A Light in the Window

by Julie Lessman

  Marcy’s eyelids shuttered closed as she wavered on her feet, desperate to stop what Evan was about to say, but knowing she could not. She felt his hand on her arm once again, tightening as if to steady her, and this time she didn’t fight, too numb to move.

  “I needed help at the center one night to move storage barrels that were too heavy for me alone,” he whispered, his voice a low drone, “so I asked Patrick. He’d already taken a night shift at work, so he suggested Sam instead, saying he had the night off. But when I went to Julie’s house to ask him, she said Sam was working, and then when I asked if she was sure, she insisted that’s what Sam told her.” Marcy heard Evan draw in a deep breath and release it while her own remained stagnant in her lungs. “I knew then that if Sam would lie to Julie, he had to have a reason …”

  Her body began to shake. “Because he was lying to me …” she whispered, the very words chilling her more than the cold.

  “Yes,” Evan said softly. “So I needed to find out for sure, because I couldn’t let him hurt you that way …”

  She nodded, unable to speak as she clung to Evan’s hand while it braced her arm.

  “I left Julie’s house that night and went straight to Brannigan’s, hoping against hope that Patrick was wrong and Sam wouldn’t be there, but he was …” She could almost feel the lump that bobbed in his throat. “And he wasn’t alone.”

  “M-maybe … maybe he was just t-talking to someone at the bar,” she said quickly, desperate to absolve this man who’d been her hero, her defender, her dream …

  Evan hesitated, as if his next words were as agonizing to say as they were for her to hear. “I know this is painful, Marcy, but I want there to be no mistaking the truth. I didn’t see Sam talking at the bar that night,” he said steadily, his free hand gripping hers on top of his own, “and I was greatly relieved when the barkeep said he wasn’t there.” The pressure of Evan’s hand increased, as if bracing Marcy for the truth that she didn’t want to hear. “But something didn’t feel right, so when I told the barkeep it was an emergency …” He paused to release a harsh breath that shivered her very soul. “He suddenly changed his tune and directed me to a back room where I found him ...” His voice tapered into a whisper. “In bed with another woman.”

  Lord, no, please … Grief broke through Marcy’s stupor, and with a heart-wrenching sob, she crumpled into Evan’s arms.

  “Marcy …,” Evan’s voice was gentle. “I can walk you home and tell Julie and Sam you didn’t feel well, if you like. Then you can deal with this in the morning.”

  She pulled from his hold, her face sodden with tears. “No, Evan, we need to see Father Fitz—”

  “Yes, well, about that,” he said quickly, gaze suddenly sheepish. “I’m afraid I stretched the truth a bit because I needed to talk to you alone, but I’ve already spoken to Father Fitz about what he wanted, so I figured I’d tag along while you delivered Mr. Mulholland’s check, then walk you home.”

  Marcy’s fingers shook as she pushed loose hairs from her face. “No, Evan, really—I’ll give the check to Father Fitz, but then I think I’d like to stay and talk to him for a while, maybe clear my mind a bit …”

  Evan gave her a tight hug. “That might be a good thing to do,” he said, “and I’ll go tell Julie and Sam you weren’t feeling well. But …” He pulled back to study her, concern mingling with the affection in his eyes. “I insist on walking you home after, all right?” She opened her mouth to decline, but he stopped her with a gentle finger to her lips and an air of authority she dare not defy. “No argument. I always have paperwork I can do, so just pop in when you’re ready, all right?”

  “Thank you,” she whispered, more tears blurring her eyes. “You’re a good friend.”

  His smile was tired. “So are you, which is why I had no choice but to tell you, but I’m truly sorry.”

  He turned to go, and she stopped him with a hand to his arm. “Does Sam know that you saw him?”

  He shook his head, exhaling more puffs of frothy air. “I don’t think so. It was dark, and I caught him by surprise with a hand to his eyes, but I definitely saw—and heard—him.”

  She nodded, absently pressing a palm to her abdomen to quell the nausea that roiled inside. “And Julie?” she whispered.

  “No, I don’t think she suspects anything either. She all but worships Sam, as you know, so I couldn’t bring myself to tell you or her until the play was over.”

  “I appreciate that,” Marcy whispered. “This will crush her as much as it did me, I’m afraid.”

