Rose for Rose: Book Two in the Angels' Mirror Series (19 page)

Twenty Six

Gloucester, Massachusetts… August 16, 1930

“Steven, you come back here, ye hear me, Son?”

Not able to stand it any longer, Steven ignored his father, closing the door behind him as he ran.

He had to get away. He couldn’t stand being in the same house as Father anymore.

He just couldn’t.

Not if Father was never going to forgive him, as though it was his fault the mirror Gram-Papa Wishart left them began to do strange things when the kids had been alone and then decided to wrestle.

Not if Father kept insisting the mirror had nothing to do with it, then beat him with a belt for lies he never told.

No.

There wasn’t anything keeping him here with Father. Not even the hope that Rosie or Miss Roisin might reappear through the mirror and explain that he was telling the truth.

He felt bad enough without his father’s tirades; he didn’t need to be beaten and called a liar. Especially when Father was drunk.

And since Mother died, and then Sarah Jene, it had been more and more often the case when he was ashore.

Does he drink on the water, too?
The thought made Steven shudder.

I thought he promised to stop drinking, God
, he prayed.
I thought he really meant it last time, after he drank so much when Mother died that he didn’t even recognize us. Wasn’t that enough? Wasn’t that enough, God? Doesn’t he realize what he’s doing to this family? What’s left of us?

Rain pummeled Steven as he headed toward their neighbor’s home. He wanted to see his brothers, and he wanted to get as far away from Father as he could. Why, if he had the money and didn’t know how sad Warren, Michael, and Peter would be, he’d run away!

Anything to get away from the guilt eating him inside.

If he had the money, why, he’d grab his brothers and run! That would show Father!

They’d all be gone, and he’d be alone with his thoughts and his beer, making excuses for everything he’d ever done wrong in his life and shoving the blame on everyone else.
He does it while we’re here… what would keep him from doing it if we weren’t,
he thought.

And his brothers would still have him, even without Father there to be so unpredictable.

How anyone could be so loving and compassionate one minute and so mean and unruly the next is beyond me
, he thought.
How anyone could treat their kids like… like they were rotten leftovers is beyond me! I wish Father had never come home at all!

Within a few minutes, he’d made his way with squishing shoes and dripping hair to the Schwartz’s house, where he knocked loud and hard.

“Come in, Steven,” he heard Liraz Schwartz call from close by.

Mrs. Liraz Schwartz and her husband, Abishua, were probably the most decent parents Steven had ever met. Parents like he wished he and his siblings had grown up with, even if their customs were a little odd. But they were nice… and they loved God, even if they didn’t know Jesus.

Or maybe they did, and he just didn’t know it. Maybe they knew Him in a different way…

As he entered through the kitchen, stopping to wipe his feet on the brown and white mat laying on the floor, he heard his brothers excitedly chattering along with Shannen and Shalom Schwartz. It took only moments before he was close enough that he could see them surrounding Mr. Abishua, all sitting on the floor in the living room.

Perhaps he was telling another of his many stories.

That was another good reason to be here instead of his own home, where Father was drunken with anger, beer, and gin.

“Young Steven, come. Sit,” the older man said, smiling at him with that gap-toothed smile of his. The left front tooth had a cap on it, and his hair was beginning to thin on top, but Abishua Schwartz was still a handsome man. What was more, he was a kind man who loved to share stories with the neighborhood children; they were mostly stories with lessons attached, but now and again, he’d tell of his journey to America.

“Back in 1896,” he would usually begin, “I met a beautiful young woman named Liraz, and she was going to move to America with her parents and four sisters. And so, I applied to come because I wished to make her my bride…” and then he’d be off, filling in differing details as he told the story over and over again.

As Steven sat, Michael quietly moved to get closer, as did Peter. The next thing he knew, they were both holding his hands and Mr. Abishua was beginning another tale.

“Now I know you don’t celebrate all the same holidays we do,” he began. “But I want to tell you a bit about the first Passover Liraz and I had here together in America, for we believe… you see, that would be three weeks after we married, and we believe that was when our oldest child was… well, you’ll see.”

Oldest child?

Did that mean Shalom wasn’t the oldest, after all?

It actually made some sense, since Mr. Abishua and Ms. Liraz were older than their own parents.

Steven hadn’t really thought about it.

