Chapter 3 - THE NAME ELEANOR PRETENDED NOT TO KNOW
By July, Sloan had learned Cormack Sheridan did three ordinary things badly.
He overcooked eggs.
He forgot umbrellas.
And he could not sit through a movie without asking what year the building in the background had been constructed.
This information pleased her more than it should have.
It made him less like the man people whispered about and more like someone she could imagine being irritated with for reasons unrelated to organized crime.
They had been seeing each other for almost four months.
Not every night.
Not secretly.
Not publicly enough for the newspapers to care.
Dinner.
Walks.
One baseball game Cormack clearly did not understand.
A Sunday morning in Dorchester where he sat through choir rehearsal because Sloan had a tuning job afterward.
Father Emmett recognized him.
Did not ask why a man with Cormack Sheridan’s reputation was carrying two paper cups of coffee through a parish hall.
Good priest.
Cormack had also met Birdie.
That happened by accident.
Sloan received a call from Quincy during dinner.
The night aide said Birdie had become agitated and was asking for Sloan’s father.
Thomas had been dead seven years.
Sloan stood immediately.
“I have to go.”
Cormack stood too.
“No.”
He stopped.
Good.
“I can take the train.”
“It’s raining.”
“I’ve survived rain.”
He looked toward window.
“Can I drive you?”
Not send a driver.
Drive.
Sloan hesitated.
Then:
“Yes.”
At the care residence, Cormack waited in the lobby.
His choice.
Sloan had not asked him to come upstairs.
Birdie calmed after twenty minutes.
Then refused to sleep because she had become convinced Sloan needed help carrying music books home from school.
The aide smiled apologetically.
“She may settle if she sees who brought you.”
Sloan looked toward lobby.
“That could make it worse.”
“Maybe.”
Birdie’s memory did not obey logic.
Sloan went down.
Cormack sat in a chair too small for him, reading a brochure about hydration in older adults.
She almost laughed.
“Do you want to meet my mother?”
He closed the brochure.
“Do you want me to?”
“Yes.”
Good.
Birdie looked at him for six seconds.
Then:
“Sheridan.”
Everything stopped.
Cormack did not move.
Sloan stared at her mother.
Birdie pointed.
“You have his eyes.”
Cormack’s face changed.
“Whose?”
Birdie frowned.
“The little one.”
Sloan knelt beside her.
“Mom?”
Birdie looked at Sloan.
“Thomas fixed their piano.”
There.
The wooden case.
Eleanor’s face when she saw it.
How interesting.
Sloan felt cold.
“Which piano?”
Birdie looked annoyed.
“The black one.”
Not useful.
Cormack sat in the visitor chair.
“Patrick?”
Birdie’s face softened immediately.
“Oh.”
One hand went to her chest.
“Poor Patrick.”
Cormack went still.
Sloan stared.
“You knew Patrick?”
Birdie looked at her daughter as if the question were absurd.
“He sang too loud.”
Cormack made a sound somewhere between laugh and breath.
Birdie smiled at him.
“Your brother.”
“Yes.”
“He rushed the rests.”
Cormack’s eyes filled.
“Yes.”
Sloan had never seen him cry.
He did not now.
Barely.
Birdie continued.
“I told Eleanor not to make him perform when he was tired.”
Sloan’s pulse changed.
“Eleanor Sheridan?”
“His mother.”
“Yes.”
Birdie looked tired suddenly.
“Thomas said the piano needed voicing.”
Then the memory moved.
Gone.
She looked at Sloan.
“Did you finish homework?”
Sloan swallowed.
“Yes.”
“Good.”
Birdie settled against pillow.
Cormack stayed silent.
On the drive home, Sloan said:
“You knew my parents.”
“No.”
“Your family did.”
“Yes.”
“You investigated me and didn’t find this?”
His jaw tightened.
“No.”
“Interesting.”
“Sloan.”
“I’m not accusing.”
“You are.”
“A little.”
He looked ahead.
“Thomas Ashby may have been a contractor before records were digitized.”
“Birdie taught Patrick.”
“Apparently.”
“And Eleanor recognized the case.”
Cormack looked at her.
“What?”
“The first time she saw it, she asked whether it belonged to my father.”
“That could be observation.”
“No.”
Sloan knew sound.
A pause could be false too.
“She knew.”
Cormack’s hands tightened on wheel.
“Do you want me to ask her?”
“Yes.”
Good.
Not I’ll find out.
Ask.
The next afternoon, Eleanor sat in the music room at No. 41 with Sloan’s wooden case on the bench between them.
Cormack stood near window.
Eleanor looked at case.
Then at Sloan.
“Yes.”
No performance.
“I knew your father.”
Sloan waited.
“Why did you say no?”
Eleanor’s mouth tightened.
“Because the last time I saw Thomas Ashby, I was not kind to him.”
Cormack looked at his mother.
Sloan said:
“What happened?”
Eleanor touched brass latch.
Did not open it.
Good.
“Patrick was seven when Birdie began teaching music at his school.”
Sloan had known Birdie taught in Boston before Quincy.
Not which school.
“He adored her.”
A faint smile.
“She let him sing too loudly.”
Birdie’s complaint in reverse.
“When Patrick became ill, your mother continued coming to the house once a week.”
“To teach?”
“To be normal.”
That hurt.
Eleanor continued.
“Thomas tuned this piano.”
She looked at upright.
“After Patrick died, I told him to stop coming.”
“Why?”
“Because every time he opened that case, I knew what room he would enter.”
Sloan understood.
Grief made doors offensive.
“What did my father say?”
“That instruments did not become graves unless people made them graves.”
That sounded exactly like Thomas.
Sloan smiled despite herself.
“What did you do?”
“Told Otis never to let him through the gate again.”
There.
Three generations.
