The Rosaries (Crossroads Series) (7 page)

From the time
Lakeisha
called and told her what happened, Natalie felt as if she was moving in a surreal dimension. She rushed to the hospital in a daze, her heart screaming at the injustice at hand – she had finally broken through the barrier which separated her from Aunt Catherine, and as soon as she peered through, Catherine was now in critical condition in a hospital room.

Natalie sat gently on the bed and took her aunt’s hand into hers. Catherine’s fingers were cold and her skin was translucent, and a soft smile formed on her cracked, tired lips when she opened her eyes and saw her niece.

“You’re here, Natalie.”

“Yes Aunt Catherine, don’t worry. I’m right here.”

Catherine attempted to lift her arm to touch Natalie’s hair – something she had only felt compelled to do in the last two days – but she only managed to squeeze her hand a little. “Oh, I’m not worried, Sugar. You shouldn’t worry either; it’s just that my journey here is over.”

Natalie felt tears rising up to her eyes, threatening a flood. “Don’t say that, Aunt Catherine. You’ll get better, you’ll see.”

Catherine smiled, amused by her niece’s attempt to lift her spirits. “No, Natalie, I’m not going to be better. In fact, I’ll be gone very soon. I need you to listen to me very carefully.”

“Of course, what is it?”

“I arranged for you to get in touch with Tom, my friend in
London
. I wrote all the details in a letter I left in my desk drawer, in my room. I instructed
Lakeisha
to give it to you, should something happen to me. My heart is very weak and I know I’m on my way to meet my Maker, even if the doctors are trying to tell me everything will be okay.”

Catherine coughed and seemed to have a hard time continuing. Natalie took her hand into hers and leaned closer when her aunt tried to whisper something else.

“I have done some wrong things, Natalie. Some of them can’t be fixed, some others maybe you can make right for me. Many years ago I had an illegitimate child, a daughter, and I gave her away right after she was born. Her father was a married man, and he said goodbye the moment I found out I was expecting. My family sent me to
London
to have her – that’s when I met Tom, the man who owns the art gallery. We became friends and we have kept in touch throughout the years. He will help you with your paintings, Natalie.”

Natalie felt more tears rising up and squeezed her aunt’s hand a little more. She swallowed hard and listened carefully.

“I have something I would like my daughter to have, Natalie, and I would like for you to bring it to her; it’s all detailed in the letter I left you. I think she still lives in
London
, so maybe if you go, you can look for her and give her my gift. It’s not much, but I hope she will keep it as a token of my love for her. I never forgot her sweet smile, and thought of her every minute of each day.”

Catherine coughed again and, as Natalie pushed the button to call the nurse, the shrill sound of the heart monitor filled the room with the impatient call of death. Aunt Catherine was gone and Natalie was left with a herculean task to fulfill.

Natalie went back home and decided to take a walk on the beach before going to Aunt Catherine’s house. She was fairly certain there was going to be a good deal of pandemonium there, as her mother was likely to be already at work to finalize the details of the funeral arrangements. She fed Billy again, though he already ate that morning, then grabbed her sandals and purse and walked the short distance to the beach.

Even if it was past noon there weren’t too many people out yet, aside from a few kids looking for seashells and an old gentleman – a tourist most likely – testing his luck with a fishing rod and a handful of cut shrimp. It was a glorious day; the sun was bright and the breeze was saturated with the salty, sticky scent of the ocean.

She sat near the shore watching a sand crab poke its head out and digging furiously back in to burrow in the safety of the underground; she drank the moment of pure peace and hoped to keep it alive for the days to come. She couldn’t believe Aunt Catherine was gone. Acute congestive heart failure, the doctors said, and Natalie didn’t even know the old lady was that sick. She was still in shock at the way Aunt Catherine had changed the past few days, and couldn’t wrap her mind around the fact that her most hated relative turned out to be a supporter of her passion for painting.

She left the beach and drove to Wilmington seemingly on automatic pilot -- the roads mapped in her mind from years of back and forth travel. When she reached downtown – only a few blocks away from Aunt Catherine’s house - she was annoyed with the heavy traffic, but drew a deep breath and tried to focus on the Spanish moss dripping from the trees lining each side of the street. It only took her a few more minutes to reach the antebellum masterpiece Aunt Catherine had called home, but by the time she parallel parked in front of it, her nerves were frayed. She looked up toward the window of what had been Aunt Catherine’s bedroom, halfway hoping to see her peeking through the creamy lace curtains. Of course, they didn’t move, and Natalie hurried up the short path leading to the front porch, a beauty built in the early 1800s which still exuded grandeur and southern décor even after so many years.
Lakeisha
opened the door, and from her face Natalie could see that the “baby-sitter,” as Aunt Catherine had called her, had somewhat cared for her elderly charge. She was dressed in a gray flannel shirt despite of the afternoon heat, and her usual smile was replaced by a look of somber acceptance.

“Come in, Ms. Natalie.”

“Aunt Catherine said she left something for me.”

Lakeisha
nodded. “Yes, Miss, I will go fetch it for you.”

While she waited for
Lakeisha
to come back, Natalie went to sit on the brown leather sofa in the library and closed her eyes. So much had happened the past two days! She had finally found a point of connection with Aunt Catherine and didn’t even have the chance to explore it further; her paintings were gone, and now she had the opportunity to exhibit her work in a gallery in England. It was a lot to digest in such a short period of time.

Something else knocked at the door of consciousness, and she focused on the fleeting thought. Ryan Wheeler! She had completely forgotten about him! She wondered if he had gone by her place to see her. With Aunt Catherine being taken to the hospital in such a hurry, she hadn’t thought of their scheduled meeting at all.
Lakeisha
interrupted her thoughts when she entered the room carrying a white envelope in her right hand. “Here you go; Miss Catherine told me she wrote it last night.”

