by Darcie Chan
The cloth-lined interior was filled with letters. There must be dozens of them, Emily thought as she stared at the yellowish envelopes bundled together and secured by neatly tied pieces of string. She picked up the first bundle and untied it. The top envelope, and each of those stacked beneath it, bore postmarks from 1973 and were addressed in a looping, handwritten script to Mrs. Mary McAllister. She turned the envelope over and saw a return address on the flap from Mrs. Anna O’Brien.
Emily didn’t know who Anna O’Brien was, but she and everyone else in town knew of Mary McAllister, the late recluse who for seventy years had been a secret benefactor for the people of Mill River. Carefully, so as not to rip the delicate, aged stationery, she removed the letter inside and unfolded it.
My dearest Mary, the letter began. Emily’s eyes flew down the page, scanning for anything of particular interest before she read it carefully:
…I must express again my gratitude to you for these letters. I’ve become somewhat isolated in my old age, and it is so kind of you to take up a correspondence with me when Michael suggested it. As his mother, I’m grateful that he has such a dear friend in you. He works too hard and too much—he always has—and his life has been anything but easy…
Chapter 8
March 31–April 1, 1934
In the front passenger seat of the church sedan, Michael sat quietly as his uncle Frank pulled out of the farm’s driveway onto the main road. Behind them, the entire backseat was taken up by the body of the hobo. Once Uncle Frank had arrived at the farm and said a prayer for the dead man’s soul, the four of them—Michael and Frank, Anna and Lizzie—had wrapped the stinking mass tightly in the old horse blanket and dragged it around the house to the car. Now he and Frank were taking it away, but where, he didn’t know.
“Will you tell me now where we’re going?” he asked once the farm had disappeared into the night behind them.
“To a place where the presence of a dead body won’t raise suspicion,” his uncle replied.
“The cemetery, you mean,” Michael said.
His uncle pursed his lips and nodded slowly, but his gaze didn’t deviate from the road.
“But the ground’s frozen.”
“Yes, it is. Still snow-covered, too.”
“Then how?”
His uncle merely smiled. “It’s a good thing we haven’t had a storm in the past few days. The roads are clear, so we’ll have no trouble getting there or getting you back home before dawn.”
Michael leaned his head against the seat. It was obvious he wouldn’t get more information until his uncle was ready to give it.
“I’m going to say again, Michael, how important it is that you never speak of what we’re doing to anyone. Not even your mother or grandmother. If they don’t know, they won’t have information to give if anyone ever comes asking for it. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
They rode in silence for the rest of the short drive. The village of Colchester was dark and quiet as they turned into the parking area for a small stone chapel. Instead of stopping there, his uncle guided the sedan around to the back and onto a narrow drive that looped around the cemetery. His grandfather was buried there, but Michael hadn’t been to his grave in years.
“We keep this driveway shoveled as best we can so we can get to the vault.”
“Vault?” Michael thought of the bank vaults he’d seen in old silent westerns. The image in his mind was one of a gleaming steel fortress with a spinning, six-handled lock on the outside and piles of money inside. “The church has a vault?”
“Yes, a receiving vault. Before the ground freezes, we dig a few graves in the cemetery, but we can’t know for sure how many we’ll need during the winter. Once those graves are used, we hold the bodies of the deceased in the receiving vault until spring. Until we can bury them properly.”
It was then, in the narrow beams of the sedan’s headlights, that Michael saw where they were going. At the far end of the cemetery, tucked against the hillside that sloped up and away from the looping driveway, was a small, nondescript structure. It seemed to be made of the same stone as the chapel. There were no windows, only a door facing out toward the cemetery. The top third of the door was open but secured against unlawful entry by closely spaced iron bars.
His uncle parked in front of the vault and cut the engine. “Wait here,” he said. Before Michael could reply, his uncle was standing before the door to the vault, fumbling with a ring of keys, and making the sign of the cross as he opened the heavy door and went inside. After a few moments, the door opened again, and Michael saw the front of a cart emerge. He hurried to get out of the sedan.
“Quickly, now,” his uncle said. Frank opened the door to the backseat on his side and motioned for Michael to do the same. “We’ve got to pull him out onto here,” he said while he positioned the cart as close to the sedan as he could and then turned a crank on the end to lower the top surface until it was even with the car seat. “Once we do, it’ll be easy to get him inside.”
Michael glanced around. The cemetery was absolutely silent. The night was clear and cold, easily in the single digits, but he didn’t feel it. Even with just the two of them, getting the corpse out of the backseat seemed to be far easier than loading it had been. Maybe it was the adrenaline pumping through him, fueled by his fear of being seen, or maybe it was because the body had stiffened and was easier to move. At any rate, before he had fully come to terms with what they were doing, his uncle pulled the loaded cart inside the vault.
The cold, dim interior was narrower than Michael had expected. The air inside was damp and still. A large cross gleamed on the interior wall opposite the door, and beneath it were stacked several plain wooden coffins. “We always keep some simple pine caskets in here for families without the means to buy one,” his uncle said as he followed Michael’s gaze. “Since it’s just the two of us, it’ll be easier to move this fellow without a casket.”
