Ethan smiled. “Ahh, but we’re millennials. Helen didn’t have the technology of the twenty-first century.” He led the way out of the room and into another. Our group stood to watch a documentary depicting the beginnings of the American Revolution in colonial Boston.
These were ordinary men—and women, too, no doubt. Their portraits scrolled by; their voices were brought to life in reenactments. They risked their reputations, their property, their families, their lives. Here I was, trained by the military, prepared for war, yet the thought left me shaken. It was so much more than tea.
Ethan and I grabbed a couple of hot dogs at Quincy Market, then walked back to the parking garage. As we drove north to Medford, I felt myself detaching from the quest of the tea chest, instead focusing on all the personal history that lay in Medford for me.
The Mystic River flowed sparkling to our right, and we passed the Mexican restaurant I’d worked at for one cold high school winter. My skin seemed to crawl along me, and I wondered if this town made me crazy, if it was something in my blood—in Lena’s blood—that associated Medford with poison.
“Your folks end up going to Arizona?” I asked, grasping for diversion.
“Yep. After I graduated. Dad got a job with a good company in Phoenix.”
“And you stayed here, went to Framingham.” That had been his plan when I’d left at least.
“I did.”
I forced my thoughts outside myself. “Is that where you met Allison?”
“Yeah, I bumped into her running down a Frisbee near Linsley Hall.”
I didn’t know how to respond to this piece of information. I wanted to know more, though I wasn’t sure why. Commenting on how romantic running into his future wife with a Frisbee was didn’t seem to make the cut of possibilities.
“You must have hit it off to get married so quick.” As soon as the words were out, I wanted to snatch them back.
Ethan gave me a sideways glance as we turned right on Powder House Road. I breathed easier as we headed up the hill, to a more affluent part of town than I grew up in.
“Maybe too quick.”
I returned his glance.
He shrugged. “I don’t know if I really believe that, actually. Lots of couples get married fast and hold lasting marriages.”
I kept quiet, any question I could think to form seeming too intrusive. Instead, I let his comment hang between us.
He pulled his Ford to the side of the road and put it in park before a For Sale sign. He reached over to the glove box and pulled out the freezer bag with the paper I’d found in the chest. His arm brushed my knee. “We’re here.”
I didn’t move to get out of the car, waited an extra second to see if he would comment more on our conversation, but he opened the door of the Ford.
Guess not.
We walked up a cobblestone path to a Victorian cape with scalloped eaves. A full-length screen door was the only thing between us and the inside of the house. From within, a baby’s happy babbling echoed in a room filled with boxes.
Ethan rang the bell. A woman in her thirties came from within, red hair in a kerchief, a purple T-shirt and workout pants on. “Hello.”
“Hi, ma’am. We’re sorry to bother you, but I was here for your estate sale and I had a question.”
“All sales are final, I’m afraid.” Her mouth pulled downward, revealing faint lines in the corners.
“No—no, I don’t want to return anything. You see, I purchased an old tea chest about this big—” Ethan gestured with his hands—“for my antique store. Long story short, we found an old paper in the bottom that seems to be authentic. We’re trying to solve a little mystery and thought to start here.”
The baby started crying and the woman looked at us, vacillating. “Why don’t you have a seat on the porch and I’ll join you in a minute with my little guy.” She disappeared back inside.
Ethan and I lowered ourselves onto a rather rickety-looking porch swing. It creaked when we tested our weight on it. When it didn’t break, we slowly sat, relaxing into the worn wood.
Ethan pushed slightly with his Vans, the freezer bag in his lap. The baby stopped crying and the sound of a wind chime came to us from the corner of the porch—a deep, melodic call. Poppies hung heavy beyond the porch, the burden of their tufted petals drooping yet beautiful, their sweet scent wafting to us. I allowed myself to relax within the swing, moved my feet in rhythm with Ethan’s, the sound of the chimes calling to mind things of the sea.
This was . . . nice. Too nice, maybe. Without warning, visions filled my mind—of growing old together, of porch swings and babies. Possibilities I’d not thought on in a long time, if ever. Possibilities I couldn’t afford to entertain now.
