Rosemary for Remembrance

by Christine Arness

  “She had another knife.” Ross sounded disgusted with himself. “One for Quincy and one for you.”

  Abigail stared at Julia and saw light wink off the metal of the narrow blade the woman held to her own throat. Julia’s voice had the sharp edge of hysteria. “Step back, both of you, or I’ll kill myself!”

  “Do as she says, Red.”

  The couple moved back, away from the stairs, and Julia walked toward Helen’s straw bag.

  “A bomb. So that crazy little woman knitted herself an exploding quilt.” Julia bent and lifted the bag. “Perhaps she made a mistake—I shall try to get it to work.”

  Moving past them with queenly dignity, she walked down the corridor, her heels tapping eerily against the cement. Ross took an impulsive step after her before turning to Abigail. “Get out of the building, Red.”

  She grabbed his arm, clung to him. “Please, Ross, don’t go after her—she’s got a knife and Helen’s bag. What if she somehow triggers an explosion?”

  “I’m getting you out of danger and then I’ll go after her.” Without warning, he swept her up in his arms and started toward the stairs. Cradled against his chest, Abigail gave in to an overwhelming impulse to pull his head down and kiss him on the lips. He returned the kiss with enthusiasm and she made a silent vow not to allow Ross to come back down after Julia—

  With the roar of an avalanche, a gust of hot white light and air overtook them and Abigail felt herself being torn from his arms and flung out into space…

  Despite a blow to the temple, Ross never lost consciousness. Opening his eyes, he groaned and sat up, finding himself in a surreal environment sprung from the imagination of Salvador Dali: massive timbers lay in broken heaps and chunks of plaster dotted the landscape while splinters of wood projected upward, crosses marking places of burial. The scene of devastation reminded him of a war photograph depicting the pathetic remains of a Polish village after it had been razed by a panzer division. From above light poured down, redly filtered through the haze of dust.

  Struggling to his knees, he clawed frantically at the rubble covering the floor until his groping hands located the half-buried body of a woman. Digging with bruised and cut fingers, he uncovered her face. Was he too late? Fumbling to find a pulse in her throat, he placed his ear to her chest and listened to the reassuring sound of her heart.

  Wiping the blood from his eyes, he looked up to find that the stairs were still intact, but down the corridor, snapping and hissing, long bright fingers of fire crawled through the debris toward them.

  As he stooped and put his arms around her, a pair of hazel eyes opened and the pale lips moved. Overjoyed, Ross stroked her hair. “Hang on, Red. I’ll get you out of here.”

  She tried to speak again, a faint murmur.

  “Yes, Red?” He bent closer, sudden terror gripping him with the thought that she might be slipping away.

  “Kiss me once more, Ross—make the earth move again.” One eyelid quivered closed in a wink. In relief, Ross lifted her and started toward the stairs.

  When he appeared at the broken doors of the courthouse with Abigail in his arms, applause rippled through the crowd being held at bay by a cordon of police. The first fire engine was just pulling into the parking lot.

  Scott met Ross at the foot of the steps. “Cancel the bomb squad,” Ross told his colleague and grinned weakly at his own feeble attempt at humor as two men removed Abigail from his arms. “Take good care of her.”

  With Scott steadying him, he walked forward on wobbling legs. “My ears are ringing, Scotty, and the pavement appears to be shifting under my feet. Any casualties?”

  “Sit over here, Ross. Some minor injuries to those present on the main floor of the building at the time of the explosion, but they’re being taken care of.”

  Thankful for the solid feel of the ground, Ross lowered himself to the grass next to a makeshift triage treatment center located near a pair of ambulances. Austin Kyle seemed to be rating the most attention—what could be seen of his face around the bulk of the oxygen mask was ashen. José was standing with his arm wrapped protectively around Helen Peters as the pair talked to a uniformed patrolman.

  While the cut over his eye was being treated, Ross drew a deep breath and watched firemen lug the black snakes of hoses into the smoking building, their yellow hats bobbing as they climbed the steps. Glancing over at Austin, Ross saw that the man was now sitting up and the oxygen mask had been removed.

