at the laughter that came as they gathered Willa's things
.

“You three laughing,” she grumped. “This is important. Serious and extraordinary!” She watched her older brother, Nicholas, pick up Willa's suitcase. “Romantic, too,” she told him
.

“Here,” said Nicholas, suddenly thrusting a piece of paper into Jane's hand. “I'll come back later and tell you a story about extraordinary things. A story with a beginning and a middle. And an end that begins another story.”

The door opened
.

“I-L-L-A?” Jane read slowly. “What does that mean, I-L-L-A?”

She looked up. But they were gone
.

Jane sat in the chair by the window for a long time, the paper with the four printed letters in her lap, watching the moon come up over the apple tree
.

Photo by John MacLachlan

PATRICIA M
AC
LACHLAN
is the celebrated author of many timeless books for young readers, including
Sarah, Plain and Tall,
winner of the Newbery Medal. Her novels for young readers include
Arthur, For the Very First Time
;
The Facts and Fictions of Minna Pratt
;
Skylark
;
Caleb's Story
;
More Perfect Than the Moon
;
Grandfather's Dance
;
Word After Word After Word
; and
Kindred Souls.
She is also the author of many much-loved picture books, including
Three Names
;
All the Places to Love
;
What You Know First
;
Painting the Wind
;
Bittle
;
Who Loves Me?
;
Once I Ate a Pie
;
I Didn't Do It
;
Before You Came
; and
Cat Talk
—several of which she cowrote with her daughter, Emily. She lives with her husband and two border terriers in Williamsburg, Massachusetts.