The Chatham School Affair

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On the way back to the car, Mr. Reed suddenly stopped at the window of a jewelry store on a side street not far from where we’d parked. “Look how beautiful that is, Henry,” he said, pointing to a necklace made of colored glass. He stared at it as if it were a talisman, something that could magically transform an all too lusterless world.

“It’s pretty expensive,” I said, my eyes on the small white price tag.

He looked at me as if I’d offered him a challenge. “Maybe once in a while you have to do something foolish,” he said. “Just to prove that you’re still alive.” With that, he smiled and walked into the shop.

I followed him inside, then stood at the counter while the shopkeeper retrieved the necklace from the window and handed it to Mr. Reed. He turned it slowly, so that the colored glass in his hands glinted in the light. “I’ll take it,” he said.

The shopkeeper wrapped it in a piece of tissue and placed it in a small red box. Mr. Reed thanked him and put the box in his jacket pocket.

We were on the road a few minutes later, Mr. Reed’s spirits suddenly quite high, as if he’d proved himself in some way by buying the necklace, his hand from time to time crawling into the pocket of his jacket, moving slowly inside it, turning the box over delicately, fondling it with his fingertips, a curious excitement in his eyes.

It was nearly nightfall by the time we got back to Chatham. Mr. Reed drove me directly to my house on Myrtle Street, the old car shaking violently as it came to a halt in my driveway.

“Thanks for coming along, Henry,” Mr. Reed said.

I nodded, then glanced toward the house. I could see my mother peering down at me from behind the parlor curtains. “I’d better get inside,” I said. “My mother’s suspicious.”

“Of what?” Mr. Reed asked.

I gave him a knowing smile. “Everything.”

He laughed. “Most people are, Henry,” he said.

I got out of the car and headed toward the stairs. I’d almost reached them when I heard Mr. Reed call to me. “Henry? Are you going to Milford Cottage with Sarah tomorrow?”

“I guess.”

“Tell Miss Channing I’ll drop by when I get back from Maine.”

“All right,” I answered, then turned and moved on up the stairs.

The rest of that evening went along routinely. I had dinner with my mother and father, then went for a short walk with Sarah, the two of us sitting on the bench by the bluff for a few minutes before the cold drove us back inside.

“I don’t like winter on the Cape,” she said with a shiver.

“I don’t either,” I told her. “Or the fall or spring or summer.”

She laughed and gave me a playful nudge with her shoulder. “You should have more patience, Henry,” she said. “You’ll be off to college soon enough. You don’t ever have to come back here after that.”

I looked at her squarely. Only half jokingly, I said, “If I do come back here, kill me.”

Her face darkened. “Don’t say things like that, Henry. Not even as a joke.” Then she said a line that has never left me since that time. “I wish we could be happy just to be alive.”

A few minutes later, now alone in my room, I went back over the day I’d spent with Mr. Reed, my affection for him growing, along with my admiration, particularly for the boldness I could see rising in him, making it possible that he might actually break free from whatever it was that bound him so. I thought of the necklace he’d impulsively bought, then of the fact that Christmas was coming on. It struck me that I wanted to give Mr. Reed a present. I thought of something for the boat, a brass nameplate, perhaps, or a lantern for the small cabin we’d nearly completed by then. Then I noticed my sketchbook lying on top of my desk, and knew what the perfect gift would be.

But several months later, near the conclusion of my first hour of testimony, it was clear that Mr. Parsons was not interested in what I’d later decided to give Mr. Reed for Christmas. He was interested in another gift entirely. The necklace brought back from Boston.Mr. Parsons: What happened after Mr. Reed bought the necklace?Witness: He put it in his pocket and we walked back to his car and came back to Chatham.Mr. Parsons: Did Mr. Reed ever tell you who the necklace was for? Witness: No, he didn’t.Mr. Parsons: Well, did you ever see it again?Witness: Yes, I saw it again.Mr. Parsons: Where did you see it?Witness: At Milford Cottage. In Miss Channing’s bedroom. It was lying on the bookshelf beside her bed.Mr. Parsons: How did you happen to see it? Witness: It was the Friday night before … the deaths. Miss Channing went into her bedroom. That’s where I saw it. She took it off the bookshelf, and gave it to me.Mr. Parsons: What did she say when she gave it to you, Henry?Witness: She said, “Get rid of this.”Mr. Parsons: And did you do that for her?Witness: Yes.Mr. Parsons: What did you do with the necklace?Witness: I threw it into Black Pond.

I will always remember the low murmur that rose from the people in the courtroom when I said that, then the rap of Judge Crenshaw’s gavel, calling them to order. It was late in the afternoon by then, and so he adjourned the court for the day.

At dinner later that night, my father and mother and I sat silently at the table for a long time, a newly hired servant girl flitting in and out of the dining room, her hair a dazzling red. Then, her eyes aflame, my mother suddenly glanced at me. “They thought they were above everything,” she said with that bitterness that would mark her life from then on, “that woman and Mr. Reed. They thought they could do anything, and no one would ever know.”

My father’s head jerked up from his plate, his eyes nearly bulging. “Mildred, please.”

“Above all the rest of us, that’s what they thought,” my mother went on relentlessly, her glare now leveled directly upon my father. “They didn’t care who they hurt.”

“Mildred, please,” my father repeated, though with little force. “This is not the time or place to—”