Niki said, “Mom and Dad and I were, uh, visiting in here when Cyrus stopped by. And Dad’s right, it was odd. Cyrus’s never done that before, but he said he had to talk to us.”
Connie added, “Cyrus asked Niki for some water but before she could get it, he said he didn’t feel well and then he collapsed.” She looked down at her hands, which were still intertwined with her daughter’s. “I stayed beside him. He never opened his eyes or spoke again.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Grace saw Stark bow his head for a second before turning to face them. “It’s a shock,” he said. “He’s always been here, good times when you wish he wasn’t hanging around, and bad times when he handled everything, took over.”
Grace thought he was stating facts, not conveying gratitude.
“Maybe we should go to the hospital?” Niki asked.
“What for, girl?” Stark said, some of his belligerence resurfacing. “We aren’t family, and he wasn’t dead when they took him out. We’d only be in the way and they aren’t going to tell us anything.”
“But, I still —”
“I’d rather find out what Grace came to see us about,” Stark said, rolling over his daughter’s protest.
“It can wait,” Grace said, rising from her chair. “I’ll go to the hospital.”
“I thought you would,” Stark said. Connie and Niki looked at each other and back at Stark, who gave them a sly smile. “She’s the only one of us who has any reason to go, right, Grace?”
Grace couldn’t tell if he was serious or ridiculing her. He was watching her intently.
“You’re the perfect blend, you know?” Stark went on. “Tall and eyes blue enough to be a real Delaney, but your hair and your face… By God, you look just like her. You’re an Anders on the inside, I’m thinking. But of course, there’s that little something extra you alone are blessed with.”
The challenge hung in the air between them, but only for the second it took Grace to cross the room and stand toe to toe with her uncle.
“Is Cyrus Mosley my father?” she demanded.
She heard Connie and Niki gasp, but Stark didn’t hesitate with his answer. “Yes.”
She wasted too much time on Stark. “I just know, okay?” was the only response he gave to the barrage of questions Grace hurled at him.
With Niki right behind her, she raced to the hospital in Easton only to find Mosley had been swept into a labyrinth of medical care. After an hour of being shuffled from waiting rooms to offices, Niki finally shouted the magic words, “She’s his daughter!”
The beleaguered emergency room clerk gave Grace a ‘why didn’t you say so’ look and picked up the phone. Minutes later, a harried young doctor joined them.
“Your father had a stroke, a rather major one, I’m afraid. We did what we could —”
“He’s dead?” Niki cried.
“No, no. We did what we could here, I was going to say. But we aren’t certified to handle that kind of surgery and post op. He’s on his way to the University of Maryland Stroke Center in Baltimore. Do you know where it is?”
They found it, and two hours later, Niki repeated what Grace still prayed was a lie. They were led to another waiting room with another sympathetic doctor. There, they waited through the surgery to remove a clot and the heart attack that followed. Dawn was breaking as they left the hospital. Cyrus was alive, but just barely. The odds were slim that he would survive, even less that he would wake up. Grace would have stayed, hoping for a chance to ask her question, but the doors to the post-surgical unit didn’t open for visitors. Not even for daughters.
Mosley didn’t wake up.
When Grace called the hospital later that afternoon, she was met with a wall of evasion. She was getting into her car for the drive to Baltimore when her cell rang, displaying office number for Mosley, Kastner and Associates. Her conversation with Mosley’s partner was short and to the point. She sat in the car for a long time deciding what to do next.
November 1, 1973
Dear Mother,
I know I’m not making sense on the phone and I’m sorry for scaring you. You have your own problems I know, but this time I have to have your help. If there was any way not to burden you with the children, I would keep them here. But Stark is so withdrawn he scares me with his silence and Julia is underfoot constantly trying to ‘help’ me. I can’t make the arrangements and care for them, too.
As bad as Ford’s death was, it was his choice. He wanted to leave us, God alone knows why, and I won’t grieve for him, only for what might have been if he’d stayed.
