A Fire Sparkling

by MacLean, Julianne

  Glancing into the living room, I spotted Grampa Jack’s faded green recliner, still in the same corner as always, and Gram’s wicker basket full of knitting supplies—balls of colored wool and two needles sticking out of a half-completed project draped over the basket handle. Probably another small woolen hat for the children’s cancer ward at the hospital.

  “Where’s Gram?” I asked, noticing how quiet it was.

  “At the nursing home. It’s Saturday, remember?”

  “Oh, right.”

  Gram had been going to the nursing home every Saturday afternoon for the past twenty years to play piano for the residents—mostly show tunes from the 1930s and ’40s. I found it amusing whenever she told me how much she enjoyed playing for the “old people,” when she was over ninety herself.

  I followed Dad into the kitchen.

  “Are you hungry?” he asked. “There’s some leftover chicken in the fridge, or I could make you a grilled cheese.” Food was always a good icebreaker for the two of us.

  “I’m fine. I just had a salad on the train, but that coffee smells good.”

  He poured me a cup and handed it to me. “So. Let’s start with you. What happened last night?”

  “Oh God. It’s a nasty story.” I sat down at the table. “I’m embarrassed to even tell you about it.”

  “Don’t be. I’m sure I’ve heard worse.”

  “Maybe. I don’t know. Anyway. As you are aware, last night was Malcolm’s fiftieth birthday party. At the Guggenheim.”

  “Sorry I couldn’t make it.”

  I waved a hand dismissively. “Don’t worry about it. Actually, it’s probably best that you weren’t there because . . .” I paused and stared down at the coffee in my cup and wanted to sink through the floor. “Because I caught Malcolm with another woman.”

  It was a tasteful way to describe what I’d seen—the man I wanted to marry with his pants down around his ankles, bouncing a naked blonde on his lap. In an empty screening room in the basement of the Guggenheim. While a party was going on.

  Dad made a pained grimace. “Oh dear.”

  “Yeah. She was a fashion model.” I sat back. “One of the ‘fresh new faces’ from the latest marketing campaign for his cosmetics company.”

  That wasn’t the only company Malcolm owned. He was CEO of several successful corporations, including an international gaming company, the Reid Theatre on Broadway, and a multinational investment firm. He also owned a massive share of Manhattan real estate. Add to that his charitable donations to dozens of worthy causes—including the nonprofit organization where I worked—and he was a man who, in certain circles, was sometimes referred to as a god.

  “When I saw them together,” I continued, “I just bolted. I ran straight out the door and flagged down a cab. Then I went home to our apartment, packed a suitcase, and walked out.”

  Dad sat down across from me. “Have you talked to him about it? Did he have anything to say?”

  “Oh yes. He followed me home and begged me not to leave, but I didn’t want to hear any pathetic excuses, so I took off and went to a hotel. He texted me this morning while I was on the train and apologized again, but I just can’t forgive him.”

  My father regarded me intently. “What did you see, exactly? Was he flirting with her, or—”

  “Oh no, it was way beyond flirting. I caught them . . . how shall I say it? In the act. Malcolm with his pants down, literally. You get it.”

  “Ah.” My dad’s eyebrows lifted as he studied the coffee in his cup. “Not so forgivable, then.” He patted my hand from across the table without ever looking me in the eye.

  What an uncomfortable conversation to be having with one’s straitlaced father. On top of that, we were never very good at expressing our emotions around each other, for reasons that had nothing to do with Malcolm. I wished Mom were still around.

  “So here I am,” I said, exhaling heavily, “with no place to live until I figure out what to do.” I swirled my coffee and watched it settle. “I’ll look for an apartment, but it’s going to be a tough transition from a Fifth Avenue penthouse to whatever I can afford on my salary. But I’d rather live in a dump than go back to Malcolm.”

  “At least you have a steady job,” Dad reminded me. “You’re self-sufficient. And I hope it goes without saying that you can stay here as long as you need to.”

