Blackbird Fly (41 page)

“
Never saw the appeal myself,” she
sniffed.

“
You—you know them?”

“
I’ve forgotten his
name.”

“
Weston.”

“
Ah. ‘My Wes,’ she called him.”
Annabelle looked at her sharply. “He wasn’t your father. Who are
you working for? Are you a collection agent?”

Merle shook her head. “He was my father-in-law. He
died a long time ago.”

“
Look around. This is all I have
left, a few plants and my chair. There’s nothing to collect but
these old bones, you know.”

“
Miss Gallagher, I only want
information about Weston and Emilie.”

“
Emilie? Huh.” She waved a hand and
looked out the greenhouse to the dry yard as if seeing into the
past. “He took her away, against all our wishes except her batty
mother, and we never heard from her again. End of story. Ran off to
France, I suppose — he talked about his business there — or
America. I often wondered what became of poor Virginia.”

“
Virginia?” Merle looked at the
photograph. The tiny, yellow-haired woman: not Emilie but
Virginia.

“
My mother’s name. Dear Virginia.
Lovely really. An angelic little child, all golden hair and rosy
cheeks. My sister doted on her. Until the day she died she fretted
about never hearing from her little Ginnie. Tiny, like a child, she
was. My sister tried to find her in the States, even hired one of
those men, those —”

“
Private detectives?”

“
Nothing came of it.” The old woman
stared at her spotted hands. “Is she alive?”

“
Sorry, no. She died, a long time
ago too.”

“
In childbirth? I always thought she
was too small to have children.”

“
A car accident. They were
together.”

The old woman nodded, accepting the facts. “I told my
sister it would come to no good. No one ever listened. She’s dead
then.” Annabelle sucked in her lips as she blinked to keep her eyes
dry. She tried to say something but covered her mouth with a
gnarled hand. Merle waited, the way she did in depositions, for
silence to build and emotions to settle. Finally the old woman
gasped angrily, “All of them gone. It’s so unfair. Two of us left.
Me in this wicked old house as good as a jail, and one in a real
prison.”

“
Prison?”

“
Very sad the way he’s turned out,
but after his father’s appalling life —” Annabelle looked sharp
again, squinting at her visitor. “You want to hear it? Of course
you do. It’s made the entire countryside squeal with glee. Me,
buried alive in this tomb. Do you know we eat onion soup six days a
week?”

Merle bit her lip as the woman rambled on. “It
started with my brother. Departed this earth these thirty years. A
spoiled, thoughtless man. The heir to this grand estate. He thought
he was a fancy chef, or at least could employ one. Bought a lovely
old building in London, in the West End. He spent thousands of
pounds and lost it all. Terrible business man. And his son is
worse. Does something dodgy for a living.” She lifted her hands to
the glass ceiling. “And that is the legacy of my grandfather, the
wise and wonderful Armstrong Aloitius Rogers. Who built this house
and had such dreams for all of us.”

“
Rogers?” Merle blinked, trying to
engage this new information. “Your brother’s son, your nephew — is
he named Hugh Rogers?”

Annabelle narrowed her eyes. “So that
is
why
you’re here, to squeeze blood from this old stone. Many have tried
to recover the money he’s swindled them out of. You won’t be any
better at it. All you’ll winkle from this old body is onion soup, I
told you.”

“
No, I — I met him in France. This
man, Weston Strachie. Hugh says he swindled his father out of some
wine. A long time ago.”

A dry laugh came from the old woman’s mouth. “Hugh’s
been barking about that wine for years. Well, don’t worry, I want
nothing to do with him and his dirty dealings. I’m sure it’s some
tale Armstrong made up to make himself feel better for throwing
away all those pounds. Throw the blame off his own stupidity. Now
Hugh appeals to me from his prison cell in Paris. ‘Help me, Aunt
Annabelle.’” She snorted. “Not likely, laddie.”

Merle let her rankle subside. She had more
questions.

“
Weston came here, did
he?”

“
Oh, yes. We were all young then. He
was a friend of Hugh’s father. The restaurant business, always a
poor way to earn money, if one must. Let’s see. He came several
times, I believe. The year Virginia was here, though, she had just
come back from school. It was winter, I recall. He stayed for the
season, six or eight months.”

“
What year was that?”

“
Virginia was nineteen, I believe.
Sometime after the war. 1950, maybe.”

“
Why did he stay so
long?”

“
Armstrong enjoyed having a pal
around. Pudge and I were married then but — well. They didn’t get
along. Wes had energy. He loved to shoot and drink and all. He
wooed silly Virginia right from the start. Poor wretched girl. I
tried to warn her about men like him but she did love
him.”

Merle looked at the photo. “Was she wrong, do you
think? To run away with him?”

The leafless trees across the back garden made stark
designs on the sky. Annabelle’s voice was soft. She glanced at
Merle then disappeared into her memories.