But this loss, my Tony. My baby.
Stark says he’s nearly grown, but a boy of sixteen should not have to bury his brother and comfort his mother. It has been two weeks since the funeral and I have to do something. Anything to break out of this paralysis.
Stark and Julia packed up Tony’s room. Can you believe it? I walked in there yesterday and it was as neat as a pin. All the boxes stacked in the corner were labeled in Julia’s neat little letters. I wanted to die right there. But, of course, I won’t. And I won’t let my babies take care of me, either.
We have to get out of here. I’m telling Julia and Stark they are going to you for a long holiday break, but I will close everything up here, get the house on the market and then join you all in Asheville. Maybe then I’ll be able to breathe. Leaving here will be hard for them, but not for me. With the children all gone - to you and to God - there won’t be anything here I care about. The hardest thing will be packing up Ford’s clothes and the papers in his desk. I haven’t touched them since he died. I need to be able to go through that grief alone, not while there are children in the house.
Breaking the news of the move to Cyrus will be painful, too. He’s tried to handle everything I needed, but he couldn’t mend the hole in my heart. Now I’ll finish breaking his when I tell him the children and I are leaving.
I’ll get the house sold as quickly as possible, and then I’ll join you in Asheville. After all this time, I am really coming home.
Love,
Emma
Chapter Forty-Seven
Mosley’s partner, Paul Kastner, was very clear. He held Mosley’s legal and medical power of attorney and was the executor of his estate. He didn’t sugarcoat his message when he told Grace she wasn’t Mosley’s daughter and any further representations to the contrary would land her in serious trouble. Grace knew it was legal hot air, but was so relieved to hear the magic words ‘not his daughter’, she quickly agreed with Kastner’s demands. She hadn’t heard a word from him since.
With Cyrus off limits and Stark refusing to cooperate, she was left with a lot of agitation and only work as an outlet. On Saturday, she threw herself into painting and by the time Benny Pannel showed up, she had finished the butler’s pantry and was halfway down the hall.
She was taking a break on the front steps when the Verminator van pulled into the driveway behind her car. Grace didn’t know whether to be relieved at the sight of help, or afraid of the plan Benny had come to tell her about. Still, she needed carpenters, painters and electricians, and no one else wanted to work for her. She forced some enthusiasm for the Verminator.
“I come from a large family,” he began. “My mom and dad have a lot of brothers and sisters, so they wanted a big family, too, and there are seven of us.” Benny rambled on about his far-flung relatives and how they all wished they were closer to each other. Grace tried to be polite, but when he started in on a cousin’s problems finding reliable daycare, she finally ran out of patience.
“Benny, my imagination is trying, but you aren’t making it easy. What does this have to do with me needing subcontractors?”
“Stay with me, Miss Grace. My sister, Joan, is a lawyer like you. And my brother Phil is a pediatrician. With all us kids, Mom said someone had to be.”
“Benny —”
“I’m gettin’ there. See, the rest of us are tradesmen or entrepreneurs.” The Verminator took a deep breath and s
pilled his plan. “I’ve got an uncle in Cecil County who does window installation and repairs, another one in Harrington who works for a heating and air conditioning contractor. I’ve got cousins who are painters, and carpenters. My brother, Joe, is an electrician. He’s trying to get his own shop off the ground down in Berlin. And then there’re a few folks, mostly related by marriage, you understand, who’d be happy to work if anyone would hire them. We’d keep a close eye on that bunch, so don’t worry.”