  “Thanks, Dad. That’ll give me some breathing space until I can find something.”

  The wind gusted outside the kitchen window.

  “Do you have anything in the way of savings?” he carefully asked.

  “I do. Quite a bit, actually, because Malcolm always covered our living expenses. I put some away with every paycheck. Maybe I saw this coming. I don’t know. I just thought I should have something socked away for a rainy day.”

  “Good for you.”

  My cell phone chimed, and I reached for it in the pocket of my jeans, then shook my head. “It’s him again. He’s not giving up.”

  I sat back and read his text.

  Gill, I can’t stop thinking about you. Please respond and tell me when I can see you. I need to apologize in person so that you can see how sorry I am. What happened last night was messed up. It was the biggest mistake of my life. Please believe me. I promise nothing like that’s ever happened before and I swear it’ll never happen again. It makes me sick just to think about it. I regretted it the second it started happening and I hate myself. Please respond. Give me another chance. I love you and I can’t live without you.

  I pushed my hair back from my forehead.

  “What’s he saying?” Dad asked.

  “He’s apologizing and begging for another chance, but I can’t do it. If it happened once, it’ll happen again, right?”

  He let out a sigh. “I don’t know.”

  Continuing to ignore Malcolm’s message, I set my phone down on the table. “Did you and Mom ever cheat on each other?”

  “Good Lord. Never.”

  I gestured toward him with a hand. “Well, there you have it. Either you’re a cheater or you’re not.”

  “Maybe.”

  I inclined my head, curious. “You don’t sound so sure. Am I wrong?”

  Dad shrugged. “Sometimes you think you know someone, but maybe it’s impossible to really know everything about a person, even someone you love. Maybe good people—the very best people—are just better at keeping secrets.”

  I frowned at him. “What are you talking about, Dad? Is this what you were referring to on the phone?”

  He turned his gaze toward the window over the sink and stared at the glass, as if transfixed. “I found something in the attic yesterday, and I don’t know what to make of it.”

  “What was it?”

  He finally looked at me. “I think you should take a look at it yourself, and then . . .” He couldn’t seem to finish the thought.

  “And then what, Dad?”

  “I don’t know. Let’s just go up there before I have to pick Gram up at the nursing home. She finishes at three.” He checked his watch. “We have about an hour.”

  “Okay.” More than a little curious, I drank the last of my coffee and stood up from the table.

  CHAPTER TWO

  It had been years since I’d set foot in my grandmother’s attic. The last time was probably before Mom died, when I still considered it an adventure to climb the creaky stairs with Grampa Jack and make a private clubhouse out of sheets draped over old pieces of furniture and stacks of boxes. I’d beg him to tell me ghost stories until I screamed and ran back down the ladder.

  There was always something wonderfully haunting about Gram’s attic. Maybe it was the cobwebs and dead houseflies on the windowsill. Or the way the wind howled through the eaves, and the entire house seemed to creak like an old ship at sea. Or maybe it was the smell of the place—the damp wood and boxes of musty old photo albums that contained pictures of people who were long gone from this world.

  Gram’s attic was exactly how I reme
mbered it—with exposed wooden beams overhead and sunlight filtering in through cracks in the walls, although the space seemed much smaller now. The old wicker rocking chair still stood under the window. I recalled, as if it were only yesterday, how I used to tie a string to the leg and pretend that a ghost was rocking it back and forth. Anything to scare Grampa Jack.

  “I came up here yesterday,” Dad said, “thinking I’d add some insulation because they say it’s going to be a rough winter, but then I got caught up in some of the memorabilia.”

  I glanced toward the large trunk that contained Gram’s wedding dress from her first marriage—a gorgeous Gatsby-inspired gown of silk chiffon with Chantilly lace. I used to try it on when I was young, and Gram never seemed to mind. The same trunk contained Grampa’s brown leather flying jacket from the war and all his medals for bravery, as well as a shabby old stuffed bear that belonged to my father when he was a child. The bear’s name was Teddy.