“
Love is never wrong. But where it
leads you, that can be the biggest mistake, one you pay for all the
rest of your life. I fell in love with Pudge Gallagher against
everyone’s wishes. He was a buffoon, they said, but I didn’t see
that. I was blind. I found that out later, to my sorrow. He spent
my money and that was that. So were they right about Pudge, about
my mistake? The heart doesn’t hear that. I couldn’t tell Virginia
she would be unhappy, that she would, as you say, meet a painful
end with him, could I? She would have been unhappy if she’d stayed
— although we all liked to think we could have picked out someone
better for her than that slimy American. We always like to think we
know best for others, don’t we.” Annabelle sighed. “She was happy,
for awhile, do you think?”

“
I suppose,” Merle said. “Maybe
that's —” She stopped. To be happy for awhile seemed like such a
small thing.

“
All we get. Yes,” Annabelle said.
“Life is long, I can tell you. It has moments you cherish and those
you wish you could forget. You know what the poet said, ‘he who
kisses the joy as it flies lives in eternity’s
sunrise.’”

The smell of boiling onions wafted in from the hall.
Merle said goodbye. The Widow and her Gothic Mansion had come to
life. The bitterness, the loneliness, the empty rooms and dashed
dreams crashed in on her. She shivered, closing the heavy door
behind her.

In the car Merle tried to feel the coursing of life
through her veins, blood sending oxygen to her brain.
I am
alive
. Would she end up bitter and alone like Annabelle
Gallagher?
No
. She would not ruminate on her failures, on
her faults, on her losses. She
would not
. But she would send
Annabelle some money, a ham every Christmas, something to atone for
the sins of Weston Strachie. Wait, she had money now. Of course she
did. She’d send Annabelle a ham every
week.
She would stop
into that butcher shop in Hockingdon.

Yes, and then — she would move on. She sat straighter
and said it aloud: “I will move on.” Was this the release she’d
been looking for? Had she forgiven herself for her blinders and
blunders?

The sky was so blue suddenly, the clouds blown off to
the west. If this wasn’t forgiveness, it was a decent stand-in. It
would do. It was reality. She hadn’t loved Harry; he hadn’t loved
her. With any luck she would grow old, he would not. She would hold
her grandchildren, he would not. It was a hard bargain but she had
no choice. Accept death, she’d told herself. But what about life?
Was she ready to accept all it offered, good and bad? To open her
arms, her heart to anything and everything?

She opened her bag — that much she could do — to put
away the envelope of photographs and memories. There, tucked into a
side pocket, was the purple marble little Sophie had given her.
They had all met one Saturday in early October, Harry's extended
family: Courtney, Sophie, Tristan, and Merle, at a pizza parlor on
the Lower Eastside. There were nerves, lots of them, except for
Sophie who danced in wearing her red party dress and pink tights.
The little girl brought gifts, a marble for Merle and a rabbit’s
foot for Tristan. It had been so hard to tell Tristan about them.
He had cried, pounded his bed with his fists, and cursed his
father. Then the next week he sent her an email from school that he
wanted to meet Sophie. She was his sister. She was a connection to
his father, he wrote, a way to keep him in his life. Tristan was so
much wiser than she was, in so many ways.

The marble was smooth, veined with white. She rolled
it in her palms. Now that she didn’t have to worry about Tristan’s
future, she was concocting a plan to put aside money for Sophie
from the auction proceeds. But first she would invite Courtney and
Sophie for Thanksgiving dinner at her dark, shadowy house. It would
be awkward, difficult. There would be more nerves and probably
tears. But she would be brave. She wasn’t afraid of the future
now.

She shut her eyes and thought of Pascal. Was that
love? Probably not. She went days without thinking about him when
she was busy. But she could love again, it was possible. Her heart
wasn’t cold and dead. There was something left inside her, a
yearning for more. Another chance. A richer life. A second
half.

Possibility
. Was that all that it took to feel
alive? Could it be that it wasn’t getting the thing you desire
itself but the anticipation, the struggle, the dream of it that
makes living so amazing? Was it that simple?

The noon sun peeked out again from the clouds,
glinting off the car’s chrome. The old woman’s poem echoed in her
head. ‘Kisses the joy as it flies’— she got that. Annie would be
proud: enjoy the moment. But ‘eternity’s sunrise’— what the hell
did that mean? Hope? A new day? Always living in that moment when
the sun comes up, a new day begins and anything is possible — or —
or —

Merle touched a finger to her forehead and smiled.
The engine roared back to life. She didn't have a clue what the
poet meant.

And that was all right.

Be sure to check out these other novels

by Lise McClendon

The Bluejay Shaman

Painted Truth

Nordic Nights

Blue Wolf

One O'clock Jump

Sweet and Lowdown

www.lisemcclendon.com

follow me on twitter @lisemcclendon

and my blog at
http://www.lisemcclendon.wordpress.com

Also available from
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