  He nodded. “Well, I best head over to Robinson’s, but I’ll come right back to my office, so come get me when you’re done, all right?”

  She forced a faint smile. “Julie is a lucky girl, Evan Farrell—you’re a good man.”

  His mouth tipped in a sad smile. “So is Patrick O’Connor,” he said softly, “more than you know.”

  Patrick O’Connor. Her heart twisted. The man she’d judged all too quickly. Twice. Watching Evan walk away, Marcy quickly swiped at her eyes with the sleeve of her coat, then fished the check from her pocket, hoping her face wasn’t too mottled from her tears. She slowly mounted the steps and knocked on the door, her nerve diminishing with every second she waited. Just when she’d made the decision to bolt, the door wheeled open in a shaft of light from the parlour, and Marcy squinted with a hand to her eyes.

  “Marceline!” Father Fitz blinked, concern etching his brow. “Is something wrong?”

  That was all it took for the dam to break, spilling tears down her cheeks faster than Father Fitz could gather her in his arms, soothing with gentle strokes to her back. “There, there now, Marceline, I was just settling in with some tea—what say you join me?”

  With a loud sniff she nodded, allowing Father to lead her inside. He closed the door behind her with a finality that left her strangely at peace despite the grief in her heart. It was time, she suddenly realized, the thought hazy like the snow globe had been through the blur of her tears. Time to close the door ...

  On broken promises.

  On broken dreams.

  And on the broken heart she had hoped to never see …

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Eyes glazed, Marcy stared at the hearth in Father Fitz’s parlour, barely aware of the hot flames as they crackled and spit, the fire warming her limbs, but doing nothing for the chill in her soul. Father Fitz had led her to one of two gold wing chairs angled toward the hearth, given her a handkerchief and left to prepare the tea, allowing her much-needed time alone to weep while she waited. When he returned, he’d handed her the steaming brew and silently sat in the other chair, hands folded on his chest while he studied her through kind eyes etched with worry.

  Gaze lost in the fire, she forced a nasal laugh, the sound as hollow as the charred-out logs that hissed and popped beside her, filling the room with the comforting smell of wood smoke and oak. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, “you must think I’m crazy.”

  His low chuckle soothed as much as the warmth of the teacup in her hands. “If tears and heartbreak were indicative of ‘crazy,’ my dear girl, I’m afraid our institutions would be woefully full.” He paused. “What has wounded your heart, Marceline?” he said quietly. “Or perhaps I should say ‘who’?”

  She met his eyes then and knew in an instant she had come to the right place. Compassion warmed his gaze like the fire warmed the room, and in a fragile exhale of air, she felt that raw, bitter cold in her soul slowly begin to thaw. In a lifeless drone, her saga of woe gradually unraveled, along with the tangled knot in her stomach. From Nora’s lecherous fiancé to Patrick to Sam, she divulged her love for a rogue that apparently hadn’t been enough. Not for Sam with his insatiable lust for others and not for her, she suddenly realized, with her insatiable need for God. A need she longed to have met, both in her life and in that of the man she would marry.

  When she’d exhausted her tale and her tears, she sat on the edge of her chair, head in her hands and voice as l
ifeless as she. “Sam may have betrayed me, Father, but no more than I betrayed myself. I knew better than to trust a rogue with little use for God or His ways, but I was swept away by his charm and his family, which I longed to call my own. I had a niggle of doubt deep in my soul that I conveniently ignored,” she whispered, “especially lately.” She shuddered despite the warmth of the fire. “But I should have known—you can’t trust a man with an eye for women.”

  Father Fitz rose to stir the embers, a shower of sparks hissing into the flue. “Usually, no,” he mused, “but there are times when God intervenes and uses a woman such as yourself to change the most blatant of rogues. Sam’s mother and father are certainly an example of that.”

  She grunted and took a sip of her tea. “Well, I certainly tried with Sam, Father, and truly thought he was on his way to being the man God wants him to be.” Her dismissive air quickly dissipated with a sudden swell of tears. “I so longed for it to work,” she said softly, “to be a sister to Julie as well as a wife to Sam, and a part of a large family I so dearly love.” She sniffed and took a sip of her tea. “Longed for it too much, I suppose, given how easily I was deceived. But obviously it wasn’t meant to be.”

