House Wrecking Read online

Beverly encircled them with a wide embrace, rocking back and forth. “Well, that’s better. I thought you were keeping quiet in hopes I wouldn’t see you in here and go home. Look what Grandma bought; all the best Christmas movies in one set. I’ve got Frosty the Snowman, Rudolph the Reindeer and The Year without a Santa Claus.” Beverly handed the set over to Brian.

  Claire tried to peek over his shoulder and grab the videos out of his hand, but he held firm, causing her to stomp her feet. “Mom!”

  Brian ignored her. “Can we watch, Mom?” he said, overruling the noise of his cranky sister.

  “Sounds like a perfect end to a perfect day to me,” Lauren said. “Why don’t I make chicken nuggets and French fries and you guys can eat dinner in front of the TV tonight?”

  “Yay!” They cheered and dashed out of the room with the movies.

  Beverly stood near the tree admiring it.

  “Quite a beauty, huh?” Lauren asked.

  “What? Oh, yes, yes, beautiful. What do you mean the children or the tree?” Beverly looked confused.

  “The kids are beauties – no doubt - but I was talking about the tree. Are you ok Mom?” Lauren unhooked her legs from the arm of the easy chair.

  “Oh, yes, I’m fine. But sometimes I get the strangest feeling when I’m in this house, and it just happened again – like déjà vu.”

  “It’s funny you should say that. I get the weirdest feeling too when I go into the basement, or more like when I’m leaving the basement. It’s like this strong spirit compels me to stay. Come into the kitchen while I get the kid’s dinner going, and I’ll pour us wine.” Lauren scooped her mom from behind the elbow. “I’ve also been having this strange recurring dream. I seem to remember it more clearly in the basement. It’s about a young boy who keeps calling me, ‘Mama, Mama’ over and over again and I can’t get to him. The basement always brings the dream to my mind, even if I haven’t thought about it all day.”

  Beverly followed her into the kitchen. “Strange. Is the boy in the dream, Brian?” She sat on a stool beneath at the kitchen counter.

  “No. It’s weird. I don’t know who it is.” Lauren poured two glasses of pinot grigio. “Mom, you actually may have been here once. Grandma Dorothy thinks her friend Emily used to live here. She may have brought you to visit.” She shoved chicken nuggets and smiley fries in the toaster oven and prepared a tray with plates, milk and condiments.

  “Well, that could explain it. I don’t have any memories of the house, but there is a strong feeling. It’s hard to describe.” Beverly sipped her wine.

  “You should ask Grandma, although she seemed weird about it when I asked her. At first she seemed sure she’d been here, and then she froze-up – strange.” Lauren’s head quivered, as if shaking off her memory of Dorothy’s strange behavior. “Let me bring these up to the kids. Maybe you’ll come down to the basement with me. I want to show you all the work we’ve done and see if you get the same eerie feeling down there. I also want your opinion on something. Be right back.”

  Deception

  Two weeks after Aunt Rosemary’s funeral, Charles told Sarah he was returning to New Haven to make living arrangements for them. Sarah came to the farmhouse early on the day of his departure and watched him tie down the last few items from Aunt Rosemary’s home to the wagon. Running her hand over an old rocking chair Sarah pursed her lips, as if she’d tasted something bitter.

  “Why are you bringing all these old things with you?” she asked.

  “I suppose we will want to sit down in our new home and cook a little food once we get there. I figure I’ll take a load of stuff with me each time I go.”

  “These things are dirty. I thought we’d buy new furniture and cooking items.”

  Charles jumped down from the wagon and stood next to Sarah examining his work. He wiped his brow with the back of his hand, and dried his hand on his old work pants. “With good luck and a lot of hard work, I might be able to cover the cost of a house with what I inherited from my aunt and the sale of the store and the house, but I don’t think we’ll have any extra money for furniture. We might have to make do with these things for a while.”

  Sarah smiled and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. “Well, you had better be off,” she said. “Safe travels.”