“The year was 1899, and we’d had a beautiful wedding. But Passover – or
Pesach
, as we call it - was soon afterward, and we were still newlyweds. We knew better, but… we just couldn’t help it. We repented, and yet… we were blessed by the Mighty One.”

As Steven settled in, he noticed Shannen smiling at him; he tentatively smiled back.

His stomach did a flip when her smile got even bigger.

“The date was March 25, 1899. The earliest Pesach I’ve ever witnessed, and may ever witness, since the next time it will be so early will be in the next century…. If my Uncle Shmuel’s calculations were right, that will be… 2013. But anyway, such a little detail, and one you don’t need. As I was saying,” he continued, “Being a good Jewish couple, we performed Seder rituals and recited the story of the four boys,” he said, giving the Wishart-Laurent boys a nod.

“They were very different than you four, because they were seen as Wise, Simple, Wicked, and Young, each in turn. Four Sons, it is called. It is part of the Seder meal, along with welcoming the prophet Elijah and various other things. There are fifteen steps to the Pesach Seder… but I will not bore you with details that would take too long to understand. That, I will show you another time, if you like. So, where was I.” he asked, a puzzled look crossing his time-worn face.

“You were saying you think Shir…” Shalom said quietly, looking at his father.

The two look a lot alike
, Steven thought.
As though they were a young and old double.

“Yes. About Shir. Thank you, Shalom,” the oldest of the pair said.

Warren’s hand tightened in his as Steven continued listening. “The year was 1899, and it was March the 25
th
. Ms. Liraz and I, we celebrate Passover as a couple; the first one and in our family… the Schwartz family, there is a… oh, an understanding, if you will, that on the night of Passover, a man and his wife will not….”

He smiled, a blush creeping into his cheeks. “Well, it isn’t only the Schwartz family… many Jewish families refrain from certain… activities during Passover, much like on Shabbat. Even those, like us, who became Messianic Jews, which my father hated us for, for many years… but that’s another story altogether,” the man said with a hearty laugh.

“And so, as it happened,” he continued, “Ms. Liraz and I were-”

Suddenly, there was pounding on the door.

“Steven, my boy, I know you’re in there. Come out here and fight like a man. Because if it weren’t for you… if it weren’t for…. Oh, hang it,” Father shouted through the door.

How much of the neighborhood and dock crew could hear him?

“Rosie’s as good as dead anyway, so what’s the use thinking she isn’t. You boys stay here. I don’t want…”

Ms. Liraz opened the door and quickly stepped aside. Father just stood there, red-faced.

He looked like he had sobered some in the rain.

“If they need a place to stay for a while longer, Mr. Abishua and I would be glad to watch them for-”

“Just so long as you don’t teach them none of that Jewish mumbo-jumbo, you hear? They can stay forever for all I care. My Sarah Eve Angela is gone; Sarah Jene, I never got to know, and now my Rose Angela… it’s too much. And Miss Roisin, to boot? I was going to ask her… I know she might not be too keen on me but… I was hoping….”

Father broke down into tears. “They can stay. It would be easier for all of us this way. And I’ll get rid of… I have to get rid of…. There are some things I need to….”

The mirror
, Steven thought, finishing his father’s sentence. He would get rid of Mother’s mirror, even though it could bring back Rose, or Miss Roisin.

Was that it?

Abishua’s patience was a blessing right now, as was Ms. Liraz’s grace. A wave of panic was followed by one of relief as he thought of how much they’d done for his brothers, and now, they were offering to allow all four of them to stay with them? Without even knowing for how long?

Slowly untangling his hand from Warren’s for a moment, Steven fingered his St. St. Peter’s medal and said a quick, silent thank you. Peter soon grasped his hand, and he allowed the gesture.

After he had been so negligent about Rose, who was he to deny any of his brothers?

After Father left, Ms. Liraz suggested they have something to eat before they try doing anything else. At the suggestion, Steven’s stomach growled, and it was only then that he realized he’d only eaten a handful of times since Rose disappeared through the mirror, and twice since he and his brothers witnessed Miss Roisin’s similar journey.

Had they ended up the same time and place, or…?

If they hadn’t, then where were they? And were they both alright?

He didn’t doubt that Miss Roisin was likely just fine, but Rose, he wasn’t so sure about.

She could take care of a lot of things, he was confident of that, but what if she’d gone far into the past or future, where nothing was familiar to her at all? What then?

And who, exactly, was Shir? An older brother?

As they finished saying their prayer over the food, Steven’s heart beat faster.

