Timepiece (17 page)

He would not look at her.

MaryAnne knelt down before him and wrapped her arms around his legs and began to cry. A minute later, she looked up, her eyes filled with pleading.

“They killed our daughter,” he said coldly.

“The men who killed our little girl were full of hate and vengeance and sickness. Will we become as they?”

David paused for a moment, then looked down at his wife.

“It is the price of justice.”

“Such a price, David! How much more must we pay?!” She took a deep breath,
her chin quivered. “Haven't we paid enough already?”

“You would have me forget what they have done?”

MaryAnne gasped. “How could we forget what they have done? We can never forget.” She raised her head and as she did their eyes met. “But we can forgive. We must forgive. It is all that we have left of her.”

“Forgive?” David asked softly. He broke her grasp and walked to the other side of the room. “Forgive?!” he shouted incredulously. “They murdered our daughter!”

MaryAnne sobbed into her hands, then, without looking up, spoke in a voice feeble with grief. “If this is life, exchanging hate for hate, it is not worth living. Vengeance will not bring her back to us. Forgiveness has nothing to do with them, David. It has to do with us. It has to do with who we are and who we will become.” She looked up, her eyes drowned in
tears. “It has to do with how we want to remember our daughter.”

Her words trailed off in a pleading silence. David stared at his wife. “Who we will become,” he repeated softly. He leaned the rifle against the cabinet, then returned and knelt by MaryAnne, wrapping his arms around her as she wept into his chest.

“David, I cannot imagine feeling any joy again in this life. It seems that all I can do is to ride the tide of the day's events. But I cannot bear to see any more hate. We must let it end here.” She wiped her eyes with the palm of her hand. “I have already lost one of you to hate.”

She placed her hand on his sleeve, gripping it tightly. David looked back over at the gun and as he did, she released her grasp. Her voice became soft, yet deliberate. “I cannot choose for you, David. It is your choice, not mine. But if you will be taken by it, I ask that you promise me just one thing.”

David looked into her eyes. They were red and swollen, but beautiful still.

“What would you have me promise, Mary?”

“That you will save one bullet for my heart.”

 

“As a child, to visualize nobility was to conjure up images of kings and queens adorned in the majestic, scarlet robes of royalty. As a man, softened by the tutelage of life and time, I have learned a great truth—that true nobility is usually a silent and lonely affair, unaccompanied by the trumpeted fanfare of acclaim. And more times than not, it wears rags.”

David Parkin's Diary. December 19, 1913

A decrepit, wood-planked wagon drawn by a seasoned mule plodded up the cobblestone drive to the Parkin home. When it
neared the double-door entry, Lawrence tied back the reins and climbed down from the buckboard. David had seen the approaching wagon from an upstairs window and descended the stairs to meet it. When he reached the front doorway, Lawrence was already standing on the porch. His forehead was bandaged with white linen strips, and his right eye was nearly swollen shut. His left arm was suspended in a sling. He had removed his hat, and was holding it in his right hand over his chest. His eyes were moist.

“I'm sorry 'bout your little Andrea,” he said solemnly.

David lowered his head. Both men were silent.

In the bed of the wagon, a canvas sheet concealed an awkward form. Lawrence wiped his eyes.

“I wanted to do somethin'. I want your Andrea to have my angel.”

David said nothing for a moment, then frowned. “No, Lawrence. We couldn't.”

“No use, David . . . I gave her up. Thought over it all night. Wha's the use havin' people thinkin' I was somethin' important. If I'm in heaven, it won't matter much, angels all 'bout and such. And if I'm burnin' in hell, shore won't bring much satisfaction. If I'm just cold dead I won' know no difference. No use,” he said resolutely, “I said my good-byes. That Andrea, now she's somethin' pure. A child should have an angel.” Lawrence glanced up the road, toward the cemetery. “I'll be takin' her up to the sexton's. People be goin' to the grave oughta have somethin' special.” His voice choked as he wiped his cheek with his shoulder. “Real Italian marble. You tell MaryAnne there's be somethin' special.”

David gazed at the man with quiet respect.

“Jus' somethin' I oughta do,” he said solemnly. He put his hat back on his head and turned to leave.

“Lawrence.”

“Yessuh.”

“Thank you.”

Lawrence nodded and with one hand pulled himself up into his rig and coaxed the mule toward the cemetery.

