Not something just any man would tell his wife, she was certain.
Her hair braided, she stood and took a few steps back to see the full effect, even as she heard the water shut off in the bathroom. Her hair, still mostly red-blonde, had one swathe of grey, somewhat yellowed, that ran through the length of it. The negligee, teal with ivory lace at the bodice, glowed in the dim lighting, and she smiled.
She quickly made her way to the side of the bed and, retrieving a Bible from their small collection of them, set it on the bed, admiring the shadowbox of rosaries that Tom had made for them through the years that now hung above the table.
As she settled into her side of the bed so they could talk, Edward came in, still toweling his hair but otherwise ready for bed.
“Hey,” he said, smiling as he set the towel aside to dry on the back of the chair. Their eyes met in the mirror a moment before he turned around. “So, it was some day. You’ll never believe… well, actually, maybe you will. Considering all we’ve seen and experienced, just about anything is believable at this point,” he said, chuckling.
“All right, then,” she told him, smiling back. “Why don’t you tell me about it? I’m all ears… and I’m good with talking before Bible study and prayer, or after. Your call,” she said, knowing by the look on his face earlier that he was antsy to discuss it.
“Yeah, afterward would be better, since it could take a while,” he told her as he settled in next to her, picking the Bible up she’d set out.
They proceeded with their prayers before turning to the book of Esther for their reading. “Version preference,” Edward asked her, and, having none herself, he chose the New Living Translation.
As they progressed through chapter four, taking turns reading, they discussed the earlier chapters and how the story pulled together; about Vashti’s banishment, Hadassah’s rise to become Queen Esther, and Haman’s degree against the Jews.
“Mordecai also gave him a copy of the written decree issued in Susa for their destruction, that he might show it to Esther, explain it to her, and charge her to go to the king to make supplication to him and entreat him for her people,” Paloma read when her turn came around again. “Hathach went and told Esther what Mordecai had said. Then Esther spoke to Hathach and gave him a message for Mordecai, saying, “All the king’s servants and the people of the king’s provinces know that if any man or woman goes to the king inside the inner court without being called, there is but one law—all alike are to be put to death. Only if the king holds out the golden scepter to someone, may that person live. I myself have not been called to come in to the king for thirty days.””
Paloma paused to clear her throat a moment before continuing, settling deeper into the pillows behind her. The imagery was choking her up as she read, for Esther’s plight touched her in ways she never thought imaginable. But why?
Was it because she had, at times, wondered if she had stepped through the mirror to Edward’s time instead of him moving forward into hers? Though the customs of royalty had shifted through the years, she had, indeed, imagined what it would be like to be banished from a kingdom. It had happened to Edward’s father, and he had been king! What would that mean for someone like herself?
“When they told Mordecai what Esther had said, Mordecai told them to reply to Esther, “Do not think that in the king’s palace you will escape any more than all the other Jews. For if you keep silence at such a time as this, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another quarter, but you and your father’s family will perish. Who knows? Perhaps you have come to royal dignity for just such a time as this,”” she read softly.
“Then Esther said in reply to Mordecai, “Go, gather all the Jews to be found in Susa, and hold a fast on my behalf, and neither eat nor drink for three days, night or day. I and my maids will also fast as you do. After that I will go to the king, though it is against the law; and if I perish, I perish.” Mordecai then went away and did everything as Esther had ordered him.”
“You know, Edward said after their pause in silence for a while. “That takes a lot more courage than most people I’ve met have displayed. I’ve seen great courage, but how many people are willing to put their lives on the line?”
He took the Bible from her, set it back on the side table, and pulled her close. She could hear his heartbeat hammering within him, and her breathing began to race.
“It’s definitely something you don’t see everyd-“
He shushed her with a kiss, pulling her even closer. For several moments, he just held her, and then, finally, he spoke.
“Timothy. Timothy, the son of Eunice and grandson of Lois… Masao told me the father and grandfather’s names… the ones that aren’t in the Bible for us to see, but I forget off the top of my head. What they are… they were written down, though,” he said, his eyes becoming unfocused, directed straight ahead of him.
“Timothy,” Paloma asked him, furrowing her eyebrows. “Okay, you’ve lost me. Masao said something about Timothy, and- wait. His father and grandfather? How would Uncle Masao know the names of…?”
Was he saying what she thought he was saying? But that was… that couldn’t… could it?
“According to what was on the smaller piece of Hebrew writing… Timothy. The one that traveled with and for Paul on behalf of Jesus Christ. Apparently, he wasn’t a tent-maker. Well, if he was, we still don’t know, but he made mirrors. He made…”
Edward stopped talking, his eyes riveted on her face.
“If Masao interpreted correctly, Timothy himself formed the mirror that sits in our attic,” he said quietly. “The mirror I came through; the mirror Rose and Rosemary were brought through… and who knows who else may have moved or traveled through it, and from when to where… was created by a second generation believer.”
He paused long enough for his words to settle in even as he moved to hold her shoulders, drawing her even closer.