What was God trying to show them with all of this?

Twenty Seven

Portland, Oregon… August 17, 2013

Justice watched from the window as Jason and Edward came toward the door, a young girl in tow. She had pale blonde hair and a lithe figure, and was wearing an all-plaid outfit in chocolate, cream, and some pale sort of blue.

So that must be Rose
, he thought, glancing down momentarily to his notes from the conversation he’d had with Edward the evening before.

This was going to be riskier and trickier than helping Edward had been… even if only because they now knew Mark was telling that creep Arthur about what was happening. But how much had been revealed?

A slice of anger shot through him, and quickly turned to sadness.

Oh, how he missed Rosemary.

What had
really
happened to her?

With a shake, Justice quickly cleared his head and looked back out the window.

Silently trailing behind his friends and the girl, taking in her surroundings, was a stout woman with dark, greying hair who he surmised was likely the niece who had come for her.

What was her name again? Jeannie? No… Jeanette? That was it!

Poor Rose
, he thought as he walked over to open the door.
She doesn’t even know the woman, and just made some friends, and now she’s going to have to start life all over yet a third time. She’s been here, what? Less than a week, if I recall correctly?

He had finished her documents at five in the morning.

With a start at their knock, Justice quickly walked the few feet from his front window to the door and let them in. As each one passed, he shook their hands. “Welcome,” he said. “So nice to meet you, Rose; Jeanette,” he said, hoping he didn’t sound as tired as he felt.

As he ushered them through the foyer and into the living room, he heard his neighbor’s dog whining at the fence between their homes. Forever being left alone, and getting himself into trouble, he was a sweet but not so intelligent little thing.

Sometimes Justice thought that if he got a dog, at least the two could communicate when both owners were out for the day… but that wasn’t a good enough reason for a dog.

With a shake to clear his head, he set his mind to the situation at hand.

“So,” he said once everyone was seated. “I’ve got everything ready for you, Rose, if you’d like to take a look at it and tell me what you think.” He pulled a small packet out of the bookshelf to the right of his sofa and handed it to the girl before sitting, himself.

Justice had a deeper sense of unease than he’d had when helping with Edward’s documentation. Almost as though someone was watching for him to make a mistake and find out what he was doing; as though someone had been looking for him to come out and say he’d helped not one, but two people with new identities.

It had taken him nearly seven hours this time. There was more to complicate it; family who was still alive; people who still cared about her walking the planet who knew she couldn’t possibly be fifteen unless something fantastical had happened to her when she’d fallen through the mirror. People who’d know without a doubt that she should be in her nineties instead; that she was Peter’s sister, and not his granddaughter, as she was now going to have to be called if she was ever going to see him again.

“I… they’re… I don’t understand,” he heard Rose say through the fog of his thoughts.

“I know you told me I’d have to… I’d have to change my birthdate and… but I can’t call this woman I hardly know – no offense, Jeanette, but I really don’t – I can’t call her my mother; I can’t say my brother is my… my grandfather; my Gram-Papa was my Gram-Papa, and my Nanama was my Nanama, and Mother, my mother. And how is Peter going to… how can he…? There’s just no way he can…”

At this, Rose burst into tears, the envelope her documents were packaged in gliding to the floor, unnoticed. She swept the backs of her hands over her face and sniffed, but it was no use.

The tears continued to fall.

In trying to help her, Justice hadn’t wanted to make things any more difficult than they already were. He certainly didn’t want to be the reason she was crying.

“I’m sorry, Sweetheart,” Jason said to her, quietly. “There was no other way. Justice has to work with the information he has and the people who will… welcome you for who you are in spite of the circumstances. We… all of us, I think even Mark, in his own way, want the best for you. And none of this means you can’t come and visit….”

Jason’s words hung on the air for a few moments before anyone else replied.

Jeanette had tears in her eyes, and was dabbing at them with a wadded blue tissue, and Edward was watching with what seemed to be concerned interest on his face.

Or was it empathy, having gone through something similar?

“I… I’ll deal with it, I just don’t…. Look, I know you went to a lot of trouble and that it might get you in… I don’t want to cause or be a problem for any of you, but I just…”

Rose’s words were jumbled, but Justice did his best to follow them.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude,” he said all of a sudden. “I just realized… can I offer any of you something to drink? I’ve got… what have I got? Give me a sec…”

“I think we’re fine, young man,” Jeanette said, calmer than he expected. Her voice was somehow soothing, even with a thick Bostonian accent. “I think we all just need to…”

“Can I have some water, please, Mr…. I don’t know your last name, um, Mr. …,” Rose said quietly, her face only partially raised to his in her query.