  Later that day Sarah stood off to the side of the Aunt Rosemary’s parlor as the peddler examined the dead woman’s treasure trove of trash. She’d purposefully failed to secure the back door so she would have easy access to the farmhouse while he was gone. She endured the peddler’s speculations. He held up a china figurine of an old-fashion couple with a long-haired dog, which stood among several other similar specimens. He quoted a sum that he’d be willing to let go for the lot. She nodded. To her it was all useless trash.

  Sarah surveyed the remaining mess. She’d paid little attention to what the peddler had purchased, but it wasn’t as much as she wanted to be rid of, and too much remained. She settled on the settee and picked up a book, flipping through it without seeing the words. She lay back and dropped the book on the floor. She lifted her skirts and found the scab that covered the wound she’d inflicted a few days earlier. She picked at it, forcing it to bleed again.

  During Charles’s two week absence from Colebrook, Sarah made daily visits to the farmhouse to see if the postman had delivered her book of house plans. When she arrived one day she found Charles, pacing back and forth, running his hands through his greasy hair.

  “Sarah, I’ve been robbed,” Charles said.

  “Robbed? Oh Charles, no.”

  Charles rubbed his hands over his face. “They took all my Aunt’s collections - her art, silver, crystal.”

  “Oh Charles, I’m so sorry. Did you call the sheriff?”

  “Yes, he just left. I gave him a description of everything taken - Aunt Rosemary’s original paintings that she and my uncle George collected and she loved those little china figurines.”

  “It’ll be all right, Charles. Come sit.” Sarah directed him to the settee where she had reclined weeks earlier. Charles sat at the edge and she sat close to him, their shoulders touching.

  “He wrote it all down. He is going to talk to the townsfolk to see if they saw anything. It was worth thousands and meant so much to Aunt Rosemary. A lot of it was handed down to her from her own mother and Uncle George’s family. Now it’s all gone.” Charles said, taking his hands from his hair and burying his face in them.

  “I’m sure they’ll catch him and you’ll get your things back, Charles,” Sarah said. Fully entrenched in her deception, she slipped off the settee, knelt in front of Charles and rubbed the top of his hand, like a good fiancée would.

  Four days later Sarah saw the sheriff’s wagon as she approached the farmhouse. She stood outside in the back door where she could overhear Sheriff Syms speaking to Charles.

  “I found him in Waterbury, with the items reported missing. He says that he’d purchased them from the woman of the house in Colebrook for twenty-seven dollars. Isn’t that right?

  “Yes sir and quite a looker she was. Said I could take whatever I wanted. Nice lady. She didn’t haggle about the price either,” the peddler said.

  “What was she wearing?” Charles asked

  “Ah, what was she wearing?” He thought a moment. “A dark gray skirty thing with stripes on top – red, I believe.”

  Through the window, Sarah saw Charles nod and reach into his billfold. He counted out twenty-seven dollars and handed them over. “I would appreciate it if you could bring whatever remains of my Aunt’s things back around to the house. I apologize for your trouble.”

  Sarah scurried home, only to be summoned by James five minutes later announcing Charles arrival. In the Prescott parlor, Sarah and Charles sat on opposite ends of the brocade sofa. He planned to return to New Haven with the final load of items from the farmhouse, but he wanted to speak with her first. He knew he shouldn’t go by her house. They’d been careful not to be seen too much together over the past few weeks, but he no l
onger cared about keeping their secret. He needed to know the truth.

  “What are you doing here?” Sarah snapped. “My father could have been home and seen you. You almost ruined everything.”

  “I needed to speak with you,” Charles said.

  “About what? What is so important that you would risk exposing our engagement this way?”

  “They found my Aunt’s things.”

  “Oh.” Sarah said, nervously twisting the hands in her lap. She located a loose cuticle on her thumb and used the index finger on her right hand to dislodge it. “That’s wonderful news. I’m so happy for you. Did they catch the thief?”

  “Sheriff Syms found them on a peddler’s cart. But the peddler said that he’d bought the items.”

  “Well… he bought them from the person who stole them, of course.” She had half the cuticle off now and her thumb had begun to bleed.

  “He bought them from a woman at Aunt Rosemary’s farmhouse; a woman who matched your description.”

