The Family Tree

Ellie Jo was relieved. Dana looked tired but happy and totally comfortable holding the baby. It was hard to see if Lizzie looked any different from expected; Dana was so washed out that, by comparison, any child would look dark – not that the coloring bothered Ellie Jo one whit. She just wasn’t up for questions.

‘She’s so sweet!’ cried one.

‘She has Hugh’s mouth,’ decided another.

‘Zoom it in,’ ordered a third, and Gillian complied.

Juliette Irving, a friend of Dana’s and herself a young mother, with year-old twins asleep in a stroller by the door, remarked, ‘Look at her! Is that Dana’s nose? When will they be home?’

‘Tomorrow,’ Gillian said.

‘Elizabeth Ames Clarke,’ announced Nancy Russell, clearly touched by the name. A florist whose latest passion was knitting flowers, felting them, and sewing them on shawls, sweaters, and purses, she was a contemporary of Gillian’s, another child hood friend of the first Elizabeth.

‘It’s a long one,’ Gillian warned. ‘Can we do it over night?’

‘It’ was a hand-knit quilt, with the baby’s full name and date of birth worked into designated squares. The women had already made squares in yellow, white, and pale green. Now, with the sex of the child known, the remaining squares would incorporate pink. Each piece would be eight inches square, in a fiber and shade of the knitter’s choosing, with those closest to Dana and Ellie Jo doing the lettered squares.

‘We’ll need them by noon tomorrow, so that we can stitch them together,’ Nancy advised. ‘Juliette, can you call Jamie and Tara? I’ll call Trudy. Gillian, want to call Joan, Saundra, and Lydia?’

One of the women, Corinne James, had taken the camera from Gillian and was viewing the picture close up. Corinne James was Dana’s age. Tall and slim, she had stylish shoulder-length hair, wore fine linen pants, an equally fine camisole top, and a diamond-studded wedding band. Although her friendship with the knitters hadn’t spread beyond the shop, she was there often.

‘What an interesting-looking baby,’ she observed. ‘Her skin is dark.’

‘Not dark,’ argued another, ‘tan.’

‘Who in the family has that coloring, Ellie Jo?’ Corinne asked.

Ellie Jo was suddenly warm.

‘We’re trying to figure that out,’ Gillian answered for her and caught Nancy’s eye. ‘What do we know of Jack Jones?’

‘Not much,’ replied Nancy.

‘Jack Jones?’ Corinne echoed.

‘Dana’s father.’

‘Does he live around here?’

‘Lord, no. He was never here. Elizabeth knew him in Wisconsin. She went to college there.’

‘Were they married?’

‘No.’

‘Was he South American?’

‘No.’

‘Is “Jack Jones” his real name?’

Ellie Jo fanned herself with the invoice from the yarn box. ‘Why wouldn’t it be?’ she asked Corinne, not that she was surprised by the question. Corinne James had a curious mind and, surprising for a woman her age, something to say on most every topic.

The younger woman smiled calmly. ‘“Jones” is a good alias.’

‘Like “James”?’ Gillian asked pointedly. ‘No, Corinne. “Jack Jones” is his real name. Or was. We have no idea if he’s still alive.’

‘Doesn’t Dana know?’

‘No. They’re not in touch.’

‘So where is the dark skin from?’ Corinne persisted, as though involved in a great intellectual dilemma. ‘Hugh’s side?’

Gillian chuckled. ‘Hardly. Hugh’s family is your basic white-bread America.’

‘Then your husband, Ellie Jo?’

Ellie gave a quick headshake.

‘Earl Joseph was ruddy-cheeked,’ Gillian told Corinne, ‘and the kindest man you’d ever want to meet. He was a legend around here. Everyone knew him.’

‘He was soft-spoken and considerate,’ added Nancy, ‘and he adored Ellie Jo. And Dana. He would have been beside himself with excitement about the baby.’

‘How long has he been gone?’ Corinne asked.

Gillian turned to Ellie Jo. ‘How long has it been?’

‘Twenty-five years,’ Ellie Jo answered, fingering the new wool. Yarn was warmth and homespun goodness. It was color when days were bleak and softness when times were hard. It was always there, a cushion in the finest sense.

Kindly, Corinne asked, ‘How did he die?’