  There were other dilapidated cardboard boxes on tables. They were full of books, magazines, and photo albums. Some had a few rare photos from Gram’s life with her first husband in England at the start of the war. But most of the albums contained pictures from her postwar existence here in America, with Grampa Jack.

  Dad pointed at the smaller antique sea chest on a shelf in the corner. It was always locked, but I knew what was inside because Gram had opened it for me when I was twelve. She also showed me where she kept the key—in a drawer in her bedroom. She never said a word when I snuck into her room and borrowed the key, then played dress up in the attic with the jewelry inside that special chest.

  My mother whispered to me once that they were gifts from Gram’s first husband, the Englishman, and that she would have felt guilty wearing them after she married Grampa Jack.

  I’d asked Mom if Gram’s first husband was the true love of her life. Mom said she had no idea because Gram never liked to talk about him.

  “It’s in the past now,” Gram always said and skillfully changed the subject to something far removed from the war, like plans for whatever holiday season was approaching.

  I met my father’s fretful gaze in the attic and felt a rush of unease as I crossed the loose floorboards toward the small chest, which stood on a shelf by the rocking chair.

  Fingering the brass plate with an engraved figure of a lady in a Regency gown, I said, “I already know what’s in here. It’s full of jewelry from her first marriage. She always kept it locked, but she showed me where the key was when I was little. She kept it in her bedroom.”

  “She showed you?” He seemed surprised. “Well, she must have been up here recently, because she left the key in the lock. I have it right here.” He reached into his pocket and produced it, then unlocked the chest and raised the lid to reveal pearl and gemstone necklaces, bracelets, and a velvet ring box, all sitting in a tangled pile on a bed of rose-colored satin. “I assume this is what you know about?”

  “Yes. I used to call it the treasure chest. Mom said all of this was given to Gram by your real father.”

  I couldn’t understand why this was such a disturbing discovery for my dad. Shouldn’t he be happy about it? Not just for sentimental reasons, but because it was probably worth a fortune. His real father was the son of an earl, after all.

  “I know about that,” he replied, “but there’s something else in here that I don’t think anyone knows about. I doubt Grampa Jack ever knew.”

  I regarded him with interest. “What is it?”

  He indicated a satin-covered button at the bottom of the chest and pushed it sideways with his thumb, which took some effort. Suddenly, there was a clicking sound, and a secret drawer popped open.

  “Wow,” I said, taken aback. “I never noticed that before.”

  The drawer was disguised by the brass fittings along the exterior of the chest. I moved to examine it and pulled it fully open, but it was empty.

  “There’s nothing in it,” I said.

  “Look again.”

  I ran my finger along the smooth wooden interior and found a ribbon that lifted a false bottom. There, beneath it, were some black-and-white photographs. I withdrew them and frowned, understanding at last why my father was so troubled by this finding.

  “Is this Gram?” I asked. “And how in the world did you discover this?”

  “I don’t know. I guess I always had a funny feeling about this little chest when I was growing up—something about the way she was so protective of it. And then, when I saw the key in the lock yesterday . . . I couldn’t help myself. I was curious, so I fiddled around with it.”

  I flipped through all four photographs of my sweet, loving grandmother in her younger days, looking vibrant, blonde, and beautiful, like a 1940s movie star. She appeared to be blissfully happy with a handsome young officer from the war.

  But this man was no ordinary officer. Nor was he my English grandfather, Theodore, who had worked with Winston Churchill in London. This man was a German Nazi, and clearly, they were in love.

  My eyes lifted, and I stared at my father with confusion. “Who is this guy?”

  “I don’t know. But flip the pictures over.”

  I did as he asked and saw what appeared to be my grandmother’s handwriting on the backs of each one. They all said the same thing: April in Berlin, 1940.

  “That’s just after the war started, wasn’t it?” I asked.

  “Yes. Germany invaded Poland in September of ’39, and then Britain declared war immediately.”

  I felt a sickening knot of dread in my belly, because I knew what my father was thinking.