Thankfully the woman stepped outside before the images could go further. In her arms, she shifted a chubby infant with hair identical to her own from one hip to the other. She sat on a white rocker angled in our direction.
“You gave me a reason to stop working.” She smiled. From where he sat on her lap, the infant grabbed his bare toes, examined them. I’d never been around babies much, but if they were all like this little guy, I just might understand the draw.
The woman must have noticed me staring. “This is Wyatt. I’m Melissa.”
Ethan held out his hand. “Ethan and Hayley.”
She shook each of our hands in turn. “I’ve been cleaning and packing up this place for the last week, getting ready for prospective buyers. I’m afraid Wyatt’s had enough of it.” She laughed. “Me too, if I’m honest. It’s all filled with memories of Gram, sometimes too much for me. I’m anxious to sell it.”
“Well, it’s beautiful. I’m sure you’ll have buyers before long.”
She looked toward the front yard, seemed lost in memories before turning back to us. “Now, you’re asking about an old chest, is that right?”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said.
She waved her hand through the air, caught the attention of Wyatt, who followed it with his eyes, near swallowed up by his chubby cheeks. “Please, call me Melissa.”
I nodded. “Melissa.”
“I do remember the chest, actually.”
Ethan scooted forward on the swing. “You do?”
“Very well, in fact. We found it in the attic when we were cleaning it out. My sister and I were over to Gram and Gramps’s a lot as kids. We used to flip it over and use it as a seat when we put on plays upstairs.” She stared off past the porch. “It was hard to part with a lot of the things in the estate sale, but we simply couldn’t keep them all, you know?”
Ethan’s mouth pressed into a line. “I’m sorry about your grandmother.”
“Thank you. It’s not fun, but it is the course of life, I suppose. Now what did you say you found in the chest?”
Ethan opened the freezer bag and held out the paper. “Kind of amazing, really. Hayley dropped the chest and the bottom splintered. She saw this paper. I had an appraiser check it out yesterday, and he seems to think it’s the real deal.”
Melissa took the paper. I tried not to cringe when Wyatt reached for it with wet fingers that had been in his mouth. Melissa pulled it off to the side, squinted at the list, handed it back to Ethan. “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”
“We didn’t at first, either,” I said. “Until we started googling some of the names. Almost all of them are attached to the Boston Tea Party. This appears to be a secret oath they took before the dumping of the tea in December 1773.”
She crinkled her nose. “And this was in the chest the entire time?”
“It would seem so,” Ethan said. “We were hoping you could enlighten us, maybe tell us some of your family’s history. Do you know if your ancestors have roots in colonial America?”
Melissa reclined in the rocking chair and Wyatt fell back against her chest. “I know one fought at Bunker Hill, but I’m afraid I don’t know much more than that. And I never thought of the chest going back that far. Are you sure it’s legitimate?”
�
�Ninety percent sure, maybe?” He looked at me for confirmation.
I would have said ninety-eight. I wondered about my need to believe in this thing when so often it was the solid, concrete things I put my hope in—my work ethic, my drive, the strength of a team, of the military. When it came to hazy hopes such as relationships, love, and faith, more often than not I checked out. What was it with this chest?
“My uncle did a genealogy project some years ago tracing our ancestors. I remember it being a pretty big deal finding out we had a Revolutionary War veteran in our family line. I was in elementary school at the time. But I don’t remember anything being said about the Tea Party. I could ask my mother about the research my uncle did. Other than that, I’m just as surprised as you.”
Ethan looked at the document. “So your grandmother . . . she never said anything to you about the tea chest or its importance?”
Melissa shook her head. “She said it was handed down to her from her mother, but she had several things that were. I kept some of them.”
I thought of Lena then. She hadn’t much—anything of value had been sold long ago to get her next fix—but did that mean I wouldn’t want anything of hers after she was gone? I remembered a Christmas ornament I’d always been drawn to, a tiny ceramic mouse with a nightcap cuddled in a sleeping bag. Lena would let me hang it on our scraggly tree every year. She’d always made an effort on Christmas Day, even making hot chocolate and letting me put as many tiny marshmallows in the cup as I cared to. No boyfriends, no drama, no drugs. Just me and her.