“Someone who walked alongside the apostles who walked with Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Someone who knew just what it meant to truly follow Him in everything, come what may.”
Eight
Pendleton, Oregon… January 23, 2025
Quentin shivered as he listened to the handful of men circled around him in the falling snow. Their ideas were important, yet, nevertheless, he was freezing.
“Alright, everyone line up,” the guard nearest the door called. A beefy, balding man with wind-pinkened features, Quentin remembered him from the first day he’d arrived. “Yard time’s over.”
Jimenez, Powell, and Curtiss scowled as they turned away from him, halting all conversation as they moved to get in line. A bit slower, and still shivering, Quentin moved to follow them… somehow still one of the last thirty or so men to line up.
“Move it, girls,” another, dark-haired and mustachioed guard, wirily built, called as he headed over toward the dock of phones to reign in the stragglers who were still saying goodbyes. The line progressed slower than Quentin would have preferred, but at least it was shuffling forward.
As he made his way inside and back to his cell, he pondered the questions and ideas the others had posed. Best not to be writin’ none o’ them down, though, he thought. Cellie and guards, alike, be all ova this thing, and I’d be finish. Not like it gonna hurt nobody, anyways, but still… how they gonna be thinkin’ that?
The gate clanked shut as he made his way to the desk, glancing around. His cellie, Perkins, was already there, reading some green-covered book, ignoring him. So, Quentin sifted through his meager belongings and found his small stash of letters to re-read.
Better than some book, he thought. At least I be knowin’ the people in these as ‘posed to some… some author I never heard of, or someb’dy fancy-worded I can’t understand, no hows.
He’d gotten a letter recently from his son, Lovan, telling him about the family he was staying with; the neighbors of his girlfriend had taken him in for a few weeks, but then, he’d gotten an invitation from right here in Pendl
eton.
The elderly couple who had known Quentin’s Mama and let Lovan stay with them when he came to visit had offered him a place to stay, permanently, and he’d accepted. And he’d made a deal with his girlfriend’s father about a vehicle Mama had left for him so that they could still spend time together a couple days every few months.
But if Lovan live within a few miles of here, how is it he don’t come see me in person? Why he just… send me a letter an’ not offer to come see me? Why I gotta do all the work and ask him ‘bout it, Quentin thought as he read over it again. Not like he gots many places he can go here in this dinky town, is there? Or do he go other places, too, with them folks?
“Quimby,” he suddenly heard above the everyday din and commotion of the cellblock, startling him. “Visitor.”
It was Mr. Mustache Man.
What was his name? Wallace? Wilton?
Not that Quentin particularly cared.
And who could be visiting? There weren’t many people on his approved visitor list. One of them had died, one was his son, and oddly enough, the others were the Stuarts in the event they needed to talk to him about Lovan. Not that either had ever showed up, or he expected they would… especially after all of the misunderstandings that had gone between them. After all, how many people who put a man behind bars, then thought he was out to kill them, went to visit him hundreds of miles out of the way from where they lived?
Imagining the last time he’d seen Paloma, her hair upswept into a messy bun atop her head, ginger tendrils spiraling out where they’d come loose, gave him pause. There had been something in her eyes he hadn’t been able to place at the time… and maybe he never quite could. If it had been anyone else, he would have taken it as compassionate pity, or perhaps humble understanding… but not from Paloma Stuart. She had taken over his heart; been the only thing on his mind for days at a time, no matter what else was happening. She had almost been his wife instead of Edward’s.
If he hadn’t blown it.
What did Edward have that he didn’t? Well, not a child born out of wedlock created during the engagement. And certainly not the dark good looks and long braids the woman used to compliment; he didn’t have full lips or large eyes, like Quentin. He was rather quite ordinary looking, to Quentin’s eye. Other, perhaps, than that they’d first met Edward when he had a sword at his hip and wearing one of the most hideous outfits he’d ever seen.
Of course, it was months before he hinted that he had been involved in creating that scene; he thought he’d be able to scare Paloma back into being in his life. Instead, he scared her right into Edward Stuart’s… wherever he had come from.
Quentin shook his head as he quickly put his letters away. The door slid open and he stepped outside again, waiting for the officer to walk him down the hall toward the visiting doors, his heart drumming a solo as quick as anything he’d heard Mike Portney, John Bonham, or Lars Ulrich play in their respective bands.
Or so it felt.
As he followed the officer, he tried to take a few deep breaths to calm himself.
If this was anyone other than his son… what would he say? And if it was Lovan, what would it take to get through to him that he really did love him? He wasn’t a perfect parent, and he regretted how he’d acted the night his son was created, but never would he regret his son’s life.
Never.
The final door opened before him, and he scanned the room.
At first, nobody looked familiar; nobody other than fellow inmates lined up in rows across from their guests, anyway.
He took a few steps forward and the door clanked shut behind him as he raised his arms to stretch them, hoping to get the attention of whomever it was that was here to talk to him. He didn’t know whether was more nervous, anxious, excited, or afraid.
