The House on Seventh Street

by Karen Vorbeck Williams

  Winna assumed the posture of a woman getting down to business. “Could someone have made the crack? What I’m asking is, if someone had wanted my brakes to fail, might they have done it that way?”

  The two men looked at one another with raised eyebrows.

  Charlie said, “Sure, they could. Look, Mrs. Jessup, if I was you, I’d talk to the police.”

  29

  SLOWLY, WINNA DROVE HOME, cautious at stop signs and the red light on North Avenue. The sun disappeared in roiling black and blue clouds. It looked like a storm was moving in from the northwest. Suddenly, the interior of her car looked shabby: the cracked leather seats, the worn windshield, the dashboard with pale Colorado dust burrowed deep into every crevice. The car had been a gift from Walt one Christmas morning before he began to fade away from her. She felt as if she had just woken up from a dream. Here she was in Colorado, sitting at the wheel of the car she now regarded as an old friend who had betrayed her. She was glad to pull into the drive and park alongside the kitchen door.

  Winna unlocked the door and went inside, hurrying past the mess her thief had left behind in the kitchen. Moving quickly down the center hall, she realized that she had no idea where she was headed. She did not want to stay on the first floor. Did she want a bath? To change and go out to dinner? She couldn’t cook in that kitchen. It didn’t matter, she wasn’t hungry.

  Frightened, Winna stopped in her tracks. Her eyes moved to all the dark corners of the reception hall. Was she alone? Her feet glued to the floor, she looked past the hall through a wide archway toward the parlor feeling like she had crossed over the threshold into a different world. Scattered streams of sunlight coming through the storm clouds emanated from the old windows, etching everything with an eerie glow. Uncertain about exactly what was happening to her, Winna ran up the front stairs and into her room. She bolted the door and stood in the middle of the floor panting with terror.

  WINNA WOKE TO early morning sun coming in through the windows like a spotlight on her face. She turned her head away and opened her eyes to tall windows filled with blue sky. Through the open door down the hall, she heard Isabelle babbling to herself in her crib. Winna knew that soon enough she’d have to get up with the family, but for now she would close her eyes again and try not to think about last night, her flight from the house on Seventh Street, her drive through a violent storm to Emily’s house.

  Mother and daughter sat up late with a bottle of wine and made plans for Winna’s course of action. She would ask Seth to install a new kitchen door—one without a window. First, she’d have to shop for the door, then she was to call a locksmith and have the locks on all the doors changed again. She wasn’t to give keys to anyone but Emily—not that she had anyway.

  After breakfast outside on the deck with Isabelle and Emily, Winna said goodbye to the view and kissed her daughter and granddaughter. Hugh had left for work and she soon followed him down the mountain.

  At Home Depot, she looked for a new door. It was hard. She was picky, but needed to take action. She didn’t like the idea of no windows and compromised between a solid wall of door and a paneled door with a narrow light at the top. She would call Seth and have him pick it up. The door wouldn’t match the rest of the woodwork. Winna would have to paint the kitchen—no big deal. She wanted to paint it anyway.

  On her way back to the house, Winna pulled into the coffee shop where she and Emily had stopped the day before. She sat down in the same booth to collect her thoughts. Ordering coffee, she wondered if it was really only the day before yesterday that she had felt safe and relatively untroubled. The coffee came and she doctored it with cream and sugar. Sipping slowly, she made herself relax. Things looked much better by morning light.

  All of a sudden, she felt a hand on her shoulder. Startled, she turned and looked up into Todd’s smiling face. “Oh, my goodness,” she said. “Where did you come from?”

  “The men’s room,” he said, sliding into the booth.

  “What a nice surprise. Have you just come in? Do you want coffee?” Trying to appear welcoming, Winna felt a bit shy, disappointed to have her solitude interrupted. She had never been alone with Todd before. Her sister had always been a buffer between them. Not that she needed a buffer.

  Todd smiled again. “The answer is ‘yes’ and ‘you betcha.’”

