The House on Seventh Street

by Karen Vorbeck Williams

  Right now, she needed a bath, a light dinner, and a bed.

  Heading for the shower, she wondered why she suddenly felt afraid of what had always been her favorite house. Why, after looking forward to coming back to the town where she was born, did she want to go home? Yes, there was grueling work ahead, but something about the house unsettled her.

  2

  STOPPING WORK FOR A MOMENT, Emily turned from the jumbled closet for a look at the reception hall, its spacious alcove decorated with an ornate mosaic tile floor, the antique cast-iron fireplace set with painted tiles, and the window nook overlooking the rose garden. Here, the tall windows filled the room with light through a pattern of clear leaded-glass panels bordered with stained-glass medallions near the top. The whole effect was one of gentle opulence.

  Wondering what it would cost to build a house like this today, Emily walked to the middle of the alcove where rose and green patterns of light filtering in through the stained glass washed over her. Quite aware that she felt like playing, dancing in the colored light like she had as a child, she laughed at herself and went to the window for a look. The rose garden’s newly edged beds stood starkly defined against the unmown lawn. Someone had been working there.

  “Mom,” she called, “come here.”

  “Just a second.”

  “Who’s been working in the rose garden?”

  Winna appeared at her side. “I don’t know. I noticed that when I first arrived. With all the work that needs doing around here I guess I won’t complain.”

  With her mother’s return to the house, Emily hoped that she might want to stay in Grand Junction. She had so many memories of the old house and her grandfather, not all of them pleasant. Almost every morning since her mother’s arrival, she had driven into town from the foothills of Pinyon Mesa to help with the sorting, packing, cleaning—whatever was on the list. Her mother’s open affection, and obvious delight in her six-month-old daughter, Isabelle, pleased her. Ever since her husband, Hugh, had accepted the managing editor’s job at the Daily Sentinel and they had moved to Grand Junction, she had fantasized that her mother would come back to live in the town where she was born.

  Following her arrival at the house on Seventh Street, Winna’s first project had been working windows. Once that was accomplished, she had to face some major cleaning and the troubled feelings she had about the place. At first, she dreaded coming to the house and didn’t understand why. It wasn’t just the dirt and hard work, but an underlying feeling that something was terribly wrong—like some risk of danger waiting for her inside these walls. The house seemed haunted in a way she could not explain even to herself—no ghosts popping in for a visit, but a lingering feeling that someone watched. Sometimes she would look up from whatever she was doing, expecting to see someone enter the room. When no one did, she felt relieved but uneasy, like somebody was waiting on the other side of the wall. She comforted herself with the thought that as a child the house had been a charmed yet disturbing place for her. It was entirely natural that fragments of those impressions would remain.

  For years, Winna had visited the house in her dreams. There, grandmother Juliana was still alive and disappointed with Winna for not visiting more often. There, Juliana would sit in the shade of her garden crying, saying how much she missed Edwina, asking where she had been and what she had been doing. From these encounters with Juliana’s lonely ghost, Winna would wake shaken and guilt-ridden. She had to admit that her grandmother had been a strong influence on her and so had the house. When she thought about it in the light of day, she realized that her mother was also still alive in her dreams. She had not yet dreamed of her father, but in Winna’s dream world, her mother and grandmother were still very much among the living.

  Winna, with her daughter’s help, had spent the last two weeks making piles off to the side of the main staircase, labeling them SALVATION ARMY, YARD SALE, KEEP, and EMILY’S. That morning, after sorting through the large reception hall closet and filling a tall barrel with trash, Winna noticed that Emily had come to the last box.

  “Almost finished here,” Emily said, reaching into the box. She hesitated a moment. “Look what I found.”

  Winna stopped sorting old coats and boots to come for a look at the framed studio portrait Emily held in her hands.

  “Who was she?”

  Winna looked at the picture and smiled. “That’s Juliana—your great-grandmother—with your Poppa Henry.”

