The Blackstone Chronicles

Chapter 7

Dusk had fallen as Andrea pulled up in front of her mother’s house. In all the other houses on the block, except for the Hartwicks’ next door, windows were already glowing with light, and thin curtains revealed glimpses of warm, inviting interiors. Only her mother’s house was dark; save for the dim porch light that might provide a measure of safety to someone climbing the front steps, but offered no real welcome, the house appeared to be deserted. Yet Andrea was certain her mother was at home. She could almost feel Martha’s unforgiving presence inside, almost see her kneeling on the prie-dieu, her fingers clicking through her rosary beads while her lips formed the words, Hail Mary, Mother of God. Pray for us now and in the hour of … Except that it would be the Ave Maria her mother was reciting, repeating the prayer over and over again in the original Latin, understanding no more of the prayers she uttered than she understood the daughter she’d raised.
Andrea shut off the car’s engine, but instead of getting out of the Toyota, she reached into her purse, found her cigarettes, and used the dragon to light one. As she sat in the car, smoking her cigarette, she idly flicked the lighter on and off, watching the tongue of flame flare quickly, then die away. The cigarette was only half smoked when she was startled by a rap on the glass and glanced over to see Rebecca peering worriedly through the curbside window.
“Andrea? Are you all right?”
Stubbing the cigarette out in the car’s ashtray, Andrea got out. “I’m okay, I guess.” She sighed, knowing she wasn’t okay at all. The first terrible doubt about what she’d done had set in even before she’d gotten back in her car. Over and over, she’d tried to convince herself that she’d done the right thing, but she still hadn’t been able to rid herself of the nagging feeling that she could have coped with the situation another way. Surely she could have found some kind of job: pregnant women worked all the time—lots of them right up until a week or so before they were ready to deliver. And after the baby was born, there would have been lots of options. She could have put the baby up for adoption, or maybe even kept it and—
Stop it, she commanded herself. It’s over and done with.
Rebecca was still looking at her anxiously. Andrea forced herself to smile as she came around to the curb. “Hey, it’s all right,” she said. “I’m going to be okay. And look, I’m sorry about this morning, okay? I mean, I was having morning sickness and feeling like a mess, and—well, you were there, so I took it all out on you. So I’m sorry. And I really like the lighter. I’ve been using it all day.”
“But with the baby—” Rebecca began, but Andrea didn’t let her finish.
“Will you stop worrying? I said everything’s going to be okay. All right?” They were on the porch now, and as Rebecca opened the front door, Andrea smelled the familiar, choking scent of incense and candle smoke, and heard the drone of the recorded chanting. “She’s praying, isn’t she?”
Rebecca nodded. “I was just starting supper.”
“I’ll help.” Andrea hung her coat in the closet, then followed Rebecca into the kitchen, where the table was set for two.
Rebecca, seeing Andrea’s eyes fix on the two places, reddened. “I didn’t know whether you were going to be here or not,” she said quickly. “I’ll set another—”
“For God’s sake, Rebecca, take it easy. I’ll set another place.” She eyed the small table at which she and her mother had eaten all their meals since her father had left, and at which, presumably, Rebecca and her mother had been eating for the last twelve years. “I have an idea. What do you say we use the dining room?”
Rebecca’s eyes widened. “I don’t think Aunt Martha would like that.”
“Who cares what Mother would like?” Andrea countered. “What about what you and I would like? Haven’t you ever wanted to eat in the dining room?” Without waiting for an answer, Andrea scooped the two place settings off the kitchen table and put them back in the cabinet to the right of the sink. “And I think we’ll just use the good silver tonight too,” she announced.
Half an hour later Rebecca dished the warmed-up pot roast, left over from the night before, onto the good china. Just as she and Andrea were carrying the plates in from the kitchen, the chanting from the chapel stopped abruptly and Martha Ward appeared at the end of the hall. Before her mother could say a word, Andrea spoke.
“We’re eating in the dining room tonight, Mother.”
“We never eat in the dining room,” Martha stated.
“Well, we are tonight. The kitchen table’s too small, and what’s the point of having a dining room if we never use it?”
“The dining room is for company,” Martha said coldly.
“Come on, Mother. When was the last time you had company?”
Martha’s lips pursed in disapproval, but she said nothing until she came into the dining room and surveyed the table. Andrea had not only set it with the good silver, but had put a cloth on the table, and candles in the twin candelabra that had stood unused on the sideboard for a quarter of a century. Rebecca hovered near the door, certain that Martha was going to demand that supper be moved to the kitchen and the dining room table be cleared instantly. When her aunt finally spoke, though, the chill in her voice had softened slightly.
“Perhaps we can consider this a celebration of Andrea’s homecoming,” she said. The tension in the room eased slightly, and Rebecca and Andrea took their seats on opposite sides of the table as Martha settled herself into the chair at the head. “But only for tonight,” she went on. “I’m sure the three of us can fit around the kitchen table perfectly comfortably. Shall we say grace?”
Martha bowed her head. Andrea winked conspiratorially at Rebecca, who quickly tilted her own head forward and clasped her hands as her aunt muttered the prayer. When Martha was done, she picked up her knife and fork, cut a piece of pot roast, and put it in her mouth. She chewed it for a long time, finally swallowed it, then fixed her eyes on her daughter. “I spoke to Monsignor Vernon this morning, Andrea.”
Andrea looked at her mother guardedly. “Oh?”
“He says I must pray for you.”
Andrea tensed, girding herself for the lecture she knew her mother was preparing to deliver. “I’m afraid it’s a little late for that,” Andrea ventured. “I haven’t been as good as you about going to church.”
Martha regarded her daughter sadly, as if contemplating whether it was already far too late for her to find redemption. Still, she thought, she must follow her priest’s instructions. “Monsignor Vernon says I must pray that you will find a way to return to the arms of the Lord. For the sake of the baby,” she added pointedly, lest Andrea mistake her purpose.
Andrea, about to put a bite of food in her mouth, slowly put down her fork, then looked directly at her mother. “If you’re planning to pray for my baby,” she said, “you don’t need to waste your time. There isn’t going to be a baby. I went back down to Boston today and had it taken care of.”
Martha Ward’s face paled. “Taken care of?” she repeated, her voice barely audible. “Exactly what do you mean, Andrea?”
Andrea searched her mother’s face for any trace of sympathy for what she’d been going through, any hint that her mother might understand why she’d done what she had. But there was none, and suddenly the doubts she’d had about the abortion vanished as she realized the future her child would have had: Her mother would have found some way—any way—to take the baby away from her. Then the child would have grown up in this house, suffocated by her mother’s fanaticism, believing that it was conceived in sin and damned for all eternity.
With a certainty proved by the unforgiving sanctimony of her mother’s expression, Andrea knew she’d made the right decision.
“I mean I had an abortion this afternoon, Mother.”
A stifling shroud of silence fell over the dining room as Martha and Andrea stared at each other. Finally, Martha rose from her chair and pointed an accusing finger at her daughter. “Murderess,” she hissed. Then her voice rose. “Murderess! May you burn in Hell!”
Turning her back on her daughter, Martha Ward strode out of the room. Within seconds the sound of Gregorian chants swelled through the house.
“She’s praying for you,” Rebecca said softly.
“No she isn’t,” Andrea replied. “She’s praying for herself. She doesn’t give a damn about me.”
“That isn’t true,” Rebecca said. “She loves you.”
Now Andrea too was on her feet. “No she doesn’t, Rebecca. She doesn’t love anyone.” Tears streaming down her cheeks, Andrea fled from the dining room.
As the house filled with the mysterious droning rhythm of the chanting, Rebecca sadly cleared the dining room table and wondered if it would ever be used again.
*  *  *

