The Bone Garden: A Novel

Twenty-One

The present

THE JOURNEY WAS familiar to Julia now, the same road north, the same ferry ride, even the same dense fog hiding her view of the crossing to Islesboro. This time, though, she was prepared for the damp weather, and was dressed in a sweater and jeans as she dragged her small roll-aboard suitcase up the dirt driveway to Stonehurst. When the weathered house suddenly loomed into view through the mist, she had the strange impression that it was welcoming her home, a surprising thing to feel considering her last visit with the irascible Henry. But there had been warm moments between them, too. A moment when, tipsy on wine, she'd looked across at his scowl, his weathered face, and thought: As cranky as Henry can be, there's an integrity to this man, an honesty that runs so deep, I know I can believe every word that comes out of his mouth.

She hauled her suitcase up the steps to the porch and knocked on the door. This time, she resolved to be patient and wait until he appeared. After a few moments, when he did not answer, she tried the front door and found it unlocked. Poking her head inside, she called out: — Henry? — She brought her suitcase into the house and yelled up the stairs: — Henry, I'm here! —

She heard no answer.

She walked into the library, where the sea windows admitted the gloomy light of another fog-bound afternoon. She saw papers scattered across the table, and her first thought was: Henry, you've really made a mess of things now. Then she spotted the cane lying on the floor, and the two skinny legs that poked out from behind the stack of boxes.

— Henry! —

He was lying on his side, his trousers soaked in urine. Frantic, she rolled him onto his back and bent close, to see if he was breathing.

He opened his eyes. And whispered: — I knew you'd come. —

— I think he may have had an arrhythmia, — said Dr. Jarvis. — I find no signs of a stroke or heart attack, and his EKG looks normal at the moment. —

— At the moment? — asked Julia.

— That's the problem with arrhythmias. They can come and go without warning. Which is why I want to keep him on a monitored unit for the next twenty-four hours, so we can watch what his heart does. — Jarvis looked across the room at the closed curtain, which hid their view of Henry's hospital bed, and he dropped his voice. — But we're going to have a hard time convincing him to stay that long. That's where you come in, Ms. Hamill. —

— Me? I'm just his houseguest. You need to talk to his family. —

— I've already called them. His grandnephew's driving up from Massachusetts, but he won't get here till midnight at the earliest. Until then, maybe you can talk Henry into staying in that bed. —

— Where else is he going to go? The ferry's stopped running. —

— Ha, you think that'd stop Henry? He'd just call some friend with a boat to bring him home. —

— You sound like you know him pretty well. —

— The whole medical staff knows Henry Page. I'm the only doctor he hasn't fired yet. — Jarvis sighed and closed the hospital chart. — And I may be about to lose that exclusive status. —

Julia watched Dr. Jarvis walk away and thought: When did I sign up for this? But this was the burden she'd taken on when she'd found Henry lying on his library floor. She was the one who'd called the ambulance, who'd accompanied him during the ferry ride to the mainland. For the past four hours, she'd sat in Penobscot Bay Medical Center, waiting for the doctors and nurses to finish their evaluation. Now it was nine PM, she was starving, and she had no place to sleep except the waiting room couch.

Through the closed curtain came Henry's complaining voice: — Dr. Jarvis told you I didn't have a heart attack. So why am I still here? —

— Mr. Page, don't you dare disconnect that monitor. —

— Where is she? Where's my young lady? —

— She's probably left by now. —

Julia took a deep breath and crossed to his bed. — I'm still here, Henry, — she said, and stepped through the curtain.

— Take me home now, Julia. —

— You know I can't. —

— Why not? What's to stop you? —

— The ferry, for one thing. It stopped running at five. —

— Call my friend Bart in Lincolnville. He has a boat with radar. He can get us across in the fog. —

— No, I'm not going to. I refuse. —

— You refuse? —

— Yes. And you can't make me. —

He stared at her for a moment. — Well, — he huffed, — someone's grown a spine. —

— Your grandnephew's on his way. He'll be here later tonight. —

— Maybe he'll do what I want. —

— If he gives a damn about you, he'll say no. —

— And what's your reason for saying no? —

She looked him straight in the eye. — Because a corpse can't help me go through those boxes, — she said and turned to leave.

