Embers

by Antoinette Stockenberg

  So where do I go from here? she wondered as she made her way back through the brooding fog. Not to Tom. He was the only one she wanted to see, the only one who understood. But it would be the death knell to her relationship with Allie if Meg went running to him now. Besides, he wasn't exactly beating a path back to her door. She tried not to think about the slap in the face and the cruel words that had preceeded it. Your guilt is making you vicious, he'd said, and he was right.

  She couldn't think about him now: not with sorrow, not with longing, not at all.

  It was all such a mess. With the best intentions in the world, Meg had managed to screw up royally. She should've been up-front with Allie about her feelings from the start. This was her punishment, and it was about as punishing as life could get.

  Meg went straight to bed, slept a sleep of black dread, and didn't wake up until she heard loud knocking on her bedroom door. She jumped out of bed fearing the worst.

  It was Lloyd, up to his elbows in soot again.

  "That furnace ain't worth a hole in the snow," he said, disgusted. "Inner jacket's rusted out. This is it, Meg; it's over. We got to get new. Either that, or drop dead a' the fumes. Not to mention the guests."

  "You can't nurse it along?" she asked sleepily.

  He shook his head. "Too dangerous."

  "So of course there's no hot water," she said, not bothering to pose it as a question. "All right. Get a new one in here as fast as you can."

  "With what? It ain't like we got the money. Or the credit."

  "Let me worry about that," she said grimly.

  Lloyd shrugged and left, and Meg, still in her nightgown, went straight to the desk in her closet office and dialed the number on the card that Peterson had given her. Enough was enough. No deathbed promise was worth a dozen lives.

  "Mr. Peterson? Meg Hazard. I haven't heard from you, so I thought I'd call." She had neither the heart nor the time for chitchat and maneuvering, so she asked him outright, "Is it your sense that your client will be making an offer soon on the dollhouse?"

  Peterson hemmed and hawed about the meaning of "soon." Meg pressed him. "By 'soon,' I mean in the next day or two. I don't mind admitting that I'm in a bit of a cash-flow bind. To that end, I'd be willing to negotiate very handsome terms for your collector."

  "Now that's the thing," came Peterson's voice, oozing with sympathy. "These cash-flow binds. Aren't they awkward? My client seems to be in one of them right now. He's gone and made an offer on a wooden sailing yacht, which has been accepted, so for the moment, he's all set." Peterson added, "Apparently he prefers an antique that he can use and enjoy."

  Meg was flabbergasted. "He couldn't decide between a dollhouse and a yacht? Isn't that a little arbitrary?"

  Mr. Peterson chuckled. "To his way of thinking, they're both toys," he said pleasantly. "Toys of the same vintage, in fact."

  "Can you at least tell me what you think the dollhouse is worth, ballpark?"

  He didn't like giving Meg information she hadn't paid for; but in the end he took pity on her and gave her a figure that was more than twice the estimated cost of Allie's hospital bill. The roof, the furnace, the repairs—Meg could do them all and still have money left over.

  "Be patient," he advised her, "and you'll get that price. It may take a year or two or even three, but you'll get it. Well— it's too bad things didn't work out," he said.

  Yeah, sure, she thought, hanging up. What did he care? He got his fee either way. Now what? She drummed her fingers nervously on her desk. Now what now what now what? The dollhouse had been her security blanket. In the back of her mind she'd been assuming she could cash it in any time she wanted, like a winning lottery ticket. Where would she find a buyer overnight?

  "It only takes one," Peterson had said.

  But who had time to wait for him?

  Her eye fell on the complimentary calendar, the one with a different lighthouse for every month, that hung above her battered oak desk. Yes! BHS — Bar Harbor Savings. The Inn Between was mortgaged to the hilt, but the dollhouse wasn't. Surely she could secure a loan from a bank with it. It was insured. It was an asset. It had value and then some, if you counted the fact that it was haunted. Yes!

  For the first time in what seemed like a lifetime, Meg's spirits climbed above her ankles. Emotionally her life was an ongoing disaster, but if she could get a grip on the financial side of it — well, then, she'd have a grip on something.

  A bank. Why hadn't she thought of it before? Yes!

