A Deceptive Homecoming

by Anna Loan-Wilsey

  I took a deep breath, straightened my hat, and reached for the door handle. The same familiar bell rang as I entered. I was immediately brought back to my youth by the smell of silk, felt, and furniture polish.

  And then I stopped, frozen in the doorway. Like the exterior, the interior of the store hadn’t changed either, except for the hats displayed on the various stands throughout the room. The oak hat stands, the glass counters, the brass lamps, and the chandelier were all as my father had left them. The same Persian rug my father bought from a wholesaler months before he died lay in the middle of the room. Tears filled my eyes when I discovered that even the hash marks my father had used to measure my growth on the back of the tall mirror hadn’t been painted over. It was as if my father had stepped out of the room for a moment. I was overwhelmed with memories of my life with him and my loss.

  “And how did your husband like the straw derby, Mrs. Ames?”

  “Mr. Davish, I don’t know how you do it, but my Henry actually liked the hat and Henry never likes hats, always taking them off as soon as he can and even sometimes when he shouldn’t. But the hat that you suggested for him fits him like a glove! And he doesn’t perspire in it like he usually does. Mr. Davish, my Henry doesn’t even grumble when he has to put it on. You’re a wonder, sir!”

  “At your service, madam.” The old woman beamed as my father bent at the waist, flourishing a hat he’d grabbed from a nearby stand.

  “Needless to say, I would like to order two more,” she said.

  “In fur felt for autumn?”

  “Yes, just so. What colors would you suggest?”

  “Every man can use a black and a gray.”

  “Yes, and maybe a brown as well?”

  “Excellent choice, madam. Shall we say Thursday for delivery?”

  “Oh, yes, that would do nicely. Please put them on my tab, will you, Mr. Davish? I thank you and my Henry thanks you.” The lady waved to my father before heading out the door.

  “How do you do it?” Frans Van Beek, my father’s assistant, said. He was a tall man, standing several inches above my father, with spectacles and a perpetually stiff neck, who never showed his teeth when he smiled. “Even I know Mr. Ames is a notoriously difficult customer. According to Joe over at Lockwood’s he’s been to every haberdashery in town but once. Now you have a standing account with his wife. How, George? How do you do it?”

  “Well, my good man, it’s simple. The customer gets what the customer wants. Our hats are superior in quality, of course,” Father said, winking at me when he caught me watching over the counter, “but when it comes down to it, the quality of the hat can get you only so far. Service, my friend, is the thing. Mrs. Ames wants her hats delivered, we deliver.”

  “But we don’t deliver. No one does,” Mr. Van Beek said.

  “Exactly, except we do delivery to Mrs. Ames because that’s what she wants. She also expects our full attention, our flattery, and seemingly”—he grabbed my hand and pulled me around the counter, twirling me around three times—“a little bit of showmanship.”

  He twirled me around the room as we laughed. Mr. Van Beek shook his head. From the moment he had arrived, Mr. Van Beek disapproved of my presence in the store. He couldn’t understand why my father allowed me to sit on the floor behind the counter every day after school, with my books and my piece of peach cake meant for my father’s customers, while they conducted the day’s business. My place was at home upstairs, he once said. Father’s reply was, “What home upstairs? This is our home.” Realizing the truth in that, Mr. Van Beek never said another word about it. But that didn’t mean he liked it.

  “I cringed when you bowed like that. I can’t imagine doing that in front of Mr. Minier or Mr. Heath.” Father stopped and I, not anticipating his sudden lack of movement, collided into his chest; as always, he smelled of shaving soap.

  “Nor would I,” Father said. “That’s what I mean about the customer gets what the customer wants. You have to be able to look at every customer that walks through that door and know what kind of service he or she wants. Mr. Minier wants to pick out a hat without any extraneous chitchat, Mr. Heath has to try on each new style while you praise the comely shape of his head, Mr. Ames prefers to have Mrs. Ames buy his hats, and Mrs. Ames wants to be flattered and entertained.”

  “But I can barely remember returning customers’ names, let alone remember how they like to be served.”