And while the ceramic mouse didn’t have any history more fascinating than a flea market, I thought maybe that bit of my history—mine and Lena’s—might make it valuable enough for my own tree one day.
“I’m sorry I can’t be of more help . . . unless . . .” She stood. “Hold on, I seem to remember an old photo I just packed up yesterday. Let me see if I can dig it out.” She left us, returning momentarily with a large photo album propped against her hip. Wyatt reached for it, but she handed it to me. “Would you mind? I think it’s at the beginning. I need to fix his bottle.”
I took it from her, placed it on my lap, and opened it while Melissa disappeared back inside the house. Several black-and-white pictures dominated the front before giving way to colored photos, worn with age. I moved closer to Ethan, sharing the album with him as we started at the beginning. Photos of a small group on a lawn, dressed in their best for a wedding. A bride in a lacy white dress with a handsome groom. Then snapshots of toddlers in sailor outfits.
Melissa came out with Wyatt, the infant holding the bottle with his own hands. She looked over our shoulders, pointed to the toddler on the right in a sailor dress. “My mother.” She flipped the page back a few times, then showed us a black-and-white picture on the right bottom of the page. “There.”
I lifted it closer. A couple stood in the picture, dressed for a formal event. At first, I couldn’t make out why Melissa had pointed out this particular picture. Then I saw it in the bottom corner in the background. The tea chest. Our tea chest. What looked like a Sears catalog poked out from the top of it.
Melissa sat back in the chair. “That’s a picture of Gram and Gramps before they were married. It was taken in this house, only it belonged to my great-grandmother at the time. I’m afraid it’s all I have.”
I kept the album open on my lap. “No, that’s okay. It’s neat to think all that chest has been through. I wonder, though, if it really is from the Tea Party . . . why was the story of it not passed along?”
Melissa shifted Wyatt in her arms, her bare feet pushing against the stained boards of the porch as she shook her head. “If I’d known some great secret surrounding it, I probably wouldn’t have sold it. But like I said, except for some fond memories I shared with my sister, it didn’t mean all that much to me.”
I thought of the chest, how quickly I’d become attached to this inanimate object. Good thing Melissa didn’t mention wanting it back . . . yet.
Ethan tapped his fingers on his thigh. “I’m curious about that genealogy research your uncle did. He was the one who discovered you had an ancestor at Bunker Hill?”
“That’s right.” Wyatt’s bottle fell out of his mouth, leaving droplets of milk on his cheek. He looked at me and let out a small giggle. Melissa wiped his cheek with a burp cloth and replaced the bottle in his mouth. He pulled it out with a slurping sound, milk splattering his face once again. This time, he gave a bubbly laugh. A smile pulled at my lips.
“I guess you’re done with this, mister.” Melissa placed the bottle on the deck boards, sitting her son up for a burp. “My mother has a copy of the genealogy book. I’ll be here again tomorrow, trying to finish up if you want to stop by. I could show it to you.”
Ethan stood and I closed the album. “That would be great,” he said.
A large bubble of air released itself from Wyatt’s mouth. “Wonderful. I hope it helps. I have to admit, I’m curious to see what you find.”
I took out my phone. “Could I take your number? We’ll definitely keep you up to date.”
In the car, Ethan replaced the freezer bag carefully inside the glove compartment. “That’s a start.”
We drove down the hill toward the center of Medford, and I fought the urge to close my eyes against memories, even the good ones, like meeting up with my friends for ice cream at the corner store.
“I can’t help but wonder if whoever put the list inside the chest never intended to share the history of it with his family.”
“We might never find out, but I’m feeling lucky that Melissa’s uncle did some legwork for us.” We neared the rotary and my stomach clenched at being so close to Vine Street. Ethan must have picked up on my nerves—he’d always been good at that. “You want to swing by your mom’s? She’s back, isn’t she? Barbados, you said?”