  ****

  "No."

  "That's what they said? No?"

  "They said it wouldn't be 'valid collateral.'"

  Uncle Billy didn't bother hiding his disappointment. He poured himself another whiskey and gestured to Meg with the bottle; she shook her head. Comfort came in to take away the last of the dishes, and then Meg and her uncle were alone across the dining room table. It was time to do business.

  Uncle Billy, comfortably stuffed with chicken pie, let out a discreet burp and said, "In a way, it don't surprise me. That Jenny Bowery has acted awful treetoppy since she landed that job in the loan department. Tryin' to prove she can be harder than a man, I expect. Still, it makes it sticky for you."

  "Not sticky, Uncle Billy," Meg said quietly. "Desperate." His eyes glazed over, the way they did whenever the subject directly or indirectly came around to his money. "Now, don't be thinkin' desperate," he said. "There's always hope. I been talkin' up Peterson's visit all around town, hopin' to flush out a competing buyer. Hell, I even spread the word about the secret compartment; everyone loves a secret compartment."

  Meg had told the family about the compartment but not about the letter, which Tom had mailed back to her without comment a couple of days after the blowup. "I can't wait for a buyer," she told her uncle, linking her hands in a prayerful pose on the oilcloth. "We need the money now. I have less than thirty days to pay for the new furnace. And we're losing business because of the roof: every time it rains, the fire alarm goes off. I had to give one family their money back the other morning."

  Bill Atwells grunted and tossed back his whiskey with a sharp, practiced gesture, just the way Meg had seen him do thousands of times before; it reminded Meg of the way an umpire thumbs a player out of an inning.

  He thunked the shot glass on the table a little unsteadily and said, "You wait. One of them summerin' richbitches is bound to come round to the shed and fall in love with the thing."

  "I can't wait, Uncle Billy," Meg repeated. She took a deep breath and said, "I'd like you to lend me the money. You can keep the dollhouse as collateral until I pay you back. You'll have my permission to sell it whenever you wish."

  Bill Atwells's mouth shut tight in a thin line, and the corners dipped down in annoyance. It was the second time in Meg's life that she'd asked him for money. It was the second time in her life that she'd seen that expression on his face.

  "I won't do that," he said gruffly. "Don't ask."

  "God," she said in disbelief, falling against the back of her chair. "You want to see us lose everything!"

  "That ain't true. I'd lend if the bank would."

  "If the bank would lend, you wouldn't have to!"

  "You've got thirty days to pay for the furnace," he said petulantly. "What's the rush?"

  "Allie gets out of the hospital in a few days. How will we pay?"

  "Everybody knows what patients do who can't pay," he said, pouring himself another drink.

  Meg's mouth opened slightly. She cocked her head and stared incredulously at him, this blood relation of her father's. "You want us to go on the dole?"

  "Public assistance," he corrected. "That's what it's there for. If you can't pay, you can't pay. Why should I throw money down a rathole? Allie's fine. Her head's mendin', her bones are settin'. What're they gonna do? Bash her head in and break her arm again?"

  He was fortifying himself with yet another drink. Meg knew the signs well enough to understand that he was getting drunk as fast as he could, to put an
end to the discussion. She stood up tiredly and looked at him: old, fat, clever, likable, and tight as a tick. "You should've had children, Uncle Billy," she said softly. "It would've made you a kinder man."

  "Kinder!" he said, hiccupping. "Kindness ... is loving people more than they deserve."

  ****

  When the fuel oil leaked all over the cellar, that was when Meg pretty much lost it.

  Lloyd had been tuning up the new furnace, not paying much attention to his son Terry as he hung around the cellar hoping to wangle money for the movies. Terry didn't get the money, but he did manage to stand on the shutoff valve at the bottom of the oil tank and to break the copper fuel line that led to the furnace. Lloyd left, and his son left, and no one noticed the fuel oil spilling out until it was too late: less than an hour later, the stench had made the Inn Between unlivable.

  Meg was the first to have to deal with it. As she stepped out of her car after her return from the post office, several of the guests accosted her, complaining about the horrible smell of oil. They were clustered in the garden, terrified to stay in the house. Meg explained that heating oil was not explosive, but it hardly mattered. When she saw the pool of oil covering much of the cellar floor, she knew at once that the summer season was effectively over for the Inn Between.

