A Despicable Mission (Olympia Brown Mysteries)

by Judith Campbell

  “Olympia? Come here and look at this.” Frederick was holding out the stair tread for her inspection. “I know this is an old house, but it’s clearly a well-built house. I don’t think this stair tread came loose by itself. Look here, I think somebody may have pried it loose.”

  “Let’s take it back to my place where we can examine it. But before we do, maybe you can put some sort of a barrier at the bottom of the stairs so no one else gets hurt.”

  Seventeen

  Later that day Olympia considered calling Julia and telling her about the stair tread, but upon reflection she decided that this might be something she would rather show her in person. This left her with patching up her cuts and bruises and thinking about the following day, when she would see her daughter for the second time in her life. Oh, God, what am I going to wear?

  Wonderful as he was, Frederick was a man, and by the casual, bordering-on-eccentric way he turned himself out, she knew he would be useless in terms of helping her choose an outfit. She stood in front of the shoebox-sized clothes closet and pulled out a pair of white slacks and some comfortable, light-toned walking shoes. To this she added an oversized, pale turquoise blouse that would keep her cool if the day turned out hot and would gracefully camouflage the womanly breadth of her hips and tummy. To anyone but Frederick, she had the appearance of a woman methodically preparing for a trip into the big city. In truth, she was a wreck, and they both knew it. But having something to do and having Frederick there with her, providing tea and wine at appropriate intervals, was helping to pass the time until they could go to bed. Not surprisingly, Olympia had neither the mood nor the energy for any bedroom gymnastics, and to her amazement she fell asleep almost instantly.

  The next morning she was far too anxious to eat, but Frederick managed to persuade her to nibble a banana while they were pacing around the ferry and later brought her a cup of peppermint tea to calm her stomach. It took some convincing, but he finally persuaded her to let him accompany her and then to stand at a respectful distance when she met with her daughter. At first Olympia had refused the offer, but then she realized she might need someone with her when it was over. In so doing she realized that she was beginning to trust this man, or perhaps she was beginning to trust herself. Either or both would remain to be seen, but at this juncture she was deeply grateful.

  Before they left the house that morning, Olympia called Julia to try and find a time when they might meet, but she was already out. She left a message on Julia’s machine, saying only that she would be away for the day and would return that evening, and could they find a time to talk about the Parker funeral and a few other things that had come up since last they’d last met.

  The ferry ride was uneventful, and the bus to Boston was waiting for them as scheduled. Once on board and seated, the teddy bear she had picked for her expected grandchild proved to be as much of a comfort to herself as she hoped it would be in the future to a child she could only hope she would know. She sat, staring out the window, rubbing a fuzzy ear and counting the mile markers into Boston.

  When they arrived at South Station, a grand old Victorian landmark in the center of the city, Olympia was moving like a mechanical doll. In one way she was so full of emotions that she felt she might shatter if someone so much as nudged her. At the same time she felt like an automaton, putting one foot ahead of the other, looking neither left nor right, mindlessly moving forward toward her destination, clutching her teddy. The last part of the journey took them on a red train to Park Street Station, then up what seemed like a million steps to the Boston Common.

  Having grown up in the Boston area, the Common, as most people called it, was familiar territory. But today she remembered little. She walked along the curving paths, praying she would say the right things. Frederick walked several feet behind her and planned to sit somewhere nearby on a bench. He had brought along a book and a crossword and a recent edition of The Guardian. He assured her he was well supplied with things to do and not to give him a second thought.

  Olympia stationed herself on a wooden bench beside the lagoon in the shade of a large oak and waited, looking at the people walking by for what might be a familiar face.

  “Olympia Brown?”

  “Laura?”

  Oh, my God, here she is. This grown woman is my daughter.

  Olympia nodded and crushed the teddy to her chest as she held out her free hand to the woman standing in front of her. She was lovely, slightly shorter than Olympia with straight, shoulder-length, light brown hair. She was wearing oversized sun glasses, so Olympia couldn’t see her eyes. She remembered they were blue when Laura was born, but then all newborn’s eyes are sort of bluish.

  “Um, you want to walk a little bit, or would you like to sit on one of the benches?” Laura looked briefly at her mother and then glanced off to the side, not quite making eye contact.

  “Uh, sure, I mean, if you want to, or we could go for a coffee or … Oh, God, Laura, I’ve dreamed about this moment for thirty-five years, and I’m totally tongue tied—and I talk for a living. Go figure.”

  Laura smiled and reached for her mother’s arm. “Let’s go for a ride on the swan boats. Can you believe I’ve lived here all my life, and I’ve never actually done it? When I was little, my mother read me the book Make Way for Ducklings a thousand times. I even had a little ducky-toy, but I never actually got onto one of the boats.”

  Olympia winced at Laura’s use of the word “mother.” She blinked her eyes several times and allowed herself to be led onto the deck of one of Boston’s most beloved and historic tourist attractions. Because it was a Monday morning, there were not many people waiting in the ticket line, and she and her daughter had the front row bench all to themselves. When they pushed off, Olympia turned to Laura and handed her the bear.