Ellie Jo felt Gillian’s look, but the accident was no secret. ‘He was away on business when he fell in his hotel room and hit his head. He suffered severe brain trauma. By the time help arrived, he was dead.’

‘Oh my. I’m so sorry. That must have been difficult for you. Something like that happened to my dad – a freak accident.’

‘Your dad?’ Ellie Jo asked.

‘Yes. He was the head of an investment company that he started with a group of friends from business school. He was on the corporate jet with two of his partners when it went down. My brother and I were in our twenties. We still think it was sabotage.’

‘Sabotage?’ Juliette asked.

‘We were skeptical, too,’ Corinne confessed intelligently, ‘until things got weird. The company didn’t want an investigation. They said it would hurt business, and sure enough, the FAA investigated, blamed the accident on faulty maintenance, and the business tanked. My dad was made out to be responsible. And then—’

Ellie Jo had heard enough. She raised a hand. ‘While Corinne tells her story, I have to run to the house. I’ll be right back, Olivia,’ she called, heading for the door just as the bell dinged.

Jaclyn Chace, who worked part-time at the shop, came in, eyes alight. ‘Congratulations on the baby, Ellie Jo! Have you seen her?’

‘I have,’ Ellie Jo said as she passed. ‘There’s another new box on the table. Open it for me, like a good girl?’

With the door closing behind her, she went down the stone path to the house. Over one hundred years old, it had dove gray shutters and a veranda front to back. Now, climbing two wood steps, she crossed the back porch and entered the kitchen. Her tabby, Veronica, was sprawled on a sill in the sun. Ellie Jo went on into the front hall and up the stairs, through the rising heat, to her bedroom.

The windows were open here, too, sheer curtains letting in only the slightest movement of air. Ellie Jo ignored the heat. Taking a scrapbook from a shelf in the rolltop desk, she opened it and looked at the faded black-and-white snap-shots. There was Earl, in a shot taken soon after they met. He had been a Fuller Brush salesman, shown up at her door intent on charming her into a sale, and, yes, she did buy several brushes. She smiled at the memory of those happy days. Her smile faded when she turned to the loose papers tucked behind the photos. She took out several.

Closing the scrapbook, she put it back on the shelf. Holding to her heart what she had removed, she went down the hall to Elizabeth’s old room. It still held the bed, dresser, and nightstand Elizabeth had used. The closet was another story. The clothes were long gone. The closet now held yarn.

Sliding the center stack of boxes out of the way, Ellie Jo pulled on the cord to unfold the attic ladder. Grasping its frame, she climbed up. The air was still, the heat intense. Little here was worth noting – a carton filled with chipped china from the earliest days of her marriage to Earl, a hatbox holding her short wedding veil, the old steamer chair that Earl had loved. Of Elizabeth’s things, there was a single box of books from her last semester of college.

Should Dana come looking up here, she wouldn’t stay long. Given the heat in summer, the chill in winter, and the absense of anything useful, she wouldn’t think to bend over and go to the very edge of the eave, as Ellie Jo did now, or to remove a section of the pink insulation that had been added only a handful of years before in a futile effort to modulate heat and cold. Fitting the papers between two joists, Ellie Jo replaced the insulation, went slowly back down the ladder, refolded it, and closed the hatch.

She had read these papers often, and she still could, but no one else would see them. They would remain under the eaves until either fire, a wrecker’s ball, or sheer age consumed the house, at which point there would be no one left who had known Earl, no one to think less of him for what he had done. He would forever be a good man in the eyes of the town, which was how it should be.

The Eaton Clarkes lived in a seaside community forty minutes south of Boston. Their elegant Georgian Colonial stood amid other similarly elegant brick homes, on a tree-lined street that was the envy of the town. Sightseers were few, inevitably choosing to drive along the water, and that suited the residents of Old Burgess Way perfectly. They liked their privacy. They liked the fact that their groundskeepers could easily spot a car that didn’t belong.

Spread in a graceful arc on a ridge, Old Burgess stood higher than even the seaside homes on the bluff. Indeed, had it not been for dense maples, oaks, and pines, and lavish clusters of ornamental shrubs, its residents might have had a view of the ocean, not a bad thing in and of itself. Unfortunately, though, that would have meant also seeing the overly large houses that new money had built at the expense of the more quaint summer cottages, now mostly gone. The residents of Old Burgess had no use for the nouveaux riches, hence the cultivation of their leafy shield.