I opened my mouth to tell him no, I didn’t want to see Lena now, especially not with Ethan in tow. Then a sudden impulse came over me to get this thing done. It was what I’d come for, after all. Why put it off any longer?
“You know what? Yeah. It’s been hanging over my head, but maybe—you know, having you around for moral support would help.”
He turned onto Vine Street and pulled alongside the house, where a Ford Taurus was parked in the drive. He took the key from the ignition. “Man, this place didn’t change, huh? Weird to be back.”
I’d forgotten how many memories the two of us shared here. How many nights we sat on the decrepit front porch, delaying our good-night with both words and kisses. How many times I’d watched out the window for him to come pick me up, how he’d take the stairs two at a time before seeing me in the window, his smile brightening my dreary home.
I sighed. “Yeah, it is.” I opened the car door, then looked back. “I’ll just be a minute. Thinking this could be a sort of icebreaker. I can make plans to chat another time.”
“I have nowhere to be. Take your time.”
“Yeah . . .” I scooped my phone from the console and tucked it in my back pocket, trotted up to the ripped screen, just as I’d done three days before. I knocked once, then twice. Then again.
I ground my teeth. There was a car in the drive. Why wasn’t anyone answering?
I pictured my mom passed out, dead to the world on the couch. I banged harder. “Lena! Come on, open up!”
This wasn’t supposed to be so hard. I’d done the difficult part twice in bringing myself to this place, in dragging my open and bleeding heart to the epicenter of my painful past.
Unbidden, the memories came. The yelling, the slamming of broken bottles, my mother half-dressed on the couch as I left for the school bus, too afraid to wake her up or touch her for fear I’d find her dead, wondering if she’d be in that same spot when I came home, if I’d have to call an ambulance to take her body out of the house. I remembered the boyfriends sneaking into my room, seeking to steal what wasn’t theirs, what Lena didn’t seem to value in the least—her daughter.
I
banged again, my throat tight. Adrenaline rushed to my limbs. I opened the storm door and wiggled the handle, banged some more. The old helpless feeling returned, like an attack from the enemy.
I was not this powerless little girl anymore. I’d gone away, matured, made something of myself. I was strong, and I’d come back here to prove it.
No matter if it took everything within me, one way or another, I would win this battle.
I took a step back, readied myself to kick the door open, to face it all then and there. I was done with wondering, done with trying to do the right thing by coming here. I wanted it over.
Without warning, solid fingers circled my arm. “Hayley.”
My breath caught, and I froze beneath Ethan’s touch. Reality exploded within me, then embarrassment. What was I thinking? How could I have gotten so involved with my memories, so oblivious to Ethan’s presence? “I—I’m sorry. I got caught up in—”
“Hey, it’s okay. We’ll try again tomorrow.”
I hated the way he spoke to me, as if I were weak, like a child. But wasn’t I? How did I expect to get through BUD/S—mentally and physically—if I couldn’t keep it together on my mother’s front porch?
He tugged me down the steps, put an arm around me to open the passenger door of the car. Though I hated to admit it, I needed his strength in that moment. In a way, it felt like he’d never left me. And how had I treated him? By skulking off without a good-bye, by leaving without warning, by proving myself disloyal when he’d been—still was—the exact opposite.
I hadn’t deserved him then, and I didn’t deserve him now.
What was worse, with his tender touch, I felt us barreling back to where we started, felt the draw to be something more than I’d been, to prove my honor and loyalty to this kind man. And at the same time, I felt like running before things could get any deeper. Before I could hurt him like Lena had hurt me.
Quite obviously, I sucked at this relationship stuff. I’d brushed it all off these past six years, convincing myself that I could find my purpose in my military family. Things were simple there. Do your job, be loyal to your team, whether you felt like it or not. Why then was everything so much harder back home? And while excelling in relational intimacy wasn’t something I needed to pass to become a SEAL, I was beginning to wonder if it was the one thing that—no matter how hard I worked—I wouldn’t be able to wrangle for myself.
The Tea Chest Page 17