  “I told you I’d be carrying it, it’s for the baby. You’re not showing at all. When is it due? Do you know yet what it is?”

  “The baby is due in late October or early November. I’ve decided not to ask what the sex is, although I could change my mind. It would be easier to know what color to paint the room.”

  They both laughed at that.

  “There is so much I want to ask you, Laura, and you probably feel the same way. I may be a minister, but that doesn’t carry much water when you are the one in the middle of a crisis.”

  “Since when is this a crisis?”

  “Laura, this is an earthquake and a tornado and a blizzard all rolled into one. It is something I have prayed for from the moment they took you away from me, but now that you are actually here in front of me, I haven’t a clue as to where to begin.”

  The sway of the boat and the friendly chatter of the ducks paddling alongside, begging for food, began to ease the tension between the two women.

  “So let’s begin at the beginning, you first. Please tell me about the day of my birth, and if you don’t mind, I want to know who my father was—or is. For a long time I didn’t think I ever wanted to know either of you. I’ve been curious about him, but I was furious with you. But now, seeing you here, actually sitting beside you, pregnant with your grandchild … I want to know my birth mother.”

  When Olympia finished wiping her eyes and blowing her nose, and nodding a silent affirmative to Frederick, who was now standing on the bridge as they passed under it, she did just that. The story was not an unfamiliar one. Nice girl, middle class background, everything going for her, met up with an equally nice boy at an interfaith youth conference. He was from Oregon, attending Northeastern University on the co-op plan, and she fell hopelessly and incautiously in love with him.

  “His name was David Pearlstein, and would you believe I never even actually had sex with him? But I learned the hard way that in rare instances, close enough is all it takes, and in my case, unfortunately—or maybe very fortunately—it was. Of course, no one believed me, least of all David. He accused me of being with someone else and literally left me crying my eyes out on Huntington Avenue in front of Symphony
Hall. My mother, who, by the way, is still alive, doesn’t know that I’ve reconnected with you, and quite frankly, I’m not sure when, or even if, I’m going to tell her.

  “She didn’t believe me either. She was furious. David took off for parts unknown, never to be seen again, and my mother sent me away to give birth and give you up with the dire warning that I could only come back home providing I never spoke of it again.”

  Now it was Laura’s turn to wipe her eyes. She turned on the hard wooden bench and looked into her mother’s eyes. “That’s awful. What happened then?”

  Olympia took a deep breath and continued. “I had no choice. I did what I was told and never heard from him again. Not once. I was heartbroken, disillusioned, humiliated and completely alone. Even though I wasn’t Catholic, I was shipped off to a convent home for disgraced girls. I got good prenatal care, a lot of pitying looks, and delivered you without so much as an aspirin for the pain. They said that by feeling the pain we could partially atone for our sins. They let me hold you just one time, and when no one was looking, I christened you and named you Faith, using water from a plastic cup on the night table. Then I kissed your little red face, and they took you away. That’s the quick version. There’s more, but that’s all I can manage for now. Even with you sitting here, I don’t know if I’ll ever get over seeing you being carried off in the arms of a stranger.”

  As the paddleboat passed under the stone bridge for a second time, Frederick looked down upon the two women sitting with their arms around each other and slowly swaying back and forth with the motion of the boat.

  Later, on the bus ride back to the ferry, Olympia alternated between repeating word for word all that she and her daughter had said to one another and staring out of the window, watching the reflection of her own tears in the glass. Frederick offered his handkerchief and listened when she wanted to talk and simply held on to her hand when she didn’t. Over the course of the trip he learned that Laura had been raised in the city of Winchester, just north of Boston. So near and yet so far, just a bus ride from where I’d been teaching for almost thirty years.

  Laura was one of three children in a family of adopted siblings, two boys and herself. The couple that raised her were both professionals. Her father was a high school English teacher who played violin whenever he got the chance, and her mother was a pediatrician who, ironically, couldn’t have children of her own. When, after all these years Laura decided to find her birth mother, it was her adoptive mother who helped her contact the department of records in Boston and went with her when she finally decided to go.

  In the end both women agreed that it had been a hugely successful day and first meeting, so much so that Olympia decided that she could introduce Laura to Frederick, who just happened to have a camera stashed in his pocket and took their first-ever picture together. Before they parted Olympia and her daughter promised to keep in touch, and Laura asked Olympia if she would like to meet her parents. They both knew there was so much more to say and learn, but they agreed it would be best to save it for another day.

  Late that afternoon, when Frederick and Olympia clomped their way up the metal gangway and onto the ferry, Olympia was two synapses short of being totally brain-dead. Frederick poured her into a seat and galloped off in search of a glass of wine. Anything that needed to be done could be taken care of the next day. When he returned holding the brimming plastic glass aloft, not spilling one precious pale drop, the words life is what happens while you are making other plans once again flashed through her mental mist. Olympia smiled as she held out her hand and gratefully accepted the wine.

