The Ice Cradle

by Mary Ann Winkowski

  “He did not,” Henry said.

  “He did, too!” Vivi shot back.

  There was now a long period of silence. From the squeaking of bedsprings, I deduced that Henry was bouncing, from a sitting position, on the bed. If he progressed to outright jumping, I would have to step out of hiding.

  “Did you see The Lion King?” Henry finally asked.

  “What?”

  “The Lion King! The movie!”

  “No,” Vivi answered.

  “Never?” Henry sounded incredulous.

  If Vivi responded, I didn’t hear her.

  “But did you ever hear the songs?” he pressed.

  “I don’t know,” Vivi said quietly.

  “Like, ‘Hakuna Matata’!” Henry said.

  I almost laughed out loud.

  “What?” I heard her say.

  “Hakuna Matata,” he continued, “is a wonderful day! Hakuna Matata—” And here he broke off.

  “Ha-do-do duh-doo-do!” Vivi mimicked.

  Henry upped her one. “Ha-poo-poo puh-poo-poo!”

  Next came uproarious giggles and the groan and screech of seriously aggrieved bedsprings.

  “Hey, hey, hey!” I said, stepping out from behind the door and into the room. Henry immediately plopped onto his bottom on the bed. Vivi kept jumping, but being as insubstantial as a breeze, she posed no threat to the furniture, the windows, or herself.

  “No fair!” Henry complained.

  “No fair what?”

  “No fair sneaking up on us!”

  I hadn’t been fair in imposing a gag order at the table, either, but this seemed to have slipped his mind. I would probably hear about it later, or be treated to some kind of misbehavior that revealed that he was still really, really miffed at me about something, he just couldn’t remember what.

  I decided to dive straight in.

  “I heard you talking about the fire,” I said. “Pretty scary, huh?”

  “No,” said Vivi. She wasn’t going to give me the satisfaction of agreeing with anything I said.

  “How come you didn’t wake me up?” Henry asked accusingly.

  “I did,” I lied. “Don’t you remember?”

  “No,” he said petulantly.

  I shrugged.

  “Was someone smoking?” Henry asked.

  I had to hand it to the antismoking folks: they sure had managed to drive home the message that smoking was bad. I was used to hearing the dripping scorn in my son’s tone of voice when we passed a hapless tobacco addict on the street, but this was impressive: he automatically assumed that any fire had to have been caused by a carelessly tossed butt.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “What do you think?” I glanced at Vivi.

  She appeared to be torn about whether to talk to me. She was obviously still wary after the events of last night, but I was confusing her now by being nice.

  “I bet someone fell asleep while they were smoking,” Henry pronounced, predictably.

  I plopped down on the other bed and divested myself of my bulky sweater.

  “I dreamed I was making popcorn. But when I woke up, I realized that the sounds were really happening, and they were coming from the fire.”

  Henry dropped his jaw. This gesture was new to the repertoire and was usually accompanied by rapid blinking.

  “Didn’t that ever happen to you?”

  Henry shook his head. “Sometimes I think I’m walking down stairs but they disappear.”

  “Stairs? And you step off into the air?”

  “Yeah,” Henry said.

  “And you kind of jump?”

  He nodded.

  “That’s happened to me, too,” I said casually, stealing a look at Vivi. I had to remember that she was only a child, and that she had been alone for more than a hundred years. I didn’t rush in to fill the silence. After a moment, she surprised me by speaking up.

  “One time when I was sleeping,” she volunteered, “I heard a really big boom. And then I dreamed I was swimming underwater.” There was no longer any trace of a smirk on her face. She looked tiny and cheerless.

  “Then what happened?” I asked gently.

  “I woke up,” she finally whispered.

  “Woke up—like you are now?”

  She didn’t answer. She didn’t have to. It was clear to me that Vivi was not recalling the familiar human transition from sleep to wakefulness, but her own baffling passage from life to death. Though she had never actually told me about being on the doomed steamship, I felt all but certain that she had met her death there. She had probably been asleep and had been awakened by the boom of the Harry Knowlton hitting the Larchmont. No doubt she actually remembered being under water, before “waking up” into her present incarnation.