“Benny —”
“Now, think about it, Miss Grace. Work’s good right now. Which is another reason you aren’t getting any callbacks. Guys are finishing up indoor projects and have outdoor work waitin’ for the good weather days. Oh, now, you’ll eventually get somebody. Like I said, this thing with the Cutters will die down. It already has, a little bit anyway. But what I’m sayin’ is, I can provide most everything you need to finish up here. My folks’re lined up and ready to go, I just have to give them the nod. A couple of them’ll have to take vacation days to do this project, and others are giving up plans they had for other jobs. But everyone we need can work in the next three weeks. Maybe some odd schedules, but they’ll get ‘er done. We should be able to get you wrapped up pretty well inside the house in that time. It’s kind of a test for us. If this works out, some of us are thinking about forming our own company.” He stopped. The sales pitch was over.
Grace told herself she had other options. She didn’t. Short of selling the house unfinished, the Pannel family was the only game in town.
The extended Pannel family members were an eclectic lot who fit Benny’s description down to the last detail. What Benny had failed to mention was that all the Pannels talked as much as he did.
Delaney House reverberated with voices and the noise of carpenters, painters and assorted handymen. Their family and friends appeared throughout the day to bring food, run errands and provide critiques of the latest projects. A carnival atmosphere reigned and Grace was charmed by all of it, even though a less professional work site would be hard to imagine. She worked alongside the laughing, yelling, constantly moving Pannels and watched their lives bubble and churn, dispelling the last of the gloom in the old mansion.
At night, she lay in her room in the third-floor apartment and tried to channel the day’s enthusiasm and optimism into the rest of her life. If a change in attitude and energy could make such a difference to a brick and mortar structure, surely it could solve her dilemmas with her family. Every night she tried, and every night she floundered. Even defining ‘family’ was problematic. With the wavering exception of Niki, the remaining Delaneys had no use for her. Everyone she’d ever loved, or who had ever loved her, was gone.
But then there were moments like the morning she stood in the entrance hall and watched the plasterers skim away the last evidence of the crooked doorway. Spontaneous applause broke out when one of the Pannels shouted congratulations to Grace, and the crew on the staircase turned and took a bow. As she clapped and laughed, Grace realized she had made it too complicated. She didn’t have to answer every question, solve every problem. Life was messy and she would never smooth out all the wrinkles.
But she could restore Delaney House.
Chapter Forty-Eight
Audrey was buried in the Oxley family cemetery on a sunny Wednesday morning in the last week of February. Avril said she waited for a stretch of good weather so the nosy townspeople and the police wouldn’t sink to their ankles in soft ground that held ten generations of her family.
Following her directions, Grace drove out into the heavily forested countryside, taking turn after turn until she was thoroughly lost. She nervously eyed deep ditches that ran along the edges of the increasingly narrow roads.
“Almost there,” Avril said. “Left up here at that willow and slow way down if you want to keep the bottom of this pretty car intact.”
Grace was only doing fifteen miles per hour as it was, but she slowed immediately. Five minutes later, they pulled up beside a beautifully landscaped acre of land at the end of the pitted gravel road. Grace estimated they were at least a half a mile from the nearest house if you didn’t count the vegetation-covered foundation Avril pointed out near the edge of the woods.
“The family place burned down in the fifties. That’s all that remains of the house. Oxleys have owned this property since the 1700s, but my father’s father moved into town and left this to his oldest son. The home place eventually made its way to me. I’m the only one left.”
An oyster shell pathway led from a little footbridge arching the roadside ditch to the gate in a wrought-iron fence that enclosed several dozen graves. Every blade of grass in the cemetery was neatly trimmed, and rose bushes ringed the perimeter. “Do you maintain this?” Grace asked in amazement.
“A friend helps me,” Avril said with a shrug. We keep at it year-round so there’s never too much to handle.”
A car pulled up behind them, followed by a steady stream of vehicles. Even with short notice and a remote location, Audrey Oxley’s funeral would be well attended.
“Ghouls,” Avril hissed to Grace, who had the dubious honor of escorting the lone surviving member of the Oxley family to her seat at the graveside. Avril gave Grace’s arm a yank and didn’t let go as she sat down. Having no choice, Grace joined her, taking the only other chair under the small tent.