They were dignified people. Most had either lived long enough in their homes to have raised a generation of children, or were that second generation themselves, raising the third. When they held parties, loud music ended at eleven.

Eaton and Dorothy had lived on Old Burgess Way for thirty-five years. Their brick home had white columns and shutters, black doors and wrought-iron detail, five bedrooms, six bathrooms, and a saltwater pool. Though there were times in recent years when the place echoed, they wouldn’t have dreamed of selling.

Eaton liked being with those who shared his values. He wasn’t the richest or most prominent on the street, but he didn’t have to be. A historian and best-selling author, he much preferred to blend in. Book signings were difficult for him in that regard, comprised as they were of total strangers. The class he taught at the university was another matter. Here were serious, talented students, mostly seniors as intent on gaining behind-the-scene tips on writing about history as they were into history itself. Blessed with a love of the past and a faultless memory, Eaton could talk spontaneously about most any time period in American life.

As for the behind-the-scene tips, this was easy, too. It was his life. Granted, connections opened doors, and he had them, as most of these students did not. His forebears had played a role at every stage of American history. Indeed, each of his books included the cameo appearance of at least one of them. That was the single common element in his body of work, eight books to date. And the ninth, due out in five short weeks? In it, Clarkes played the lead. One Man’s Line traced the history of the family as it wove among luminaries, gaining in prominence and wealth with each successive generation. The focus was history. This was, after all, what Eaton was known for. But the time span was greater than that, say, of his book on the demise of the League of Nations. And the personal element was strong, offering intimate details of the lives of his early ancestors.

‘The printer just delivered a sample of the book-party invitation,’ Dorothy reported, coming toward him from the library door. ‘I don’t think it’s right, Eaton. It doesn’t have the dignified feel I want.’

She put it down on the desk. Sitting forward, Eaton immediately saw the problem. ‘The ink color is wrong. This is blue-gray. We want green-gray.’

Dorothy frowned at the sample. ‘Well, if that’s all, it isn’t as bad as it could be. Still, they’ll have to send this back and have it redone, and if the envelope liners match this blue-gray, they’ll have to be reordered, too. By the time they get it right and print them up, we’ll be at the deadline for mailing. There’s no more room for error.’

Eaton didn’t want to hear that. ‘We should have let my publisher do it.’

‘But they did an awful job last time. These invitations go to people whose opinions we value. Would you show up at the University Club wearing a bargain-basement suit? Absolutely not. You like presenting yourself a certain way, and the invitation to your event is no different. This is the start of your tour, it’s on your home turf, and it’s important. Did you call Hugh?’

In a measured way, Eaton asked, ‘Did Hugh call me?’

It was a rhetorical question. The phone had been ringing since they walked in the door. If any of the callers had been Hugh, Dorothy wouldn’t have asked. No, the calls would have been from people hearing of the birth of Hugh’s child. Thinking about that put Eaton on edge.

He had two sons. While Robert was traditional, agreeable, and, Lord knew, successful, Hugh was the one most like Eaton, and not only in looks. Both were athletic. Both were intellectually creative. Both had chosen fields outside the family field and excelled.

If Eaton had a soft spot, Hugh occupied it.

‘Where is Mark?’ he barked.

‘You sent him home,’ Dorothy answered quickly, defensively. ‘You left him a note before we went to the hospital, don’t you recall? You said we were celebrating a new baby, so there wouldn’t be work today, and I’m not sure what work there is now, anyway, Eaton. He’s your researcher, and the book is done.’

‘He’s my assistant,’ Eaton corrected, ‘and, yes, there is work still to do – interviews to complete, speeches to outline. It used to be that all you had to do when you toured was sign your name to books. Now they want a speech. They want entertainment. Did I give Mark a paid day off?’

‘I don’t know, but if you did, it’s done, and it was not my doing, so please don’t yell at me.’

Eaton quieted. He couldn’t be angry at Dorothy. Hugh’s folly wasn’t her fault.

‘Did you call him?’ she repeated, albeit with deference.

