Her Loving Husband's Curse

by Meredith Allard

  “Then, when he thought I wasn’t looking, he slipped this Bible into his bag. When he saw me watching he laughed.

  “‘‘Tis that not merely a thing?’ I asked.

  “‘This,’ he said, taking the book from his bag, ‘‘tis not merely a thing, James. ‘Tis our memories. Your mother is in here. Your grandparents, maternal and paternal, and their parents, maternal and paternal. We’re fortunate to have such records since most families do not keep them.’

  “Already by 1690, the book was old and worn. My father placed a few wayward pages back between the covers and slipped the book into the bottom of his bag. ‘We must keep our memories, Son, because as we move on through this life, what else have we?’”

  Sarah took the book and flipped the pages, careful because she didn’t want the binding to disintegrate in her hands. She saw the listing of James’s family back to the year 1579. Some entries were complete, with birthdate and death date, who they married, when they married, and the birthdates of various offspring. Some entries had birthdates but no death dates. Others had death dates but no birthdates. Others were merely an imprint of a long-forgotten name. She saw the date of James’s mother’s birth, 12 August 1642, and the date of her death, 30 October 1689. His father, John William Wentworth, was listed as born 27 May 1630, and there was John’s father’s name and birthdate, too blurred by time and ink to make out clearly, and John’s mother’s too, though all Sarah could make out was an R at the beginning of her name. Sarah found James’s listing, his details written in his father’s perfectly curled seventeenth century calligraphy—James John Wentworth, son of John and Emily Wentworth, born 19 April 1662. Where the date of his death should have been recorded was, also in John’s hand, the word “Dead?”

  “Should the night I was turned be listed as the date of my death?” James asked. “After all these years I still can’t decide.”

  “You’re still here,” Sarah said. “You haven’t died.”

  “A doctor might disagree with you.”

  “When you’re no longer animate, no longer conscious, that’s when you die.”

  “Then I’ll never have a death date.”

  “Is that a bad thing?”

  “I would like to have a death date.”

  “James…” Sarah turned away. “Don’t say that.”

  He sighed, then pointed to the open page in her hands. “My father added you the day we were married.”

  There she was, Elizabeth Wentworth nee Jones, born 27 November 1669. And there was the date of her death, 13 August 1692. Then the shock of the other name, Grace Wentworth, died 13 August 1692. Their baby. Sarah felt a surge of love for her father-in-law. He always had the warmest, most loving heart of anyone she had ever known, except, of course, for James. She always knew where James’s kindness came from. And here was proof, over three hundred years later, that John hadn’t forgotten the baby. James brushed her tears away with his fingertips.

  She looked through the high window, the sky fully black, the wind whispering memories through the shadow branches on the crooked oak outside.

  “What else is in that old thing?” James asked.

  Sarah reached into the open chest and removed two more dresses and three white caps, her underpetticoats and half-boned stays. She found more wool, only this wasn’t a dress but a garnet-colored coat, breeches, and waistcoat.

  “You’re right,” James said. “Seventeenth century clothing was hideous. Put those away before I start screaming.”

  Sarah held her dress in one hand and James’s old clothes in the other. “I’ll put this on,” she said, holding out the dress, “if you put this on.” She held out the garnet-colored clothing and smiled.

  “Never.”

  She folded the old clothes, laid them into the trunk, then straightened up the books, the maps, and the kitchen utensils, making neat piles along the wall under the window. She coughed from the three-centuries-old dust.

  “Why don’t you do that another time?” James asked.

  “I need to clean up here before the social worker comes for the inspection.” Sarah stopped straightening and turned to James. “What do you know,” she said. “We were talking about the seventeenth century and you’re all right. And so am I. I even walked by the Old Burying Point tonight.”

  “What were you doing there by yourself, Sarah? You know I don’t like you going out at night alone. I can’t help you if I’m not there.”

