“He thought her the perfect wife in all but one regard. She was a terrible cook. But Jonathan didn’t want to hurt her feelings so he always ate the meals she made for him with a smile. I lived just down the street then, and he’d come over to visit me after dinner, and groan and down bottles of antacid. She caught on, and one day gave him a large, heavy box with a big bow on it. There was a big, cast iron skillet in it. She laughed and told him she would help him run the store if he would help her cook.”
“Do you think this is that same skillet? Why would he bury it?”
“I would be surprised to learn it was not that skillet. As for why, well, perhaps it is best if I continue to tell you their story.
“In December of 1941, they had a little boy, William, named after my uncle. He was born two days before Pearl Harbor. Jonathan was drafted. They were very brave about it, as were most people then. Chloe and I ran the store, and Little Billy kept us too busy to feel sorry for ourselves.”
She paused and took a sip of wine.
“She was staying with me then; she had rented her place out to a group of women who worked at a war plant. One rainy night, after we closed up the store, Chloe told me she was going to stop by our little church on the way home. It was the winter of 1944. Jonathan had been wounded and was being sent back home. Chloe had been worried about Jonathan; said she hadn’t been able to sleep much, and wanted to pray for his safe return. Billy cried when she tried to get him to leave with me when we reached the steps of the church, so she took him with her. I still remember them standing under their umbrella on the steps, giving me a little wave.”
She stopped again, her eyes filling with tears.
“Please, I didn’t know this would be so painful for you,” Leila said. “Perhaps you’d rather tell me another time.”
“No, no, I’ll be all right. All of this happened almost fifty years ago. You’d think I’d be able to talk about it.”
“Time might heal our wounds, but that doesn’t mean we forget how much they hurt in the first place.”
Alice smiled. “Something tells me you know something about being wounded, Leila. Well, you may be right. Still, I owe you an explanation for my brother’s odd behavior.
“So, on that night, I went home alone in the rain. It had been raining hard for a couple of days. I waited, but they didn’t come back. Finally, I put on my raingear and walked back to the church. There were firemen and emergency vehicles blocking the street. The roof on the church had collapsed. It had been a flat roof. The scuppers on the drains from the roof had been plugged by leaves, and the water built up on it until it just gave way. Chloe and Billy were killed.”
“I’m sorry.”
Alice shook her head. “I identified their bodies. They took them away. I sat there, next to the place they had been killed, unable to move, getting drenched by rain. I kept wondering how I could possibly tell Jonathan about what had happened. A policeman tried to get me to go home. I saw one of Chloe’s boots; I guess it had come off of her when they pulled her body out. I picked it up, and a piece of stained glass that lay next to it. Don’t ask me why. I didn’t know then, and I don’t know now. The policeman walked me home. On the porch step, he handed me Jonathan’s pocket watch and little bag of marbles. Billy had been carrying them.”
After a moment, Leila said, “And Jonathan? What became of him?”
“He was devastated, of course. I worried for a while that I would lose him, too. He wasn’t quite recovered when he returned, and with Chloe and Billy gone, he just didn’t seem to have the will to live. He pulled through, though. The war workers who lived here were laid off and moved on, and he moved back into the house. He went back to the store and went on with his life. He began to talk to me more about Chloe and his son, seemed able to cherish their memory instead being beaten down by it.”
“You said Chloe was his first wife. Did he marry again?”
“Yes. Not right away, mind you. About fifteen years later, he met another woman. Monica.”
She said the name with obvious distaste.
“You didn’t like her.”
“Not in the least. She was an Amazon of a woman, and bossy to boot. But Jonathan was lonely, and had been for years. And I think she appealed to him on some-hmm, basic level, we’ll say. He was turning forty, and she made him feel, well, virile.
“Just before Jonathan and Monica were married, Jonathan told me that he was going hide all of his reminders of Chloe and Billy from his new wife. He said Monica was insanely jealous of their memory, which he couldn’t understand.”
“Can you?”
“Of course. Monica could see for herself that Jonathan’s heart still belonged to his first wife. How could she compete with a memory?”
“But Jonathan was aware of her jealousy?”
“Yes, even Jonathan could see that. He told me she had destroyed his favorite photo of Chloe. He decided he wanted to keep his reminders where Monica couldn’t harm them. Now, thirty years later, you’ve found the place where he hid them. Where were they?”
“Beneath the loveseat.”
Alice looked back to the corner of the garden where the loveseat had been. “I should have guessed. You’ve had the pieces taken away?”
“Yes, I’m sorry if it was special to you in some way.”
“No, not to me. But it was to Jonathan. He used to sit there with Chloe. An extravagance for newlyweds, but the house had come to him furnished by my uncle, so that loveseat helped them to make the place their own. In much the way you have, with this garden. Jonathan would have loved this garden.”
“How was the loveseat broken?”
Alice laughed. “That was the time Monica went too far. They weren’t married for more than a year or two when they started having problems. She’d throw tantrums, and he just withdrew more and more from her. He’d come out to the garden.
“One day, Jonathan was sitting on the loveseat, doubtless remembering happier times. Monica came striding across the yard, carrying a sledgehammer.”
“What?”
“Yes, a big old sledgehammer. She lifted it up over her head and brought it down with all her might. Jonathan barely got out of the way in time. Busted the loveseat in half.”
“Was she trying to kill him?”
“Jonathan told me he didn’t believe she meant to harm him, but I don’t think he was certain of that. In any case, they separated, and she went off to live with a sister in some other state. He divorced her. He was disappointed, but he didn’t seem overly bitter. Said that maybe he’d caused it by hanging on to his memories of Chloe. He lived here by himself until he died, about a year ago now. I miss him.”
Alice looked away for a moment, then turned back to Leila.
“In the last ten years he was pretty much crippled up by arthritis, and he couldn’t take care of this yard. You’ve made it beautiful again, you’ve brought it back to life. As I’ve said, it would make Jonathan proud.”
“Thank you. It sounds strange, but I’m sorry I didn’t get to know him.”
“You would have liked him. I think he would be quite happy that you are the one who came to live here. I think Chloe and Billy would be, too.”
They chatted for a while, and then Leila brought out a small box and loaded Jonathan’s mementos into it.
“After all your hard work, you should keep something for yourself,” Alice said. “I know they’re rather silly little treasures, but are you sure there’s nothing here you’d like to have?”
“They aren’t so silly after all, are they? And they’ve been buried together for all these years. I wouldn’t want to separate them.”
“So, you are sentimental after all.” Alice smiled. “Don’t look so surprised, Leila. When you bought this old house, I wondered about you. You seemed so business-like, so self-possessed, so emotionless. But why, I asked myself, would such a modern person want such an old house? I don’t know who made you believe that feelings don’t matter, but they were very wrong.”