The other two walls of the vault were lined with what looked like identical rectangular cupboards, complete with metal pull-handles. “Most of this side is already full,” his uncle said, gesturing with his left hand. “We’ll put him in one of the boxes on the right. The spring thaw is only a few weeks away, so this side won’t come anywhere close to filling up before graves can be dug again.” Michael watched as his uncle unlocked the door of a cupboard with another of the keys on his ring and lined up the cart with it. It took a moment of cranking to raise the wrapped body to the necessary height, and then together they pushed it into the cupboard.
Michael stood quietly as his uncle offered another set of prayers and blessings before closing and relocking the cupboard door.
“This will do for the time being,” Frank said. “I’m the only one with access to the vault, and no one will be able to find him here or even think to look for him here. Now, let’s get you back to the farm so your mother doesn’t worry.” His uncle pushed the coffin cart into the far corner and ushered him toward the exit.
“What do you mean, ‘for the time being’?” Michael had experienced a moment of relief when his uncle had locked the cupboard. But it was a temporary solution, and he soon realized the answer to his question. Nobody could remain in the vault once the weather warmed. He began to feel jittery and sick to his stomach.
“The vault has to be emptied and disinfected no later than mid-May.”
“Then what? How are we—”
“Don’t worry, Michael. I won’t let anything bad happen to you and your mother. I know exactly what we’re going to do. We just have to wait a few weeks for the right moment to come. I’ll need your help then, like tonight, but the next time we’re out this late in the graveyard will be the last time. After that, you won’t have to worry about this whole thing ever again.”
On the way back to the farm, they rode with the windows down in order to air out the sedan. For a while, Michael closed his eyes, enjoying the feeling of the fresh, frigid wind whipping against his face. When his lip
s, nose, and ears were numb, he pulled up the collar of his coat and covered his face with his gloved hands.
His uncle noticed his discomfort. “It’s all right,” he said as he rolled up the driver’s-side window. “Put your window up, too. I’ve still got the ride home, and I can park with the windows open once I’m back at the mission.”
“Uncle Frank?” Michael said once he could move his lips enough to speak.
“Yes?”
“I was thinking that maybe…before you go, you could hear my confession.”
His uncle glanced over at him, and the look of surprise on his face reminded Michael so much of his mother’s. His mother and his uncle bore a strong sibling resemblance. Frank was tall and burly, but he and Anna shared the same dark hair and snapping blue eyes, as well as a whole host of expressions.
“If you’re feeling guilty about what happened, you shouldn’t, Michael.”
Michael barely managed to whisper a response. “I killed him.”
“Yes, but you acted with the intent to protect your mother and yourself. You had no choice, and the action you took was reasonable and justified. If you hadn’t, he would have harmed and quite possibly killed you and Anna and Lizzie as well. Saint Thomas Aquinas told us that it is our duty to preserve your own life and those lives under your protection. Killing in furtherance of that duty isn’t a sin. The death of your attacker was an unintended but acceptable effect of your actions.”
“I’ve told myself that…or some version of it…but I still feel like I’ve done something horribly wrong.”
His uncle smiled. “You sound like so many boys who came back from the Great War. Killing another person for any reason is something that feels unnatural and wrong to most people. I’ve counseled so many soldiers who made it home but are shaken to the core because of what they had no choice about doing over in Europe. Michael, trust me when I tell you that you needn’t confess anything about the business with the tramp.”
“Not even hiding him in the vault?”
“I’m the one who made the decision to hide him in the vault. You are entirely without fault in the matter. As for what involvement you had in the man’s death, I’ll say it again—you’ve done nothing wrong. The man had no identification. You had no idea who he was or how to find out. He broke into your home and held Anna at knifepoint. You killed him in a sin-free, completely justifiable manner, and I blessed his body and prayed for his soul—on Easter Sunday, no less—before we moved him and once we got him into the vault. Because of what we did tonight, he’ll be laid to rest in consecrated ground. There’s hope that his soul will meet with God’s mercy. It’s better that he end up in the church cemetery than alongside some road or in the middle of the woods.”
“He’s going to end up in the church cemetery?”
“He’s there now, isn’t he?” His uncle looked over at him again and winked. “I aim to keep it that way.”
Despite his continued misgivings, the corner of Michael’s mouth twitched up in a smile. He understood then how right his mother had been when she’d told him that his uncle was different than any priest he’d ever met.
They arrived back at the farm just as the sky was turning gray with the impending dawn. Lizzie was already in the barn, and she came out to wave at them as they pulled up to the house.
“Remember, now, not a word to anyone,” his uncle said, and Michael nodded. His uncle’s admonition reminded him of his mother’s secret silver hidden in the root cellar, and he couldn’t help wondering whether Frank knew about it. He felt a powerful urge to ask, but he suppressed it. He had promised his mother he would not speak of it to anyone. It was strange, how quickly he had become a receptacle of secrets. His new burden of information was heavy, but he was determined to manage it.
His mother was pouring a cup of coffee as they came inside. She had dark circles beneath her anxious eyes.
“Everything’s fine,” Frank said immediately, and Michael was happy to see some of the tension leave her face.