  Inside the tarnished gold frame, Juliana sat three-quarter view holding the child close in her lap, her left cheek obscured by little Henry’s bald head, her full lips parted slightly. Henry’s big dark eyes were open and bright, two of his fingers thrust into a grinning mouth.

  “She looks very sweet,” Emily said.

  Winna chuckled. “Sweet? That’s not a word I would use to describe your great-grandmother.”

  Winna watched her daughter move into the light from a window. She had already lost most of the weight she had gained during her pregnancy and looked trim and long-legged in khaki shorts and a white tee. From toddlerhood onward, Emily had been contented, cheerful, and perceptive, a delight to her mother. Winna liked to joke that she had learned more from her daughter than she had taught her. She wasn’t a bit surprised when she won a scholarship to study environmental science at Boston University. Now she wrote a popular weekly newspaper column on sustainable desert living with tips on gardening, home building, and maintenance.

  Fixed on the photograph, Emily walked to the sofa and sat down. “I need a break.”

  Winna joined her. “Gramma was smart—the smartest person in the family. When she was ‘sweet’ it was because she wanted something.”

  “What year was this?”

  Winna thought a moment. “It had to have been 1916—the year Daddy was born. Gramma died in the mid-sixties—when you were a baby.”

  “I don’t know why I’m so drawn to this,” Emily said. “Maybe because the more I look at her eyes the more sadness I see. I wonder why. It’s not the face you’d expect from a proud new mom.”

  “I’m sure Gramma wasn’t your everyday new mom,” Winna said, rolling her eyes. She took the frame and looked again, realizing she had never known her grandmother as pictured there—young and fragile, sweetly silent. She had never seen the pale luxuriant curls that ringed Juliana’s disarming face, or her large dark eyes shining with sadness. The grandmother she knew had short-cropped gray hair and dressed in well-tailored afternoon dresses and business suits. Yet here the finely woven pale lace of the pictured bodice draped her small frame gracefully as she held her child against her breast. In contrast with his mother’s somber expression, baby Henry’s face radiated an exuberant smile and bright dark eyes. It looked to Winna that at six months he was eager to begin his exciting life.

  “I’d like to offer an educated guess. This was shot at a studio by a professional, but the picture isn’t what I’d expect from the period. It’s interesting that Juliana picked this one out of all the proofs. It captures something very intimate. Maybe that’s why you are drawn to it. It’s an outstanding portrait—one I would be proud to say I shot myself.”

  Winna thought back to her grandmother’s last illness. “She died months after a massive brain hemorrhage. The last time I saw her she was lying in the nursing home—emaciated and demented—I didn’t recognize her and I know she didn’t recognize me. She was only in her mid-seventies.” Having stepped two years into her seventh decade, Winna no longer thought seventy was so very old.

  “I have to laugh every time I think of the last word she said before she died. Dad was there and he told me she’d looked around the dreary room she shared with several other dying patients and said, ‘Ridiculous!’ I can hear that voice. Having to die like an ordinary human being was probably out of the question.”

  Emily smiled and looked at the portrait again. “Look at Poppa Henry’s face. Mom, we’ll never know for sure how he died.”

  “It’s hard for me to look at th
at joyful little face and know his end.” Winna kissed her finger and touched it to her father’s baby face. With the back of her hand, she wiped the sweat from her forehead again.

  “Is it hotter than hell or is it just me?” Before they began work in the house that morning, Winna had opened all the windows, but even under the shade of old trees the heat had crept in.

  “It’s hotter than hell,” Emily said, “unless I’m having hot flashes too.”

  “Just you wait.” Winna stood up and walked to the hall closet, now empty except for a familiar wooden cigar box. She picked it up and opened the lid. “Look, Emily, our marbles.”

  With her daughter at her side, Winna hurried the box into the light, sitting down in the middle of the parlor rug. “Here’s my big fat agate—and my favorite flint.”

  Emily reached for the marbles in Winna’s hand. “Come on, Mom, let’s play. Now that you’re over the hill I bet I can beat you.”

