“They used to be,” Ruth said. “Before.”
“Before what?”
She hesitated, and I held my breath, afraid to jinx the flow of information.
“Henrietta, Mamie, and I were best friends when we were small,” Ruth said eventually. “But after the babies were born . . .” She trailed off.
“The babies?” The twins who died, or Arthur and Henry?
When she didn’t speak, I added, “Did something happen to change things?”
“Not at first. But when Arthur . . .”
“Disappeared,” I said when she didn’t finish the sentence.
She shot me a look, one I couldn’t interpret. “Henrietta stopped coming by after that. And Aunt Sonya. We didn’t see them as much.”
“It must have been hard for them, too. They probably didn’t know what to say. Or do.” I knew I wouldn’t. It was hard enough to talk about it now, sixty-plus years later.
“Maybe.” Ruth turned the page, to a picture of Mamie in her forties. She had braids and was wearing a pinafore, holding a doll.
“Your sister kept stealing the Baby Jesus from the nativity outside the church,” I said.
It was as if some of the air went out of Ruth, and her stiff spine slumped a bit. “I know.”
“She probably thought it was her brother, didn’t she? She wanted him back.”
Ruth nodded.
“And you’d return him to the manger a day or two later?”
“When I found him.” She glanced at me out of the corner of her eye. “She didn’t mean any harm. She was just . . . confused.”
Of course. “I don’t think anyone minds,” I said. “Chances are nobody will say a word about it. The baby is back in the manger now.”
She nodded. “I saw it this morning.”
“Of course. Your sister must have missed him very much.”
“Mamie loved Arthur,” Ruth said. “She was seven when he was born, and he was like a doll. But we weren’t allowed to play with him. Only when Mother put him down on the floor. And we had to be very careful.”
“Babies are fragile.” My heart was beating hard in my chest, and I was worried that if I said the wrong thing, she’d stop talking. So I said as little as possible.
But she stopped talking anyway, and we sat in silence. Time stretched. Eventually I figured I had nothing to lose, so I just asked straight out.
“Did Mamie have anything to do with what happened to Arthur?”
—19—
For a few seconds, I wasn’t sure she’d heard me.
Oh, I knew I’d spoken loud enough. But she didn’t react at all. Just sat there, staring at her hands, folded on top of the album. They were old hands, with thin skin and age spots, and with visible veins. They were shaking.
“I don’t know,” she said eventually.
“Can you tell me what happened?”
She didn’t answer, and I added, “I found him. I’d like to know how he ended up in the attic. And how nobody knew he was there for so long.”
Ruth drew a breath. It shuddered, and was painful to hear. “I knew.”
I gentled my voice until it was just above a whisper. “Did you put him there?”
She nodded.
“Can you tell me about it?”
When she hesitated, I added, “Wayne—the chief of police—has told me he’s closing the case. Even if someone did something to the baby, I don’t think he’d file charges at this point.”
She turned to look at me. “I didn’t do anything to the baby.”
OK, then. “So what happened?”
She shrugged thin shoulders inside the old-fashioned black dress. “We were playing. In the playhouse at the back of the yard. Mamie, Henrietta, and I.”
“And Arthur was sleeping on the porch?” That’s what the newspaper article had said.
She nodded. “My father was at work, and my mother went to the beauty parlor and left the baby with us for an hour. We were playing in the front yard . . .”
“Yes?”
“And Henrietta came and asked if we wanted to play tea party.”
“So you went to the playhouse? Why didn’t you bring the baby with you?”
“Mother said not to move the carriage unless he woke up,” Ruth said. “We wanted him to stay asleep, so we left him on the porch.” She glanced at me. “Things were different then. It was a small town, and everyone looked out for everyone else. He slept on the porch all the time with nobody watching him.”
Sure. “So what went wrong this time?”