  He observed her over the rim of his cup, blue eyes pensive. “I’m sorry to hear that, Marceline,” he said before carefully setting his cup aside. Elbows cocked on the arms of his chair, he steepled his fingers to his chin. “But then again, maybe not.”

  Her cup stilled against her mouth, steam misting her face as she stared, confused by his remark. Shrugging if off, she blew on her tea and sipped before settling back in her chair with a mournful sigh, gaze lapsing into the flames once again. “Ever since Nora was betrayed by her fiancé,” she whispered, “I’ve prayed that God would spare me a similar fate, that He’d bring me a man whose heart longs for the same things as mine—a marriage and family with God at the core. And what do I get?” She shivered. “A rogue almost as bad as Nora’s.” She grunted again. “Not exactly the answer I wanted.”

  “Ah, but, Marceline,” Father Fitz said, “sometimes the answer He gives unlocks an unlikely door to our dreams, but we’re too afraid to enter.” He hesitated. “And sometimes it’s the very thing we prayed against.”

  She peered up, face in a squint. “A rogue?” A bitter laugh tripped from her lips as she vehemently shook her head. “I’m sorry, Father, but I could never trust a rogue like Sam again.”

  “No, not Sam,” he said with an absent-minded scratch of his neck, face pinched in thought. “But there is another whose heart you’ve stolen and with it, I believe, the propensity to ever play the rogue again.”

  “What do you mean?” she said slowly, not sure she wanted to know.

  His smile was kind. “I mean a young man so smitten, Marceline, he has even ventured to explore a deeper faith in God with a doddering old priest.”

  She blinked before her head wagged back and forth. “No, Father, I’m sorry—I’m through with rogues, be it Sam O’Rourke or his rakish best friend. Men like that love themselves far more than they can ever love a woman, and I’ll not settle for a weak imitation.”

  Eyes softening with fondness, he assessed her with a smile that faded along with his voice. “Aye, and wise you are, but the rogue I speak of harbors a love for you so strong, Marceline, that he’s even given away a piece of his soul to express it.”

  “Patrick?” she whispered, the very utterance of his name clouding her mind.

  His head dipped in assent. “I’m sure you’re aware that Patrick has scrimped and saved for years now to attend Boston University in the spring?”

  She nodded slowly.

  “Yes, well, it’s been his dream for quite some time to write for The Boston Herald someday.” He shook his head while a grin inched across his lips. “I’ll give him this—he’s a cocky lad to be sure.” He winked. “Has his eye on becoming the editor, you know …”

  She swallowed hard, the whites of her eyes expanding along with her shock. No, I didn’t …

  “Yes, it seems he’s a man on a mission, our Patrick … or was … until he met you.” He chuckled and reached for his pipe, tamping tobacco into the bowl. “Never have I seen a rogue quite so discombobulated.” He lit it and took a long draw, releasing a curl of smoke that smelled faintly of vanilla and maple. Gentle eyes locked with hers, fusing her to the spot. “The simple truth is—the boy’s desperately in love with you, Marceline.”

  She shook her head long before her name ever left his tongue. “Not love, Father,” she insisted with a nip of anger, “lust maybe or pride or just plain obstinance to win the only woman who doesn’t want him, but surely not love.”

  He eyed her while he puffed on his pipe, assessing her through patient eyes. “One does not sacrifice one’s dreams for lust or pride or obstinance, my dear,” he said quietly. A haze of smoke as foggy as her mind drifted up to hover, thick and motionless like the air in her lungs. “Nor does one silently forsake his own financial future.”

  She opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. Not words, not air. Her throat convulsed as she tried to draw a breath, eyelids twitching as if they, too, struggled to perform. “I … I don’t understand,” she whispered.

  Father Fitz laid his pipe aside for a moment to lean forward, elbows on his knees and hands loosely clasped. “I mean that the money that was found buried under the snow was not the money stolen from the center.”

  Her mouth fell open like one of the bass she and Sam had caught that day at O’Reilly Lake, expelling shallow air as if she’d just sprinted around that very body of water. “B-but … b-but … I thought the … the children found it …”

  He dipped his head with a faint smile. “Yes, yes, indeed they did, but I thought that rather curious, didn’t you?”

  She considered his question, absently grating her lip. “Well, n-no, not particularly. I was just so grateful at the time that I never even thought about it.”