  He ordered, and while his coffee and sweet roll were on their way, he opened the conversation. “Chloe told me about what happened over at the house yesterday. That must have been pretty damn awful—walking into the house and seeing all that. She was really upset last night.”

  Winna took a sip of coffee and looked into Todd’s sympathetic face. “We all were. I spent last night up at Emily’s. Today I bought a new door—one without a window to smash.”

  “Good idea,” he said.

  “After someone had been in the attic, I was foolish to have that kind installed. All he had to do was break the window, reach in, and turn the damn button.”

  Todd shook his head, almost as if he was going to scold her. “You should’ve told me ’bout it. What’s a brother for?” He gave her a reassuring smile. “That’s what I do—fix things—know what kind of door to put where.”

  “Thanks, brother,” she said, patting the big hand resting on the table. “I’ve never had a brother before.”

  “Well, Winnie girl, you got one now.”

  Todd signaled the server for more coffee. It looked like he wanted to chat some more.

  “Look here, big sis, I’m worried about Chloe. She thinks you and the family don’t approve of her.”

  “That’s funny.” Winna tossed off a laugh. “I think she doesn’t approve of me.”

  “Sure she does,” he said. “She looks up to you.”

  “She sure has a funny way of doing it.” Winna leaned back in her seat and sighed. “We are very different and we do appear odd to one another.”

  “That don’t mean you can’t be best friends.”

  “You know, Todd. That’s exactly what I would like to happen. We were, once, and I miss that.”

  AT HOME, WINNA called Seth. He said he would pick up the door and be over around noon. Seth had become one of her favorite people. He came to work almost every day. Lately, he had trimmed the hedges, pruned dead branches from the trees, and cleaned the garage. His truck made dozens of trips to the dump or the Salvation Army, and under her supervision, he had even begun to organize a yard sale.

  Though she had not yet admitted it to anyone, she was beginning to make a case for keeping the house, doing things no one would do if they were planning to sell. Just last week she had handed Seth a jar of oil soap and asked him to clean the bookshelves in the library. With reasoning she had since forgotten, she dusted off the books Chloe had already packed into boxes and put them back where they belonged. Then, she called to have the furnace replaced.

  Seth talked very little about himself, but through very carefully disguised cross-examination, Winna had learned something about her right-hand man. As it turned out, he was an ex-hippie. The two had laughed about their parallel experiences of protesting the Vietnam War and the civil rights marches they had helped populate. He had fled to Canada to avoid the draft and admitted he had not changed. He said he could tell Winna had turned a bit too conservative for his taste.

  He had even opened up to Winna about his first wife—how they and their two children had lived on a commune in Canada. Winna could tell he was not eager to talk about why that marriage had failed, or the fact that he did not see his children. She was surprised to learn that his second marriage to Holly Gordon—a girl Winna had known in high school—had also ended in divorce.

  He told her that his mother had died when he was a child. His father had owned a hardware store downtown that Winna vaguely remembered, but the store fell on hard times when Home Depot came to town and, within a very few years, they had to close.

  At about noon Winna heard a knock on the door. She peeked through the lace and Seth gave her a wave. Sh
e opened the door and let him into the kitchen.

  “Hi Seth, have you had lunch?”

  He smiled, rubbing the invisible stubble that seemed to make his square jaw itch. “I haven’t had breakfast.”

  “That means you’d like two eggs sunny-side-up and bacon.”

  “Right on,” he said, folding himself onto a kitchen chair. He looked at the empty drawers and cupboards and the debris all over the floor. “Holy shit, this place was trashed.”

  “That and the door are your assignments for today.” Winna peeled off strips of cold bacon. “Some jerk paid me a visit.”

  “What’s missing?” He flipped the chair around and straddled its back between two long jean-clad legs. “Looks like they went through everything.”

  “We can’t be sure.” She headed toward the coffee pot. “Would you like some coffee?”

  “Sure,” he said, dragging himself out of his chair. “I’ll make it.”

  “I hope they got what they were looking for.” Winna licked the spot where a piece of bacon spat hot grease on the back of her hand.

