Barbara Delinsky - The Family Tree

‘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?’