The Blackstone Chronicles - By John Saul Page 0,35
way at all,” Oliver told her, reaching over and pushing the passenger door open. “I’m going up to the Hartwicks’.”
Rebecca got into the car. “Are you going to the dinner?”
Oliver nodded. “You too?”
“Oh, no,” Rebecca said quickly. “Aunt Martha says I mustn’t go to things like that. She says I might say the wrong thing.”
Oliver glanced over at Rebecca, whose face, softly illuminated by the streetlights, seemed utterly serene, despite the less than kind words she was repeating about herself.
“What does Martha want you to do?” Oliver asked. “Spend the rest of your life at home with her?”
“Aunt Martha’s been very good to me since Mother and Father died,” Rebecca replied. Though she had neatly sidestepped his question, he still failed to hear even the slightest note of discontent in her voice.
“You still have a life to live,” Oliver said.
Rebecca’s gentle smile returned. “I have a wonderful life, Oliver. I have my job at the library, and I have Aunt Martha for company. I count my blessings every day.”
“Which is what Aunt Martha told you to do, right?” Oliver asked. Martha Ward, whose younger sister had been Rebecca’s mother, had retreated deep into her religion on the day her husband moved out twenty-five years earlier. Her only child, Andrea, had left home on her eighteenth birthday. It had been just a few months after Andrea’s departure that Rebecca’s parents died in the automobile accident that nearly killed Rebecca as well. Aunt Martha had promptly taken her young niece in. And there, twelve years later, Rebecca remained.
There were even a few skeptical souls in Blackstone who thought that the accident had occurred in answer to Martha Ward’s own prayers. “After all,” Oliver once heard someone say, “first Fred Ward got out, and Andrea left as soon as she could. And since the accident, Rebecca hasn’t been quite right in the head, so Martha has someone to pray over, and Rebecca has a place to live.”
Except that Rebecca was perfectly all right “in the head,” as far as Oliver could see. She was just a little quiet, and totally without guile. She said whatever came into her mind, which could sometimes be unnerving—at least for some people. Edna Burnham, for instance, had yet to recover from the day that Rebecca stopped her on the street and announced in front of three of Edna’s best friends that she loved Edna’s new wig. “It’s so much better than that other one you used to wear,” Rebecca assured her. “It always looked like a wig, and this one really does look real!”
Edna Burnham had never spoken to Rebecca again.
Oliver, who’d had the good fortune to be only ten feet away when the incident occurred, still hadn’t stopped laughing about it.
And Rebecca, as utterly innocent as the sixteen-year-old she’d been on the day of the accident that killed her parents, had no idea why Edna Burnham was upset, or what amused Oliver so.
“But it is a wig, and it does look nice,” she’d insisted.
Now, in reply to his question about her aunt, Rebecca told him exactly what she thought. “Aunt Martha means well,” she said. “She can’t help it if she’s just a little bit odd.”
“A little bit?” Oliver echoed.
Rebecca reddened slightly. “I’m the one everyone says is odd, Oliver.”
“No you’re not. You’re just honest.” He pulled the Volvo over to the curb in front of Martha Ward’s house, next door to the Hartwicks’. “How about if you come to the dinner with me?” he suggested. “Madeline told me I could bring a date.”
Rebecca’s flush deepened and she shook her head. “I’m sure she didn’t mean me, Oliver.”
“I’m sure she didn’t mean not you,” Oliver replied. As he got out and went around to open the door for her, he tried once more. “I didn’t tell her I was coming alone. Why don’t you just put on your prettiest dress and come with me?”
Rebecca shook her head again. “Oh, Oliver, I couldn’t! Not in a million years. Besides, Aunt Martha says I make people uncomfortable, and she’s right.”
“You don’t make me uncomfortable,” Oliver retorted.
“You’re sweet, Oliver,” Rebecca said. Then, giving him a quick peck on the cheek, she added, “Have a good time, and tell Celeste and Andrew that I’m very happy for them.”
Just then Martha Ward opened the front door of her house and stepped out onto the porch. “It’s time for you to come in, Rebecca,” she called. “I’m about to begin evening prayers.”
“Yes, Aunt Martha.” Rebecca turned away from Oliver and started up