  “What were they looking for?”

  Cautious with her reply, she said, “Actually, we may never know because I haven’t made an inventory yet.”

  “Shouldn’t you do that? I’ll help you. What does John think about this?”

  “John?”

  “Your boyfriend,” he said, smiling, reaching into the cupboard.

  “So now he’s my boyfriend?”

  Seth laughed. “He’s an old flame still flickering—the lucky shit,” he said, pouring two cups of coffee.

  “Why, Seth Armstrong Taylor, is that a compliment?”

  “You know, Winna,” he said, changing the subject, “I’ve been thinking about some of the things I’d like to see you do around here. This place could be restored—back to its heyday.”

  “Maybe that’s a job for the person who buys it,” she said, lifting crisp bacon out of the frying pan and patting it dry between paper towels. “This morning I think I hate this place.” She poured off the grease and wiped the iron skillet. “What’s on your mind? You have no shortage of good taste.”

  He had returned to his chair and sipped thoughtfully from his cup. Winna knew he wanted a cigarette, but she didn’t allow smoking in the house.

  “Are there any old plans for the rose garden?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, breaking three eggs into melted butter. “To tell the truth, I don’t know half of what’s in this house. The whole thing has overwhelmed me—I’ve moved so god-awful slowly and now this.” She pointed the butter knife at the littered floor. “I’ve been stopped dead in my tracks.”

  Seth looked at her and nodded, but said nothing.

  Trying to pull herself into a better mood, she heaved a sigh. “But I remember the rose garden,” she said, buttering his toast. “I spent lots of time there as a child and remember the layout.”

  “Bet you don’t remember which roses your grandma grew.”

  “No, but I wouldn’t put it past her to have saved all the sales slips.” She handed him his plate. “That woman kept everything.”

  “I hope so,” Seth said, digging in. “We could recreate it—that would be cool. We should set up an office—for planning—with enough space to organize papers into files.”

  Winna sat down beside him. “Sounds efficient—none of the papers are organized under any system from what I can make out. As for the rose garden, we could replant using hybrids developed before 1960—I don’t think Gramma did much gardening at the end of her life.”

  He wiped his toast through spilled yolk. “The house is Victorian—so you could use the Victorians’ favorite roses.”

  “It’s Edwardian, really,” she said. “You know what I really need is a darkroom—a place to work. I’ve been thinking about turning the old servants’ quarters upstairs into an office and darkroom. I’m not ready to go completely digital yet—may never be.”

  “I was up there poking around the other day,” he said. “Those are great rooms. We could block off the window in that large bathroom. You need water in a darkroom, don’t you?”

  Winna sighed. “But none of that matters unless I decide to stay.”

  He looked deflated. “Hell, there’s lots of folks who hope you’ll stay, Winna.”

  “That’s a nice thing to say, Seth.” She got up from the table. “I’m just going to ignore these dishes for now. Would you like to see the work our burglar left for you?”

  30

  AFTER A DAY of hard work, Seth left late that afternoon, the new door in place and the house restored to its former disorder. Fatigued, Winna headed up the stairs to her sanctuary—Juliana’s beautiful bathtub. Once, she had thought of the house as belonging to her Gramma, but after living there with all her things and the mysteries surrounding them, Winna had begun to think of the house as belonging to Juliana—someone she had never met—a mysterious lady with hidden passions and talents.

  On her way to her room, she passed the hall closet and stopped to open the door. She wanted a closer look at the gowns Juliana had been most eager to wear, to save. Winna had kept a number of her mother’s gowns and was suddenly overcome with a wish that she had saved her own.

  “If only—I’d have a complete collection of twentieth-century dress-up clothes,” she said aloud, thinking how much fun it would be to photograph Emily wearing them.

  All she had kept was her wedding gown. After Walt left, she found it again in the old cedar chest. As she lifted it for a look, the fullness of the skirt nearly crushed her; the lace and seed pearls mocked her. The sight of the gown she wore as she entered a doomed marriage rubbed out every sweet memory she had experienced in it: walking down the aisle mad with happiness, dancing in her new husband’s arms.