Natalie took the letter and thanked
Lakeisha
, who nodded and quietly left the room. A familiar scent of lavender delicately expanded throughout as soon as the envelope came open, and it momentarily overpowered the lemony aroma of the furniture polish.

Dearest Natalie,

By the time you read this letter I will probably already be gone. I suppose that I should apologize for all the years I have been unkind and quite judgmental toward you. I rest at peace as I think that once you hear my story you will understand a great deal more.

Many years ago – approximately four years before your birth – I became involved with a married man, and a child was conceived from that relationship. My family wanted nothing to do with the baby, especially since there was no possibility I could wed the father. So, they sent me away to London, and told all their friends that I had gone abroad to further my studies. I barely had the chance to see my daughter’s little face before they took her away from me, and to this day I am haunted by the memory of it. I came back to the United States with no child and a broken heart, and I vowed to never fall in love again.

But love did indeed find me – once more with the wrong person. I fell in love with a young man my sister had become acquainted with, and I was swept off my feet. He was very nice and intelligent, and he was studying to become an attorney. I spent my days dreaming of the moment he would come forth and declare his love, but that day never came. Instead, he fell in love with your mother, and within a year they were married. My heart was broken again, but I kept silent and wished them to be happy. They tried to have a baby almost immediately with no luck. Unable to bear children and convinced it was her fault, your mother became quite depressed, and your father soon looked for solace elsewhere. He came to my home, one night after work, and the two of us became intimate. The next day, your father left, and we reached a silent agreement that nothing more would ever happen, and nobody would know about it.

As time passed and your mother appeared to be quickly drowning in her own despair, Phillip had to take matters into his own hands, and started looking for a child to adopt. I begged him to take my daughter in, if she hadn’t yet been adopted – I left her in a convent of nuns – but he refused and said that he couldn’t possibly raise the daughter of someone who had been his mistress even if only for one night.

When you arrived, you were a breath of fresh air for your mother and a death sentence for my dream of seeing my daughter again. In my heart, although it wasn’t rational, I felt you robbed her of her chance to be reunited with me. That is why I resented you all these years. Every success you could possibly achieve was painful for me to witness because it could have been her success, and every time something unpleasant happened to you I always reasoned that it wasn’t as bad as losing a mother.

I know I was wrong, Natalie, and I ask for your forgiveness. I am going to meet the Lord without knowing whether you will ever find in your heart the strength to understand. I never meant to hurt you, and I was secretly proud of the milestones you conquered. If you look in my closet, behind the suitcases and the extra linens, you will find a small door leading to a secret room in the house I only knew the existence of, and used as a studio. In there you will find several paintings I completed without anyone knowing. They are yours to keep, if you wish to have a small reminder of my presence in your life.

Now please allow me to move on to something that weighs heavily on my heart. A bout a year ago Tom, the gentleman you will meet in London, thought he had some
leads in finding my daughter, and I began to prepare for the reunion, in the event that one could become possible. I was going to give her one of my pieces of jewelry to remember me by, but as I walked in front of Hidden Treasures something drew me in. If I believed in ghosts, I would say that a spirit guided me to a very unusual rosary, and the moment I held it in my hand, I felt something strange – a sudden rush of warmth that overtook my entire being. The sensation only lasted for a moment, but it left me quite shaken. I put the rosary back down and began to look at other things, but I felt drawn to it again. I finally bought it and brought it home – it is inside a small velvet pouch in the paint closet toward the back of the studio. I was always afraid to pull it out again, and have left it untouched since. If you can find my daughter I would like for her to have it. In the event that your paths will not cross, please keep it for yourself, but never give it to anyone else, aside, maybe, to a child of your own, if you will have one.

So, this is my story. I am sure you are shocked and perhaps a bit hurt by the way things played out. I am sorry about the brief affair with your father; please know that it was a moment of weakness for both of us, and neither meant to hurt your mother. To my knowledge, she doesn’t know about it, and I trust that you will spare her from a disturbing piece of truth which is nothing but ancient history. Your father truly loved her then as much as he does now, and his behavior didn’t, in any way, reflect the depth of his feelings for her.

Take care Natalie, and take your art all the way to the moon. If I am reserved a place in Heaven, I promise that I will always look out for you. I disappointed you in life, but I will not do so in death.

Yours always,

Aunt Catherine.

Below the closing was Tom’s full address in London and his phone number. Natalie gently folded the letter and quickly brushed away tears. Poor Aunt Catherine…only now Natalie understood how filled with pain her life had been. The baby in question was by now a thirty-something-year-old woman living in another country – good luck finding her.

She stood up from the couch, tucked the letter inside her skirt pocket, and literally ran up the stairs leading to Aunt Catherine’s room. She went straight to the closet and searched with her hand behind the linens. She immediately felt a latch and her heart skipped a beat. She pushed the linens aside, opened the door, and ran her hand on the wall to find a switch or a pull cord; she was happy when she detected a small plastic knob. A sudden flood of white light washed away the darkness and exposed a sparsely furnished studio; she stepped in saw an easel situated in the center of the room, the stains of paint on it dried and filmed with dust. Some of Aunt Catherine’s paintings adorned the otherwise bare walls, and a few sketches were laid out on a table nearby. Natalie ran her hand gently over the sketches, strangely worried about disturbing the layout, before heading toward the shelf adjacent to the wall. She opened one of the doors and saw a generous supply of different colors and brushes; below the paint, a stack of paintings were laid against the back of the shelf. The portrait of a child smiled at her from the shadows – the daughter Aunt Catherine lost? She pulled out the painting and looked at it. The child was happy, and was portrayed looking up toward a blue balloon, smiling gleefully.