  “Heart attack?” Ross pointed toward the other patient and winced as a sliver of wood gouging his palm gave him painful notice of its presence.

  The medic shrugged. “It was really weird. He seemed fine and all of a sudden, he shrieked, ‘No—not the flames! Don’t leave me!’ and collapsed. You’d think he was down in that basement when it exploded.”

  “A part of him was.”

  Chapter 58

  Abigail paused in the doorway of the hospital conservatory. The huge room was deserted except for the woman in a canvas apron engaged in spritzing the leaves of a rubbery-looking plant. The girl had tawny brown hair cut short, freckles, and eyes as green as the fern behind her; her olive-toned complexion and air of serenity made her seem at one with her environment.

  Turning, the woman smiled. “This fellow should be in a rain forest somewhere, so every morning at this time I give him a shower.” She tucked the water bottle into the pocket of her apron, and waved her hand at a wooden bench. “This room is a good place not to think. Please, sit down and just be for a few moments.”

  Abigail followed the friendly advice, realizing the caretaker must have assumed from her reddened eyes that she was a relative of a critically ill patient. Raising the tissue in her hand, she wiped her eyes and blew her nose. A good place to not think.

  Water dripped from the leaves of the plant and a hiss of air indicated a circulating fan had switched on. Through the glass panes of the ceiling, dark clouds were visible as they gathered overhead, presaging a spring thunderstorm. Abigail watched them assemble, dark sheep summoned by the shepherd of the winds. One cloud was a deep blue-violet and resembled a whale thrusting through the floam-flecked sky. A good place to not think. Opening her hand, Abigail stared at the pearl resting on her palm. Like the pearl in her dream, it had a rosy glow, even in the gray light of a sullen morning. A rose pearl for Rosemary.

  The hospice unit had been a surprisingly cheerful place, with sunshine yellow walls and a golden retriever who trotted from room to room on his mission of companionship. Most of the patients seemed to have removed the word “terminal” from their vocabulary—a noisy bingo game had been in progress in the dining room when she left the unit; a skeletal man was playing eight cards with the concentration of a Vegas gambler.

  Flora, however, was unable to leave her bed, tied down by weakness and an IV stand that dripped pain-dulling medication into her arm, but she was conscious and seemed glad to see Abigail, smiling as the younger woman bent and kissed her cheek.

  “How are you feeling, Flora?”

  “No pain, but I’m very tired. I’ll be glad to leave this worthless sack of skin and bones behind, my dear.”

  Abigail reached out to touch the hand resting on the blanket. “I’m sorry, Flora. I’m sorry about Rosemary, and I’m sorry you and I didn’t get more time together.”

  Flora smiled again, a faint spasm of her lips. “I’ve made my peace with God, and unlike my poor sister, I won’t be dying alone. Belle and Austin Kyle have been with me every minute—they only went down to the cafeteria for a cup of coffee when the desk nurse announced you were on your way in to see me.”

  She rolled her head on the pillow and, as if testing a fading muscle response, clenched and unclenched her hand. “Austin and I’ve been talking about Rosemary, sharing our memories. I’m finding healing in remembering the good, loving things about my sister, not the pain of her last day on earth. He stayed up all night making me a present.”

  Austin’s gift rested on the bedside table: a rough carvin
g of a dove caught in midflight, wings spread wide to coast on a breeze, soaring, transcending the insignificance of pain, sorrow, death. The dove brought to mind the polished perfection of Austin’s Canadian goose with its noble head lifted to the morning sun, forever doomed to be bound by earth’s gravity. Abigail had received the same sense of incompletion from his other sculptures of wood, the perception that the carvings would never reach perfection or fulfillment. Until now.

  “He’s been set free—Julia’s death accomplished that.” Flora’s eyes held the wisdom of the ages. “Belle, too, has changed. This morning she’s wearing a gold coin on a chain and Austin seems aware of some significance about the necklace that escapes me. But, please, come closer, Abigail.”

  The sick woman raised her right arm. Abigail stepped forward to clasp the offered fingers, only to look down in surprise as Flora slipped a round object into her hand.

