by Darcie Chan
Michael heard the creaking of bedsprings, presumably from the doctor standing up or his mother shifting position. Whichever the cause, the sound prompted him to back away from the door and slip down the hallway. He heard the bedroom door open almost as soon as he reached the kitchen, and the doctor and his grandmother joined him.
“I’d like you to keep a close eye on her, Mrs. O’Brien,” the doctor said. He turned toward Michael. “You, too, son. Don’t let your mother do anything to exert herself. Make sure she takes the medicine I prescribed and that she drinks often.”
“Doctor,” his grandmother said, “seeing as how I don’t drive and Michael is too young to hold a junior license, we’ll be hard pressed to get the medicine before the pharmacy closes. Would you be able to give Michael a lift into town? He could pick up the prescriptions for Anna and walk back here.”
“That’s no problem at all. I was planning to go back to the clinic, anyway.”
“Thank you. I have one other concern, that being the bill for your services. We’re extremely short on cash. I guess most folks are these days. We can pay the four dollars for today’s visit, but after we buy medicine for Anna…”
The doctor was quiet for a moment and then offered his grandmother a resigned smile. “Why don’t we consider tomorrow’s follow-up part of today’s visit? I know there isn’t a family in the area that isn’t struggling financially, and you folks have been patients of mine for a long time.”
“We would appreciate that very much, Doctor. Thank you.”
The doctor nodded. “I’ll make note of it on the bill. Have a good evening, Mrs. O’Brien. Are you ready, Michael?”
“Yes, sir, I’ll just get my coat.”
“All right. I’ll go start the car.”
As soon as the doctor had left the house, his grandmother grabbed his wrist. “You’ll need some money for the medicine. Wait here.” She went quickly down the hallway to her room and returned a few moments later.
“Here,” she said, shoving a five-dollar bill into his hand. “Most of what your father sent went to buy groceries and gas, so use this for the prescriptions. And you be careful to bring back the change.”
Michael looked at the money in his hand. “Grandma, I thought you told the doctor…Where did you get this?”
“It’s not your business to ask, Michael, but I’ll tell you anyway.” His grandmother gave him a wry smile. “It came from that vicious tramp who attacked your mother. Do you remember the gold watch you found in his pocket?” she whispered as she glanced out the front window. “When your mother and I went to town after your father sent money, I told her I wanted to go to the drugstore to get some liniment for my arthritis. While she shopped for groceries, I did just that. But first I walked over to the loan office.”
Michael knew about the loan office. It was the only one of its kind in Burlington, tucked away on the corner of a street on the edge of town. He had passed by it on occasion, and the front window was always stocked with fine jewelry and sparkling watches. The other items on display routinely changed. There might be a crystal vase or sterling candlesticks. He had seen a lovely, shiny guitar once, suspended from two ropes near the top of the window. Another time, there had been a new-looking console radio positioned at the very front, with the jewelry and watches flanking it.
The loan office was run by a sweaty Russian named Igor Borisov. Michael knew this because his mother had described the man, and she had made clear that he was never to go there. “It’s a place of shame and desperation and last resort,” she’d said. “Not only that, but Mr. Borisov has a reputation for being slimy, and not just in the physical sense.” But his grandmother hadn’t had a privileged upbringing like his mother’s. Having lived and worked on a farm her entire life, she was used to doing whatever was required to scrape by.
“You took a loan against the watch?” Michael asked.
“I sold the watch,” his grandmother said. “I figured we didn’t need it lying around here, where it might raise suspicion if someone saw it. And Borisov gave me twenty dollars for it. Twenty dollars! It’s a good thing, because I have a feeling this won’t be the last time we have the doctor out here for your mother. Don’t you dare breathe a word of it to her. She wouldn’t approve of me going there or telling you about it. Do you understand me?”
Michael nodded. He was trying to wrap his mind around what his grandmother had done, as well as the fact that there was now a new secret he was responsible for keeping.