— Julia? —

She sighed. — Yes, Henry? —

— You'll like my grandnephew. —

Through the closed curtain, Julia heard a doctor and nurse conferring, and she sat up, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. She had dozed off in the chair by Henry's bed, and the paperback novel she'd been reading had fallen on the floor. She picked up the book and glanced at Henry. He, at least, was sleeping comfortably.

— This is his most recent EKG? — a man asked.

— Yes. Dr. Jarvis said they've all been normal. —

— You've seen no arrhythmias on the monitor? —

— Not so far. —

The sound of shuffling paper. — His blood work looks good. Oops, I take that back. His liver enzymes are up a little. He must be into that wine cellar again. —

— Do you need anything else, Dr. Page? —

— Other than a double shot of scotch? —

The nurse laughed. — At least I get to go off duty now. Good luck with him. You'll need it. —

The curtain parted and Dr. Page stepped in. Julia stood to greet him, and her gaze fixed on a startlingly familiar face. — Tom, — she murmured.

— Hi, Julia. I hear he's been giving you a hard time. On behalf of our whole family, I apologize. —

— But you— — She paused. — You're his grandnephew? —

— Yeah. Didn't he tell you I lived in your neighborhood? —

— No. He never mentioned it. —

Tom glanced in surprise at Henry, who was still sound asleep. — Well, that's bizarre. I told him that you and I had met. That's why he called you. —

She motioned to him to follow her away from the bed. They stepped through the curtain and crossed to the nurses' station. — Henry called me because of Hilda's papers. He thought I'd be interested in the history of my house. —

— Right. I told him that you wanted to know more about the bones in your garden. Henry's sort of our family historian, so I thought he might be able to help you. — Tom glanced toward Henry's bed. — Well, he is eighty-nine. He might forget things. —

— He's sharp as a tack. —

— Are you talking about his mind or his tongue? —

At that she laughed. — Both. That's why it was such a shock for me when I found him on the floor. He seems so indestructible. —

— I'm glad you were there. Thank you for everything you did. — He touched her shoulder, and she flushed at the warmth of his hand. — He's not the easiest person to deal with, which is probably why he never got married. — Tom looked down at the hospital chart. — He looks good on paper. —

— I'd forgotten. Henry told me his grandnephew was a doctor. —

— Yes, but not his. I specialize in infectious disease. Dr. Jarvis said there might be a little trouble with the old ticker. —

— He wants to go home. He asked me to call some guy named Bart about a boat ride. —

— You're kidding. — Tom looked up. — Bart's still alive? —

— What are we going to do with him? —

— We? — He closed the chart. — How did Henry manage to rope you into this? —

She sighed. — I feel responsible, in a way. I'm the reason he's digging through those boxes and getting himself all worked up. Maybe it's too much for him, and that's why he collapsed. —

— You can't make Henry do anything he doesn't want to do. When I spoke to him last week, he sounded more excited than I've heard him in years. Usually he's crotchety and depressed. Now he's just crotchety. —

From behind the curtain came Henry's voice. — I heard that. —

Tom grimaced and set down the chart. He crossed to Henry's bed and opened the curtain. — You're awake. —

— Took you long enough to get here. Now let's go home. —

— Whoa! What's the rush? —

— Julia and I have work to do. Twenty more boxes at least! Where is she? —

She joined Tom at the curtain. — It's too late to go home now. Why don't you go back to sleep? —

— Only if you promise you'll take me home tomorrow. —

She looked at Tom. — What do you think? —

— That's up to Dr. Jarvis, — he said. — But if he clears it, I'll help you get him home in the morning. And I'll hang around for a few days, just to make sure everything's okay. —

— Oh, good! — said Henry, clearly delighted. — You'll be staying! —

Tom smiled in surprise at his granduncle. — Why Henry, it's so nice to be appreciated. —

— You can bring up all the boxes from the cellar. —

It was late the next afternoon when they brought Henry home on the ferry. Though Dr. Jarvis had ordered him to go straight to bed, of course Henry did no such thing. Instead, he stationed himself at the top of the cellar steps, shouting orders as Tom carried boxes up the stairs. By the time Henry finally retired to his bedroom that night, it was Tom who was exhausted.