She looked as though her spirit had been beaten down, and it tugged at his heart. To think he contributed so much to her pain sent a sucker punch of guilt to his gut, and he wondered if he was going to be ill.

“Morrison. It’s Justice Morrison. And please, unless you’re uncomfortable with it, call me Justice. All my friends do, and I hope, in time… I hope you will know that I am a friend. Here to help, not to hurt you,” he said, smiling.

He stood and stretched, his hands grazing the ceiling. “I’ll be back with some water in just a minute. Anybody else want anything?”

Everyone else quickly reassured him they were fine, and he shrugged, smiling again.

As he left the room and headed around the corner to the kitchen, he heard Jason saying something about France.

Maybe he was telling her once more about how they’d had to change Edward’s papers. Maybe he was just reassuring her that if it worked for Edward, it could work for her, as well.

“Here we are,” Justice said as he returned with Rose’s water. As he entered the room, everyone turned to him, silenced.

He’d heard bits and pieces of what Jason had been telling Rose while he was gone, but not enough to chip into the conversation. But as he handed the water over to the girl, she blushed.

When he glanced from face to face, their expressions ranged from rage – Jeanette – to peaceful – Edward.

What on earth could have happened in two minutes
, he wondered as he sat down across from Jason. He tried to catch the man’s eyes with a query, to no avail.

Finally, after a few sips of water, Rose spoke up. “I was saying I don’t want to go with this woman. I don’t… I want to see my brother, I love and miss him, but I don’t want to be… this isn’t my mother. My mother is dead, and she can’t be replaced by... by a complete stranger.”

Jeanette stood and towered over her young aunt, tears of rage streaming down her plump face.

“How can you say you don’t know me? I’m the only person who will willingly take you in. You heard Mr. Jeffries… they don’t want you. My father does, and it’s my responsibility to get you from here to there in one piece to see him before he dies, Young Lady. We’re your flesh and blood; you know my father… he’s your brother. So via him, you know me.”

Edward and Jason rose, and Justice followed suit. The men tried to maneuver themselves between Jeanette and Rose, but the woman was surprisingly strong.

She grabbed the documents from Rose’s unfighting hand and waved them in the air. “These show that I’m your mother now. I have legal rights to you, and if you know what’s good for you, you’ll readjust your attitude, and come home. What do you think Peter would want you to do, Young Lady? I know you’re technically my aunt, but legally, with this,” she said, waving the paperwork in the air again, “I can say you’re my daughter. My long-lost daughter.”

The tears kept coming, and Rose sat with her arms around her legs, pulled into herself like a hermit crab. Her head was down, and her shoes stuck off the edge of the couch in front of her.

Justice finally got a good grip on Jeanette and, with Edward and Jason’s help, got her to sit down.

“Listen,” he told her, looking her directly in the eye. “Enough is enough, Lady. Rose can choose to stay here if she wants, and that’s that. I can redo her paperwork, so you get off your high horse and treat her well, or I’ll do just that.”

Tenderly – almost painstakingly – lifting Rose’s face with a finger, Edward spoke softly to her.

“Mark may have said no, but Eugenie said yes… and even if she didn’t, I’m sure we can make room for you if you want to stay with us. And if you get to Boston and want to come back after seeing your brother, you give someone here a call… the Rutherfords, the Iglesiases, Justice… or us. Someone will come get you personally, if there is any trouble,”

There was more strength in his voice than Justice had heard in a long time, and it buoyed him. “I’ll volunteer for that mission if I’m free… and usually, I’m pretty flexible so it shouldn’t be a problem, barring if something big comes up.”

He turned back to Jeanette. “Give her the paperwork; it belongs to her. I did this for
her
.”

“But if I’m her mother now…”

Her words fell short, and she lowered her head. “I just want to be a good mother, and this might be the only chance I get to make up for what I’ve….” Her eyes widened as she heard her own words, and she clamped a hand over her mouth, dropping the papers, which, unstapled, fluttered to the ground.

Justice calmly picked them up and reordered them as everyone sat in silence. Rose sipped her water, her eyes following his every movement.

When he handed them back to her, they were in an envelope.