  “But it’s essential, Frans. You’ll never do well in any business if you can’t remember a person’s name and face. And if you can recall their children’s names, their dressmaker or tailor, their favorite food, their wife’s birthday or their anniversary, all the better.”

  “But how do you do it?”

  I smiled at my father, knowing full well he wouldn’t be able to answer that. For him it was instinctual. As I suspected, Father shrugged.

  “I don’t know, son. Lots of practice, perhaps.”

  “And you have to like people, not hats,” I added. Father and Mr. Van Beek both stared at me. Mr. Van Beek furrowed his brows in annoyance, thinking perhaps that I’d somehow insulted him, but Father burst out in laughter. He grabbed me and twirled me around again.

  “That’s my clever girl!” He danced me across the showroom floor until the bell over the door rang again. I dodged through his arms and dashed to my hiding place behind the counter. My father straightened his tie and turned toward the door.

  “Ah, Mr. Skinner, I’m pleased to see you’ve returned safely from your trip to Omaha. I set aside the latest top hat styles in your size, in case you should stop by. Would you care to see them?”

  And with Mr. Skinner’s curt nod of his head, my father’s charm had worked again.

  “Can I help you find something, madam?” A young, clean-shaven man in a well-tailored blue single-breasted suit stood before me. He had a slight chip in his front tooth that added charm to his wide smile.

  Embarrassed to be caught up in a myriad of emotions, I quickly wiped away my tears, smoothed the lines on my skirt, and straightened my hat. “No, thank you. I was simply admiring your shop.”

  Instead of glancing away and allowing me a moment, the man did the opposite. He stepped closer and leaned in to see my face. I leaned back, my grief and sadness replaced by irritation.

  “You aren’t any relation to George Davish, the previous proprietor of the store, are you? I’m sorry to be rude, but you look a lot like him.”

  I immediately glanced at my face in the nearest mirror. Except for his green eyes, I’d always thought I resembled my mother. I still didn’t see it and the thought made me want to start weeping again. Instead, I squared my shoulders and took a step back. Mistaking my need to compose myself for annoyance, the young man’s cheeks flushed as he bobbed his head.

  “I’m sorry. That was impertinent of me.”

  “It’s all right. I’m his daughter.”

  “You’re Hattie?” The man’s face darkened even more. “I mean Miss Davish, I . . . I mean Mrs. . . . I mean . . . Mr. Van Beek didn’t tell me you were in town.”

  Mr. Frans Van Beek didn’t know I was in town and I’d no intention of telling him. After years as my father’s assistant, and then as his partner, Mr. Van Beek took over the running of the store when my father fell ill. When Father died, Mr. Van Beek paid me $1000 to “buy my father’s share in the store,” and gave me two weeks’ notice to evacuate my childhood home. It was a fraction of what my father’s share was worth, but being a girl of seventeen and having no family to help me, I could do nothing but thank him and look for somewhere else to live.

  At least it paid for the funeral and my last year’s tuition at Mrs. Chaplin’s, I thought. Obviously Mr. Van Beek hadn’t changed a single thing since he took over.

  “No, I’m in town for a short while, for a funeral.”

  “Oh, sorry to hear that. Still wanted to stop in and see the old place then, huh?” I ignored his question.

  “Are you Mr. Van Beek’s assistant?” Th
e man straightened up to his full height and wiggled his tie.

  “I am. I’m following in his footsteps. This will be my shop someday.”

  “May that be many years to come.” The boy frowned, not sure how to take my comment. I headed for the door. I didn’t need to see any more. Despite nothing having changed, everything had—my father wasn’t here. “Please give my regards to Mr. Van Beek,” I said only out of common courtesy.

  “Of course. But before you go, wouldn’t you like to look at a hat? For your husband perhaps? We recently put out the latest styles for autumn. A chic new fedora, maybe?”

  I shook my head. “No, thank you.” I pulled open the door and heard the shop bell ring one last time.

  In my haste to be out in the open air again, I crashed right into a man entering at the same time. The brim of my hat bent on the thick knot of his tie before I was able to take a quick step backward. It was the same man who had almost walked into me a few minutes ago on the corner.

  “Excuse me,” I said, trying to dodge around the man blocking my way.

