After her morning tour at the museum she started to go through the stack of mail she’d grabbed on the way out the door. At least Brad had been forwarding things more consistently—not that there was very much anyway, and most creditors and vendors she had managed to notify of her new address by now. Sorting through the stack, she pounced on an official envelope from the Bridgeport town clerk. Sitting in her chair, she took a deep breath before she slit the envelope and pulled out the single sheet of paper inside. It was a death certificate for Samuel Ellinwood, son of Samuel Ellinwood and Ruth Pendleton Ellinwood, who had died in 1933 at the age of one. The second child, the one who had died in the arms of his mother, her great-grandmother, in the swan chair. Whose death had somehow driven his father away in despair, leaving her great-grandmother Ruth alone, with three-year-old Patience, in the midst of the Depression, to manage as best she could. And she had managed, in spite of Samuel. She had moved on, raised her daughter well, and all but blotted out her worthless husband, taking back her own name and never mentioning him again.
And Abby had known about this child and his death before this piece of paper. She had seen the child, had figured it out. Now she had official confirmation in her hand. Poor baby, poor Ruth. And poor me, she added. All this was in the past, so what did it mean to her? Except that she’d grown up in a family of strong independent females, starting with Ruth, and then her daughter Patience, and even her mother Rebecca, who was definitely the captain of her own ship, with her sweet husband the tugboat, providing a helpful nudge now and then to guide her. Abby wondered if maybe the gene pool had withered by the time it reached her, since she was having trouble living up to her matriarchal role models. She’d let Brad walk all over her and practically thanked him for it.
“You look like you’re in a funk.” Leslie’s voice brought Abby back to the present. “Want to go grab some lunch?”
“Sounds good to me. I can use some fresh air. Can we walk?”
“Let me get a coat. Meet you downstairs.”
Abby joined Leslie in the lobby a minute later and they headed toward town at a brisk clip.
“So, how’re you settling in?” Leslie was clearly used to walking. Abby was having trouble keeping up.
“Fine. It’s a nice house. You know, I can’t imagine owning two entire houses.”
“Yeah, Mary’s done well for herself. She married Rob right out of college, and he got in on the ground floor in some computer company. Nothing like being in the right place at the right time.”
“It’s funny living in the middle of all their things. There are pictures of them around the house—it’s like they’re watching me.”
“Ned knows them. Seen anything of him lately?”
Abby concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other as she tried to decide how to respond. Was Leslie curious? Was she keeping tabs on him? Did she harbor any lingering feelings for him? Abby realized she really didn’t know very much about Leslie’s life away from work. “Um, yes, a couple of times. He’s been showing me around the area.”
They had reached the main commercial street and Leslie led the way to a small restaurant. She waited until they were settled at a table before she picked up the thread.
“Yeah, Ned’s really into local history. I think he’s a real romantic—keeps seeing patriots on every corner, fending off the evil British Empire. It’s not hard to do around here—you might even say it’s a business.”
“Oh, I like it. It certainly makes history a lot more alive, living in the middle of it.”
“Hey, I’m not complaining—it pays my bills. But I don’t get all misty-eyed about it, the way Ned does.”
Abby was torn between wanting to ask Leslie about her life and wanting to find out more about Ned. Finally she ventured cautiously, “You said you two almost got married?”
Leslie snorted. “A million years ago. It never would have worked—he would have driven me nuts, and I would have tried to remodel him, which really wouldn’t have been fair. But somehow we stayed friends. He’s a good guy. And unattached, if that’s what you’re asking.”
Abby was embarrassed. “Well, not exactly. But I did wonder why he had so much free time to drag me around.” Why had nobody else snatched him up by now? Did he have some fatal flaw that she hadn’t discovered yet?
“I told you, history is his hobby, and he enjoys showing it off.”
“Well, I appreciate it. You know, I don’t even know where you live, or much of anything else about you.”
Leslie was happy to fill Abby in on her home in Littleton, where she kept two horses and a goat; on her husband George, who was a building contractor (“He wants me to say renovator and conservator, but that just means he likes to work on old buildings”); and on her two children, one in preschool, the other in first grade.
“So, what about you, now that you’ve dumped what’s-his-name? How long were you together?”
“About two years. We met at a party in Philadelphia, and about a year later I moved into his place. He was a lot of fun. You know, a life-of-the-party kind of guy.”
“Funny—I can’t see you with that type.” Leslie eyed her curiously.
“Well, I used to think we were complements, somehow—we sort of balanced each other. In the end I think I just bored him, and he went looking for a little more excitement. He didn’t have to look very far.”
“Hey, tell me if it’s none of my business. I know it sucks. But either you’re real good at hiding things or you’re handling it really well.”
Abby flashed her a smile. “Thanks. Probably some of each. I think, way down, I never really thought it would last—that he’d get to know me and find out just how boring I really was. But it was fun while it lasted. And my mother loved him.”
“I know how that goes. And don’t beat yourself up. Maybe you discovered just how shallow he really was.”
Abby smiled. “You know, I think you’re right.”