  Sarah kissed her husband, loving his tender concern for her, as though she were the most valuable thing in the world and only he could protect her. She let her lips linger, but he pulled away.

  “What is it, Sarah? You only go for walks when something is troubling you.”

  She touched his cheek, running her fingers down his neck and passed the open collar of his button-down shirt to his chest. She knew he saw the slightest change in her expression, heard the tiniest halt in her voice. He knew her so well.

  “Are you sure about adopting a baby?” she asked. “You’re not going to change your mind?”

  “I won’t change my mind, Sarah. It feels right to me now, as it has to you all along.”

  Sarah nodded. “Good,” she said. “You’ll be a great father, James. I know you will.” She looked at the seventeenth century memories piled along the walls. “We’ll clean that up tomorrow,” she said.

  James smiled at the closed trunk. “I’ll give you one more chance to put on your old clothes,” he said. “It might be fun reliving some of those memories.”

  “Some things are better in the twenty-first century.”

  James pulled her toward him and pressed his lips into hers. When she opened her mouth he grabbed her by the waist and pulled her toward him, untucking her blouse, unbuttoning her from the top down, kissing her everywhere her flesh was exposed, pulling her clothes away. She dropped her pants and stepped out of them. James stepped back, admiring her.

  “I was right the first time,” he said. “It’s easier undressing you now.”

  Sarah reached for James. “What are you doing all the way over there? Come here.”

  James grasped her, clutching her, kissing her. She pulled his button-down shirt off his arms and his gray t-shirt over his head. She ran her hands over his cool blue skin, outlining the contours of his muscles from his neck down his chest to his stomach to the top of his jeans. No matter how many times she saw him, his dead-pale complexion over his sinewy frame, his flat-black eyes glistening, his gold hair stubbornly in his eyes, his smile, she was amazed by him. “I love you more than anything in this world,” he whispered in her ear.

  “I love you more,” she said.

  And she closed her eyes and let him take her away.

  CHAPTER 7

  In November Halloween was gone, ghosts and ghouls replaced by stoic Native Americans holding pies and smiling, buckle-hatted turkeys unaware of their fate. And pumpkins. The trees were bare now, the burst of temporary color gone, leaving their sugar and crimson behind, the leaves raked away. The branches, now naked and spindly, shivered in the poking, colder air. Storm after storm wet Salem, riding out to the ocean on the crashing waves of the bay. Heavier coats were found, scarves and mittens pulled from their summer hideaways, and people walked closer together, huddled in preparation for the real cold to come. It was calmer in Salem after the summer tourists and the Halloween partiers cleared away, and the locals stretched their legs and walked the quiet streets in peace.

  Sarah paced the wooden gabled house two steps at a time, rearranging the autumn harvest centerpiece on the table near the hearth, straightening the Happy Thanksgiving banner on the wall. She paced again, now three steps at a time, down to the end of the great room and back, dusting the bookshelves again and back, checking the baking cookies in the stainless steel oven and back. When she heard the squeak of the front door, she sighed with relief. She ran to James and pressed herself into his arms.

  “She’s not here yet,” Sarah said.

  “I told you I’d be back in t
ime.”

  She pushed herself away and paced again.

  “Maybe I should have put out some Pilgrims,” she said. “What if she notices there aren’t any Pilgrims? Everyone has Pilgrim decorations at Thanksgiving time. What if she thinks we’re not good Americans? What if she thinks we won’t know what to do with a child because kids love Pilgrims at Thanksgiving time?”

  “First of all, those Thanksgiving harvest plays the kids do aren’t factually correct. If she wants to know why we don’t have Pilgrims in our house, I’ll explain it to her.” He pulled Sarah back into his arms and kissed her forehead. “We are Pilgrims.”

  “We didn’t come over on the Mayflower.”

  “No, but we were here when Massachusetts was a colony. We’ll bring down our old clothes from the attic and show her.”

  “That’s not funny.”