  “Of course, excuse me.” The man stepped out of the path of the door. He tilted his head and hat in an apologetic nod, preventing me from getting a glimpse of his face.

  “Thank you.” I gained the doorway and hurried out into the street.

  Before the door closed completely behind me, I heard the man say, “Was that Hattie Davish?”

  I was halfway to the streetcar stop before I had the sense to wonder: How did he know that and why did he want to know?

  CHAPTER 6

  “In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, amen,” I said, kneeling before a granite obelisk that read:

  BELOVED WIFE AND MOTHER BELOVED HUSBAND AND FATHER BELOVED SON

  MARY MARGARET DAVISH 1840–1874 GEORGE STUART DAVISH 1835–1882 EDWARD PADRAIG DAVISH 1867–1870

  After visiting all the places of my childhood, before I could leave town, I had to make the pilgrimage to the site of my father’s one true transgression. He had not respected my mother’s dying wish. I took the streetcar via the Frederick Avenue Line and then walked the two blocks to Mount Mora Cemetery, the oldest cemetery in the city. As I’d walked through the gates and followed the winding roads, under trees that had grown tall since I’d been here last, I sensed that none of my family was truly here, but it was the closest I could get.

  They were such different people I often wondered how my parents ever fell in love, let alone stayed happy together. My mother was a foot shorter than my father with her boots on. She often wore an old-fashioned woolen scarf over her curly dark brown hair while my father sported the latest styles in men’s hats. My mother attended Mass every day and always carried her rosary. The only time I saw my father enter the cathedral was for my mother’s funeral. My mother had big blue eyes, tiny teeth, and coarse hands that she used to cup my cheek with. My father had freckles across his nose and soft hands that he used to shake everyone’s hand. She whistled or hummed constantly but often went hours without speaking. He made his living by talking. She was firm with me while my father indulged my every whim. How different they were and yet all of my memories of them together were of laughter, smiles, and music.

  Until she died, I thought.

  She’d wanted to be buried in the Catholic Cemetery, south of town, alongside my baby brother, Edward, but my father had always fancied himself being buried among St. Joseph’s economic and social elite, including the governor of Missouri Robert Stewart, M. Jeff Thompson, a one-time mayor of St. Joseph and Civil War general, and James Benjamin “Bean” Hamilton, a Pony Express rider. Father would often remark on the growing number of grand mausoleums entombing members of St. Joseph’s wealthy and influential families and how they dominated the entrance to the cemetery.

  “I like the idea that one has to pass all these great names to find mine,” he once said. And, of course, my father hated having my brother interred all the way on the other side of town. Thus he purchased a plot that would accommodate them all, in Mount Mora. I learned later that it wasn’t a coincidence that it was then that Mr. Van Beek became a partner in Father’s business. It was the reason my father could afford the plot.

  “You’ll be buried with your husband, Hattie,” Father had said, “or else I’d have bought a bigger plot. It pains me to know that you will spend eternity away from me, but that’s how it must be.” I was a child at the time and had no idea how soon we would be parted.

  I’d visited every Sunday after Mass while I attended Mrs. Chaplin’s school but hadn’t been back since the day I left. I glanced at the stones around me and could tell by the dates on the stones that most were far older than my parents’. Mostly modest rectangular monuments, the words etched into the stones were barely readable and they were covered with streaks of black dirt or lichen. Why would my father have chosen one of the older sections? Was it all he could afford or was there some other reason? I examined the stones nearby. Before I could get my answer, I suddenly had the same presentiment as earlier. Someone was watching me.

  I crawled closer to my father’s tombstone and huddled there. I held my breath as I heard footsteps approaching. I unpinned my hat, carefully setting it next to me. I held the pins out in front of me for defense. A long-legged cellar spider crept over the top of the stone and across my brother Edward’s name. By the time its legs hovered above my father’s name, my racing heart couldn’t take much more. I brushed the spider into the grass and peeked around the edge of the tombstone. Approaching me were two men who, except for the color of their hair, from a distance looked like twins, both tall, broad-shouldered, and wearing identical navy blue uniforms and caps. Their uniforms seemed familiar, but I couldn’t place them. With the deportment of policemen, despite looking more like train conductors, they made their unhurried way toward me. They stopped often to circumnavigate the larger mausoleums, or to glance behind every large obelisk and headstone. If they had seen me, they gave no impression of doing so. But why would they be coming for me? Why was I hiding?