Leslie launched into a tale about her mother and then another one about her mother-in-law. Abby listened with one ear and thought about what she’d just heard herself say. When it came right down to it, she really wasn’t surprised that she and Brad had split up. She’d gotten swept up by his energy and his enthusiasm, she’d been flattered by his attention, and everyone liked him, so how could she resist? But at the same time, she was never sure that he’d really “seen” her. And she had always been afraid that if he did see her, he wouldn’t like what he saw, so she hadn’t pushed it. And here they were—apart. She’d been right. And Leslie had grasped Brad immediately, without even meeting him. Plainly Abby still had some work to do on reading people.
“Oh, God, look at the time—we’d better get back,” Leslie exclaimed. “This was fun—let’s do it again!” She threw down some bills on the check and stood up, wrapping her coat around her. “Ready?”
Abby added her share to the check and followed. “Let’s go.”
24
Friday morning Abby spied another official-looking envelope in among her mail. It was from the Waltham town clerk’s office—they had certainly responded quickly, she marveled. Seated at her desk, she slit the envelope and pulled out the single page inside. She read it once. She read it again. And then she laid it on her desk and stared blindly at the wall in front of her.
Elizabeth Flagg’s maiden name had been Reed.
Of course. She should have seen this coming. Sure, there were plenty of Reeds around, but Abby had no doubt that Elizabeth was somehow connected to the Reeds in the Concord cemetery. And the ones in the Wellesley cemetery. And the house in Weston? Probably. That could be verified.
All the people she had been seeing were her relatives; she was their descendant.
And was that why Ned had prodded her to keep working on her family history? Had he known, or suspected? Was he playing some sort of game with her, testing her, or was he sincerely interested in what had been happening to her and why? She shook her head: too many questions. But she knew she could fi
nd some answers on the Internet. Going backward from the mid-nineteenth century was easy, and she should be able to plot out the whole Reed line, going back to . . . what?
And why? Why did she need to know? Because she wanted—no, needed—to know why they were dragging her around Massachusetts and popping up at every turn. Either she came to terms with this phenomenon, whatever it was, or she’d have to move to California just to avoid the dead Reeds. She wasn’t about to cut and run, so she’d just have to follow through.
For the first time since she’d started working at the museum, Abby couldn’t wait for the day to end so she could get home and start working through the maze of online records. It took an extraordinary amount of self-discipline not to start before she left work, but Abby managed. She had the whole weekend in front of her. She smiled: she was going to spend two days putting together two or three hundred years of her family history.
Back at her house, she quickly scrambled some eggs and wolfed them down. She made a pot of tea and poured herself a cup, carefully adding sugar and milk, before turning to the computer. She felt as though she was entering a battle, but she was ready.
It seemed as though no time had passed, but the next time she checked it was two o’clock. After seven hours of steady work, three more cups of tea, and a half inch of printouts, Abby had managed to trace the Reeds back to 1623. The immigrant Phineas Reed had missed the Mayflower by a couple of years, but he had managed to marry a Mayflower daughter. Abby had nearly laughed out loud as the import of that fact sank in: she was a Mayflower descendant. Wow. That and four dollars would get you a latte at Starbucks. And then she could trace the sons of Phineas through six generations—Aaron, Henry, Lemuel, Paul, Ephraim, and William—before she arrived at Elizabeth, who had married William Flagg. Henry, Lemuel, Paul, and Ephraim had all lived in Weston at one time or another, and Abby was willing to bet that the house she had seen had belonged to one of them.
She stood up and stretched. She should really go to bed. Her brain was short-circuited and she was having trouble keeping names and dates straight. Tomorrow it would be better, and she could sort out all this information and put it into her genealogy program. And then what? She really didn’t know. She had figured out the “who” but she still had no idea about the “why.” All right, she was descended from all these people, and she had now “met”—she stopped to count on her fingers—at least three of them face-to-face, and probably a lot more if she could sort out her tangled impressions from some of the cemeteries. But why was she seeing them?
Bed, Abigail. Clear your mind and get back to it in the morning. As she was brushing her teeth, she realized that she hadn’t heard from Ned. Wasn’t he supposed to be back? She couldn’t remember which day he had said—or even if he’d mentioned a day. Wait a minute—had she turned off her phone? After rinsing out her mouth, she found her purse and retrieved her phone, which was indeed off. But when she turned it on, there were no messages. She felt a small stab of disappointment: she was looking forward to telling Ned about what she’d found. What if he didn’t call back? Would she call him? Abby was still embarrassed by her strange outburst the past weekend, and she doubted that she’d made herself very clear when she’d last talked to Ned. And he had seemed oddly distant on the phone. But he had said he would call, and he had always followed through before. Maybe he’d been held up. Or maybe he’s had enough of you and your hallucinations, Abby.
No. She was not going to believe that. If he didn’t call tomorrow, she would call him. He needed to know about what she’d found. With that resolve, she went to bed. She slept without dreams: apparently no ancestors were particularly dismayed about having been outed and they didn’t trouble her.