  Sarah walked back to the oven, checked the cookies with a spatula, decided they were brown enough, and pulled them out, placing them onto an autumn orange cake platter with green and yellow leaves.

  “Cookies?” James asked.

  “Chocolate chip cookies.”

  “They smell sweet.”

  “That’s why people love them.” She pulled one apart, then licked the melted chocolate dribbling down her fingers. “Do you want to try one?”

  “I’d love to, but I can’t.”

  “You can’t eat at all?”

  “Honey, I haven’t eaten solid food in three hundred and nineteen years.”

  “That’s too bad. Life isn’t worth living without chocolate chip cookies.”

  “I think I’m doing all right.”

  The cauldron in the hearth caught Sarah’s eye. It looked like it should bubble, bubble, toil and trouble while the three witches in Macbeth cast spells and foretold the future, hysterical with evil visions and dastardly deeds. She looked inside, checking to see if the heavy black pot could be unlatched and removed, shaking her head when the seventeenth century fastenings held strong.

  “I never should have left this,” she said. “I should have had it taken out during the remodeling. She’s going to think it’s a child hazard, and it is.” She jumped at the hollow knock that echoed like a loud No! No! No!

  James stroked her hand. “It’ll be fine,” he said. “Relax.”

  He opened the door, and the social worker walked in, stiff and stoic, underpaid and overworked, an unsmiling woman in an ill-fitting purple jacket with linebacker shoulder pads and a purple flowered skirt. She looked, Sarah thought, like a summer plum. She was slump-shouldered and long-faced, like this was the fiftieth home she had visited that day and it was always the same, smiling faces, fresh-baked cookies, guarantees they would take care of the child whether they would or they wouldn’t.

  The plum-looking woman entered the great room without saying hello. She didn’t acknowledge James or Sarah. “You have a lot of books,” she said finally, writing in the spiral notebook in her hand.

  “My wife and I both like to read,” James said.

  Sarah stepped aside as the woman nodded at the flat-screen television and shook her head at the three hundred year-old desk, scratching more notes. James looked over her shoulder, trying to see what she wrote, but Sarah shook her head at him. She didn’t want the woman to notice anything odd about James, though his curiosity was human enough. The plum-looking woman stopped in front of the cauldron.

  “Are you witches?” she asked.

  “No,” James said, “but our best friends are.” When the social worker didn’t smile, James stepped away. “The cauldron came with the house,” he said. “We thought it gave the place character so we kept it.”

  “How old is the house?”

  “It’s from the seventeenth century,” Sarah answered.

  “How long have you lived here?”

  Sarah and James looked at each other.

  “Two years,” James said. “We both work at the university.”

  The plum-looking woman nodded. “If you’re approved you’ll have to have that thing,” she gestured with her pen at the cauldron, “removed. It’s a safety hazard.”

  “Of course,” Sarah said.

  “Does this place need an inspection? Sometimes these older houses have bad wiring, or improper plumbing.”

  “The house is up to code,” James said. “We made sure of that when we had the place remodeled.”

  “When was this remodeling?”

  “They finished during the summer. I have the paperwork here.”

  He handed her the forms that said the three centuries-old house met the qualifications of a twenty-first century inspection. She glanced over the paperwork and nodded, writing more notes. She looked around the kitchen, the bedroom, the smaller room in the back. She scowled at the wood ladder that led up to the attic.

  “Can that be removed?” she asked.

  “We can take it out if it’s a problem,” James said.

  She nodded, scowling more at the cauldron as she walked back into the kitchen.

  “Would you like something to drink?” Sarah asked.

  “Thank you. Water would be fine.”

  “We have some cold water in the fridge,” Sarah said.

  “No need to trouble yourselves. I’ll get it.”

