Rose for Rose: Book Two in the Angels' Mirror Series (15 page)

Nineteen

Vancouver, Washington… August 14, 2013

Edward sighed into the night.

Rain.

Not that they didn’t need rain, they did, but he had really wanted to go for a stroll less moist. Now that his energy was beginning to come back to him, he made an effort to walk a few blocks each night.

Just a few.

This time he’d walked five; the furthest since his heart surgery. He was making progress.

Thank You, God! Couldn’t have done it without You, that’s for sure!

Another three houses to pass, and he was home.

The familiar two-story home, which they’d had custom-designed with double gables, three fireplaces, wide front porch and sunroom-type area in the back, was always a comfort to come home to.

Careful not to let Petunia Grace out as he reentered through the sliding glass door at the back, he slid off his shoes and turned them over to dry on the closest heating grate. Then he stretched with a yawn, and tried to roll a crick out of his neck. Thankful, not for the first time, that they’d decided to make this back area a mudroom of sorts, he let out a peaceful sigh as he made his way into the main part of the house.

In the background, he could hear Paloma talking to the boys, telling them to go back to bed.

It took effort to hold back a chuckle, and then it escaped.

He quietly exited the area and rounded the corner into the living room, where he could watch the encounter. Too late, he saw that Chosen had spotted him anyway, and was moving with a wobbly gait  towards him, chubby little feet bare, nothing but an old tee-shirt and a diaper on.

Duncan followed suit as Paloma easily turned. Her arms were empty and he didn’t hear Cherish wailing, as she had been when he’d left a little while earlier.

“Daddy, Daddy, Chosen not want beddy by.”

Chosen pulled at his damp grey slacks.

“Me, eiver, Daddy. Me, eiver!”

Duncan’s big blue eyes held unshed tears. Rocco the tattered teddy bear was dragging behind him by a leg, his blue bow beginning to unravel.

As he bent down to his sons’ level, Edward hugged them. “It’s past bedtime, though, boys. You know better than this.”

“Tirsty, Daddy,” Chosen said, draping his arms around Edward’s sodden slacks.

With a quiet sigh, he stood, reaching for each of their hands. “While Mama gets you some water, I’ll read you one last story, and then you must go to sleep.”

Turning, he smiled at Paloma, who just shook her head.

She had to know that he couldn’t ever resist time with his children.

After helping Chosen change into dry pajamas, he turned to the boys with their wide eyes and eager smiles.

“So, we can read
I Don’t Care, Said the Bear
, or, hmmm…
The Little Engine That Could
,” he said as they allowed him to tuck them into the matching Buzz Lightyear-bedizened
Toy Story
beds of their blue and green starred room.

“No, no Daddy. Gouchy Labybug! Gouchy Labybug,” Chosen said.

Duncan, less verbal when he was tired, just nodded in assent vigorously.

Not
The Grouchy Ladybug
, again!

Edward sighed as he resigned himself to reading it for the twelfth time in three days. Or was it thirteenth? He’d lost track about the time he’d gotten the story memorized. Ten years from now, he could probably recite the thing if this kept up for much longer.

Oddly enough, when Edward had looked up some information on the author, Eric Carle, it seemed he’d been born in 1929, in New York… right before Rose came through the mirror to 2013. And not awfully far from where she’d lived.

Strange.

Very strange.

As though there was something about their time and place he was supposed to learn in order to gain the full story of the mirror. He wasn’t entirely sure…

“Alright, but then it’s bedtime.” The twins sat up again in their beds, and he covered them up again, just as Paloma brought in their water.

When he walked to their little bookshelf, Edward quickly found the book, sat in the oak rocker between the beds, and began to read.

Silently slipping out of the twins’ room and leaving it open just a crack, Edward went to find Paloma. She was sipping tea on the couch, deep in thought.

Did she even hear him come in? Her eyes were faraway.

“Paloma,” he whispered.

No reply. Just the faraway look.

“Paloma,” he gently reached out a hand, brushing her leg with his fingertips. Next to him on the couch, she jumped just a little. “What’s wrong?”

When he looked at her more closely, Edward could tell she’d been crying while he’d been reading. Her hair was loosely piled on top of her head, and streamers of it were falling all around her. She pushed a few strands out of her face before speaking.

“They found Rose finally… yesterday morning, I think Eugenie said, at a neighbor’s place, and… she still doesn’t want to go and…. But Mark….” She paused; sipped some tea.

Finally, their eyes met before she skittered her gaze away into a distant nothing. “Mark somehow got Max and Daniella’s contact information and he… he had them tell Peter… he told them Rose was here and she wasn’t welcome; that she was better off with her family, so… Well, his daughter, Jeanette is already on the way here, and….”

She stopped and looked at him. “Edward, what’s going to happen to her? She’s been through a lot already!”

A shiver ran down his spine at the fear in his wife’s voice, and he waited, his eyes locked onto her face. There were no words he could say that would console her, because he really
didn’t
have any answers.

She’d know insincerity from a mile away…

Finally, when he thought she wouldn’t speak any more, she kept going, her voice fragile and tight.

“And on top of that, Eugenie told me all sorts of things she’s figured out Mark has been hiding from her, from us, from…. Well, and for who knows how long he’s hidden them? I can’t even imagine how he was able to hide….”

New tears began to slide down her cheeks, and Edward didn’t try to stop them. Instead, he reached for her hand, running his thumb across it as he held it.

After a few moments, Paloma was able to compose herself once more.