“I don’t know!” Her voice was loud, louder than it had been so far—louder, I think, than either of us expected. Ruth looked surprised for a second before she continued. “I don’t know what happened. Henrietta stayed for a while, and then Aunt Sonya called to her and she ran. I told Mamie to go see if Arthur was awake while I cleaned up the toys.”
“And?”
“She came back and said he was still sleeping. So I told her to finish cleaning up so I could look, because he’d been sleeping for a long time by then. And when I got there, he was cold.”
“You couldn’t wake him?”
“He was cold,” Ruth said again. “No, I couldn’t wake him. And I thought . . .”
She trailed off, spots of color in her cheeks.
“You thought Mamie had done something to him? By accident? Or on purpose?”
She lifted her hands helplessly and let them drop back into her lap. “I don’t know what I thought. I’m not sure I thought anything. I just know I panicked. Mother would be home soon, and she might think we hadn’t taken care of the baby. That we shouldn’t have gone and played with Henrietta. And I was afraid.”
“Afraid?”
She looked at me, and I could see the echo of that frightened little girl superimposed on her old, wrinkled features, and in those faded blue eyes. “I was afraid they’d send Mamie away.”
I leaned back a little, nonthreatening. “Had they talked about sending Mamie away?”
“Aunt Sonya and Uncle Henry were always saying that she should be somewhere where people knew how to take care of her. Where she couldn’t hurt anyone. But she didn’t hurt anyone! Aunt Sonya wouldn’t let us come over to their house and play, though. And she wouldn’t let Henrietta take Henry for a walk when we took Arthur, because she was afraid Mamie would do something to him.”
“Mamie didn’t hurt the babies, did she?”
Ruth shook her head. “Mamie loved the babies. Or at least she loved Arthur. She would never deliberately hurt him.”
“So what did you do? When you realized that Arthur wasn’t going to wake up and you didn’t want them to take Mamie away?”
“I hid him,” Ruth said.
“In the attic?”
She nodded. “I took him out of the carriage and went up to the second floor, and then I climbed up to the attic, and I put him in the crate and left him there. And when Mother came home, I told her that someone had stolen the baby.”
“And she believed you.”
“I told her that we’d gone to the playhouse, and that when we came back, the carriage was empty.”
And she had called the police and everyone in town started looking for him. “Didn’t anyone check the house?”
“They checked,” Ruth said, “but not the attic. And they all thought someone else had taken him.”
“But Mamie knew what you did, didn’t she?”
Apparently not, because Ruth shook her head. “Mamie wasn’t . . .” She hesitated. “Even back then, Mamie wasn’t smart. She didn’t always live in real life. It got worse after Arthur . . . disappeared, and then it got very bad when she got older, but I told her she didn’t remember not seeing him in the carriage and she believed me. Everyone else did, too.”
So she’d hidden her baby brother in the attic and sacrificed—in a sense—her sister’s reputation, but in an effort to keep her sister with her, and to keep Mamie from being sent away to an institution. And she’d been a child herself,
not really equipped to make these kinds of big decisions.
“How old were you?”
“Ten,” Ruth said, her lips clamped together. “Mamie was eight, I was ten. Our mother lost a couple of babies between Mamie and Arthur, just like Aunt Sonya.”
I must have been thinking especially loudly because she added, “Miscarriages. We didn’t talk about it back then, but I found out later. There were two between Mamie and Arthur. Aunt Sonya had one, as well, plus the twins.”
The twins who died. Sonya and Lila hadn’t been very lucky in their pregnancies, for certain. Sonya had had Henrietta, the twins who died, a miscarriage, and then finally Henry. And Lila had had Ruth, Mamie—who, at least by those days’ standard, was flawed—a couple of miscarriages, and then Arthur. Who disappeared.
“Thank you for telling me,” I said, since there wasn’t much else I could say really.
Ruth looked drained, her skin pale and thin as paper in the lamplight. “What will you do?”