  February 27, 1861

  On the twelfth of February, in the year eighteen sixty-one, in a prodigious snowstorm that brought everything in the city of Cambridge to a halt, my son was born. I confess before his birth to wishing that I might have a daughter in the belief that a daughter would be easier to raise on one’s own. But when Jonathan Otis Winslow, howling louder than the wind outside the house, was placed in my weary arms, I was forever changed, and my new life began. To say that I am unprepared for this is an understatement, but his name means “God has given.” I am in no doubt that if Jonathan has been given to me, then the selfsame God who blessed me with his healthy birth will surely give me strength to see this through.

  More anon, LFW

  Eighteen

  On Tuesday morning, Olympia took Frederick to the ferry, bade him a fond farewell until the next time, and then began to walk up the main road toward the church. She needed to check her phone messages and see if she could come up with a sermon subject for that coming Sunday. Knowing that this would require coffee, she stopped at the Mug and Bagel and ordered a cappuccino and a cinnamon-raisin bagel with cream cheese.

  Once in the office with her food and drink within reach on the desk in front of her, she listened to the messages. One wrong number, two calls about the time of the Sunday service, and a gentleman with a rather hoarse voice asking the minister to call Mr. Daniel Parker about a graveside service for his mother, Mrs. Mary Elgin Parker. Olympia remembered with an uncomfortable jolt that she was supposed to contact him over the weekend, but her daughter and all matters pertaining thereto had taken precedence.

  She also wanted to call Jack Winters and see how he was doing but wondered if that might be too pushy. Perhaps it would be best for him to call her. She had told him he could when they’d talked last week. Then there was Dory and the matter of getting her back into her house and whether she would be selling it. Better hold off until the daughter gets here for that.

  Olympia knew there was a clear line between pastoral interest and over-involvement, and she also knew that she was not always very good at drawing that line. This was so different from college chaplaincy—but that’s what she was here for, to see if this was going to be the next phase of her professional life or not. She sipped her coffee and wiped the foam from the steamed milk off her upper lip. There had to be a way to drink cappuccino without wearing it, but she never seemed to know how to do that either.

  She reached for the phone to call Julia Scott-Norton and tell her about the stair tread, then changed her mind. I can’t appear to be a busybody, she thought. This is their world not mine, and appearances to the contrary, Frederick might have been wrong. Maybe that stair tread just worked itself loose on its own. Olympia lived in an old house, older than that one, and things were always coming to bits when she least expected it. She eyed the phone. Much as she wanted to, it was too soon to call her daughter. She knew they both needed to digest all that had happened.

  That left Daniel Parker and his mother’s funeral. She picked up the phone and dialed the number she’d written on the note pad beside the phone. The man who had left the message picked up and said, “Dan Parker.”

  “Oh, hello, this is Reverend Olympia Brown calling. I’m the summer minister at the Vineyard Community Church. I’m returning your call. Julia Scott-Norton told me that I’d be hearing from you. I’m so sorry to hear about the loss of your mother. How can I help you?”

  “Perhaps I could come over to the church, and we could talk. I have to come down island later today to meet with her lawyer. Estate and probate stuff. ”

  “Down island?”

  The man laughed. “It’s an island thing. I’ll explain when I get there. Could I come by at around three this afternoon?”

  “Three is fine, Mr. Parker.”

  “Fine, I’ll see you then. And call me Dan. We’re pretty informal here.”

  When she hung up she looked at her watch. There was time. Maybe when she finished her coffee she should go over to Dory’s house and have another look at that stair tread for herself before she said anything to anybody. But before she had time to wipe the second cappuccino mustache off her face, the telephone rang again.

  “Madame Reverend?”

  “This is Olympia Brown. Who is calling, please?”

  “Sorry, Olympia. Wisecracking keeps me sane. It’s Jack Winters. I’d like to come by with my
sister. She’d like to meet you.”

  “Sure, what time?”

  Actually, why don’t we take you to lunch at the down-dog? Janney’s playing golf, so it would just be the three of us.”

  “Down-dog?”

  This time it was Jack who laughed at her ignorance of the island vocabulary.

  “Black Dog Tavern. It’s right on the water. The view and the food are great. Besides, you can’t come to Martha’s Vineyard and not go there at least once. I might even get you a tee shirt just to prove it. How about Melody and I pick you up at the church at noon?”

  “That’ll work. I don’t have to be back at the church until three.”

  “No probs. We’ll deliver you back at the appointed hour.”

  So much for my little investigative sojourn next door.

  She looked at the clock. It was ten minutes after eleven. Between now and lunch there was just enough time to come up with a sermon title. After several minutes of wandering around in a mental and theological vacuum, she remembered something she’d read in Miss Winslow’s diary. When Leanna Faith needed guidance, she took out her Bible, let it fall open to wherever it would and selected a random verse from the page open before her.

  While Olympia would never consider herself a biblical scholar, she had, in fact, read it in its entirety and had always loved its enduring message and the sound of the elegant poetic language. She looked around the office for a Bible and found three on the bookcase under the window. She selected a dusty King James Version to begin her quest. The King James was not the most popular translation in use these days, especially among liberal scholars and theologians, but she stuck with it because of the beauty of the words. She set it on her desk and let it fall open into her two hands. Then, shutting her eyes like a child at a birthday party playing pin the tail on the donkey, she ran her index finger down the page on her right and stopped somewhere near the bottom.