  She took off her shoes and waded through the mess and turned off the spigot on the tank, and wondered what alignment of the planets was causing this unbelievable streak of bad luck. By the time Lloyd and Terry returned and they all worked backward to an explanation of what had happened, Meg was beside herself with rage.

  She grabbed her young nephew by the arm and shouted, "Why? Why were you standing on the fuel line? Wasn't there enough floor for you? Why?"

  Terry squirmed and said, "I don't know; it was just something to stand on, that's all." He started to whimper.

  "Oh, never mind! Just ... go! Your father can decide what to do with you later."

  Lloyd's mind was on something else. "Comfort can't stay here in her condition, not with these fumes," he said with a worried look.

  "No, of course not," Meg said distractedly. "She can stay with Uncle Billy — and what about Allie? She can't stay here either. Dad? The twins? None of them should. You and I will have to do the cleanup alone," she said grimly.

  "The insurance —"

  "— will not pay for negligence. I've checked. This mess is all ours."

  "Oh, Jesus. I'm sorry, Meggie. We're gonna lose a few weeks' business, you know that," he added in an undertone. "That smell's gonna take awhile to get outta the cement."

  "I know that very well," she said, rummaging through a kitchen cabinet for the aspirin.

  ****

  Work on the spill began immediately. Lloyd went out to buy oil-absorbent blankets and Pine Sol while Meg began calling off her bookings. When Everett Atwells got back from the hospital, he was put in charge of making arrangements for the family to stay with his brother, to be joined by Allie later. (Meg couldn't bear to ask her uncle for even that much help.)

  By evening the house was cleared and Meg was in her cubbyhole of an office, fighting a splitting headache from the fumes, and Lloyd was in the bowels of hell, pumping out the spilled oil and storing it in containers for proper removal. The cellar was an unbearable place to be, but Lloyd was going at it with a vengeance, hardly stopping to eat. By midnight it was too late for Meg to phone even the West Coast to arrange cancellations. She was exhausted; Lloyd had to be, too. Meg went down to the cellar to drag her brother out of there.

  She found three men and a boy mopping down the cellar together, all of them in ragged clothes and gum boots: Uncle Billy, Lloyd and his son, and Tom.

  Sometimes — before she could shove the thought away — Meg daydreamed about how or where she and Tom would next cross paths. She pictured the hospital, the post office, the Shop 'n Save, even the church. She never pictured him in her cellar. With a mop.

  "C'mon, guys; time to knock off," she said as casually as she could. But her heart was knocking chaotically at her breast as she nodded to Tom and said, "Hello."

  He gave her that distinctly Maine greeting, an upward lift of the chin.

  She could've handled a snub. She could've handled a snide remark. But that ironic Maine-style nod brought welling tears of sorrow and self-pity to her eyes. She wanted so badly for him to take her in his arms and fix everything.

  Uncle Billy straightened up with a groan, more than ready to call it a night. He was drenched in sweat; even his red suspenders were stained with damp patches.

  "What a miserable, stinking mess," he said morosely, surveying the cellar. "But by God, we made some progress here tonight, hey, boys? Sulla's almost good as new. You done good, Ter," he said, whacking his nephew on the back.

  Terry kept on mopping.

  Lloyd pulled off the bandanna wrapped around his brow, and so did Tom. In the bleary light of the overhead bulbs, they looked like escapees from a chain gang, hiding in some unsuspecting widow's cellar.

  Lloyd said, "Y'know — I hardly smell it at all," in his downtrodden, hopeful way.

  Tom smiled; Uncle Billy laughed out loud. "The fumes have reached your brain, boy," he said. "Let's go. A shower and a good night's sleep, and we'll be ready for another round."

  Terry set his mop in a bucket and picked it up. The boy's young face was streaked and filthy and more deeply marked by the tragedy than the others'. He'd done a man's work tonight and had made up for a boy's stupidity. Meg wanted to hug him, but she knew he'd be mortified by the gesture.