“Well, what happened,” he finally asked her gently. “What’s the big secret?”

She took a moment to drink some of her tea, then nestled back into his shoulder before she resumed.

“Eugenie found out Mark has been… he’s been obsessing over some girl who was killed a few years back. There were two, and one was pregnant, but the one that wasn’t… well, Mark…. He’s just completely gone bonkers obsessed over the woman,” she said in a rush, hands twisting the scalloped hem of the turquoise V-neck tee-shirt she wore underneath an off-white crocheted cardigan.

A couple of her fingers knotted the pieces together into an ocean of stress before unwinding and beginning the process all over again.

He could see her fingers working the fabric and knew there was more to it than she was saying. Whatever Mark’s motive for his obsession, there had to be a logical explanation, right?

Or did there?

What has Mark gotten himself involved in now
, Edward wondered as he waited for Paloma to continue.
And how long has he been at this? It makes no sense…

Petunia Grace rrrowled and jumped up beside him and sprawled across his lap, her paws in Paloma’s, kneading.

“He’s got a big file on her, and I guess he’s… he’s been searching her out online to see if she’s still, somehow, really alive – or so he says. And it seems the letters he’s been writing to that guy in prison….” She paused, curling herself against him even further, freeing a hand to idly pet the cat’s silky blue-point fur.

Petunia’s big blue eyes and short legs, social personality, and fur softer than any Edward had ever encountered in a pet, always mesmerized him. Her fur reminded him of a combination of velvet and silk.

“You know… that Arthur person… he’s told him a lot about some of us. Eugenie could tell from the replies; she found a stash of over a hundred of them, Edward! And somehow, the two things are connected. But now, with the stuff with Rose, what do we…?”

She sighed.

The front of Edward’s shirt was damp with her tears.

He was stunned, but then again, why should it surprise him? Mark had been acting strange for a long time… and as for Rose, at least the girl was back and safe, and that’s what mattered, right?

He still hadn’t gotten to trade stories with her, and maybe, if Peter’s daughter came soon, he wouldn’t be able to. But in the long run, which was more important, his family, or learning about the mirror?

Mark’s idiosyncrasies and secrets coming to light might be related to its history, if he was reading the signs right. But it wasn’t the most important thing… not to him; not right now, as sad as it was.

The deeper importance was his family, no doubt about it.

As much as he wanted to gain a better understanding of why the mirror transported people… of what sort of power was behind it, for good or for evil, his family had to come first. They had to.

Even if Rose felt like family because she’d come through the same mirror he had. Even if the mirror was something that drew him mightily. It wasn’t enough. His family was.

It was time to admit that God’s plan might not involve finding the mirror’s origins and history… but as long as God didn’t prevent it, Edward knew he had to learn more.

Even if Mark turned out to have told Arthur more than he should ever know, and it costs them all their privacy… a betrayal of the worst kind… Edward had to remember that God was in control. Whether he met his goal or not.

Or was there something even more to it than met the eye… something even deeper he hadn’t thought of or considered?

His priorities had to lay first with God, then his family, even if he and Rose never got to share stories of the mirror experience.

With a quiet sigh, he took his wife’s hand again.

She straightened, and he looked into her violet-blue eyes once more, caressing the near-heart shape of her face with the knuckles of his free hand. His thoughts continued to race within him even as his wife’s mood seemed to shift for the better.

The cat jumped down and scurried toward the kitchen, causing him to startle, and he pulled away from the kiss he was about to give her. He threaded his fingers together with his wife’s and smiled at her tenderly, his heart pulsing hard within him. And it was then that he kissed her, his thoughts still racing within him.

Why was Mark trying so hard to rid himself of the girl, and so soon? And why was he obsessed with a woman who was murdered? Was it really one of the women Mark’s friend Arthur had killed so many years ago, and if so, why would he even communicate with the man? Not that he figured Paloma knew what happened. They hadn’t discussed it.

After some rocky moments, Edward and Paloma thought they had really known Mark, but everything that came with the appearance of Rose had stymied them, at least with Mark’s behavior. Everyone else seemed to take it in stride.

Even Eugenie.

And she, alone, had taken the largest brunt of things, aside from trying to get her out of their house. If anything, she seemed to want Rose to stay, almost like she needed a buffer from her own husband’s erratic behavior.

Was it because she was so newly pregnant, or was there some other explanation?

For being a psychologist, Mark sure isn’t acting very professionally, or logically
, Edward thought, frowning.
Shouldn’t he, more than the rest of us, know how very fragile Rose’s mental and emotional health must be right now?

As for Mark’s obsession, maybe it was another weird quirk, like when he picked at invisible lint off his clothing, or pulled at strands that aren’t really loose.

He was OCD, after all.

But even still, there was a huge difference between picking at your pants and hunting for a woman who’s already dead as though she were alive.

Paloma’s words brought Edward back to the present… out of the meanderings of his mind: “I just find it hard to believe that he’s doing it because he truly cares about what’s best for Rose. That’s what really scares me, Edward. His lack of regard for her welfare.”

All of a sudden, Petunia jumped up next to him on the couch again, walking into his lap and perching there.

Paloma flinched a little before reaching over and stroking the cat’s long soft fur. A smile emerged on her face, and he was glad for it.

“I’m not sure what to believe about Mark anymore, Mon Cher Amour, I really don’t.” Momentarily using his free hand to try rubbing the weariness from his face, he then resumed the rhythmic motion of scratching the cat, keeping his fingers close to her ears.