  Before Sarah could protest, the social worker opened the refrigerator and eyed the groceries before pulling out the water pitcher. Sarah dropped into a chair, unable to hide the horror on her face. What if the social worker saw James’s bags of blood? But James nodded, pointing to his temple, an ‘I’ve got this’ look in his eyes. He pulled a glass from the cupboard, poured water for the plum-looking woman, then joined Sarah at the table, smiling the whole time.

  “What do you do at the college?” the social worker asked.

  “I’m a professor, and my wife is a librarian.”

  “What do you teach?”

  “English literature.”

  She sipped her water as she glanced over the application in her manila folder. “I think you’re my son’s English professor. Levon Jackson. Do you know him?”

  “Very well,” James said. “He took two of my classes last year, and he’s in my Shakespeare seminar this term. He’s a bright young man, and a very good writer.”

  Mrs. Jackson clapped her hands, her mother’s love everywhere on her round cheeks. No longer the plum-looking woman, now she was Levon’s mother.

  “You should hear how he raves about you, Doctor Wentworth. Every day he comes home saying, ‘Doctor Wentworth said this,’ or ‘Doctor Wentworth said that.’”

  “It’s a pleasure teaching a student who wants to learn,” James said.

  Mrs. Jackson’s round-cheeked smile lit the room. “You’ve done a world of good for my boy, Doctor Wentworth. I was so worried about him after that back injury meant he couldn't be considered for the NHL draft. Going pro is all he’s talked about since he put on his first pair of skates. When that was no longer possible for him, he floundered. He didn’t have plans for anything else, and now he wants to be a professor like you. I’m pleased to meet you, Doctor Wentworth.”

  “Please, call me James. It’s my pleasure.”

  As Mrs. Jackson looked over the paperwork, James winked at Sarah.

  “I don’t see any problems here, Doctor Wentworth. Everything seems to be in order. Don’t worry about a thing. I’ll have the rest of the paperwork approved by my supervisor.” Mrs. Jackson looked at Sarah. “Mrs. Wentworth, you have a lovely house with a lot of history here. Any child would be lucky to have such a home.”

  “Thank you,” Sarah said.

  James escorted Mrs. Jackson to her car, said good night, and waved as she drove away. Back inside, James walked to Sarah, put his arms around her, and pulled her close. She felt the invisible fairy-like thread drawing them together again, only now it was looser, stretching out, over there to where someone else waited, someone they didn’t know yet but someone who was loved unconditionally.

  Just because, Sarah thought. Whoever you are. We love
you just because.

  She pointed her chin up, and James kissed her. When she opened her eyes, he was smiling.

  “Was that your idea to move the blood bags?” she asked.

  “I thought she might look in the refrigerator,” he said. “To see how clean we are.”

  “That’s why you’re brilliant, Doctor Wentworth.”

  “I know,” he said.

  * * * * *

  They know. It is just as the trader man said. They are going soon, going West, the direction of Death, they say.

  Going…

  Going…

  Gone.

  They go about the night the best they can. The boys play ‘a ne jo di’ (stickball) in the moonlight, which they play with hickory sticks and deer-hair balls. They are families, mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, aunts and uncles, grandmothers and grandfathers. They laugh and cry. They grow angry and show kindness. One mother kneels near her crying son who has tripped running. Another watches her husband show their son a trick with the hickory stick. As I watch them I am reminded of Shylock’s words, begging for his humanity:

  Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions; fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warm'd and cool'd by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed…

  I try to catch the eye of my neighbor, but he is busy with the medicine man while the women and children disappear into their homes. He is old, the medicine man, his face well creviced, his jowls low, though his silver hair is thick and he has the manner of someone who understands much. He nods at me, and I nod in return, thankful because he is the first Cherokee to acknowledge me. The tribal leaders have gathered and I am not supposed to be here, I think, but the medicine man does not seem concerned. I sit on the ground and watch as they begin the Stomp Dance. There are shell shakers wearing leg rattles made of turtle shells filled with pebbles, and the rattles provide a heartbeat-like rhythm as they dance around the red-blazing fire singing a language I do not understand.