Eaton didn’t reply. Rather, he sat back in his tall leather chair and looked at the books that surrounded him, floor to ceiling, shelf upon shelf. Like his neighbors, these books were his friends. The books he had authored himself sat together on a side shelf, clearly visible, though in no way singled out. While Eaton was proud of each one, they wouldn’t have existed without those that had come before.

One generation led to the next. Wasn’t that the theme of One Man’s Line? Early reviews were calling it ‘eminently readable,’ ‘engrossing,’ ‘an American saga,’ and while Eaton wouldn’t have used the word ‘saga’ – too commercial – he agreed with the gist. Ancestral charts appeared at various points in the book, growing more elaborate with the years. They were impressive and exact.

‘Eaton?’

‘No. I haven’t called.’

‘Don’t you think you should? He’s your son. Your approval means the world to him.’

‘If that were true,’ Eaton remarked, ‘he wouldn’t have married the woman he did.’

‘But did you see how pale and tired he looked? Yes, I know he was up all night, but he didn’t plan for this to happen. They had no indication that her father was African American, and maybe he isn’t. Maybe it came through the grandmother’s side. Call him, Eaton.’

‘I’ll see,’ Eaton said dismissively.

But she was dogged, stronger now. ‘I know what that means, it means you won’t, but this is about a child, Eaton. She’s a living, breathing human being, and she has at least some of our genes.’

‘Does she?’

‘Yes, she does.’

‘You’re too soft.’

‘Maybe, but I love my son. I don’t wish him hurt, not by her and not by you.’

‘Dorothy, he basically told me to jump off a cliff.’

‘He did not.’

‘He did. It was right there in his eyes. You weren’t close enough. You couldn’t see.’

‘He was upset. Goodness, if we were upset seeing that child, after all the months looking forward to it and now fearing that something’s amiss and not knowing what to think, imagine what he’s feeling.’

‘What about us? We were looking forward to this baby. Every single one of our friends knew how much. So. Tell me who called.’

Dorothy brightened. ‘Alfred called. And Sylvia. And Porter and Dusty – they were on two extensions, talking at the same time, so I could hardly hear.

‘How much do they know?’

Her brightness faded. ‘Only that it’s a girl. And Bradley. Bradley called.’

Eaton’s head buzzed. ‘And how did Brad know? Robert.’ He let out a breath. ‘Does that boy know the meaning of discretion?’

‘Oh, Eaton,’ Dorothy said with resignation. ‘If not from Robert, Brad would have heard it from someone else. This won’t remain a secret for long.’

Eaton knew that and was annoyed. ‘What did Hugh expect marrying her? I said this back then, and I say it again now – she may well have married him for his money.’

‘Oh, I don’t think—’

‘Of course you don’t. You don’t want to admit Hugh made a mistake and, besides, she knit you the afghan you wanted, which you interpret as a sign of affection, though it may not be at all. The thing about marrying someone so different is that you never know what drives them.’

‘If it’s only about money, why does she work? She could be lunching with friends, or spending the day at the spa, for God’s sake. If it’s only about money, why does she make the effort she does?’

Eaton snorted. ‘Effort? Please. What she does isn’t work. She drives from house to house visiting people who are either lazy or lack taste, and then she trots off to the Design Center, likely as an excuse to buy things for her own house. She certainly doesn’t work like Hugh does.’

‘But she earns money. And she isn’t the only wife who works. Look at Rebecca Boyd. Look at Amanda Parker.’

‘Look at Andrew Smith’s daughter and the Harding girls,’ Eaton countered. ‘They don’t work. Dana could be doing things to help Hugh in his career. She could be doing charity work. She could make important contacts for him through that.’

‘But he represents criminals.’

Eaton sighed. ‘No, Dorothy,’ he explained with the patience of one accustomed to dealing with ill-informed students, ‘he represents people who are accused of being criminals. Jack Hoffmeister is the president of a bank. He was accused of fraud by one of his vice-presidents, after he fired the man for incompetence, but the accusation was entirely false, as Hugh proved. He earned a good fee and several referrals from that one, and whose contact was Jack? Yours. You met him through the Friends Committee at the hospital. Hugh’s wife should be involved with groups like that. I’ve told him that dozens of times, but he doesn’t seem to hear.’

‘What has happened now is different. You need to talk with him.’

But Eaton wasn’t groveling. ‘If he wants me to talk to him, an apology is in order. I have my pride.’