  She threw the gown across a chair in the light of a window and picked up her camera. Adjusting nothing for this still life, she shot the rest of the roll capturing her sadness, her disappointment in glorious black and white. She loaded the camera with another roll of film, then hung the gown on a hanger from the window frame. Now the gown was a drape through which light filtered. Glowing, it seemed ghostly, lonely, unloved. She kept shooting, hoping that through the tears she was in focus.

  The gown was dead to her and she took it down from the window and carried it out of the kitchen door to the row of trashcans. She threw off a lid, rolled the gown into as tight a wad as she could, and buried it.

  Looking through Juliana’s memory closet, Winna wondered what happy memories these gowns had held for her grandmother. She pulled the chain on the closet light. The top shelf was lined with hatboxes, the floor with shoes and boots. Most of the gowns had long skirts. She removed one made of a golden silk peau de soie with a draped bodice and a skirt length that was definitely fifties. Hanging next to it was the black satin gown Juliana had worn to Eisenhower’s inaugural ball. Then she found something stunning in brown velvet, the neckline jeweled. She pulled it out for a better look and felt something hard bump against her calf. Hanging the dress back on the rod, she got down on her knees for a better look at the deep hem. Something lay inside the hem. Running her fingers over the velvet, she felt a hard slender object. Immediately, she knew what it was.

  Winna called Emily first and then Chloe. She spoke to both, but said nothing about the breathtakingly beautiful diamond and pearl necklace she’d found sewn into the hem of the velvet gown.

  “Just get here as quickly as you can—drive safely. I’m fine, but deadly serious. I need you to come.”

  Both agreed to be there at seven-thirty.

  Chloe arrived first, minutes before Emily. Both were eager-eyed and demanded to know what was up.

  “This better be good,” Chloe said. “Tonight, Todd and I wanted to watch that new show Who Wants to be a Millionaire? Have you seen it yet?”

  Winna laughed. “You’ll know why I’m laughing in a minute.” She motioned for them to follow her.

  “Stop teasing us,” Emily begged as
she followed her mother up the stairs. “The suspense is killing me.”

  “I think I found the jewels,” Winna said. “I need you to help me get them.”

  “Woo hoo!” Chloe cried, as she picked up speed.

  “Where?” Emily asked.

  “In here.” Winna stopped in front of the hall closet door. “First, come in my room and I’ll show you what I found. It was sewn into the hem of one of Gramma’s gowns.”

  They entered Juliana’s old bedroom where a heap of brown velvet lay on the bed. Beside it lay a long necklace—ropes of pearls clasped at the neck and on both sides with large decorated brooch-like pieces set with diamonds. At the base of the piece was another brooch and from it hung two long tassels made of small pearls like one might see on the rope holding back a Victorian curtain—these were also held by a cluster of diamonds.

  “What on earth—” Emily said, lifting the piece. When doubled, it was more than two feet long. “How would you wear this? It’s belly button length!”

  “It’s called a sautoir—I looked it up while I was trying to decide whether or not to call you. I had to talk myself into not running off with it—not leaving you guys in poverty.” She smiled at her joke. “Guess what? I found it in Gramma’s illustrated jewelry book. Sautoirs were popular early in the century—they looked great hanging on all those long narrow dresses they wore in the nineteen teens and twenties.”

  Emily reached out to touch it. “There must be a thousand pearls here.”

  “It’s definitely for dress-up,” Chloe said, pulling it over her head to ornament her tee. She put her hand on her hip and walked around the room with her nose in the air.

  Winna and Emily applauded.

  “I felt around and didn’t find anything more, but let’s keep looking,” Winna said. “Just a word of caution, the dresses have a lot of sentimental and maybe some monetary value so go slow. If you have to clip or rip seams, do it gently.”

  The women headed for the closet, removed hangers full of gowns, and brought them back into Juliana’s bedroom where the light was better and they could sit while they worked.