“Today, someone, thinking themselves useful, said to me that it must be a relief to have this ‘affair' over with. How indelicately we play each other's heartstrings! How willingly I would carry that pain again for but one glance of her angel face! How she nourished me with her innocence. She once confided in me that the trees are her friends. I asked her how she knew this. She said because they often waved to her. How clearly she saw
things! To have such eyes! The trees, for her, shall ever wave to me.

“If I am ever to comfort someone, I will not try to palliate their suffering through foolish reasoning. I will just embrace them and tell them I am heartfelt sorry for their loss.”

David Parkin's Diary. December 29, 1913

“What prudery so ritualizes my grief as to press my letters with black sealing wax.”

David Parkin's Diary. December 31, 1913

As the last six hours of the waning year fell beneath the tireless sweep of the grandfather's clock's serpentine hands, Catherine found David in the drawing room sitting at the marble-topped writing nook, barefoot and dressed only in night-clothes and a crimson robe. He wrote with
a quill pen, and a crystal well of India ink sat at the head of the stationery. In the background a wide-mouthed Victrola scratched out a Caruso solo of
La Forza del Destino.

“Sir?”

David looked up from his letter. “Yes, Catherine.”

“Officer Brookes is come.”

David lifted a corner of the letter and blew the ink. “I will see him.”

“I will let him know.” She quickly stepped away. David set down the pen, tightening the sash on his robe, as he left the room. Brookes was not in the foyer as he expected but stood outside the home, twenty feet from the doorway. He had declined Catherine's invitation to enter. Just as peculiar, the police wagon was parked in the shadow of the home's gated entrance and Brookes had walked the length of the drive to the house. David walked out. He found the scene odd and the strange expression
on the lawman's face offered no explanation.

“Last night Wallace Schoefield shot himself through the head,” Brookes said bluntly.

David stared ahead coldly. He could not pretend sympathy.

“He couldn't live with what they'd done. Barker wanted you, and Wallace and four others went along with him. He said they didn't know about the child.”

David looked past the officer toward his horse-drawn paddy wagon. “Who did he tell?”

“He left a letter. Barker started the fire by leaving a bottle of kerosene around the back of your home with gunpowder and a cigar to ignite it after they had left. That's why Barker wasn't there when the fire started.”

Behind him, the horse whinnied and shook its head impatiently.

“The child was killed unintentionally.”
Officer Brookes suddenly squinted, then removed his revolver from his holster and handed it to David, who looked up quizzically. Brookes's eyes darted back and forth nervously. His voice dropped coldly.

“They'll send Barker to prison, but they won't be hanging him. He's getting off easy. He should die for what he's done. Barker's locked in the wagon. If you want to kill him, I'll say that I shot him in the taking.”

David caressed the gun in his hand. It was evenly balanced and he ran his fingertips along the engraving that rose up its steel barrel. He stared at it for a moment, rubbed his forehead, then handed the gun back to the officer.

“No,” he said softly. He turned and began to walk away.

The response surprised Brookes, who returned the firearm to its holster. “It's better than he deserves,” he shouted after him.

David stopped and looked at the officer. “Yea. It probably is. But it is not better than Andrea deserves.” He looked back at the wagon and frowned. “Do your duty, Officer.”

The officer tipped his hat. “Good evening, Mr. Parkin. To a new year.”

“Good evening, Brookes.”

At Catherine's summons, MaryAnne came to David in the drawing room. She found him gazing silently out the tall twelve-paned windows that lined the north wall. She paused at the doorway, then slowly entered.

“David?”

He turned around. He was still wearing his robe and was unshaven, with several days' growth shading his lower face. His eyes were red-rimmed. For a brief moment, she felt a pang of apprehension, as
though she were approaching a stranger, not her beloved.

“Remember, Mary? This is where we met our guests at our wedding. It looks so different to me now.” He surveyed the surroundings as if the room held some new intrigue. “Of course, there were flowers . . . and that palm . . .”

MaryAnne clasped her hands behind her back. His words seemed to float with no apparent destination. She suddenly felt afraid.

“I am sorry. I am babbling like an idiot.” He ran a hand through his hair, then breathed heavily. He turned back toward her. “I do not know how I am to act, MaryAnne. How a man is to act.”

MaryAnne stared back quietly.

“I walk around with this stone expression like some kind of statue. But I do not have a stone heart.” His eyes moistened. “And I wonder if this wall I have built up is to protect me from further assault or to retain
the last vestige of humanity within me. Are men not supposed to feel loss? Because I feel it, Mary. I feel it as heavy as a horse falling on me.” He lowered his head. “And I miss my little girl and I don't even feel worthy to do so.”