‘I know that, dear. It explains his.’

Eaton was unsettled. ‘Are you taking his side?’

‘There are no sides. This is our son.’

He pointed a finger at her. ‘You’ll stand behind me in this, Dorothy. You’ll stand behind me in this.’

7

Hugh headed home to shower and change, but his cell phone kept ringing as he drove, friends calling to congratulate him, promising to be over soon to visit, and if it wasn’t the phone, it was his BlackBerry.

Can’t wait to see the baby!

Looking forward to seeing the baby.

When can we see the baby?

Everyone wanted to see her, and that should have been a tribute to Dana and him, proof that their friends cared. Hugh should have been ecstatic.

He didn’t know why he wasn’t – why there was a rock in his gut when he thought about the baby. He kept hearing Dana’s disappointment in his reaction, and he didn’t know what to do. Their love had come so easily. They had married within eight months of first meeting, and had never looked back. And he wasn’t doing it now. It sounded, though, like she was.

Is there a racial limit to your love?

There was not, and he resented her asking. He had no prejudice. She had only to look at his work for proof of that.

Is there a racial limit to your love?

The question came again, louder now and sounding like a dare. Had he been playing devil’s advocate, he might have said she was creating a diversion or, worse, a cover-up.

Hugh didn’t want to believe that. He didn’t believe she had been unfaithful. She loved him too much to cause him that kind of pain – and it would be excruciatingly painful, if it were true.

But there was the baby, with her beautiful brown skin, and no explanation for its source. Didn’t he have a right to ask questions? Didn’t it make perfectly good sense to choose one of a dozen other birth announcements that didn’t have a picture on the front?

He walked in the kitchen door and picked up the phone. The pulsing tone told him that there were messages, but he didn’t access them. Rather, he called the office.

His secretary was not happy to hear from him. ‘You aren’t supposed to be working,’ she scolded. ‘You’re supposed to be with Dana and the baby. I’ve been given orders not to talk shop.’

Hugh humored her. ‘Then just a yes or a no, please. Did Alex get in touch with Henderson Walker?’

‘Yes.’

‘Is he going over to the jail?’

‘No.’

‘The situation is defused?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did we get a continuance on the Paquette case?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did I get a call from someone calling herself “the garden mom”?’

‘No.’

‘Okay. That’s it. And, Sheila, if the latter does call, I want the message ASAP. Don’t give it to anyone else. There’s a personal connection here.’

He hung up the phone feeling marginally better, but picked it up again seconds later and punched in another number.

‘Hammond Security,’ came a familiar voice, deep and mildly accented.

‘Hey, Yunus. It’s Hugh. How are you?’

‘I’m fine, my friend. We haven’t talked in a very long time.’

‘My fault. Life is too busy. But I think about you often. How is the job going?’

Yunus El-Sabwi, born and raised in Iraq, had fled his homeland in his early twenties, taking his young wife and two daughters to America to ensure them a better life. After becoming an American citizen, he enrolled in the police academy, graduated at the head of his class, and, at a time when community policing encouraged the hiring of minorities, won a spot in the Boston Police Department. In the course of eight years, he was cited numerous times for his work. Then came September 11, and everything changed. He was marginalized within the department, widely distrusted for the links he kept to relatives in Iraq. One rumor held that the money he sent monthly to his parents was earmarked for terrorists, another that he was transmitting sensitive security information in code. When the federal government refused to bring charges, deciding that it feared the ACLU more than it feared Yunus, the local authorities charged him with drug possession.

Hugh defended him on that charge, agreeing with Yunus’s contention that he had been framed. A jury agreed with it, too, and so the case ended. No one was ever charged for planting drugs in Yunus’s locker, and though Yunus was reinstated to the force, his life was made so unpleasant that he finally resigned. He now worked in the private security force of a company owned by Hugh’s family.

‘It’s going well,’ Yunus replied. ‘I got a fine one-year review.’

‘And a raise, I hope.’

‘And a raise. They knew if I didn’t they would have to answer to you. Thank you, my friend.’

‘Don’t thank me. You’re the one who’s doing the work. How are Azhar and the girls?’

‘Hamdel lah, they are well. Siba will be a senior this year. And she has decided to be a doctor. She wants to go to Harvard.’