His grandmother pulled his coat from the hook by the door and held it out to him. “You best get out there. The doctor’s waiting for you.”
The doctor’s vehicle, a Cadillac town sedan, was by far the finest car in which Michael had ridden. He couldn’t help but stare at the rich wood trim and the myriad gauges positioned across the dashboard behind a gleaming glass panel. The soft velour upholstery on the plush seats caught on the skin of his rough, chapped hands, and the polished chrome door and window handles reflected his image.
“You’re quiet,” the doctor observed as he drove out onto the road. “Worried about your mother?”
“Yes, sir.”
“We’ll monitor her closely. She might improve and get through the roughest part of the sickness on her own.”
“And what if she doesn’t, Doctor? What if she doesn’t get better?”
Dr. Washburn sighed. “It’s been several years since her last time expecting. There are some new treatments available. They’re in-hospital treatments, mind you, but they’re usually very effective.”
Again Michael retreated into his own thoughts. He had a great deal to worry about, chief of which was his mother’s troubling condition. He prayed that she would get better quickly, on her own. If she didn’t, what would happen to her if she went to the hospital? How would they ever be able to afford the treatments offered there? Perhaps his father would soon send more money, enough to cover any unexpected medical expenses. There was also the money his grandmother had gotten for the hobo’s watch.
Michael thought again of his mother’s secret silver in the root cellar. How right she had been to conceal it from his grandmother, who’d had no qualms about visiting the loan office. She undoubtedly would have demanded they sell the set long before now.
He hoped only that his mother wouldn’t be forced to cash in her “insurance policy” to save her own life.
Chapter 13
“Karen? Karen, what’s wrong?”
Claudia’s worried voice barely registered with Karen, and it took her a second to realize that the teacher had returned to the empty classroom.
“I just got a call about Nick,” she managed to stammer. She was still sitting at the student desk. Claudia pulled up a chair and sat down, placing a hand gently on her arm. “They found his jeep. It was abandoned on a highway outside the city with two flat tires. The man he was traveling with…his body was still there, in the front seat.”
“But…Nick wasn’t there?”
Karen shook her head, too upset to speak.
Claudia’s forehead bunched together in the middle. “Isn’t it a good thing?”
“The Jeep was riddled with bullet holes,” Karen gasped. “The windows were shot out, and the driver’s seat was stained with blood.”
“Oh, Karen. I don’t know what to say.”
Karen glanced into the teacher’s eyes, but she only cried harder when she saw that Claudia’s eyes had welled up and she felt the teacher’s arms close around her.
“Karen, you shouldn’t be here,” Claudia said gently. “You’re too upset, and the kids will be back soon. I don’t think you should drive, though, not right now. Why don’t you let me find Ms. Finney? I’m sure she’d agree with me, and maybe she could find someone to take you home.”
Although the last place she wanted to go was home, she nodded in agreement, and Claudia hurried out the classroom door. When she returned a few minutes later, she was accompanied by Leona Finney, the school’s principal, as well as Jerry Strand, the vice principal.
Leona touched Karen’s shoulder as she bent to speak to her. “Karen, Claudia told me about your phone call. I’m so sorry about what’s happened.”
“We all are,” Jerry added. “Why don’t you get your things together? I’ll drive you home in your car, and Leona will follow us and take me back to the school.”
“Th—thank you,” Karen stammered. “But, I really don’t want to go home right now. Could you…would there be any way you could take me to St. John’s instead? I think I’d like to see Father O’Brien.”
“Of course,” Jerry said. “It might be better to be with someone right now.”
“And Karen, you should take all the time off that you need,” Leona said in the same kindly tone Karen had heard her use to comfort upset children. “I’m surprised you didn’t say anything to me about your situation. I can’t imagine trying to work when you’re dealing with something like this.”
“I only found out about it on Saturday,” Karen replied. “There’s nothing I can do except wait and hope and pray. I thought it’d be better to come to work. I’m just trying to stay strong and keep going for Ben. And for Nick.”