  “Were you afraid?” I asked gently.

  She nodded.

  “Were you alone?”

  She frowned and bit her lip, but before she could say any more, Henry burst in.

  “Can she sleep over tonight?” he wheedled. “Please?”

  “Okay, but you have to let her have your bed.”

  “How come?” he demanded.

  “Because that’s the polite thing to do. When somebody sleeps over and there aren’t enough beds, you let the guest have your bed.”

  “Can we make me a bed on the floor? With pillows?”

  “Sure.”

  “You call her mom,” Henry instructed me.

  Vivi looked over to gauge my reaction, but as I caught her eye, I just shrugged. She shrugged back.

  I was rewarded for my patience after Henry fell asleep. Vivi was lying on top of his bed, barely visible in the moonlight streaming through the window. It had taken all my strength to remain awake, but the moment arrived when I was sure that Henry had finally drifted off.

  “Vivi?” I whispered.

  She looked over.

  “You were talking about the fire.”

  She watched me and said nothing.

  “Did somebody set it?”

  “Yes,” she said quietly.

  “Who?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Kids or grown-ups?”

  “Grown-ups,” she responded.

  “Do you know how old?” I realized immediately that this was a stupid question. Children can’t tell how old adults are; anyone old enough to babysit would probably be classified as a grown-up.

  “Just guess,” I said. “Did they seem older than me or younger?”

  “The same,” she said.

  “So, about my age?

  “She nodded.

  “And were they men?” I asked.

  “A man and a lady.”

  “Thank you for telling me. This will be really helpful.” How, I wasn’t sure. I couldn’t exactly head over to the police station in New Shoreham and pass on the information without having to reveal how I’d learned it.

  We were quiet for a few moments. I struggled to keep my eyes open.

  “Is there anything you want to talk to me about?” I finally asked, with my very last ounce of waking energy.

  “No,” she said.

  “You remember that I can help you cross over, right? Whenever you’re ready. Any time at all, you just tell me.”

  “I don’t want to,” she said vehemently.

  “Why not?”

  “Because of my brother. I can’t leave until I get him.”

  I sat up. “What?”

  “He let go of my hand. When we were swimming.”

  I felt a chill run through me. “When you were under water?”

  She nodded.

  “How old was he—is he?”

  “Three,” Vivi answered.

  I took a deep breath. “Well, honey, he’s probably already crossed over. I’m sure he’s with your mom and dad.”

  “No, he didn’t.”

  “How do you know?”

  “He’s here. Down by the lighthouse. He’s—like me.”

  “A spirit? A ghost?”

  Vivi nodd
ed. “A lady has him. She was on the boat. He wants me but I can’t get him. She lets me play with him, outside, but when I try to get him back, she picks him up and takes him away, and she doesn’t let me come.”

  “What’s his name?” I asked.

  “Jamey,” she whispered.

  Chapter Twelve

  WEDNESDAY

  CALEB WAS ALREADY in the office when I arrived at nine. I had little to show for the previous days’ efforts, but he seemed unperturbed by my lack of visible progress and excited about the leather and paper samples that would be arriving, I hoped, tomorrow.

  “You know, I really liked that idea,” he said.

  “Which idea?”

  “The audio component. Having the letters and diary entries read by the descendants of the people who actually wrote them. Or by actors.”

  “I can’t take credit for that,” I said. “I’ve been to a couple of museums where they’ve done that. It’s spooky: you’re looking at all these sepia-toned pictures and hearing those people’s words. It’s almost like listening to voices from beyond the grave.”

  “It would be great if we had a special room we could dedicate to it. I’m going to have to think about that.”

  “Do you have the space here?” I asked.

  Caleb shook his head. “Well, not downstairs. There are rooms up on the second floor, but they need a lot of work.”

