and -well, shall we say - forbidding individual. Not an easy person to talk to, if you understand. But I think I can explain things to her.'
Well, now, that made perfect sense.
'Sure, Mr Lightner.'
He was looking at her. Maybe he knew how confused she was, how strange the whole afternoon seemed, all this talk of curses and things, and dead people and that weird old necklace.
'Yes, they are very strange,' he said.
Rita laughed. 'It was like you read my mind,' she said.
'Don't worry anymore,' he said. 'I'll see that Rowan Mayfair knows her mother didn't want to give her up; I'll see she knows all that you want her to know. I owe that much to Deirdre, don't you think? I wish I'd been there when she needed me.'
Well, that was plenty enough for Rita.
Every Sunday after that, when Rita was at Mass, she flipped to the back of her prayer book and looked at the phone number for the man in London. She read those words 'In connection with Deirdre Mayfair.' Then she said a prayer for Deirdre, and it didn't seem wrong that it was the prayer for the dead, it seemed to be the right one for the occasion.
'May perpetual light shine upon her, O Lord, and may she rest in peace, Amen.'
And now it was over twelve years since Deirdre had taken her place on the porch, over a year since the Englishman had come and gone - and they were talking of putting Deirdre away again. It was her house that was tumbling down all around her in that sad overgrown garden and they were going to lock her away again.
Maybe Rita should call that man. Maybe she should tell him. She just didn't know.
'It's the wise thing, them putting her away,' Jerry said, 'before Miss Carl is too far gone to make the decision. And the fact is, well, I hate to say it, honey. But Deirdre's going down fast. They say she's dying.'
Dying.
She waited till Jerry had gone to work. Then she made the call. She knew it would show on the bill, and she probably would have to say something eventually to Jerry. But it didn't matter. What mattered now was getting the operator to understand that she had to call a number all the way across the ocean.
It was a nice woman who answered over there, and they did reverse the charges just as the Englishman had promised. At first Rita couldn't understand everything the woman said - she spoke so fast - but then it came out that Mr Lightner was in the United States. He was out in San Francisco. The woman would call him right away. Would Rita care to leave her number?
'Oh, no. I don't want him to call here,' she said. 'You just tell him this for me. It's real important. That Rita Mae Lonigan called 'in connection with Deirdre Mayfair.' Can you write that down? Tell him that Deirdre Mayfair is very sick; that Deirdre Mayfair is going down fast. That maybe Deirdre Mayfair is dying.'
It took the breath out of Rita to say that last word. She couldn't say any more after that. She tried to answer clearly when the woman repeated the message. The woman would call Mr Lightner right away at the St Francis Hotel in San Francisco. Rita was in tears when she put down the phone.
That night she dreamed of Deirdre, but she could remember nothing when she woke up, except that Deirdre was there, and it was twilight, and the wind was blowing in the trees behind St Rose de Lima's. When she opened her eyes, she thought of wind blowing through trees. She heard Jerry tell of how it had been when they went to get the body of Antha. She remembered the storm in the trees that horrible day when she and Miss Carl had fought for the little card that said Talamasca. Wind in the trees in the garden behind St Rose de Lima's.
Rita got up and went to early Mass. She went to the shrine of the Blessed Virgin and lighted a candle. Please let Mr Lightner come, she prayed. Please let him talk to Deirdre's daughter.
And she realized as she prayed that it was not the inheritance that worried her, or the curse upon that beautiful emerald necklace. For Rita did not believe Miss Carl had it in her to break the law, no matter how mean Miss Carl was; and Rita did not