  He gave a short nod. “Yes, well, I did, but I’m ashamed to say I let it go …” He reached for a soiled folded manila envelope behind his pipe on the table and handed it to her with a scrunch of his nose, pinching it at the corner with forefinger and thumb. “Until the police delivered this rather unsavory parcel a few days ago.”

  Pinpricks of shock tingled her skin as she grasped the corner of the envelope like he’d done, dangling it from her hand. Her neat script on the front was marred with grime, but still readable—A Light in the Window. She glanced up with saucer eyes, the air in her lungs refusing to budge once again. “T-this is … ” She swallowed the shock in her throat. “The envelope that was s-stolen from me …”

  “Yes, of course it is, Marceline,” he said gently. “The police found it on one of the transients that came to the center. There’s only about four of the five hundred there, so apparently he’s been drinking up quite a storm.”

  “B-but how …”

  “That’s what I wanted to know,” Father Fitz said, placing the dirty envelope back on the table. He eased back in his chair and rested his head on a crisp Irish doily, hands neatly folded on his chest. “So I decided to play the sleuthhound, you might say, quizzing the little girl who actually found the money.”

  “Yes, Rebecca Moriarty, I remember.”

  The barest hint of a smile played on his lips. “And I discovered something very interesting—she was an unwitting co-conspirator with another girl who was actually a plant.”

  “A plant?” Marcy said with a squint.

  “A ploy, a spy, a lackey if you will, someone sent on a secret mission.”

  “But … but I don’t understand,” Marcy said again.

  “Ah, yes, but perhaps you will when I tell you the little girl in question is none other than our own precocious Tillie Dewey, who, apparently, was tapped to “hide” the money that Miss Moriarty found. Only it wasn’t ‘the’ stolen money, per se, but ‘his’ money.” His eyes honed in on her with keen precision, his voice as faint as she. “The hard-earned funds of a rogue who’
d labored well over three years to save for a college education.”

  Her eyelids flickered closed as goose bumps shivered her arms. She was barely able to breathe, much less speak the name that finally shuddered from her lips. “P-Patrick?”

  Father Fitz’s voice was as gentle as the slow, heady warmth that curled in her belly. “One and the same, Marceline,” he whispered, “the one rogue of the two whose life you changed forever.”

  Hot tears stung beneath her lids, the magnitude of what Patrick had done for her coursing through her body, her mind, in languid waves of warmth that seeped to the very tips of her fingers and toes. Awareness ebbed and flowed in her brain like surf on a shore, sweeping away the footprints of the man she believed him to be, replaced now by the man that he was, shimmering sand, unmarred by an unholy past. A sob slowly rose in her throat as she slumped forward, head in her hands, weeping tears of grief mingled with joy.

  “Marceline.”

  She felt the stroke of Father Fitz’s hand on her hair and slowly looked up, her chest shuddering with frail heaves.

  “I’m no prophet, mind you, but if I were, I’d say that God has answered your prayers, young lady, by giving you a good man whose heart is not only redeemed …” He patted her shoulder, lips in a quirk, “but yours for the taking.” He returned to his seat to hunch on the edge as before, hands casually clasped. “Mind you, it’s none of my business, but you might say Patrick has become very special to me. He’s a young man in whom you’ve sparked a keen interest in God, something I’ve been striving to do since his first of many detentions.” He absently scratched his jaw with the side of his hand. “And, if I must say so myself, the young man has grown admirably in his faith.” He scrutinized her with a sober smile. “So you’ll forgive me if I feel a wee bit compelled to ask, Marceline … do you have feelings for the boy at all?”

  She blinked, his question catching her unaware. Her gaze drifted back to the fire, while her mind traveled back to the heated kiss on her porch and the subsequent apology. Memories flashed of his kindness with the poor and elderly at the center, his little-boy playfulness with her and the children, or his willingness to help wherever he was needed. She envisioned his strong, capable body working side-by-side with Evan while Sam supposedly worked extra shifts at the Herald, or his keen wit and teasing manner that never seemed to know a sour mood. No question that his fierce tenderness and protectiveness for Tillie and Holly had won her heart as a friend … but could he win her heart as something far more? Her eyes drifted closed at the image of a man who had probed and plied her with questions about God and her faith while Sam had merely nodded and smiled and went on his way. And then, in a crackling flicker of the flames in the hearth, Mima’s words slowly circled in her brain ...