I hadn’t really thought about it, but . . . “I guess I’ll have to tell Wayne, just so he knows what happened. But nobody committed a crime, so I don’t see him doing anything about it.”
“I hid my baby brother’s body in the attic and told everyone he’d been kidnapped,” Ruth said.
“You were ten. And afraid. And everyone else who was involved is dead now anyway.”
Her face twisted and I remembered, just a second too late, why a little sensitivity on my part might have been nice. She’d buried her sister and her cousin today, along with her brother.
“I’m sorry,” I added. “I just meant . . . your parents are gone. There’s no one left who would remember what happened.”
She nodded.
“Wayne will probably want to talk to you. Just to verify the facts. But I don’t think you have to worry.”
“It doesn’t matter anyway,” Ruth said. “Even if I do go to prison. As you said, there’s no one left to care.”
I hadn’t meant it that way. “You’re not going to prison.” Wayne wouldn’t put a seventy-five-year-old woman in jail for something that happened sixty-five years ago. Especially when her only crime had been fear for her sister’s well-being. “What do you think happened to your brother? SIDS?”
“Crib death,” Ruth said, “Nobody did anything to him. Nobody would.”
I nodded. She looked exhausted, so I got to my feet. “I should go.”
She glanced up. “Will you come back?”
“I can,” I said. “If Wayne wants to talk to you, would you like me to be here? Or get someone else to come? Maybe Darren?”
She shook her head. “He’s too much like old Henry. Nothing matters to him except money and family.”
I blinked. “You are family.”
“I’m not a Silva,” Ruth said. “Just a Green. And just a woman.”
“Is he that prejudiced?”
“His grandfather was. Henrietta wasn’t good enough for him, because she couldn’t carry on the name. Aunt Sonya was so upset when the twins died, because Henry didn’t have an heir . . .”
She kept talking, but I missed the details, because a thought skittered through my brain and out the other side, and I was preoccupied with trying to chase it down for a closer look.
When she wound down, I said, “That’s fine. I won’t involve Darren. I’ll just talk to Wayne, and if he wants to come talk to you tomorrow, I’ll make sure I’m here, too.”
Ruth nodded. “Thank you.” She reached out a hand and I took it. It was cold and frail, a bit like holding a bag of bones. “I wasn’t very nice to you the first time you were here. I didn’t want you in the house. And when you found my brother, I was angry.”
I gave her a gentle squeeze. “I understand. It must have been hard to leave the house where you’ve lived your whole life.”
Her faded blue eyes filled with tears. “I don’t know what I’ll do now.”
“Stay here?”
She looked around, and it was obvious from the look on her face that the idea didn’t appeal. It wouldn’t have appealed to me, either. She had always taken care of herself—and her sister—and once her hip was completely healed and she was back on her feet, she’d probably be capable of taking care of herself again. Especially if she didn’t have Mamie to worry over.
But of course I didn’t say so. “I’m sure it’ll work out,” I said instead.
She nodded and let go. “Thank you for coming.”
“Thank you for talking to me,” I said. “I’ll probably be back tomorrow.”
I headed for the door. By the time I was in the hallway and looked back over my shoulder, she had opened the photo album and was bent over the pictures again.
• • •
I called Wayne from the car and told him everything.
There was a pause. A long one. I must have driven a half mile, at least, before his voice came back on the line. “You’re kidding.”
I shook my head, even though he couldn’t see it. “I’m not. I swear.”
“Ruth hid the baby in the attic?”
“Because she was afraid Mamie would get blamed and that they’d send her to an institution. Yes.”
“And it’s been up there ever since.”
“Until the other day. Yes.”
“While Mamie and Ruth lived in the house and went about their business downstairs. While the parents were alive.”
“That’s what she said,” I said. “The police checked the house at the time, but not very thoroughly because everyone thought the baby had been kidnapped. And they didn’t crawl up into the attic. There was no need, since the baby certainly couldn’t have made it there on its own.”
There was another pause. “Did she say what happened? How the baby ended up dead?”