  “I’m sure you can.” Winna ran her hands through the brightly colored glass, snagging something that was neither round nor smooth. She lifted what appeared to be a vintage ring into the light. “It looks like a yellow diamond.”

  Emily took it from her hand. “It’s huge. It can’t be real. I’ve never seen a stone this large. I want it!”

  “How about if I let you try it on?”

  Emily smiled at her mother as she tried slipping it onto her ring finger. It didn’t fit there but slid easily onto her pinky where it looked too large, almost comical. She handed it back. “You’d better take that to the jewelry store and see what they think it is.”

  “It’s probably nothing or it wouldn’t be hanging out with the marbles.” Winna looked at it again. “Sure looks real,” she said, slipping the ring into her pocket as she stood up. She took two steps forward into a bright shaft of light and stopped, retrieving the ring for another look. Dazzlingly beautiful, it looked very real to Winna. Why was it with the marbles?

  3

  FOLLOWING LUNCH AT an air-conditioned cafe, Winna and Emily drove home in the air-conditioned car. Winna dragged two old fans out of the cellar and set them up in the parlor where they found a drawer full of old black-and-white snapshots. Winna quickly sorted through them, stopping to look at a very old picture of the house.

  “Look, the trees were just planted. The house was painted a dark color back then—with white trim.”

  Emily looked over her mother’s shoulder. “It looks kind of spooky.”

  “The story I heard was that my grandfather Edwin built the house when he was looking for a wife. He found just the girl—her father was a state senator and a big deal lawyer. Off and on, he was elected district attorney here in town. Your great-great-grandfather’s name was Andrew D. Smythe—are you going to remember all this?” Winna jabbed her daughter with her elbow and chuckled.

  “He was Juliana’s father,” Emily said, getting it straight. “But don’t count on me remembering his name.”

  “In those days, the Grummans owned the only department store in town. In the beginning, it was a dry goods store founded by your great-great-grandfather Grumman—back when Main Street was about a block long and still had tumbleweeds blowing in from the desert.”

  “I remember the store, Mom. You took me there when I was little.” Emily handed her mother a snapshot. “Here’s a recent picture of Poppa. Do you want to keep it?”

  Winna glanced at it, and took it in hand.

  “He’s wearing his favorite tweed sports coat, a white shirt, and that bolo tie—his uniform. I think he wore that every day. Last time I saw him he looked a little dusty and unkempt. I remember the days when he dressed stylishly in a suit with a vest and tie. He was so handsome. I wanted to marry him when I was four.”

  Emily laughed and reached for the picture. “He looks almost frail here.”

  “You know, he was born to wealth. Through his work, he added to the family wealth, but he never lived like a wealthy man. He seemed not to care when people joked and accused him of being frugal.”

  “That’s a symptom left over from the Depression,” Emily said.

  Winna smiled. “He used to say, ‘you can only spend a dollar once.’”

  The parlor phone rang. Winna stepped over a rolled-up rug, sidestepped several packing boxes, and, catching her breath, reached for the receiver.

  “Hello.”

  “Hello, Winna?”

  She knew the light ethereal voice. “Chloe,” she said, flashing a grimace at Emily. “I thought you weren’t speaking to me ‘ever again’—at least not in this life.”

  “I called to apologize. I don’t know what forces influenced me last week. Actually, I do now. Juno did my chart yesterday.”

  “Ah, I see. The planets in juxtaposition to the moon as it crossed over your roof made you paranoid—and rude.”

  “Look, Winna, I called to apologize,” Chloe said. “You are my sister and Daddy’s in his grave. We have problems to solve.”

  “I have problems to solve, you mean. I’m the one who flew out here in May and had to arrange the funeral and the reception without any help from you.” Winna couldn’t resist the jab. “You didn’t even bother to attend, Chloe.”

  “Are you going to bring up the funeral every time we talk?”

  “I’m the one who’s been in this house working her butt off in the boiling heat, sorting the mess left by two generations of pack rats.”

  “I’ve been disinherited, Winna. You know Daddy hates me.”