  Sarah hesitated a moment before responding. “You are not suggesting that I sold your Aunt’s things to the peddler?”

  Charles said nothing.

  “You don’t believe me? You would take the word of a street peddler, rather than your fiancée? Very well, Charles. I believe it may be time for you to leave.”

  Charles followed her out the door and left without looking back.

  Calling all Spirits

  Lauren led Beverly down the front stairs and through the office. She flipped the switch and the entire basement filled with light. They had upgraded with additional circuitry in the preceding months and the brightness took a considerable amount of the eeriness away from the space. They’d also added wall-to-wall carpeting in preparation for next weekend’s Christmas party, which decided to go through with despite their recent troubles. Lauren showed off the polished mahogany bar and renovated shelves lined with bottles and glassware. She’d furnished the room with old theatre benches from hotel liquidators. They had invested in a pool table and billiard lights completed the room.

  “Do you feel any spirits?” Lauren asked.

  “Nothing - what about you? The basement looks great. Maybe you drove out the spirits with the renovation?” she laughed.

  “Maybe. Come over here and check this out.” She led Beverly to the stairway. She needed two hands to pry open the heavy oak door since she hadn't opened it for several months. Wedging it loose from its warped frame, the light from the basement flooded the old stone stairwell. She grabbed a flashlight from under the bar and focused it on the bottom step. “What do you think of this?”

  Beverly leaned down to take a closer look at the area illuminated by Lauren’s flashlight. “I’m not sure what I’m looking at, what is it you want me to see?”

  “See this old iron contraption in here? What do you think it’s for?”

  “Maybe it’s a support mechanism for the stairs? Maybe it’s in all the stairs and this one wore down faster?”

  “Why would stone stairs need an iron support system?”

  “Well, I don’t know Lauren, I’m not a mason. Maybe you should call one in and ask him?”

  Lauren ignored Beverly’s sarcasm and plowed forward. “It just seems odd to me. Of course, there are lots of odd things about this house. We better go check on the kids,” she popped off the flashlight and closed the door. Near the office going up the stairs, Lauren stopped short. “There it is again.”

  “What?”

  Lauren struggled to find the words. “It’s like you’re leaving on a trip, but know you’ve forgotten something important and can’t remember what it is.”

  “It’s an old house with over a hundred years of spirits, coming and going.” The customary flush Beverly got when she drank wine spread across her face, as if she had run a mile. She smiled, “If I were you, I would stay tuned. Spirits speak a different language, but they speak. You’ll figure it out. In any event, they seem harmless enough.”

  “If these walls could talk, right?” Lauren closed the door behind her.

  “Maybe they are,” Beverly said.

  Jeff

  At the Fairmont on last day of his trip to Washington D.C., Jeff noticed a piece of stale bread on the floor under the table. He pulled his eyes away from it camouflaged amidst the ornate carpet pattern and smiled at Rachel tucked in across the table from him. He couldn’t help but look back at the carpet to see what other crumbs and spills were hidden amidst the ostentatiousness.

  “What are you looking at?” Rachel asked.

  “There’s a piece of old bread under the table.”

  “Eww, gross.”

  The waiter offered them coffee and Jeff extended his cup first.

  “And for your lovely wife?” the waiter asked.

  Rachel giggled. “Tea, please.”

  Jeff said nothing.

  The week in Washington, D.C. had started great. He’d convinced Rachael to go with him, suggesting she might find it worthwhile as a graduate student in marriage and family therapy. They had boarded the train together on Sunday night and checked into two rooms. He’d hoped they’d need only one, but on the first night, after dinner at Le Petit Cafe, she said good night and went to her room. The next night, she met up with some old friends from college; he’d barely seen her since.

  They were to take the train home later today, but he needed to get souvenirs for the kids and perhaps something for Lauren. They ordered their breakfast and Jeff excused himself. He went to the gift shop and grabbed a coin collection of presidents’ heads for Brian, and a paper doll set of first ladies for Claire. He deliberated over a reproduction of one of Jacqueline Kennedy’s favorite scarves and then bought it for Lauren. He rushed the items to his hotel room and buried them in his suitcase.