  “Dad . . .” I shook my head. “I’m sure that this man isn’t . . .” I couldn’t even bring myself to say it.

  “My real father?” he finished for me.

  I swallowed uneasily. “Of course he isn’t. Gram was married to that English aristocrat. We have pictures of them together, and I’m sure I’ve seen that old marriage certificate at some point. And you spent the first few years of your life at their country estate in England. You have memories of it.”

  “I do remember it, but . . . where is that marriage certificate?” He moved to the larger trunk that contained Gram’s wedding dress and Grampa Jack’s medals. Dad raised the heavy lid and withdrew a large envelope with all sorts of musty-smelling documents from the war years—ration cards and Gram’s identity card and a pamphlet titled “Make Do and Mend.” He carefully unfolded an extremely delicate, yellowed piece of paper and handed it to me.

  “See?” I said. “This says Vivian Hughes and Theodore Gibbons were married in England in November of 1939.”

  He pointed at the photographs. “Then what was she doing in Berlin the following April with a German Nazi? Just look at those pictures. Whatever was going on between them wasn’t platonic. You can see it as plain as day.”

  I moved to the window to study the pictures more carefully in the light. In one of them, Gram and the German officer were seated together in an art deco–style nightclub with an orchestra playing on the stage in the background. The German’s arm rested along the back of Gram’s chair, and he lounged comfortably, with one shiny black boot crossed over his thigh. Gram looked glamorous and radiant in a white gown with sequins, her shoulder-length blonde hair curled in a fashionable wartime style. The German wore a slate-gray officer’s uniform and appeared to be a highly decorated officer with Nazi medals and various insignia. I couldn’t deny that he had been a strikingly handsome man with fair hair and pale blue eyes.

  My dad also had fair hair and blue eyes.

  But so did Gram.

  In another photo, they posed next to a shiny black Mercedes convertible with flags on the front grill, which suggested the vehicle was assigned to someone with a very high rank. They were gazing into each other’s eyes and smiling. Again, the German was in uniform, his black boots polished and gleaming.

  The most disturbing photo of all, however, was one of my grandmother lying on her belly on an unmade bed, a half-empty bottle of whiskey in
her hand. She was gazing into the camera with a playful, seductive glimmer in her eyes and no makeup, her hair in disarray. She wore nothing but a white chemise with one strap falling off her shoulder. The morning sun shone brightly through white sheer curtains, creating a square patch of sunlight on the foot of the bed, washing out that section of the photograph.

  In the last one, they sat on a horse in a meadow of wildflowers. There were snowcapped mountains in the background. The officer wore plain clothes—a plaid shirt and denims. I wondered, with more than a little fascination, who had taken the picture. What sort of day had it been? Was this before the war? There was nothing written on the back of that particular picture. Was there laughter and joy? They certainly appeared to be happy together.

  “How can this be?” my father asked, interrupting my thoughts. “What was she doing in Berlin, having a love affair with a German Nazi, when she was supposed to be married to my father in England? And the date . . . you can’t pretend it’s not suspicious.”

  I flipped one of the other pictures over and did the math in my head. April 1940. My father was born in March 1941, eleven months later.

  “This doesn’t mean he’s your father,” I said. “We don’t know where she was at the nine-month mark.”

  “But it’s clear that she was with this man and in love with him shortly before I was conceived. I don’t know why or how that was possible when Britain and Germany were at war, but there it is in black and white. And what makes it hard to stomach is that she’s been hiding this secret all these years, and even Jack couldn’t have known the truth. Otherwise, those pictures wouldn’t be hidden in a secret compartment in a locked chest in the attic.” Dad cupped his forehead in a hand. “Oh God, this means I could be the son of a Nazi. Lord knows what crimes he committed. What if he was in charge of an extermination camp and ordered the deaths of thousands of Jews? I might have his blood running through my veins. And how could Gram have loved such a man?” He gestured toward the pictures. “It’s clear that she did love him. You can see it in her eyes. It makes me sick.”