With a sigh, Tom sank into an armchair by the fireplace and said: — He may be eighty-nine, but he can still make me jump through hoops. And if I dare ignore him, he's got that lethal-looking cane. —

Julia looked up from the box of papers she'd been sorting through. — Has he always been this way? —

— As long as I can remember. Which is why he lives alone. No one else in the family wants to deal with him. —

— Then why are you here? —

— Because I'm the one he keeps calling. He never had any children. By default, I guess I'm it. — Tom looked at her hopefully. — Want to adopt a used uncle? —

— Not even if he comes with four hundred bottles of vintage wine. —

— Oh. So he's introduced you to his wine cellar. —

— We made a good dent in it last week. But the next time a man gets me drunk, I'd like him to be on the other side of seventy. — She turned her attention to the documents they'd pulled out of box number fifteen that afternoon. It was a sheaf of old newspapers, most of them dating to the late 1800s and not relevant to the story of Norris Marshall. If pack rat behavior was genetic, then Hilda Chamblett had inherited it from her great-great-grandmother Margaret Page, who, it seemed, could not throw away anything, either. Here were old editions of The Boston Post and the Evening Transcript and recipe clippings so brittle that they crumbled at a touch. There were also letters, dozens of them, addressed to Margaret. Julia was sucked into reading every single one, intrigued by this glimpse into the life of a woman who, more than a hundred years ago, had lived in her house, had walked the same floors, climbed the same stairs. Dr. Margaret Tate Page had lived a long and eventful life, judging by the letters she'd collected through the years. And such letters! They came from eminent physicians around the world, and from adoring grandchildren traveling in Europe, describing the meals served, the dresses worn, the gossip shared. What a shame no one today has time to write such letters, Julia thought as she devoured the tale of a grandchild's flirtation. A hundred years after I am dead, what will anyone know about me?

— Anything interesting? — asked Tom. She was startled to find him standing right behind her, looking over her shoulder.

— This should all be interesting to you, — she said, trying to focus on the letter and not on his hand, which was now resting on the back of her chair. — Since it's about your family. —

He went around the table and sat down across from her. — Are you really here because of that old skeleton? —

— You think there's another reason? —

— This must be taking a lot of time away from your own life. Digging through all these boxes, reading all these letters. —

— You don't know what my life's like right now, — she said, staring down at the documents. — This has been a welcome distraction. —

— You're talking about your divorce, aren't you? — When she looked up at him, he said: — Henry told me about it. —

— Then Henry told you entirely too much. —

— I'm amazed how much he learned about you in just one weekend. —

— He got me drunk. I talked. —

— That man I saw you with last week, in your garden. Was that was your ex-husband? —

She nodded. — Richard. —

— If I may say so, it didn't sound like a friendly conversation. —

She slumped back in her chair. — I'm not sure divorced couples can be friendly. —

— It should be possible. —

— Are you talking from personal experience? —

— I've never been married. But I'd like to think that two people who once loved each other would always have that bond between them. No matter what goes wrong. —

— Oh, it sounds good, doesn't it? Eternal love. —

— You don't believe in it. —

— Maybe I did seven years ago, when I got married. Now I think Henry has the right idea. Stay single and collect wine instead. Or get a dog. —

— Or plant a garden? —

She set down the letter she'd been reading and looked at him. — Yes. Plant a garden. It's better to watch something growing, not dying. —

Tom leaned back in his chair. — You know, I get the strangest feeling when I look at you. —

— What do you mean? —

— I feel like we've met somewhere before. —

— We did. In my garden. —

— No, before that. I swear, I remember meeting you. —

She stared at the reflected firelight dancing in his eyes. A man as attractive as you? Oh, I would have remembered.

He looked at the stack of documents. — Well, I suppose I should give you a hand here, and stop distracting you. — He pulled a few pages off the top. — You said we're looking for any reference to Rose Connolly? —

— Dig in. She's part of your family, Tom. —

— You think those were her bones in your garden? —

— I just know that her name keeps popping up in those letters from Oliver Wendell Holmes. For a poor Irish girl, she left quite an impression on him. —

He sat back to read. Outside, the wind had risen, and waves were breaking on the rocks. In the fireplace, a downdraft made the flames shudder.

Tom's chair gave a sudden creak as he rocked forward. — Julia? —

— Yes? —

— Did Oliver Wendell Holmes sign his letters with just his initials? —

She stared at the page that he'd slid across to her. — Oh, my God, — she said. — We have to tell Henry. —