No one came through without permission.
Cormack’s face changed.
Eleanor looked at him.
“Yes.”
“I know what you are thinking.”
“Do you?”
“You think you invented control.”
Sloan almost laughed.
Cormack did not.
Eleanor continued.
“Thomas wrote me one letter.”
“Do you have it?”
“Yes.”
She stood.
Left.
Returned with a folded envelope from a desk drawer.
Sloan recognized her father’s handwriting before touching it.
MRS. SHERIDAN.
She did not open.
“Mine?”
Eleanor nodded.
“He sent it. I kept it.”
Sloan read.
Mrs. Sheridan,
I will respect the gate.
I only ask you not to confuse silence with peace.
Patrick’s piano will survive untouched longer than any of us.
That does not mean it will remain music.
Thomas Ashby
That was all.
Sloan closed eyes.
Her father.
Blunt even in grief.
Eleanor said:
“I hated him for that letter.”
“Why keep it?”
“Because he was right.”
Silence.
Cormack looked at piano.
“You had Baines tune it every year.”
“Yes.”
“But no one played.”
“No.”
“Why?”
Eleanor’s composure cracked slightly.
“Because I could not bear it sounding like someone else.”
There.
Human.
Not villain.
Sloan folded letter.
“Thank you.”
Eleanor looked surprised.
“For lying?”
“For correcting it.”
Good.
Then Eleanor looked at Cormack.
“You are taking her to Nantucket next week?”
Cormack went still.
Sloan turned.
“He was going to ask.”
Eleanor smiled faintly.
“Was he?”
Cormack glared.
Sloan laughed.
The tension broke.
But not entirely.
Later, in the garden, Cormack said:
“I had not decided whether to ask.”
“You booked rooms?”
“One suite.”
Sloan looked.
He caught himself.
“Two rooms?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
He sighed.
“May I ask you to Nantucket?”
“When?”
“Tuesday through Thursday.”
“I work Wednesday.”
“I can—”
He stopped.
Good.
“Can you move it?”
“I can ask.”
Better.
“Why Nantucket?”
“I have a hotel meeting.”
“Romantic.”
“And I want you there.”
“Less bad.”
She said yes.
That trip changed something.
Not because of sex.
There was none.
Not because Cormack became a different man near ocean.
He remained Cormack.
Checked exits.
Took calls.
Noticed every stranger twice.
What changed was that Sloan saw him around people who had known him before power settled completely.
A hotel engineer called him Cormy.
Cormack nearly died.
Sloan treasured the moment.
He also saw Sloan work outside necessity.
She spent an afternoon in a small piano shop talking with an elderly rebuilder about nineteenth-century soundboards until both forgot Cormack existed.
He watched.
Did not interrupt.
That mattered too.
On the ferry back, wind made conversation difficult.
Sloan stood at rail.
Cormack beside.
He said:
“I want to ask something.”
“What?”
“Do you want architecture?”
She looked.
Months earlier.
Same question.
Now answer clearer.
“Sometimes.”
“Would you go back to school?”
“Maybe.”
“What stops you?”
“Money. Birdie. work. being thirty-three and tired.”
He nodded.
No offer.
Good.
Then:
“If money were removed?”
Sloan looked sharply.
He held up hands.
“Hypothetical.”
“Dangerous.”
“I know.”
She thought.
“Yes.”
“Full degree?”
“Probably preservation design.”
“Buildings?”
“Old ones.”
He smiled.
“Of course.”
“What?”
“You negotiate with pianos.”
“So?”
“You would negotiate with buildings.”
She laughed.
Maybe.
They stood.
Then Cormack said:
“I want to help.”
Sloan’s body tightened.
He noticed.
“Not pay.”
Good.
“What then?”
“I know people at the preservation school.”
“No.”
He closed mouth.
Good.
“Why no?”
“Because I need to know whether I want it before your world starts opening doors.”
There.
He nodded.
“Okay.”
“And if I decide yes, I want to open the first one.”
“Okay.”
No argument.
Progress.
In August, Sloan began an evening prerequisite course at a community college.
She paid.
Did not tell Cormack until after registration.
He looked offended for approximately four seconds.
Then said:
“Congratulations.”
Good.
By September, she had a drawer at No. 41.
Not moved in.
A drawer.
Otis labeled it accidentally.
MISS ASHBY.
Sloan peeled label off.
“Why?”
Cormack asked.
“It’s a drawer, not a diplomatic post.”
He laughed.
Eleanor did not.
She watched from the end of hall.
Something in her had changed after Birdie’s name returned to the house.
Not hostility exactly.
Attention.
One evening, Sloan found Eleanor alone in the music room.
Patrick’s upright open.
One finger resting on a key.
“Play,” Sloan said.
Eleanor looked.
“No.”
“Then why open it?”
Silence.
Sloan sat beside her.
Not touching keyboard.
After a minute, Eleanor pressed C.
Then D.
Then E.
Wrong rhythm.
Sloan waited.
Eleanor whispered:
“He used to play that.”
“What?”
“Nothing anyone else would recognize.”
She played three notes again.
Cormack stood outside doorway.
Neither woman saw him.
He listened.
Later that night, Eleanor entered his study.
“She will make you leave.”
Cormack looked up.
“What?”
“Sloan.”
“Leave what?”
Eleanor looked at him.
“Everything you were built to keep.”
Cormack’s face hardened.
“Do not speak about her like that.”
“I am speaking about you.”
He stood.
“What are you afraid of?”
Eleanor’s eyes moved toward window.
For one second, Cormack saw not the woman who controlled No. 41 but the mother who had watched one son die and trained the other never to disappear.
“Change,” she said.
Then left.
May you like
Cormack stood alone.
He did not know yet that his mother’s fear had already begun looking for a way to become a plan.