  “I sense the same reticence in you that was in my sister, Abigail.” The pain-faded eyes were intent. “And I want you to be set free, too. I’m giving you Rosemary’s pearl, one of the pearls she wore that night. Keep it for courage, for remembrance. Remember Rosemary, remember me.”

  A faint, far-off rumble of thunder recalled Abigail to the present. She stared at the pearl, thinking about Rosemary and her fight to keep from entrusting her happiness to anyone else and how she had succeeded at a dreadful cost—she died alone.

  Abigail remembered her own terror when the threatening phone calls began and she had realized she had no one to turn to. She could empathize with Rosemary’s feelings as the girl walked that dusty road in her last hour of life, unsure of her relationship with Flora, afraid that Austin might not be strong enough to break the bond with his sister and come for her, regret over having driven away those who’d tried to share the magic circle.

  Since their separation in the emergency room at the hospital, Abigail had not seen Ross. None of the flower arrangements or balloons that poured in came with a card or message from him; total strangers sent get-well wishes, but not Ross. She had waited for the phone to ring, for the chance to tell him that the sound of her name on his lips had given her courage and that on awakening in his arms, she did not fear the smoke or licking tongues of flame, but he did not call.

  He cared enough to risk his life for her but not enough to see her again. After the way she’d shut him out, the cruel words that could never be recalled…It must not have been enough that she’d returned to the basement to die with him if necessary.

  Dashing away a tear, Abigail wrapped the pearl in a clean tissue and slipped it into the breast pocket of her shirt.

  She was staring at the rubbery plant and listening to the drip of water from its leaves, a sound of inexpressible loneliness, when she became conscious that someone was watching her. Thunder muttered in the distance as she turned her head. Ross Stewart loomed in the doorway of the conservatory.

  “I wanted to see how you were feeling.” He remained where he was, unsmiling, broad shoulders propping up one of the doorposts.

  “I’m fine. I was only held overnight for observation. Flora asked me to visit her.”

  He nodded. “I stopped by to see her yesterday. She’s a brave lady.”

  That shared kiss in the basement before the explosion might never have happened. A polite but unbending stranger had replaced the eagerly passionate man who’d carried her to safety. Pride raised its stiff neck and she was tempted to respond in kind with the civil banalities of two people who had nothing in common but a shared experience.

  But the pearl hung heavy against her breast, burning with the remembrance of Rosemary’s tragic mistakes. With a wave of a bandaged hand, she indicated the empty space on the bench beside her. “Do you have the time to fill me in on Helen? What’s going to happen to her?”

  He crossed the room and sat down, maintaining a careful distance between them. “I guess I’ve got a minute.” He checked his watch as if to make sure it was still working. “Mrs. Peters doesn’t remember anything from Sunday afternoon until she woke up sitting on the floor in the corridor of the basement. She’s currently under psychiatric observation but Dr. Tanner says that dealing with the memory of the accident will help in her recovery. The stress of the summons for the competency hearing combined with the depression and anxiety experienced each year as the anniversary of Rosemary’s death approached seemed to blow a circuit in her mind, so to speak.”

  Abigail stared at the backs of the hands resting in his lap, their broad surfaces marred by the vivid crisscrossing of cuts and scratches inflicted when he dug her out of the wreckage of the basement. “Poor Helen.”

  He twisted the wristband of his watch and looked at its face again. “Poor Helen? Using ordinary household materials, she built a powerful explosive. Not your typical helpless little old lady.”

  The bench creaked when he shifted his weight as if preparing to rise, and she sought for a reason to detain him. “What about Quincy? Was he responsible for harassing me?”

  A flash of lightning bleached the color from his cheeks and highlighted the rugged line of his jaw. Talk to me, she begged silently. Call me Red.

  But he was staring at a row of yellow flowers. “We found a tape recorder in Julia’s car containing a tape of her last conversation with Quincy—a sensitive machine, even picked up his gasp when she stabbed him. When we tossed his apartment, we found the rest of the tapes. Listening to them was a lesson in tactics in psychological warfare. The symbol of the heart and arrow that he painted on your wall seemed to be his trademark—he’d spray-painted it on the ceiling over his bed. The man was a twisted genius.”