Abby awoke slowly the next morning. The sun was bright in her eyes but her brain was stuck in first gear. Bits and pieces of her research from the night before filtered into her consciousness, until the picture was complete. The Reeds were haunting her. Fine. She needed coffee. She hauled herself out of bed and stumbled to the shower.
Half an hour later, clean and marginally rejuvenated, Abby contemplated the to-do list before her. She had the usual errands to run, if she wanted to eat for the next week. And there were a couple of things she wanted to check at the Concord library. Then there was the list of places she’d like to check—property records for Weston, for example—but she had no idea when she would find the time or opportunity for that, now that she was working. So much to do, so little time . . . Well, if she didn’t start, she’d never finish.
It was close to four and getting dark when Abby returned to the house from her errands. As she approached, she realized that there was a car parked in the driveway. A car she recognized: Brad’s. Damn. As she pulled up in front of the garage, she saw him sitting on the front steps. He looked impatient. Abby recalled all too clearly that he didn’t like waiting.
She climbed out of the car and gathered up her bags of groceries. “Brad. I didn’t know you knew where I was living.”
“Well, you gave me the address, for the mail.”
“Oh.” Abby hadn’t thought about that, not that she was hiding from anyone. Not Brad, certainly. But she wasn’t pleased to see him here; this was her own territory and she was reluctant to invite him into it. She fished for her keys and opened the door. Once inside, she dropped her groceries and shut off the alarm system. Brad had followed her in and was admiring the house.
“Nice place you’ve got here. Not what I would have expected from you, but not too shabby.”
“I’m just house-sitting, not remodeling it,” she said, with some asperity. She gathered up her scattered bags again and headed for the kitchen. Brad followed and stood leaning against a counter as Abby put away her supplies. When she was done, she turned to face him. “What are you doing here?”
“What, no ‘Hi, Brad, I’ve missed you’?”
She hadn’t. She waited silently.
Seeing that his light tone had fallen flat, Brad put on a more sober expression. “Seriously, Abby . . . you left in such a big hurry. I thought we’d have time to talk about all this.”
“Does that ‘we’ include Shanna?” Abby wasn’t about to give him an inch.
“That’s over. It didn’t mean anything. I mean, she was fun, but it wasn’t serious or anything. It wasn’t worth you getting bent out of shape and moving out like you did.”
So Brad was the injured party here? I don’t think so, Abby thought. “Brad, Shanna was just the last straw. There was a lot wrong with our relationship before I found out about her.”
He stared at her blankly. “What do you mean? We were fine. I thought you were happy—or at least you would be, once you found a job to keep you busy. And then you did, and you moved right out. I don’t get it.”
Abby sighed. “Brad, you were sleeping with another woman. And you accused me of seeing another man. Does that sound like a good relationship to you?”
He had the grace to look ashamed. “Well, every couple hits a few speed bumps along the way. But why can’t we work things out? I miss you, babe.”
I’ll bet you do. You miss me making you dinner every night, and picking up after you, and making sure you have clean underwear. Abby looked critically at Brad: a nice-looking guy, tall, good hair and teeth, trendy clothes, promising future. And she felt totally unmoved.
“Brad, I’m sorry things didn’t work out. But I just don’t see us getting back together.” And I really don’t want to try. Abby was surprised to find that she meant it. She could look at him and feel no regret. Mostly now she wondered just what she had seen in him, apart from the obvious—and she wondered how she could have been willing to accept that as enough. Or what had changed in the last year or two—or more recently.
Her cell phone rang. She debated about ignoring it, until Brad said, “Aren’t you going to answer that?”
She didn’t say anything but retrieved her phone from her bag. Ned. Of course. “Hi. Look, could you call me back in a little while? This isn’t a good tim
e.”
“Sure. Half an hour?”
“Yes, great. Talk to you then.” She signed off.
Brad was watching her with something like anger. “Your new boyfriend?”
“Brad, I don’t answer to you. It’s none of your business whether or not I have a boyfriend. I told you, we’re over. There’s nothing more to say.”
“You really mean it.” Brad looked crestfallen. “Abby, I’m sorry, really I am. I messed up, and I can see why you’re pissed at me. What more can I say?”
“Nothing, Brad. Look, I’m not angry at you. I just don’t think we’re a good fit, that’s all. You’re a great guy, and I’m sure you’ll find somebody else.” There, she’d stroked his wounded ego. Maybe he’d go now?
He crossed the room toward her, and then he bent down and kissed her. She didn’t move. He pressed himself against her, wrapped his arms around her, and turned up the heat on the kiss. It took him several seconds to realize that she wasn’t responding at all. She didn’t fight him, she just stood there, inert. Finally he backed away.
“Good-bye, Abby.” He turned and headed for the door, and she heard it open and close behind him. His car started, then moved away, and he was gone.
Abby still didn’t move, turning over in her mind what had just happened. It really was over. If she hadn’t believed it before, she certainly did now. He’d come to her, begging forgiveness, and she’d felt—nothing. The best she could muster was some vague soft regret for what once was, what might have been—what clearly never would be. He’d kissed her, as he had so many other times, and she’d felt nothing. She was free of him.
Relatively Dead Page 19