  “It’s your jitters again,” I chided myself. “What’s wrong with you?”

  I snatched up my hat and pinned it back on while I watched their progress. When they were a few yards away, I stood up from my hiding place.

  “Aaahhh!” one of the men shouted, both leaping back a few steps.

  “Oh, madam,” the man with the ginger hair said, his hand over his heart, “you certainly gave us a fright!”

  “What are you doing here?” the other one asked. Both the first man and I looked askance at this ridiculous question. I glanced around me at the tombstones and mausoleums.

  “Obviously she’s visiting someone’s grave,” the ginger-haired man said.

  “I’m sorry. That came out wrong. What I meant is that you should take care being here, especially alone.”

  “And why should I take care?”

  There were always those who say that ghosts haunt graveyards at night but even if I believed in such nonsense, it wasn’t even midday as yet. The only shadows here were caused by the speckling of light on the stones as the sun shone down through the trees. I’d actually found it very calming and comforting to be among the silent stones warmed by the late-summer sunlight. At least I had until they arrived.

  Then why had I hid at the slightest of noises?

  “Because there’s an unpredictable, dangerous man about,” the ginger-haired man said, as if hearing my thought.

  “Is that whom you were searching for among the graves?”

  “Yes, it would be easy to hide in a place like this.”

  Could this be whom I’d sensed watching me? It would explain the unease I felt. Or after all I’ve been through lately I could just be getting jumpy.

  No, that isn’t it, I thought. Maybe the man they’re searching for was here.

  “Who is this man?”

  “A patient from the asylum who escaped a few days ago,” the fair-haired one said. “We’ve got men all over town searching for him.” />
  “The State Lunatic Asylum?” I realized now why their uniforms seemed familiar. The two nodded their heads.

  “I’d keep your wits about you, if I were you.”

  “I’d recommend not going about alone, especially in a deserted place like this,” the other added. But I was barely listening to what they said.

  The State Lunatic Asylum, I repeated in my head, a shiver running down my spine. I hadn’t heard that name for many years now. The palms of my hands felt damp upon hearing it. And I’d prefer never hearing it again. I shook off the dread, fought the nausea slowly rising in my throat to hear the orderly say, “He’s a pale-skinned man, five feet ten inches tall with broad shoulders, weighing one hundred eighty pounds.”

  But he couldn’t possibly be talking about my father, I thought.

  “Excuse me. Did you say the man was in his fifties, with mostly gray wavy hair, broad shoulders, and very prominent cheekbones?”

  “Yes, he also wears a mustache and beard and has brown eyes. If you see him, don’t approach him. Please contact the asylum or notify the police.”

  I nodded my head absently as the two men continued their search of the cemetery grounds. The events of the funeral and interment returned to my thoughts again. I had found a semblance of peace in the presence of my parents’ graves, but it was now completely gone. For if I hadn’t known better, the two orderlies described, with the exception of his scar, the now-dead and buried Frank Hayward.

  With the peace of the cemetery shattered and my mind racing with thoughts about Frank Hayward and the missing asylum patient, I was at a loss.

  Now what do I do? I wondered.

  I stood staring at my parents’ grave, and finding no answers there, I began walking. I’d reached a newly built limestone mausoleum for the prominent Crowther family, which included foundry owners, lawyers, and politicians, when I realized I’d no idea where I was going. I sat on one of the spiral-shaped stones flanking the mausoleum. Should I pack and take the next train back to Newport? No, I couldn’t disappoint Mrs. Chaplin. She was expecting me at the lake. Should I write to Walter about my muddled impressions of Frank Hayward’s funeral, the odd reception I’d received from Ginny, and the memories both joyous and sad I’d relived this morning? I longed to talk to Walter, but writing it all down now would force me to relive it again. I watched as several winged seeds of the nearest maple tree spiraled through the air. I could go hiking again. I sighed.