  “All that time he was laughing, he was laughing at me—at all of us,” Abigail reflected.

  “Laughing? Only on the outside. On the tapes, a picture emerged of a bitter man who’d suffered abuse and parental rejection as a child. Belle told me that Quincy had taken her out for a drink shortly after he arrived for a visit. Over a bottle of wine, she’d started talking—after all, he was family. She told him the saga of Rosemary and Austin and that she’d kept the affair secret from Flora—and unwittingly added fuel to the fire when she revealed how Julia had kicked her out when she was pregnant with Quincy’s mother. That information was all he needed to blackmail Belle into keeping quiet while he put the bite on Julia.”

  Abigail shivered. “But someone must have helped him—that scream under my window, the body chalked on my driveway.”

  She was relieved when he shifted to face her, his long legs crossed at the ankles. “A woman named Gwen stopped in at the police station with a strange story, about allowing her boyfriend to draw a chalk outline around her, screaming under a window, picking out a valentine in August, and programming a computer to call a number with a warning. ‘Kinky’, she said he was, seemed very relieved that he was dead. Must admit I am, too. Nailing him on charges would have been difficult, if not impossible. We’re still looking for evidence tying him to a possible arson.”

  He stood up and Abigail realized she’d run out of safe topics. It was now or never. Rising, she said, “I wanted to tell you how sorry I am, Ross—about Jason, about Olivia, for the things I said to you.”

  He studied the polish on his shoes. “Not once did you call me for help. I had to learn about that drawing on your driveway from a policeman.” In his tone Abigail heard echoes of Austin’s despair as he spoke of Rosemary: “I never even knew she was pregnant.”

  She spoke quickly, earnestly. “I thought I could get through it alone. I grasped at straws, used any excuse to hold you at bay. I found myself wanting to share a special part of my life with you and it scared me, Ross. I’ve never let myself become so vulnerable before.”

  His expression remained wooden and she added desperately, “I felt like I was stepping onto one of those narrow suspension bridges spanning a deep chasm—inside, I was petrified with fear. Now I know I was afraid of a man who would risk his life for me.”

  Silence stretched between them. He seemed to be waiting f
or her to continue but she had run out of words. Thunder muttered again, a signal for Ross to check his watch, and Abigail was tempted to rip it from his wrist and bury it beside a plant.

  “I don’t want your gratitude, Ms. James. You don’t owe me anything, not even an explanation.” He seemed uncomfortable, his voice was brusque. “Look, do you need a ride home? I’ve got time to drop you off before I return to the courthouse and tell the reelection committee that I’m not going to run for another term.”

  “Not run?” Abigail was stunned. “But what will you do—move to another town, open a private practice?”

  He picked up a leaf that had fallen to the floor and rubbed it between his thumb and forefinger. “I plan to open a clinic offering affordable legal assistance to women caught in abusive relationships. Perhaps in some way I can give my mother the help she needed and never got. And I’m going to reestablish contact with Dad. I got a Christmas card from him this year and never acknowledged it, but I’ve finally realized that the only way I’m going to get over the anger is by looking him in the eye and telling him I forgive him, even if he isn’t sorry.”

  For the first time in their conversation, Ross met her gaze. “How about that ride?” As clearly as if he’d spoken aloud, she heard the words he did not say: His pursuit was over and unless she gave some sign of reciprocation, this ride home would be the last offer he would make. The next move was hers.

  A hollow feeling reminded Abigail that she had once held happiness in her grasp and let it slip away. Most people didn’t get a second chance at love. To deny her feelings out of fear of rejection would be to bolt herself inside a lonely tower, condemned to wait in vain for someone to tear down the walls of silence she herself had erected. If Ross had the courage to face his father again, she could risk opening her heart to another.

  Moving to his side, she took the leaf Ross still held and tapped the greenery against one of his fingers. “Elaine’s Treasury of Herbs decrees that one must use a sprig of rosemary, but I hope a geranium leaf has the same magic.”