  “Daddy’s gone. He isn’t here to hate you. He gave absolutely no one a hard time at the funeral. But everyone in town noticed that one of Henry Grumman’s two children was missing.”

  “How do you know he wasn’t there? I’m sure he was. I feel him everywhere I go.”

  Winna rolled her eyes at Emily and shook her head in disbelief.

  “Actually, I called to tell you about a conversation we had the day Juno updated my chart.”

  “Chloe, I can never understand your conversations with Juno.”

  “No, the conversation I had with Daddy.”

  Winna didn’t even bother to let sarcasm creep into her voice, “Oh?”

  “He came to me in a vision. I saw him on that mountain where he died—beautiful—I don’t have words to describe it—maybe I can paint it. He looked transformed, the light of the universe shone through him, altering his aura—you know that muddy brown his aura always showed.”

  “Chloe, I’ve never seen an aura.”

  “That’s because you are spiritually stunted and your mind is closed,” she said. “Anyway, in the vision Daddy was bathed in a clear white-gold light. He spoke such loving words to me that the pain at the back of my left shoulder instantly melted. You know, the pain that dogs me if I don’t get my weekly massage. He’s at peace, at last,” she said, her voice coming dramatically over the line. “Do you want to know what he said?”

  Winna said “sure” as she shrugged not really.

  “He forgave me!”

  “Forgave you?”

  “He said he was sorry he cut me out of the will.”

  “How wonderful—how convenient.” Winna began to pace.

  “Don’t be sarcastic, Winna! It’s impossible to communicate with you. You have such a tiny little closed-up mind. You’re always judging me. You don’t know what it’s like having someone sit in judgment of you all your life.”

  “Chloe, we’ve had this conversation about judging each other,” she said as she spun on her heels. “What do you want from me? Dad wrote you out of his will for his own reasons. I’m discussing Dad’s estate right now with Reed. I’m not exactly a money-grubbing monster, you know. But there are problems—I have concerns and you haven’t been around for me to discuss them with you.”

  “Daddy said he’d try to contact you—to let you know that he’s changed his mind. How can he reach you? You, of all people, won’t be open to receive him.”

  Winna could hear her fifty-seven-year-old sister sobbing. For years she had watch
ed her sister slip further and further into a world Winna did not understand—a world full of sadistic and benevolent planets, talkative spirits, and mind readers.

  Winna knew that no one would guess they were related, let alone sisters. Compared to Chloe—who was strikingly beautiful, tall, and willowy—Winna could see that she was pretty enough—short and curvy, her light-brown hair streaked with silver. Chloe hid her gray away at the beauty parlor. Winna, an Anglo-Catholic, actually went to church. Her sister found that baffling and had said so. Chloe was a metaphysical seeker with a budding interest in shamanism. The last of the Grummans, they blended like oil and water.

  “I’m listening,” Winna said, “I know the dead don’t hold grudges. Dad was tough. He hurt us both.” Chloe’s pitiable little gasps and sobs accused her over the line. “There’s something I want from you.”

  In a voice rank with self-pity, Chloe said, “What?”

  “Why don’t you come over and help me go through this house? Maybe that will help both of us feel better.”

  “I—I—that would be hard right now. I’ll have to see.”

  “It’s important, Chloe. There are things here that I want you to have and we need to talk.”

  “I don’t know, Winna. Juno warned me—and Todd is just settling in.”

  “Todd is a part of your new life. Wouldn’t you like to settle history before you face the future?”

  “I don’t know. I’ll ask Juno what she thinks. I’ll stop by on the weekend. Gotta go.”

  Click.

  “Goodbye, Chloe.”

  Winna put the phone down and looked around as if to remind herself where she was. She stood beneath the arched ceiling in the parlor of her family’s old house. Beyond the windows the view held the pillared side porch, and under the old trees the dead shade garden, punctuated by two tall cast-iron urns, sitting among the weeds. When Winna was a child Gramma Juliana had kept the urns filled with dragon wing begonias and trailing ivy. Now they sprouted thirsty weeds.