Rebecca wasn’t certain what woke her up; indeed, at first she wasn’t sure she’d fallen asleep at all. Though the doors to her small room were closed, she could still hear the music emanating from the chapel, just as it had been when she’d gone to bed. Rolling over, she glanced at the little travel alarm clock she’d brought down from Andrea’s room yesterday afternoon.
Three o’clock.
Three o’clock?
She sat up in bed, wide-awake now, and for the first time noticed something else.
There was a smell in the house; not the normal sickly sweet smell of her aunt’s incense, but the acrid odor of the smoke that had filled the living room the one time she’d tried to use the fireplace, only to discover that her aunt had long ago had the chimney blocked to keep the house from losing heat.
Smoke?
Getting out of bed, Rebecca pulled on her bathrobe as she went to the pocket doors that separated her sleeping room from the dining room beyond. Before the panels were even inches apart, the acrid smell grew stronger, and she choked as she drew in a breath of smoky air. Throwing the doors wide open, she ran to the foot of the stairs.
The smoke was far thicker there. She watched in horror as more of it billowed down from the floor above.
“Fire!” she yelled up the stairs. “Andrea, get out! The house is on fire!” When there was no reply, she started up the stairs, but the smoke immediately drove her back down, coughing and gasping for breath. Her mind racing, she shouted again, this time to her aunt, then ran back to the kitchen to snatch up the phone. Fumbling twice, she finally managed to punch 911 into the keypad. Dropping to the floor to avoid the smoke that was now pouring into the kitchen from the hallway, she yelled into the phone the moment the emergency operator came on the line: “It’s Rebecca Morrison—please! Help! The house is burning. I live at—” Suddenly, Rebecca’s mind blanked, and she felt panic rising in her. Then she heard the operator’s voice.
“I already have the address,” the operator told her. “You’re at 527 Harvard. The engines are on the way.”
Dropping the phone, Rebecca ran out of the kitchen and back down the hall. At the foot of the stairs she shouted for her cousin once more, then charged through to the other side of the house, jerking open the door to her aunt’s chapel.
All the candles were lit, and her aunt was on her knees at the prie-dieu, her head bowed, her fingers clutching her rosary.
“Aunt Martha!” Rebecca shouted. “The house is on fire! We have to get out!”
Slowly, almost as if in a trance, Martha Ward turned her head and gazed at Rebecca. “It’s all right, child,” she said softly. “The Lord will look after us.”
Ignoring her aunt’s words, Rebecca grabbed Martha Ward’s arm and, with all her strength tugged her to her feet, then out of the candlelit room and into the foyer. Jerking the front door open, she shoved her aunt out onto the porch, then stumbled after her. Rain had begun to fall, but Rebecca ignored it as she pulled Martha off the porch and out into the yard as sirens wailed in the night. Rebecca looked up to the second floor, once again calling out her cousin’s name. But even as she shouted to Andrea, she knew it might already be too late: unlike any of the other windows in the house, Andrea’s were glowing orange from the flames that danced within.
Rebecca sank to her knees on the front lawn. Oblivious to the rain and the cold, with tears streaming down her face, she joined her aunt in prayer.