—
In the marble mansion, Emily was up on a tall ladder with a handheld vacuum sander, checking to make sure the plastered drywall screws and seams had been sanded properly. She was planning to begin painting the new walls later in the week. So far, she had found that the drywall crew she’d hired to put up the Sheetrock had done a good job. Most of the walls were perfectly smooth, with only a few isolated spots requiring a pass with the sander.
Early in her career, her first time hiring drywall subcontractors had been a disaster. One of the crew members had obviously been new or incompetent or both, because on many of the walls, the drywall screws had been left flush against the wall instead of being drilled in far enough to form small concave pits to hold plaster. Once the plaster had been applied over the too-far-out screws, entire walls had been covered in neat rows of convex bumps, like tiny plaster belly buttons. She’d insisted that the subcontractor redo those walls, but the second effort had set her project back over two weeks.
Emily came down from the ladder and moved it across the room to another wall. Before she went back up, she caught sight of the old briefcase sitting on the floor beside her toolbox. Even though she couldn’t afford to waste time doing it, what she really wanted to do was park herself in a comfortable spot and continue reading through the letters.
It was strange, how she’d been completely drawn in by the old correspondence. Normally, she disliked gossip and preferred to steer clear of other people’s business. Soap operas and reality shows—heck, most television—held no appeal for her; her own life had been so full of tragedy and drama that she saw no point in getting caught up in the problems of people who didn’t even exist. But the old letters were different. Many of them contained stories about Father O’Brien as a child. Despite the gross invasion of privacy, she found it fascinating to read about the distant past of someone she knew. It was also interesting to read letters written to the mysterious late Mary McAllister, whom she knew about but had never met. With their fine cursive handwriting revealing secrets of a time long ago, the letters seemed to beckon to her from their leather enclosure.
Screw it, she thought. One letter won’t take much time.
She went to the briefcase and pulled out the next letter in the bundle she’d been reading. Already, she had made her way through the earliest batches of correspondence from Anna O’Brien to Mary McAllister. Most of those had been filled with the written equivalent of polite conversation between two people who didn’t know each other well. Over the years, though, as the two women became friends and then each other’s confidantes, the letters had become much more personal in nature.
Emily sat down on the floor cross-legged and took the folded paper from the envelope. Her eyes skimmed through the opening pleasantries until she came to the heart of the correspondence:
…Frank never told me what he and Michael did with the body, although I never asked him about it. I suppose I didn’t want to know, and it was safer that I didn’t. I know carrying that around was difficult for Michael. He changed after the shooting, Mary. He didn’t hunt for pleasure anymore. In fact, he went out only if we needed game to eat. He became quieter, too, more withdrawn. Michael has always been sensitive and introspective. He’s outwardly calm, but he feels things intensely, and I know killing the man who attacked me didn’t sit well with him, even though his doing it saved my life…
After she finished the letter, Emily reread it, trying to make sense of the new information it contained. As a teenager, Father O’Brien had shot and killed a man in defense of his mother. She never would have guessed that the kindly priest had such a secret in his past, but knowing it gave her a new appreciation of his fortitude. His actions were perfectly justified and understandable. In fact, Emily admitted to herself, even though Mom has her faults and has wreaked havoc with my life, if someone tried to hurt her, I’d use lethal force to protect her, too.
She sighed and glanced up at the wall before her. It was getting to be late afternoon. The sun was sinking lower in the sky, and the tops of the walls were becoming obscured by shadows. Seeing places up there that needed to be sanded would be tough for the rest of the day. And not only that, Emily thought, as she looked over at her big dog napping on a cushion in the corner, but Gus hasn’t had a good run in a few days, and it’s nice outside. She could take him to the new park to stretch his legs, drop him off at her house, and return to the mansion to get some more work done on the plumbing in the evening.