  “Maybe in the future,” I suggested.

  “Maybe.”

  I spent the morning doing what I had planned to do the previous evening: laying out all the documents and sorting papers and mementos into pertinent piles. Two hours of thinking and rearranging convinced me that the concept of relying on a dramatic story line really would work, and I set my mind to putting together a rough assembly of the most poignant and heart-stopping individual documents I could find.

  I had dozens to choose from. The Joy Line Company, in gratitude for the efforts of the islanders to aid the stricken survivors, had turned over to the Historical Society all its correspondence with the Larchmont’s passengers before the evening of the fateful voyage.

  There was a handwritten note from a Mr. Redmond Mullins of Providence, requesting the private use of the small library on the steamer’s second level between the hours of nine and nine thirty: he intended to propose marriage to a Miss Evelyn Brosman.

  There was the carbon copy of a letter from the Larchmont’s head chef, Coleman Birmingham, to a Mrs. Dedrick Hoskins of New York, who had booked passage back from Providence for five in her family. Mr. Birmingham had received the request for a birthday cake and asked that Mrs. Hoskins telephone him with further directions. Would little Miss Hoskins like decorative rosettes or candied violets? Lemon or rose-water icing?

  There were full-length statements taken from the few survivors. I intended to break these up into short paragraphs and drop the fragments into the story line, in effect juxtaposing a human voice with hard copies of the wireless dispatches, weather reports, and after-the-fact newspaper fragments detailing the events of that evening as they unfolded. My only problem was, I had nearly five hundred documents I really wanted to use.

  I popped into the adjoining room, where Caleb was working at his desk. “We might need to do two volumes,” I announced.

  He looked up. “Is that a problem?” he asked.

  “Not for me.”

  He smiled. “Go for it.”

  “Great,” I said.

  “Oh, and gosh! I completely forgot I was supposed to ask you …”

  “Ask me what?”

  “To the party. At the Rawlingses’. Tomorrow night.”

  “What? No!”

  Caleb nodded. “He called the house last night. He made a special point of it, mentioned several times that he really wanted me to invite you.”

  “He’s just being polite,” I said.

  “Polite? Rawlings? I doubt it.”

  “I can’t.”

  Caleb gave me a skeptical look. I was sure he was thinking that my social calendar couldn’t be that overcrowded, given that I’d been on the island all of three days and knew hardly anyone.

  “How often do you get invited to a senator’s house?” he nudged. “Besides, you really should see it.” His tone was suggesting something, but I wasn’t sure what.

  “The house?”

  “Let’s just say it’s one of a kind.” He leaned back in his chair and put his feet up on the desk. I noticed that he was not wearing socks with his Top-Siders, a habit I had often observed among guys who seemed to get their clothes at J. Crew or Brooks Brothers.

  I sighed. I was curious, no question. It would be so much fun to call Dad and my brothers and let drop the little tidbit that I had been invited over for cocktails by the head of the Senate Appropriations Committee. It would really surprise Louise. Then again, I couldn’t call Dad just yet. Jay might not have reached him with the news about the babies, and I didn’t trust myself not to spring the surprise.

  And what about Lauren and Mark? Had they been invited? After how welcoming they’d been to me, I couldn’t imagine announcing that I had scored what had to be, on the island, a fairly coveted invitation and bouncing out their front door, leaving them behind. Besides, I had nothing to wear. And I had Henry.

  “We’ve got a sitter coming,” Caleb said, after I elected to rely on the latter excuse. “Bring him over. We’ll be home by eight or eight thirty.”

  “I’ll think about it,” I replied.

  At one thirty, I decided to take a break and get out for a breath of fresh air and some lunch. Caleb had left at about twelve o’clock. Running the Historical Society, as it turned out, was not his full-time job; he was “of counsel” to a law firm in Providence, specializing in wills and trusts. This meant that he made his own schedule, working from a home office, advising mostly people of a certain age on matters of estate planning. A few times a month, he took the ferry over to the mainland to file documents, show up at probate court, treat clients to lunch or drinks, and generally maintain the steady flow of work that enabled him to telecommute year-round from Block Island.