“Good,” she said. “I was about to make some breakfast. Can you stay?”
“If it’s quick,” his uncle said. “I need to be back to say Easter Mass in just a few hours. While you cook, though, I’m going to take a look around outside. Sometimes hoboes mark a property where they’ve been treated well, and the mark attracts others who wander by.”
His mother nodded. “Michael, could you fill the wood box? It’s nearly empty. After breakfast, I’ll heat a tub of water so you can take a bath. I imagine you need it.”
“A bath sounds good,” he told her. He’d never really minded bathing in general, unlike Seamus, who had always hated the weekly washing. But today it would be an exquisite treat.
He was coming from the woodpile with an armful of logs when he heard his uncle shout to him. Frank was standing at the end of the driveway, next to the mailbox, beckoning him to come over.
“I’ll be right there,” Michael yelled. He deposited the logs inside before he came back out and jogged down the driveway.
“I wanted to show you this,” his uncle said, pointing to the thick wooden post on which the mailbox was mounted. The bottom half was buried in snow, but on the top half, a symbol had been marked on the post:
“What is it?” Michael asked.
“A hobo mark,” his uncle replied. “It’s a crude, universally understood symbol for a loaf of bread. Someone put it there to tell others that food is given out here.”
“Mother does that, gives out old stale pieces of bread to people who come to the door, even though Grandma tells her not to.”
“After what happened yesterday, I doubt she’ll do it again. But we’re going to get rid of this so any other wanderers who come by don’t see it.” His uncle took a handkerchief from his pocket and rubbed the symbol until the black lines were smudged and the image completely obscured. “You should keep an eye out, Michael. Check here and around the property every few days. If you see any other marks here or anywhere else, get rid of them any way you can.”
They walked back to the house, where each brought in another armload of wood. Anna was moving around the kitchen table, scooping scrambled eggs from a frying pan and depositing them on plates.
“That coffee smells good,” Frank said. “And the eggs, too.”
“I’ll get a cup for you,” Lizzie said, starting to rise from her seat at the table, but Frank patted her shoulder as he brushed past her.
“No need, I can help myself.”
Michael had pulled out his chair to sit down when he looked over at his mother. She was standing on the opposite side of the table, holding a spatula and the nearly empty frying pan, but had stopped dishing out the eggs. Her face was unusually pale, her gaze distant and unfocused. She took an unsteady step backward.
“Mother?” he asked. “Mother, are you all right?” He remained standing, ready to reach out to her, and his question prompted his uncle and grandmother to turn their attention to her as well.
“Anna?” his uncle said, but she didn’t reply or even acknowledge that she’d heard him. The heavy cast-iron pan fell from her hand, hitting the corner of the table and sending bits of egg flying. A half-second later, it landed on the wood floor with a loud thunk, and Michael watched his mother’s eyes roll back into her head as she collapsed.
Chapter 9
Having spent the morning in bed, Karen forced herself to get up and dressed when the old clock on the wall in the foyer chimed to announce the noon hour. No one had called the landline or her cellphone during the morning, and she shot a nasty look at them both as she carried them into the bathroom with her. What she wouldn’t give for any bit of news about her husband.
Where is he now? she asked herself periodically during the day. Maybe he was being rescued or on his way back to the base. Her heart leaped at the mere thought. Maybe he was bound and blindfolded, a hostage of some radical group. Or maybe…She always tried to stop herself there, before her thoughts entered the most terrifying realm of possibility. I
mages from news stories about other Middle East kidnapping victims were seared into her mind. Images of beaten and bloodied prisoners, of kidnappers brandishing long swords in front of video cameras before inflicting unthinkable agony on their hostages…
Nick is smart and strong, she told herself. He’ll figure out a way to free himself, if he’s been kidnapped. He’ll fight to get back home to Ben and me.
And, Karen knew, he’d expect her to fight just as strongly.
When was the last time she’d really fought for something or someone? Her monotonous struggle with depression didn’t quite fit the bill. Oh, she had a good temper, once she was sufficiently provoked, but just the idea of getting her dander up seemed exhausting right now. Still, she remembered a time, three or four years back, when she’d done exactly that.
It was before they’d moved to Mill River. Ben was still in elementary school, and he’d started coming home from school ravenous. At first, she’d chalked up his increased appetite to a growth spurt, but after it had continued for several weeks, she became worried.
“I don’t know what’s happening with you,” she’d told her son as he went straight to the refrigerator after arriving home. “You’re acting like you’re not eating lunch at all. The school’s food isn’t that bad, is it? What did they serve today?” She hadn’t eaten at the school that day, since she worked there only part-time, on Tuesdays and Fridays.
“I don’t know, Mom,” Ben replied. Strangely, he didn’t look at her. Instead, he kept his focus on the contents of the refrigerator.
“What do you mean, you don’t know? You did eat lunch, didn’t you?”
Ben didn’t reply.
“Ben?” She took hold of his arm and pulled him around to face her. She’d fully intended to scold him for ignoring her, but the look on his face told her that something was wrong. “Answer me, Ben. Did you eat lunch today?”