Just as he was about to give up, two figures near the guard desk stood, pivoting in his direction, and Quentin’s heart dropped before climbing back up into his throat.
It became hard to breathe as he walked toward them.
They looked so different; they looked unerringly the same, too, aside from a few minor notations.
How did he not recognize them, despite the years it had been since he’d even glimpsed a photograph of them? And why… why here, and why now? What had happened to them to bring them all these miles, away from their children, to come see him face to face?
A disarming disquiet came over him as he came within a few feet of them, his heart racing all the more, the lump in his throat becoming restless, bobbing until, finally, he was able to regain some modicum of composure.
“It’s been a long time,” Edward Stuart said once Quentin got closer to them. The man stretched his hand out, and he refused it, sitting down in a huff, automatically slumping into the seat across from Paloma.
“Yeah, so. Whatchu guys even doin’ here? Somethin’ happen to Lovan I don’t know ‘bout? I mean, if you really here to see him an’ jus’ makin’ a symp’thy visit, you can head on out ‘gin.”
Ignoring his outburst, Paloma moved to sit down, and gently pulled on Edward’s sleeve to do the same.
They looked out of place here; they clashed with the environment more than Quentin would have expected. Not just with what they wore, but their demeanors; the way they held themselves.
As they sat, an elderly, disheveled Asian man on Paloma’s left dropped the book he was holding in his arthritically curved fingers, causing them all to jump. She helped him retrieve it with a smile before sitting down, giving him a glimpse of her silk-covered ankles and the lower part of one calf.
Decked in a silver suit and dark blue tie, Edward’s blonde hair barely showed the greying that was rounding at the edges of it. Paloma – wearing an olive and ivory skirt suit with a long, ruffle-edged wool coat over it, also ivory – looked as cold as he’d been outside in the piling snow.
There had to be at least five inches on the ground. Even if there weren’t, would the pair have traversed hours of icy roads just for a chat?
Not to his reckoning, they wouldn’t.
“We came to make amends with you, Quentin. And we came to give you our condolences; we heard about your mother,” Paloma finally said, her voice washing over him like warm butter on a biscuit. “We wanted to say… we know that not everything has been perfect between us but we truly wish the best for you; for your life. For the time you have ahead of you when you’re released.”
“So that’s what this is about,” he asked. “My release? What,” he continued, anger welling within him. “Afraid I’m gonna come and haunt you like some… ghos’ or somethin’? ‘Cause I assure you, ain’t gonna happen. Lesson learned. Don’t even want to see you again. Don’t know why you wasted your time comin’ here ta see me,” he said, feeling the lies eating away at him even as he spoke.
Of course, he wanted to see her; he just didn’t want to see Edward. And of course, he understood her worry. He’d worry, too, if he were her, but he’d halted the plans he’d made before.
Never had the money for them, anyway… the men he’d asked for help had laughed in his face; two of them had beat him in the corner of the yard over the money. It’s how he’d ended up in solitary; the silence he gave, and that nosy Perkins finding what he’d written and calling it to the attention of a guard, and the chain of command had continued.
“We want to apologize for our behavior; our thoughts toward you,” Edward reiterated. “We want to let you know we were wrong to judge you. Even if you were in the wrong, two of them don’t make anything correct; they don’t make anything right. They make things worse. And we…”
He paused midsentence, looking to his wife before turning his eyes back toward Quentin.
“What Edward’s trying to say,” Paloma said, her voice flowing like honey into his soul, “is that we should have begun praying for you sooner. We held onto our hurt, our confusion, and yes, even bitterness during the time we were all in court together. It wasn’t until Lovan and Edward were talking at church one day that-”
“At church,” Quentin said, interrupting her, above the veritable din of other conversations. “This, I gots ta hear, alright. What would help out in a church? Don’t you get it? Ereyone in there be a hyp’crite, Pal. Ereyone of ‘em,” he said, speaking to her as though Edward wasn’t even there.
He wasn’t focused on anything but her face, her voice, the flush in her cheeks and how her hair, pulled back into a low ponytail and tucked inside her coat, had a telltale streak of not-quite-white in it. How could she still be so beautiful, even if she was a larger woman? And what was wrong with that? He’d loved her curves, but what good would admitting it be when he’d written her those letters before all this mess really got going; before he’d taken Lovan and run to California and messed both of their lives up not for the first, not for the last time.
Unless Lovan had squealed, they would never know the torture he had gone through; the search for drugs that never filled him; never fulfilled anything in his life other than numbness for a few moments; a few hours at best so that he would stop his obsessing. So that he could concentrate – or forget – as needed in order to do other things with his life; to learn some skills that would help give he and his son a better life.
Not that any of those skills had helped keep him from jail time in California, or even in New York when he’d travelled there for a few months, seeking new work and a new life for himself and his son before giving up and coming back to Portland.
“You’re right, Quentin,” she said, surprising him.
What? No scolding him for calling her Pal? No defenses up?
Not even to defend all the people who were just like them; just like that brother of hers, and the Henleighs?
The Angels' Mirror Pack 2: Books Four through Seven Page 37