  I locked the door behind me and took a deep breath. The wind was brisk, and the cool temperature—somewhere in the fifties, I guessed—suppressed the aromas of spring. I didn’t want to go back to the Grand View. Lauren would insist on making me a nice lunch, and I wasn’t up for either the socializing or the volume of food. A quick slice of pizza would do.

  I headed up toward the school, half hoping that the kids would be out at a recess, affording me the opportunity to spy on Henry and assess for myself whether he was having fun and making friends. The schoolyard was deserted, though, and that made sense. They’d probably had outdoor playtime right after lunch and were now back to the serious business of car painting and dance rehearsing.

  A pickup truck pulled up behind me just as I was opening the door to Vito’s Sub and Slice.

  “Wait!” I heard someone say.

  I turned around. It was Bert.

  “You really don’t want to do that,” he whispered.

  “I don’t?”

  He shook his head.

  I peeked into the shop. No one seemed to be around, so I wouldn’t be hurting any feelings by retracing my steps. I closed the door quietly.

  “But I’m starving,” I said.

  “We can fix that,” Bert replied.

  “Who’s we?”

  “My sister.” He grinned. “I’m bringing her some flounder.”

  “Oh, and I’m sure she’d appreciate a surprise guest for lunch.”

  Bert laughed. “You don’t know Aitana. I’ll have you back in an hour. I promise.”

  I was still hesitating, and I didn’t know why. Well, actually, I did. I had developed an immediate and alarmingly intense crush, and I didn’t entirely trust myself not to reveal this somehow. Also, I didn’t want to ruin the pleasure of a perfectly harmless and enjoyable escape by finding out that in fact, Bert was a dope.

  Then again, that might a very goo
d idea. He lived here. I lived in Cambridge. He probably had a girlfriend, and if someone as cute and nice as he was didn’t, there had to be a good reason why. I’d do well to nip this thing in the bud.

  I walked around to the passenger side and got in. I could just tell that I hadn’t pulled off a fetching and mysterious Juliette Binoche–type half smile; I had produced a goofy and unattractive squint.

  “Buckle up,” Bert said.

  The interior of the truck was pretty tidy, unlike those of most trucks I’ve been in. Of course, I’m in no position to point a finger in the vehicle cleanliness department. Once every few months, I fill a shopping bag with empty coffee cups and candy wrappers and sheets of paper covered with directions I no longer need, but the inside of my car hasn’t seen a vacuum cleaner or a bottle of Windex in a long time.

  “So, what are you doing here, again?” Bert asked by way of a conversation starter.

  “Just grabbing a quick lunch.”

  “No, I mean on the island!” Bert pulled out onto Ocean Avenue and headed in the direction of the Mohegan Bluffs.

  “I’m a bookbinder. Freelance. I’m working on a project for the Historical Society.”

  “Oh, right, yeah. What is it? Or can’t you say?”

  “There’s nothing secret about it. They had boxes and boxes of stuff related to a disaster at sea back at the turn of the century. The twentieth century, I mean. A steamship was hit by another boat and it sank.”

  “The Larchwood,” Bert said.

  “Larchmont, but yeah, that’s the one. I’m pulling all the materials together. They got a grant of some kind.”

  “From whom?”

  I paused. A sexy guy who used whom correctly? This could be dangerous.

  “I don’t know,” I replied. “It was anonymous.”

  “Hmmm,” Bert said, eyebrows knit thoughtfully. “So that’s probably a person, right? It’s usually people who want to stay anonymous.”

  “Now that you mention it, yeah, probably.”

  “You think it was someone from the island?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. It could be anybody, really. I thought maybe it was from a descendant of one of the passengers who died. Anyway, I’m binding some of the materials and getting some others ready to be displayed. The Society is hoping to have some kind of event this summer.”