“Gussie-pup, you wanna go outside?” she asked. In a matter of seconds, the brown and white dog was fully awake, whining in front of her with his tail rapidly wagging. Emily couldn’t help but laugh as she rumpled his ears and walked with him toward the door.
At Hayes Memorial Park, she grabbed her water bottle and a plastic bag from the car, put Gus on a leash, and jogged with him toward the fenced-in area for dogs. Once they were through the gate, Emily unhooked Gus’s leash and smiled as he dashed off to investigate the park’s other human and canine visitors.
An older couple she didn’t know watched a pair of wiener dogs chase each other in circles. A young girl and her mother took turns throwing a tennis ball for a large golden retriever. Another woman sat on a bench holding a leash and patting a mixed-breed dog sitting next to her and panting heavily. And in the distance, a man was bent over, playing with a small, fuzzy puppy.
Gus had already spotted the puppy and made a beeline directly for it. Emily chased after him, frantically calling his name. Her dog was usually loving and gentle toward both young children and puppies, but she didn’t want his exuberance or size to startle this pup or its owner.
By the time she reached him, Gus had already sniffed the puppy in several places and was wagging ferociously as the man reached out to pet him.
“Gus! Gus, come here, boy!” she said. “I’m so sorry he charged up on you like that. He won’t hurt either of you, he just loves puppies, and when he saw your—” As the man with the puppy turned toward her, Emily froze.
It was Matt.
His eyes widened at the sight of her, and neither of them spoke. Just as the silence began to grow awkward, Matt smiled and greeted her. “Hi.”
“Hi.”
“So, uh, this is your buddy, huh?” he asked, looking down at Gus. “He’s pretty friendly. And big.”
“Yeah, that’s Gus,” she said.
“This is the puppy I told you about. You know, the one who caused the problems in my car.” He looked down at the little Husky mix, yipping continually and bounding around and through Gus’s long legs. “I still haven’t named her.”
Emily scrunched up her mouth. “Given what she did in your car, I can think of a couple of names that might be fitting.”
Matt exhaled loudly. “Yep. At the rate she’s going, I’ll be back for more upholstery cleaner before too long. The housebreaking
isn’t going too well.”
“Ah.” Emily nodded and looked across the park toward some of the other dogs. She was in that emotionally awkward place again, feeling flustered and slightly breathless in his presence but debating whether she wanted to continue their unexpected conversation.
“Oh, c’mon, Emily. I meant what I said up at the mansion when I opened your briefcase. I really am sorry for treating you the way I did. Can we start over, please?” He took a step closer and held out his right hand. “Hi, I’m Matt Campbell. And you are?”
She sighed and rolled her eyes, although not without noticing how muscular his arm was. “Haven’t you heard the saying that you get only one chance to make a first impression?” She allowed a bit of playful sass into her own voice.
Matt dropped his hand and locked eyes with her. “Then let me make it up to you somehow. I’d really like to prove to you that I’m a decent guy.”
Emily considered the possibility. Matt seemed sincere. He was so attractive, even in the old sweats and T-shirt he was wearing. And, she admitted to herself, it’s pretty fun, seeing him grovel like this.
“Hypothetically, just how would you make it up to me?”
Matt shrugged. “I dunno. Maybe we could hang out. I’d still be happy to take you to dinner.”
“So, we’re back to that,” Emily said, laughing and shaking her head. “Unbelievable. Look, I’ll be very honest with you. I really don’t have time to hang out. I’ve got a big work deadline looming over me, and I don’t need any distractions.”
“What about dinner? You have to eat, don’t you?”
“Yes, but these days, it’s mostly sandwiches on the run. If I’m not sleeping or doing something for Gus, or running the hardware store or fixing some issue with one of my mom’s listings, I’m working in the McAllister mansion. I have no life, and it’ll be that way for a while yet.”
“It sounds like you could use a little downtime,” Matt said. “Listen, if I can come up with something that would fit your schedule, would you agree to it?”