  “Sorry, digestive troubles,” he said, assuming his seat across from Rachel.

  She giggled and finished the four remaining chunks of melon in her fruit cup.

  The Amtrak train to Connecticut was crowded and Jeff and Rachel couldn’t find seats together. Probably for the best, Jeff thought, assuming an aisle seat next to a gangly teenager folded into the seat by the window. Jeff had run out of things to say to Rachel their first night in Washington and she didn’t appear compelled to come up with conversation. The overhead bins were full, so he threw his duffle under the seat in front of him and looked around at the other passengers. Two overweight girls gossiped in the seats adjacent to his. An old man was asleep in the seat diagonal to Jeff’s, his neck craned and an odd angle. Jeff looked again at the teenager next to him who stared blankly out the window, his expression unreadable.

  Well, I’m better off than this lot, he thought. At least I have a beautiful wife at home - though she doesn’t seem to care for me much these days. The shame of pursuing Rachel came flooding back, tempered with the relief that she hadn’t responded. What would he have done if she responded? How would he have gone home to face Lauren? His pursuit of Rachel was a failed attempt to superficially bandage a deep, festering wound – a wound that had been inflicted years ago, but unfilled promises and disappointments and made worse by the recent Baxter business. He knew he needed to do something to fix his marriage.

  When the conductor collected his ticket, Jeff asked where the bar car was. He’d get a drink and think about it for the next six hours. He passed Rachel on the way. Her eyes were closed and headphones were plugged into her ears. He’d tried to keep his drinking under control in Washington, not wanting Rachel to think he drank too much. She didn’t seem the type to appreciate this type of behavior. Assured that she wouldn’t see him, he bought two nips of vodka and carried it back to his seat with a paper cup full of ice. Jeff settled into his seat, confident that he had everything he needed to figure out the solutions to his problems by the time the train arrived back in the New Haven station.

  Colebrook Christmas

  On December 18, 1889 President Harrison announced in the newspaper that he was putting up a Christmas tree in the White House, so
Sarah insisted that they should have one too. It had been brought in by the town’s woodsman and arranged in front of the windows, as if to refute the gray and cold of the day beyond. Despite her insistence they should have it, Sarah refused to decorate the tree standing erect in the corner of the room. She rubbed the bulge below the waist of her skirt, and stared at the bare tree branches that drooped with despair. With a deep breath, she slipped on her cloak for the daily trip to the Colebrook General Store, hoping for a letter from Charles. She believed he would communicate with her through Albert at the store – they had conspired as such earlier last fall. But no letters had arrived since Charles’ departure for New Haven weeks earlier. Each day she went under the guise of purchasing a candle, or a bar of soap. Today she planned to purchase a razor blade. The very thought sent a thrill down her spine.

  At the store, she held the door for a young mother negotiating a baby buggy through the threshold. Peeking into the buggy to get a better look. She couldn't tell if it was a boy or a girl, but the fat, pink-cheeked baby was quite cute. She followed the mother into the store and waited for her to complete her business. She stepped closer to the buggy and locked eyes with the infant. The baby smiled in response to Sarah and she grinned back. She thought of her babies – first the one in the metal pail and the one growing inside her. She brightened, wondering if she might wrap her baby in blankets and bring it to the store with her. Everyone would come to help her like she’d helped the young mother and they would look at her baby, saying how cute she was. Yes, it would be a she - a girl baby and she would name her Emily. Girl babies were better, and when she grew up, she’d like the pretty dresses and hats and books like Sarah liked.

  She would’ve been happy to stand unnoticed, waiting for Albert to finish with the mother while she dwelled on thoughts of her baby girl, but this happiness wasn’t meant for her. With her body still, her mind returned to the realization that it was Tuesday and the sound of Peter’s shoes on the Persian runner in the hallway resounded in her ears, heavy as he approached the bare floor in front of her bed chamber. He never bothered to be quiet when he entered, sat along the border of her bed and undressed; taking his time before removing the blankets that she had carefully arranged for protection and exposing her in her favorite cotton night dress with the pink flowers.