“She suggested crib death. SIDS. But I think she may have been afraid that Mamie did something to it. Accidentally. She said that Mamie loved the babies, and that she wouldn’t hurt them. But if Mamie tried to play with Arthur and something happened . . .”
“I guess we’ll never know for certain,” Wayne said. “I’ll have to go talk to her myself.”
“I told her you probably would. I said I’d ask you if I could be there when you do.”
“I’ll have to call the Silvas.”
Fine. “Try to get Henry. She doesn’t like Darren. I don’t, either.” I slowed the car down to turn onto Cabot.
“I’ll try,” Wayne said. “Ten A.M. tomorrow?”
I told him that would be fine, and pulled the truck to a stop outside Dr. Ben and Cora’s. But instead of getting out, I just cut the engine and continued the conversation. “She won’t go to prison, will she? I’m sure it’s a crime to hide a dead baby and say he’s been kidnapped, but she was only ten years old, and scared that she’d lose her sister, too.”
Wayne hesitated. “I don’t see myself throwing her in prison, no. If the baby died of SIDS, there was no real crime committed, other than a scared little girl telling a fib to get out of trouble. She probably didn’t think it through to even realize what repercussions a lie like that would have.”
Probably not. And I was glad Wayne saw it that way, since I wouldn’t have to lie awake tonight worrying.
“I’ll see you at ten tomorrow.”
“Ten,” Wayne said and hung up. I stuffed my phone in my pocket, pulled the key from the ignition, and headed up the walk to the Folk Victorian.
• • •
They were playing Scrabble again when I walked in, at the family room table, and Cora waved in the direction of the kitchen. “Plate in the warmer.”
I headed for the warmer, a special drawer of the high-end stove, where the brownies had been last time we’d been here, and found a plate of enchiladas waiting for me. After digging a fork out of the silverware drawer and grabbing a paper towel from the roll on the counter, I wandered back into the family room, plate in hand, in time to catch Derek score with the word “formication.”
“You spelled it wrong,” I informed h
im around a bit of enchilada.
He glanced at me. “No, I didn’t.”
“Well, then you got confused. And put two words together. Formica and . . . something else.”
“‘Formica’ isn’t a word,” Derek told me. “Not according to Scrabble. ‘Formication’ is.”
“I’ve never heard of it.”
“Dad has.”
I glanced at Dr. Ben, who nodded. “It’s a form of paresthesia. The feeling that insects are crawling on—or under—your skin. A tactile hallucination.”
No kidding? “Being a doctor gives you an unfair advantage in Scrabble, doesn’t it?”
Both doctors, the current and the retired, grinned. “Yes. But when it’s two of us, it cancels out.”
Not so for those of us who weren’t doctors. But I wasn’t even playing, so what business was it of mine?
“How did it go at the nursing home?” Derek asked, and I repeated what Ruth had told me. By the time I had finished, the Scrabble board was forgotten and my food was colder than I liked.
“You’re kidding,” Derek said, just like Wayne had earlier.
And just like then, I shook my head. But at least he, unlike Wayne, could actually see me. “No. That’s what happened. Or so she said.”
“That’s crazy.” He glanced at his father, who nodded.
“She must have been very frightened,” Cora said in her soft voice, “to do something like that.”
There was a pause while we all thought about just how scared someone had to be to hide her dead baby brother in the attic and then continue living in the house for the rest of her life. If it hadn’t been for the broken hip and having to go to the hospital, she’d probably still be there.
“Wayne said he wasn’t going to make anything of it,” I said. “He has to talk to her, of course. She asked me if I would be there. At ten o’clock tomorrow.” I glanced at Derek, who nodded. “But it’s just to get the facts straight. He’s not charging her with anything.”
“I would hope not,” Cora said indignantly. Dr. Ben reached out and put his hand over hers, smiling.
“Don’t worry. Wayne will do the right thing.”
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