“Did it occur to you,” she whispered to Avril, “these people might be here to show their respect for you?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Avril said. She scanned the crowd again, her gaze resting on each person who made their way across the clearing to the graveyard. “They came for the show. See the group over there?” She pointed directly at four well-dressed women who’d had the foresight to wear boots suitable for tramping through the late winter countryside. “Look really broken up, don’t they?”
The women talked excitedly among themselves, pointing at first to one tombstone then another.
“Local grave hunters,” Avril said. “Their mission is to catalog every cemetery in the county. I gave them photographs of the legible stones and rubbings of others that still had some engraving as well as a complete listing of everyone buried here. But was that good enough? No. They wanted to see. Well, I didn’t want them traipsing around my family. I don’t want them here today.” She looked around again. “Not a soul here knew Audrey. Ghouls, every one.”
Grace patted the bony white-gloved hand that clutched her arm. She could truthfully say the cemetery hunters had nothing on Avril when it came to pushing into other people’s family drama, but she didn’t. She’d grown attached to the old woman, and on the rare days when Avril let her frailty show, it was unsettling.
Lee McNamara made his way through the groups of people and came to Avril’s side. Grace barely had time to notice how different he looked in his dark navy suit and bright yellow tie before he leaned down to kiss Avril’s cheek.
“I’m sorry, Miss Avril. I should have expected the crowd and left earlier.” He nodded to Grace before turning to Avril. “Are you ready?” he asked.
“I’ve been ready for a long time, Lee.”
Grace didn’t know why she should be surprised at the tender moment, or that the Chief of Police delivered the eulogy and lead the mourners in the Lord’s Prayer. Every time she thought she had Mallard Bay and its inhabitants figured out, she tripped over another facet of village life that changed her view. Lee McNamara and Avril Oxley were the only real mourners at the service, she realized. One grieved the loss of a sister, the other the loss of justice. No matter how his investigation turned out, the Chief wasn’t likely to find anyone to punish for a murder that had happened half a century before.
“I wanted to wait for Cyrus,” Avril said. They sat in the BMW waiting for the last car to make its three-point turn and head back down the pitted road toward a real asphalt surface and civilization. Avril refused to leave until all the interlopers were off Oxley land.
Grace pulled two bottles of water from her to
te, opened one and handed it to Avril, who frowned at her. “I could have done that myself,” she said, but took the water and sipped it.
“You’re welcome,” Grace responded. “I always opened Mom’s, it was reflex, I guess.”
A smile, her first of the day, lit Avril’s face, then was quickly gone. “Is it too much?” she asked. “I realize I’m trampling on a painful anniversary for you.”
Grace didn’t know how to explain that helping Avril with all of her last minute funeral arrangement emergencies had been a welcome distraction through the anniversary of her mother’s passing, so she changed the subject. “It was a lovely service and the Chief did a wonderful job.”
“Everyone thinks this is so sudden,” Avril said. “But as I told Lee, I’ve had bits and pieces in my mind for years. I never thought I’d see Audrey again, except like this.” She nodded toward the cemetery. “Of course, I thought she’d have a family somewhere, and I’d travel to her funeral, not plan it, but I always have contingencies for everything. I like a good backup plan, cuts down on worry, you know? This was my backup plan for Audrey. It went well enough, I think, except for Cyrus. I’m sorry, Grace, but it didn’t feel right to make her wait any longer.”
Avril had connections to the hospital in Easton. The story of Niki’s dramatic announcement in the lobby of the emergency room had reached her in short order. Avril said she understood the situation but still treated Grace as if she had proprietary rights in protecting Mosley. He’d been moved to a nursing home where he remained unconscious, but clinging to life.
“Who’s that?” Avril asked. The irritable tone was back in her voice.
Grace followed her gaze. A slender woman in a conservative business suit stood off to the side of the car, watching them. “I’ll see,” she said, lowering her window and learning out. “Can I help you?”
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