  She looked at them all — tired, haggard, sweaty, stinking from the fuel oil — and said, "I'm sorry. Everyone, I'm sorry. All of this ... I've been so ... I'm sorry."

  To a man, they were embarrassed by her display of emotion. Uncle Billy mumbled something to the effect of "Wimmin!" and then led the pack in a shuffling exit up the cellar stairs.

  Tom was the last to leave; he hung his bandanna on a nail and gave Meg a look that she didn't want to see: it was filled with far too much sympathy, and far too little burning desire. It told her everything she needed to know. She'd sacrificed one love to protect another, and in the end hadn't saved either. And now, seeing him, her heart just ... hurt.

  Tom was on his way out the cellar door when she took his arm and said in a low voice, "Tom ... I am ... sorry."

  But she didn't say for what.

  ****

  Half an hour later, Meg was sitting alone out in the shed with a cup of tea. She didn't want to go back into the house, even though the smell in her bedroom, with a fan blowing through, was more endurable than it had been in the afternoon. Probably she should've gone with the rest of her family to Uncle Billy's. But she hated the thought of needing his roof over her head.

  Her depression was profound. She felt alone and cut off, and without any options. Over the years she'd convinced her family that she had all the answers, or at least the ability to find the answers. With the exception of Uncle Billy, they'd gradually yielded authority to her until she was undisputed head of the household. Now she was failing them, emotionally and financially. She could hardly bear to watch the disillusionment in their eyes.

  Meg circled the beautifully lit dollhouse with her cup of tea, wondering how it was that an expert could fail to insist that his client bid for it. She stopped instinctively in front of the nursery and peered through the lattice-paned casement, which she always kept tightly shut nowadays.

  The nursemaid doll stood on the other side of the window looking out at Meg, wondering and waiting. The master doll was still in the billiard room, exchanging risqué jokes with his gentlemen friends. The lady of the house was still in the dining room, overseeing the setting of the table.

  Was the dollhouse just an ordinary object, after all? Meg shook her head, convinced that it was not. Lint was ordinary. The dollhouse was pure magic. But maybe she couldn't put a price on magic. Maybe no one could — except the insurance company.

  Was that the key to it all? The insurance? Me
g sipped her tea reflectively and let her mind tiptoe into a place it had never gone before: the netherworld of fraud and theft. Why not? The Atwells family had paid insurance premiums all their lives and had never made a claim — not until the oil-tank leak, for which they were getting paid zip.

  Why not? Allie was insured, but not enough, so what was she getting after her accident? Zip.

  Why not? Comfort would be paying thousands to have her baby, despite her medical, and God forbid if something went wrong. She'd get zip.

  Why not? The failed roof and furnace were normal wear and tear, the insurance company said, so they'd be paying zip.

  Premiums were always going up, benefits down.

  What was the point of insurance, anyway?

  In a self-induced trance of indignation, Meg went out to the yard where spare easy chairs and mattresses — all of them ruined — had been stacked in a haphazard mountain by Lloyd and the others. She picked up a couple of plastic milk crates filled with oil-soaked rags and carried them out to the shed, then pulled out some of the rags and scattered them on the table under the dollhouse.

  It was the only way. She had to do something. It was the only way. She looked around distractedly for matches, pushing herself into action. Just do it.

  She needed matches. She ran back to the kitchen for the box that Comfort kept by the stove, then ran back breathlessly with it to the shed. Do it. Do it. Do it!

  With a pounding heart and a sense of wild resolve she flung open the door to the shed — and found her father, picking up the sodden rags and dropping them back in the milk crates.

  If he saw the box of matches in his daughter's hand, he pretended not to. "Meggie, for Pete's sake," Everett said mildly, "these stinky rags are going to ruin the drapes and upholstery in the dollhouse. Don't you know how the smell of heating oil permeates fabric? This is a really foolish thing to do," he said, giving her a look rich with meaning.

  "Dad! What're you doing here?" she asked, horrified to be caught in the act. She dropped the matches on her desk. "It's one in the morning!"

  "I know, I know; but I couldn't sleep, thinking you were here alone and upset," he said in the same meaningful way. "Don't stay here," he begged. "There's plenty of room at your uncle's house."